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!

Sort of, CW. But the phonicsy people argue that the mixed children are going to struggle in Y4. (And everybody's mixed except them.)

So, according to them nobody should teach kids except them and nobody should teach anything except them and nobody should have any ideas about anything except them.

Or you'll struggle in Y4 (even as parents).

Haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if I'm repeating things but I taught both my dcs to read with Peter and Jane, having learned that way myself and been a fluent reader from a very early age. The oldest was in a not-great school and not grasping phonics at all, so in her second term of reception I sat down with book 1a and we started working through it. Within a term, the teacher was congratulating me on her flying reading progress. She was the first free reader in her class. Second child, the same but even quicker - free reading by the end of reception. Both doing very, very well academically now.

I'm not denying other methods work and have their strengths but this one worked brilliantly for us and both children loved the books (esp the old-fashioned ones, though they are shockingly sexist in hindsight) and want to teach their children to read with P&J.

I'm teaching DS to read with Peter and Jane. I had the books available to me, because I learnt to read with them, he's enjoying it, I'm enjoying it, it's working. I don't know the first thing about Jolly Phonetics and don't have money sat around to buy a new set of books.

I can't see it affecting his education at school. They won't start teaching him to read for another couple of years and they won't teach him to read in English until he's ten.

It might not be the best method but are you seriously trying to suggest that I don't do it all?

I also have my books from the Best Loved Tales series and DS chooses these night after night for his bedtime story over and above all his other books. I am actually getting bored of Beauty and the Bloody Beast!

My dc loved Jane and Peter. They would choose to read it. they loved having a book they could read all the way through and it gave them a lot of confidence because they knew that all the words were readable.

I quite liked Peter and Jane, but DC found them boring.
I would mix it up a bit by using the Biff and Chip books too (phonics approach).

Oh dear.

I suggest that the OP reads this study of 'whole word' learning.

frog.bideford.devon.sch.uk/frogweb/sen/dyslexia/dyslexia/pages/media/docs/idp_dys_phonics_teaching.pdf

To teach my child to read using phonics, I simply listened to a teacher on Youtube reading through the alphabet in a phonics way, and then helped my child work out the letters she came across on that basis. I would talk to her in a phonics kind of way sometimes. I'm sure I missed out a lot of more complex phonics work, but it worked fine.

OP - your children will learn to read in CP in French using the syllabic method. It is similar but not identical to synthetic phonics.

Ma
Me
Mo
Mi
Mu
Etc

Then they learn to string the sounds together. Seems like there is less emphasis on blending here.

My DC learnt to read in English via Jolly Phonics for the sounds and Songbirds. It was very hard to get my head round the concept if phonics at first as I had never come across them at all plus a well-meaning relative sent us a box set of Biff and Chip which confused me. Fortunately mrz maizie and feenie gave excellent advice on this board and I got to grips with it. I also used Debbie Hepplethwaite's alphabetic code charts which are fab (but I found her online programme too intimidating, it has about 20 chapters.)

So this thread has really got me thinking - thanks to everyone who has contributed.

Have just read the article above (thanks Maizie) and need to go back over it when I have some peace and quiet. The thing that jumped out at me was the importance of the child knowing the alphabet. DD1 is pretty good but I think I need to make sure she really does know it rather than just assuming she does. I do have the Songbirds flashcard set by J Donaldson so maybe a good place to start. I will definitely check out the you tube video of the phonetic alphabet. We have been watching the Alphablocks dvd (volume 1) and DD likes it.

The problem I am finding with the alphabet is that in French 'maternelle' they use capital letters. Whereas UK resources are all lower case.

Re P&J, on DD's request we read it again today. She is on fire to get charging through the book to get onto the next one but in fact she has definitely not 'got' some of the words e.g. here, is, the. In fact, I would say that 'Jane' and 'Peter' are the only ones she knows but whether that is because they have a capital letter, I don't know.

So, I am going to do some research (trawl through this board) and just take it easy - there is no hurry as far as I can see. If she is still not quite ready, then so be it.

No doubt I will be back on these boards again for more help!

hahahaha

Nice link Maizie!

The phonics instructors couldn't teach a group of 5yos to read 16 words by sight. I know 2yos (and some animals) who can read more than that. Either the phonics instructors aren't very good teachers or they're not trying very hard!

Teaching capital letters first is barking, surely.

Why not just teach both cases at the same time? Many wall charts do precisely that.

The phonics instructors couldn't teach a group of 5yos to read 16 words by sight. I know 2yos (and some animals) who can read more than that. Either the phonics instructors aren't very good teachers or they're not trying very hard!

The clue is in the article CG.

'We made the learning task fearsomely difficult by making all ten words the same length, by printing them in capital letters so there were no overall distinguishing patterns of ascenders and descenders, and by having five pairs of words starting with the same letter. That is, we tried to teach SANDAL, SIGNAL, RASCAL, ROCKET, TICKET, TURNIP,
CARTON, COBWEB, PICNIC, PENCIL.'

Though I am not sure why they would do that.

To prove that the children couldn't learn them. But even younger children can learn even harder words. They can't necessarily understand the words or know what they're for. But they can recognise them when asked.

"The phonics instructors couldn't teach a group of 5yos to read 16 words by sight."

You've got it wrong again Columngollum, they weren't phonic instructors they were researchers who started out to prove how easy it was to learn whole words by sight ... and discovered it isn't!

Column, I'm afraid you are not making a very convincing case....and why so aggressive? People are talking about ways to learn to read....it's not a punch up!

Many countries teach capital letters first because they are supposed to be easier to write - many are a series of straight lines. It doesn't actually make any real difference except most books are printed using both so children need to know both from the start IMHO.

You've got it wrong again Columngollum, they weren't phonic instructors they were researchers who started out to prove how easy it was to learn whole words by sight ... and discovered it isn't!

Given the words they have chosen and the fact that the words were all in block capitals, I find it hard to believe that they wanted to prove it was easy to learn whole words by sight.

yet you are willing to believe they are teachers

I'm sure Prof Morag Stuart of the Institute of Education ( incidentally a bastion of whole word devotees) could explain why.

I'm actually not sure what is wrong with the choice of words but it would be interesting to repeat the research with lower case.

Well, send them round to my house and I'll show them how because that's not how it's done. Or they could just buy Peter & Jane books. Mind you, they'd probably put the books on their heads and pour coffee on them, given their peculiar approach to common sense problem solving!

Yes I'm sure a Professor Emerita of Psychology would have a field day meeting you CG.

Well, since the professor's pupils are a long way behind chimpanzees reading words by sight a trip to the zoo might be in order first!

OP if your method is working for your DD then keep using it. I believe phonics is better in general because it seems that it suits more DC but for one child it really doesn't matter which method you use as long as it works.

If you were interested in going down the phonics route I would recommend this bookand the Julia Donaldson "Songbirds" series.

I am in Germany and teaching DS to read in English using this method, it's really fun I love seeing him improve in reading and knowing that it's just the two of us working on it.

column,

What, to you, does good 'learning by sight' look like?