Peter and Jane - best way of using it

[EmGee]

Book 1a seems to have gone down well with DD1 (4.2) Have gone through the first half of the book and she likes the pictures and repeating the words.

My question is - just keep going through it and focusing on repeating the words until she can sight read them? Then on to the next book?

We live in France so she won't learn to read in French until she is in CP (aged 6) and I have heard that it can be easier for kids who have already learnt to read in their mother tongue.

I also got a Ruth Miskin set of books on The Book People but after a quick look, I feel a bit confused about phonics. Peter and Jane seemed much simpler to me!

Peter & Jane isn't in the great literature list. But it occurs to me that many of the books that I consider children's books weren't even written in the previous century, never mind the 60s.

No, not great literature. Simply saying, that pictures being dated is something we notice as adults. I do nt think it is something which cause children problems...or not mine anyway.
Not great literature. But not sure most reading scheme books are. They serve a purpose. Am sure Biff and Chip will be derided as dated later, as will whatever is the latest flavour of the month.

Simply saying children continue to learn to read with Peter and Jane. Synthetic phonics are the thing in schools these days, but across the world, many children learn to read using different methods. Parents at home can make those choices that perhaps schools can't.
The OP is a parent, asking about reading at home, not to I traduced Peter and Jane to all and sundry. It has worked for a number of us on here. Therefore we are positive about it.

Guess there's lots of stuff like this....people have a go with an old method at home....and it works. Doesn't mean it works for the masses, but might be right for some children.

DD read some P&J books but only when her phonics knowledge was strong enough to decode the words. Tbh she found them quite dull and preferred the songbirds books (but not "Where were you Bert" which she loathed!)

There is a difference (in case you haven't noticed) between books written specifically for reading instruction (Peter & Jane) and those written for a wider audience of proficient readers such as Alice in Wonderland.

Mrz, please can I ask you a question. I have seen a lot of your posts about education over time. And I always think you show that you know what you are talking about and put things in a clear, helpful way...so Thankyou.

I can see you work in a primary school in a difficult area. I understand phonics has been shown to help those who struggle to learn to read and to boost national literacy. I just wondered about what you think about those who really don't struggle to learn to read. Most people posting on this thread said their kids learned quickly. (some using just Peter and Jane and some with phonics too)
I was careful to cover phonic rules too, because I can see there will always be new unknown words that have to decode. However, when we all learned years ago, we learned to decode somewhere along the line, even with Peter and Jane......so my question is whether you think the quick learner regarding reading can learn in many different ways and phonics are not the only way for them. I ask this about home context particularly, realising phonics is now fully in schools and is shown to boost reading amongst those who struggle. Do you think that children like mine, who learned on Peter and Jane and at 9 are avid readers were disadvantaged by what I did. Just interested to know your views, because as I said, I have always found you very informative. Thanks.

In the historical setting in which they were written? I don't think so. The author just writes the book. He or she can't do anything about the period unless the author chooses to pretend.

I'm not sure that wondering: have I disadvantaged my kids by teaching them to read? is the way to go...

Column, I am not wondering myself. My children are great readers and I'm happy about what I did. I'm just interested to hear the view of Mrz on it.

Phonics has been shown to help all children ChocolateWombat not just those early strugglers as you said earlier your child benefitted from Apples & Pears for spelling.

My eldest child was a precocious reader - reading fluently before nursery with no instruction and a diet of NATO troup deployment magazines and the Finacial Times (age 3) but suffered due to a lack of phonics input.

Research shows that many children suffer from what is called "the 4th grade slump" when the child reaches the limit of their capacity to learn whole words and begins to struggle.

Having said that my question on this thread has nothing to do with methods but purely to do with the relevance of 60 year old content to today's children when the text has neither vocabulary or structure to redeem it's use.

and yes I do consider I disadvantaged my child by not realising that he needed phonics even though he was a fluent reader

Thankyou. I was keen to use Apples and Pears (liked it a lot, if boring) and Jolly Phonics to ensure those skills were there too. I hope that will avoid the slump.

