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!

Sorry, should have set the context:
Anything except the use of synthetic phonics for the initial teaching of reading is mixed methods.

Searchlights takes a specific subset of the 'possible other methods for reading a word' [rather than 'look at the word, break it down into its bits, sound them out, blend them back together and find the word they make'], but it is one of a family of names for mixed methods of teaching reading.

Look and say is a single method within mixed methods (you need other methods alongside it because it has no way of attacking unknown words).

No columgollum a mixture of different reading strategies = mixed methods ...no jam, no cat food, no Santa, no knitting or any of your other weird suggestions.

I can remember learning to read with Peter and Jane.

I also taught dd using them. She now loves reading and at age 12 is getting NC level 7 in English so I guess is doing ok.

I remember being slapped as discipline. My mother remembers being caned. My grandfather remembers being hit by a leather strap by his headmaster.

I don't do any of these things to my children, despite remembering what happened to me vividly, and it 'working' in the sense that I weas an obedient child.

Our understanding of the 'best way to do things' moves on - in teaching reading as well as in discipline methods.

I bought Peter and Jane for my two, about 13 years ago. They loved them, and didn't have a problem with them being dated - if anything it led to interesting conversations. The one where P & J go to a row of shops and buy something in each one really sticks in the mind. We talked about how we now usually go to a supermarket but how there used to be lots of shops like that. The row of shops near Grandma's was like that when I was little but now are mostly estate agents or banks, that sort of conversation.

The illustrations are lovely, we managed to get past the stereotyping, and they much prefered them to the Biff and Chip ones. Phonics didn't seem to come into their education much, but both are now prolific readers with one predicted to get A* at A level Literature.

Ladybird books in general are lovely, we have lots of them still, and I have a few from my 1960s childhood.

I was lucky in that my two seemed really keen to learn to read and found it easy, so I have no real experience of what would help a child who found it harder.

But being slapped is negative. I don't remember anything negative about learning to read and I could read fluently by 3. Was reading Famous Five books before my 4th birthday.

(I should also say that my children are well-behaved, I was well behaved, my mother was well-behaved ... my grandfather was a firebrand. Just because something 'appears to work' in the sense of output, doesn't mean that the cause and effect are simply linked...)

The man in the sweet shop likes Jane and Peter, and they like the man. He has the sweets they like. We want the red one, please, they say. Get the red ones, please.

"if anything it led to interesting conversations. The one where P & J go to a row of shops and buy something in each one really sticks in the mind. We talked about how we now usually go to a supermarket but how there used to be lots of shops like that. The row of shops near Grandma's was like that when I was little but now are mostly estate agents or banks, that sort of conversation." that is how I would use them MiddleAgeMiddleEngland.

I used P and J with all three of my children. We live in Canada and our primary curriculum uses a mix of phonics and sight words. There are far more modern materials available but for some reason these books particularly resonated with my kids. I think it's because of the cake ...every third page or so Mummy appears with tea and cake or they are stopping at a tea shop for cakes (with Pat!). It's like comfort food...in literary form.

But Viva, you are one of the lucky ones, as are so many of the children on this thread. For those lucky ones, you would learn to read whatever was used.

Mrz and I, and others, are glad that you were lucky, and that your children were lucky, but want to ensure that all those who were UNLUCKY with previous methods of reading now get the best known method. And as the lucky ones will learn to read whateve method is used, the only sensible approach is to teach everyone using the best method, used as well as we know how.

'Oh, I learned to read that way so there is no need to change' fails SO MANY children in our schools every day.

(My children find the P&J books left at my parents' house fascinating in a 'was the world like this when you were young?' way. Like Look and Learn or early editions of Scouting for Boys, they are interesting period pieces. And a child, once they can read, can access them amongst thousands of other books if they choose. It is their use as a teaching method that has me )

I managed to learn to read before school without Peter or Jane or any reading scheme books ... Call of the Wild was one of my very early favourite (before school) as was Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard but I wouldn't suggest they should be used with every child

Ok, fair point. If things have improved which has helped the majority I'm glad.

I actually used the Glen Doman method prior to Peter and Jane but I guess that's Look and Say as well.

