Phonics testing. Why not sight words as well?

[proudmama72]

Just that really. There's was extra effort put into phonics data collection. Would it not also to be beneficial to test knowledge of sight words. They seemed to impact my kids reading development.

Phonics is important, but just wondering why all the extra resources and emphasis solely on phonics.

First attempt at finding this research: a literature review from 2006. No evidence found on the subject of whether systematic phonics alone is better than systematic phonics alongside other teaching methods. Evidence found that systematic phonics is better than no systematic phonics. Didn't even find evidence of a significant advantage of synthetic over analytic phonics.

<a class="break-all" href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/RR711_.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="blank">webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/RR711.pdf

Any better offers? There must be something more recent...

Very easily catkind - that's exactly what is described in the Letters & Sounds tricky word lesson

At that point the child knows that the spelling as the /o/ sound in not so the teacher teaches then that it can also be the spelling for the sound /oa/ in the word no ... and then the teacher will apply it to the other high frequency words with the same sound spelling correspondence g o and s o

So taught in word specific application then applied in other words

I haven't got my own laptop catkind but will find the research for you when I have access. For now try
www2.hull.ac.uk/science/pdf/johnston_etal.pdf

The argument goes at least three ways, catkind, not just two:

synthetic phonics vs Searchlights
synthetic phonics vs Look & Say
synthetic phonics vs synthetic phonics & (Look & Say/specific sight words)
(possibly other combinations/comparisons...)

www.societyforqualityeducation.org/parents/bkgrnd1.html

www.belb.org.uk/downloads/lp_report.pdf

Thanks mrz. Reading...

www.nifdi.org/news/hempenstall-blog

BBC different viewpoints on reading

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19812961

education.qld.gov.au/literacy/docs/reading-recovery20.pdf

www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=F287725F-9E6F-011D-BE0E-F34366B8376A

Okay first three:

www2.hull.ac.uk/science/pdf/johnston_etal.pdf
Analytic vs synthetic phonics.

www.societyforqualityeducation.org/parents/bkgrnd1.html
is a discussion on "whole language" teaching, which I don't think anyone is advocating here.

www.belb.org.uk/downloads/lp_report.pdf
Looks at what it calls "linguistic phonics" as an intervention at Yr 2 and Yr 8, but isn't that clear about what the control schools were doing, and not really relevant to the discussion on "phonics and only phonics" as Yr 2 is far too late for that.

This thread is about te phonics check which is carried out at the end of Y1 so intervention in Y2 is entirely relevant

You will find there is very little UK reading research as it is very expensive and no one is willing to fund it.

www.nifdi.org/news/hempenstall-blog
phonemic awareness - yea or nay? Well, yea obviously. Also talks about the whole language approach.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19812961
Was trying to work out why mrz posted this link then I realised she didn't!

education.qld.gov.au/literacy/docs/reading-recovery20.pdf
Discussion of a reading recovery programme in NZ. Not sure of relevance but I didn't scan the whole thing.

www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=F287725F-9E6F-011D-BE0E-F34366B8376A
This one's saying that above RR programme failed. I think it's saying it was the searchlights thing.

mrz, you said there was lots of evidence that diluting pure phonics even slightly made it worse. That's the evidence I was asking to see.

I thought you were trying to answer that question - obviously links of general interest also interesting :)

As I explained earlier I haven't got my own laptop so can't access specific research links catkins

No probs - I interpreted all the links as being you were back on laptop. Would much appreciate them when you do have it back.

this is a good explanation on how children learn to read

If it doesn't do neurological harm for DS to pick up sight words on his own by watching me read, how can it do neurological harm for him to pick up sight words where his teacher has segmented it into sounds for him and told him that some of them are ones he'll learn later?

I don't know, I just find it hard to believe children's learning is so fragile that acquiring a few extra words they can't sound out yet would do anything except make reading more approachable. So will be interested to see exactly what the evidence says.

I would think in the tricky words example in Letters and Sounds, if the child has learned the word "the" as a sight word in the course of a day's repetition, they're unlikely to retain the sound "e" unless that's separately reinforced in the following days. They haven't done any other examples with that schwa e correspondence and don't till sometime in Year 1 I think, so it would be a rule with a single example if it was taught as a correspondence in Letters and Sounds.

For example DS could dissect "the" and tell me that the e was making an uh sound, but didn't try associating e with an uh sound constructively in other words the way he'd try other alternative sounds he knows. He did try o-oh-oo in that order for example. Maybe the difference being they've had more than one example to reinforce go/no, to/do?

What method would you say that link is advocating bruffin? It talks about "irregular" words in the section on Lexical knowledge. "Ask the child to find five words in a book or a list that are "not spelled the way they sound." Further, ask the child how each word would be pronounced if you just "sounded it out.""
Sounds like a sort of decode the bits you can then guess approach.