I can see you don't like Peter and Jane one bit. Personally, I did find it a helpfully structured scheme, but I can see we disagree on that one. I don't think I will ever regret using Peter and Jane. It isn't just nostalgia for my own childhood or a time shown in them which has passed (and I don't see those as negative things in childrens books anyway) but a real sense that these were a crucial part in my children learning to read. Other schemes no doubt would have done the same job, but Peter and and did it for us.

Thanks for replying.

CW, your mixture of P&J and Jolly Phonics is not the unpopular mixed methods approach. Mixed Methods is a wholly messed up line of thinking invented by Americans studying adult reading in laboratories and then transferring that methodology onto children...

I'm guessing that you didn't do that.

Apologies OP if I have taken this off piste rather. Hopefully some of the things raised by various people are food for thought anyway.
I am clearing off now.

ChocolateWombat you are correct Peter & Jane plus Jolly Phonics is mixed methods but I'm pleased it seems to have worked for your children

Well, mrz, by that definition toast and jam is mixed methods, trousers and socks are mixed methods

in fact anything and anything else is mixed methods...

Looked at from a child's eye view - what a child needs in the early stages of learning to read - or when encountering an unknown word later - is a clear answer to the question 'what do I need to do to read this word?'

Synthetic phonics has a single answer to it: sound it out, using ALL the phonuic rules that you have been taught (ie not just the basic sound / letter correspondances, but also rules about gh never encoding the sound at the beginning of the word, most common correspondaces to try firstm, all the alternatives etc etc) and blend it to form a word.

Mixed methods provide several answers: 'is it in my set of flashcards/ new words from the bottom of the page / key word list? If so, say that word'. 'Does the shape look familiar? If so, say that word'. What does it start with and what is in the picture that starts with that word? Say that word''If all the above fails, maybe try to sound it out, probably using only the basic phonic sounds.'

80% of children will learn to read using mixed methods, so it is not surprising that many on here report success using mixed methods - 4 ouit of 5 children will succeed that way. Only a much larger survey would show up the difference between this 80% and the 95%+ who would learn if properly taught SP.

If you teach reading using toast and jam good luck to you columngollum but it seems an improvement on your previous methods

Actually the 80% figure is in dispute teacherwith2children (now considered to be significantly lower)

Well, if you don't define what you mean by mixed methods the statistics are:

0%
100%
any
none
the kid next door
my granny

Mrz, I agree - it may well be that some children are learning more from the phonics bit than the rest of the mixture (but parents / teachers think it is the mixed method that works) and confusing the data.

Equally I think the SP figure in schools more widely is lower than it should be because schools stop too soon, without really pushing the alternative correspondances, and because they use too many non-phonic books for early readers.

I used Peter & Jane with the DC's (Ds doesn't need it anymore, DD is just starting). 7yo DS is a superb reader and DD (reception year) is coming along nicely.

The DC's are much more enthusiastic about P&J than biff and boring chip. I'm trying to encourage a love of reading. Not kill it stone dead.

We also use Songbirds.

CB, mixed methods = anything other than pure synthetic phonics, by my defnitinition and I supect most others.

You are closer to pure 'look and say' than most 'mixed method' proponants, but the fact that your DD now uses phonics for preference does seem to mean that she has received some formal phonics instruction somewhere....

Meglet, as I have said before on these threads, if I used my ds as my only example, i would say that you simply read to children, then at age 3.5 or so they start reciting all their books to you, and a few months later you will discover that they can read fluently, no instruction or structured reading schemes required whatever... but I would never extrapolate from that single example to suggest that that is how everyone should teach their children, nor that that is the 'usual' process.

Searchlights and Dr Russell both explain what they mean by their mixed methods and have a theory (albeit a bad one) behind it.

Anything except phonics = MM means my cat food shopping is mixed methods, so is my skiing preparation.

Do you think Peter & Jane encourage a love of reading Meglet?

I'm thinking

Jane likes to help mummy. She wants to make cakes like mummy.
"Let me help you, Mummy," she says. " Will you let me help, please? I can make cakes like you."