I would say that things are changing, but have not completely changed - partly becauise of the 'I did it this weay and it worked, so why should change' problem (in teachers / teacher trainign too, sadly), and partly because schools haven't invested enogh in early phonic readers.

Constant reference to Biff and Chip on here indicate how prevalent that look and say series still is in schools, while only Flioppy's Phonics properly support phonic teaching.

I bought the early Peter and Jane books so that my children could have easy books to read at home that weren't school reading books. When my youngest started school I asked her teacher at the end of the week how she had settled in. The conversation went like this.... Teacher:" Oh she's a lovely little girl. You didn't tell me she could read." Me: "I didn't know she could read." On the way home....Me: "When did you learn to read?" J :"S taught me from Peter and Jane when we went to bed." I never taught any of mine to read, but I read loads to them. We have a house full of books, and I hate it when people are snobbish about them. As to the point that Peter and Jane are out of date how do people explain Cinderella and Red Riding Hood? The only one of my children who learnt to read using a purely phonics based system was my eldest who learnt using ITA.

I didnt know Biff and Chip was look and say. That's what they used at dd's primary school.

I use the Peter and Jane books. DD has learning needs. Reading would never stick because she had trouble remembering and understanding the previous paragraph. Peter and Jane are the first books she has stuck with, enjoyed and understood. The pictures are great because they also tell the story and she can link up words and understanding. She is also very proud of her achievements.

Well it is certainly interesting reading such different opinions.

So my DD keeps going and getting book 1a and seems strangely fascinated by it. She has also been given some of my old ladybird books (my mum kept them, the old 'well-loved tales' collections) and we are both enjoying the stories - The Princess and the Pea, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel etc. I have to admit I find them charming and very well written compared to some of the other books we have on our shelves. Perhaps it is just nostalgia on my part? She's hooked anyway.

The main concern I have about phonics is how little I know about it. Looking at the user notes that accompany the books, I just feel baffled by it. I am actually a teacher (secondary MFL) and can remember an INSET day focussing on reading techniques and phonics - well, I came out of a one-hour session none the wiser, just seemed like double dutch to me.

Many MFL teachers in the UK seem to find phonics very useful judging by conversations on Twitter EmGee. If it's any consolation most teachers haven't had any training in teaching reading /phonics that's why there are such differences in the standard of coverage across the country.

But I don't think you can place Peter & Jane and the Ladybird Well Loved Tales in the same category it's a bit like putting the OED in the same category as Shakespeare.

Why would secondary school teachers need training in infant reading techniques?

Presumably you can reason with most secondary pupils.

Well most infant teachers haven't had any training in reading methods so it isn't surprising that children arrive in secondary schools as non readers

But surely it's impractical to train any large number of secondary teachers in such techniques. It must make more sense to have one or two specialists available to mop up the non readers.

I understand why synthetic phonics are used in primary schools today. They work with a larger percentage of children, so increase national literacy.

However, when we are talking about home reading, we are not so constrained. Parents working with their children at home may well not have to use only synthetic phonics, because as has been said earlier, mixed methods work of 80% of children. Whilst a school cannot afford to let down the 20% who may struggle with mixed methods, if we as parents can judge that they are learning with PandJ or whatever we choose, then we are in the lucky 80% who learn relatively easily. And that works for those children at home....if not for all children in schools. I used Peter and Jane, because I liked them and my child did too. (The fact that some adults really dislike them, does not mean children will too). Once I was a year in with Peter and Jane, I also did Jolly Phonics and then at 6, Apples and Pears phonics spelling scheme. Mixed methods.

So I think perhaps we are talking at cross purposes here. On one hand we are talking about what schools should be doing. Primary teachers, I guess are likely to use at home, what they are keen on in school. However, the OP asked about reading at home, not in school. And I think there is a much wider range of possibilities for the parent who is working on readi g with just 1 or 2 children. If I had seen my son did not progress with PandJ I would have found an alternative. I was very happy with his progress, but had researched teaching to read and could see synthetic phonics was popular, so also used that too.

I understand why some primary teachers are so keen for synthetic phonics in the classroom, but surely the evidence suggests MANY children who learn to read before school, do so successfully with mixed methods.