Writing and phonics

[Notcontent]

Background is that I am a bit annoyed at dd's teacher who seemed to suggest that dd's spelling is not great because she needs to improve her knowledge of phonics.

Dd is 7 and her reading is great, as acknowledged by her teacher, but her writing is not as good as her reading. Before Christmas at meeting teacher said that her spelling is letting her down and gave me a sheet with the phonics sounds to practice with dd. But the fact is that there are so many exceptions to English spelling that a lot of it is just memory work. I think that needs to be acknowledged. We have been doing lots of writing at home and I think her spelling is pretty good actually.

I do agree that phonics helps with reading, and helps a bit with spelling, but that's not the whole story, is it?

[mrz]

I've made it sorry it went over your head CG

[BertieBottsJustGotMarried]

I think that phonics is helpful for spelling because of what Fuzzymum says - the fact children can try different alternatives and see which one "looks" or "feels" right. In the example used earlier of "wheel" it's unlikely that the child would need to think "how do I make this sound?" for every single sound but might struggle to remember which "e" sound was in "wheel".

For new, long words that children haven't seen written before that is more difficult and they shouldn't be expected to spell it correctly on the first try - nobody can do that. But it sounds like at her level they need to make it phonenetically plausible. So for example "ackshurley" for actually, "extreemly" for extremely, "enjunearing" for engineering. That makes it easier for a reader to work out what they are trying to spell and to boot, most of it will probably be correct and all the teacher would have to do was show them that a different spelling of the sound is used - and in the "actually" situation they could correct the child's mishearing of the word.

But, I did read a really good article about a technique for teaching children spelling which got them to look at the different parts of the word - ie "extreme" + "ly" and "engine" + "er" = engineer + ing = engineering. That I thought was great and is definitely a big part of how I remember how to spell words.

[columngollum]

And I recommend A History of the English Speaking Peoples (in four volumes) to you. But it's not a debating point.

Please make a point (if you have one).

[mrz]

Your recommendation speaks four volumes about your understanding of the subject CG ... (perhaps throw in a reference to Santa ?)

[columngollum]

So, your point is four volumes of me and Santa? OK.

[mrz]

No CG you missed the point

[Mashabell]

Mrz: 1430 is recent history
Most people have trouble understanding Chaucer (who died in 1400), let alone pre-Norman English and would not regard 1430s as 'recent'.
But regardless of that, most of the messing up of English spelling occured from 1430 onwards, including the standardisation of the likes of there/their and see/sea which i failed to mention earlier and which was fixed mainly by Johnson.

The Story of English in 100 Words is completely irrelevant in this context, because it's about language rather than spelling.

Moreover, Crystal is one those of who believe that spelling provides important information about the origin of words and is totally indifferent to the spelling problems faced by young children.

Anyone interested in the origin of words can buy an etymological dictionary or go and learn some German and French. Etymology does not excuse the parlous state of English spelling.

[mrz]

recent history sees the inclusion of many foreign words (including their spellings) and the invention of new words masha but limiting the discussion to scribes in the 15thC 717th C printers is very shortsighted when our language and spellings predate that by a thousand years.

[Mashabell]

BertieB... children can try different alternatives and see which one "looks" or "feels" right.
Children who have never had a phonics lesson can do that too. It's simple familiarity which makes words look right and the physical memory of writing them lots of times.

might struggle to remember which "e" sound was in "wheel".
This again has nothing whatsoever to do with not having been taught enough phonics. Learning to spell words with the ee sound takes a long time because the ee sound is spelt in three main unpredictable ways (eat, meet, delete) and several others too (thief, weird, people, me, ski).

That's why children have a high chance of getting it wrong in any word they have never seen before - as with more than half of all English words.

[BertieBottsJustGotMarried]

Right, but I don't mean trying random combinations of letters to see which looks/feels right but trying the different phonic sounds (sorry, I can never remember which way around the technical terms go)

And I didn't say that children should get the spelling of words they haven't seen before right - adults who are good spellers can't do that because English spelling is so irregular. But if they can make a guess which when read sounds like the word they mean, then the communication has been achieved.

My surname, for example, is very close to an English word and most people when writing it spell it as the English word. In fact it has a silent letter removed so it is spelt differently. But others spell it not as the English word, but still wrong, because we can't automatically know how an uncommon surname is spelt by listening to the way it sounds. In practice, this might be annoying, but somebody else reading out the name would pronounce my name correctly because it has been written in the way it sounds, so the communicative goal has been reached, which is all writing is anyway, especially at that level - as we get older and are familiar with more words we are able to remember more spellings until it is only unfamiliar words that most people struggle with and odd spelling rules.

[BertieBottsJustGotMarried]

Also it is to do with phonics, because a child who didn't know the phonic code for /ee/ might try whel or whil, neither of which sound like wheel when read out, but wheal, whele, wheil, all do.

[columngollum]

Who said anything about limiting? I seem to remember Dr Johnson doing our language plenty of damage and last time I checked he wasn't a Roman, a Saxon, an Angle or a Jute. Mind you, he might have been from the Trinovantes. They lost their census. It's really hard to pin them down.

[mrz]

there you go missing the point once again CG!

[columngollum]

If you say so.

[mrz]

you should have stuck with Santa

[columngollum]

What is it about you and Santa, all of a sudden?

[mrz]

Don't you remember what you write columngollum?

[columngollum]

Yes, but he's only mum and dad, after the kids are asleep.

[mrz]

so you do remember ...good

[teacherwith2kids]

I'm posting with a 'parent' hat on, not a teacher one, for a moment.

DS, who has an astonishing visual / factual memory [able to reel off the exact vote counts for every major party in every constituency in the last election, for example, or cricket scores for English test teams since the year dot] has always been a 'naturally' good speller. - a bit like the 80% of children who learn to read via mixed methods, he would have learned to spelll simply through exposure to words, regardless of the quality or otherwise of the teaching strategy used.

DD, taught to read in school va phonics (DS taught himself), was for years a much less good speller than him. Her spelling was always phonically plausible, but not always correct. However, what her very good, carefully-taught and exhaustive knowledge of phonics has given her is a 'toolkit for looking at words' that has enabled her to systematically become a better and better speller. The school doesn't do 'spelling lists', but they do collect and study words using alternative graphemes etc. Because DD has the knowledge to formally 'break down' and investigate each of the words, she has a way of internalising the spelling of 'word families' [rather than individual words on spelling lists] that has gradually led to excellent spelling.

So IME phonics will only take you so far in spelling BUT what it gives you is a systematic way of 'breaking down and looking at new words' that is helpful in becoming a good speller.

[zebedeee]

Bertiebotts -
he, we, she, evil, radio, amphibian - which makes e and i 'phonic code' for ee?

[BertieBottsJustGotMarried]

hmm, I suppose, but when "e" appears between two consonants it never makes "ee". And "ian" is different from "i" on its own - I know "ski" but again it's not between two consonants.

There are still some rules which are phonics based.

It's not perfect, I know, but no method is because English spelling is fucked up

[Mashabell]

English spelling is fucked up grin
Yes, BertieB...
And as I explained on the previous page, several times quite deliberately so by pompous prats like Sam Johnson.

That's why, as Columngollum said on page 1, u simply have to remember how words are spelt, and that's all there is to it.

[mrz]

except you simply can't remember how to spell the million plus words in English masha

[columngollum]

What difference does it make how many words masha can spell?