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.

Never heard of the chap but he seems to have held academic positions in the study of education. That would make him an educationist. Doesn't mean he was a good one

As maizieD said Frank Smith is a psycholinguist responsible for the Whole Language theory

nutcasenan, I think what they're trying to say is that Smith's Whole Language theory has since been discredited.

mrz, yes, maizie already said that. I was just being pedantic about the assertion that that means he wasn't an educationist (def. educational theorist). Never mind, it's not important.

Goodman claimed Whole language was a philosophy rather than a theory or method (not sure if Smith would agree) there was never any scientific evidence to support the idea. That didn't stop the philosophy/theory taking hold and despite as you say being discredited, Whole language refuses to go away. Smith and Goodman are still required reading on many ITT courses certainly were standard texts when I did my training.

I stand corrected, catkind.

I'd assumed that an educationist actually had to have taught people at some point (which no doubt Smith did, but only after he had formulated his rotten theories and then only his uni students)

Not sure if he even taught then maizieD ... he carried out research

maizieD - the quote is from Sounds-Write.

mrz - I think previously I mentioned that Dandelion Readers use the term 'sight words' on the inside front cover of their books.

You've made that claim before zebedeee ... have you done the Sounds~Write training?

Think I am coming to this discussion very late! Phonics are indeed important, but personally I think its such a shame we make reading so boring in schools by focusing so much on decoding using phonics. Phonics is a part of reading, so is learning whole words by sight, and of course comprehension & meaning. My daughter learnt to read (NOT by learning phonics bit by laborious bit, goobledegoop to her), but by being read to a LOT, by listening to story CD's, by visiting the library often, by using pictures and context to decipher new words & ALSO by using phonics, which were learnt as she went along. Much more effective:) Hard to make this translate into a classroom setting, but shame the focus is so much on phonics, when children read using such a range of strategies. Got to love those old ladybird books, the key words series, great for kids who cannot get to grips with phonics.
Interestingly, our brains develop in such a way that most children will use a whole word strategy first, then when the left hemisphere is sufficiently developed for reading, they will begin to appreciate phonics & as the two hemispheres begin to work well together, we really begin to read. You cannot force it:)

Unfortunately most children aren't as lucky as your daughter and no matter how many books/stories they are exposed to they still don't learn to read by osmosis.

My eldest learnt effortlessly like your daughter whereas his sister despite having the same early experiences (if anything more exposure to books) didn't ... written language unlike speech isn't natural and as humans we don't have a natural predisposition to learn

Phonics is a great way to learn to read. Is there a richer experiece available? Yes, I think so. And it can be had hand in hand with the phonics if you suit it to your child. If a child can use their phonics hand in hand with other skills they have (inference, comprehension, memory) then they are doing what young children do brilliantly (use their whole self, not partition. Then there is a whole world of pleasure that opens up, the challenge of reading richer texts and experiencing those WOW moments as the story they are reading comes to life. What is difficult is this approach is hard to quantify.

Last night my daughter read two books. This www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/book/9780198466994/isbn/Oxford-Reading-Tree-Level-6-Songbirds-Jack-and-the-Giants-by-Julia-Donaldson-Clare-Kirtley.html
which she quite enjoyed and practised some phonics sounds. And then this:
www.amazon.co.uk/Cinderella-Level-Usborne-First-Reading/dp/1409550575
which was a far richer and more joyful experience. It was a bit long and it was getting late so I finished it off for her.

I am a phonics fan, and I will keep up the phonics books with her but I think I would be doing her a disservice if those were all she did. Perhaps that's something to do with how far she's got, she knows enough to access more material. However, she gains a lot and learns a lot by "osmosis" as mrz calls it, and has done from much earlier days in reading.

No freetrait what you describe is not what I call osmosis

mrz, I hear you what you're saying, but just to add my daughter is 8. She certainly was not one of those children where reading came easily (unlike her cousin who learnt via osmosis at 3, I think they call that hyperlexic).

My daughter struggled with phonics, as I did actually try that first, but she just could not learn to read that way. She began to wonder why all her cousins read so easily & she could not. I decided patience was the key and also to be flexible. Phonics was not suiting her, it was turning her off reading. We took the other approach I discussed above, ditched the painful phonic readers and I just read and read and read to her.

Eventually one day, just before turning 8, she asked to go to the library & she chose a chapter style book. She cam home and read it. I am soooooo glad we changed our approach & stayed patient. It was hard to stay patient I can tell you as everyone around her began to question why she was not reading & why I seemingly wasn't doing anything about it. Dyslexia was mentioned by many friends. She is reading at the same level as her school going peers, but in the meantime her self-esteem has not been eroded & she loves books.

We must not assume there is one way & we must be creative about our approaches.

came home

I'm just thinking about what would have happened in school. She would have failed that phonics test. she would then be on some list for extra support, so I assume that would mean giving her MORE phonics instruction. In the meantime I imagine she would have felt pretty awful about her lack of reading. Perhaps 8 would still have been the magic age that it clicked for her, but I doubt continued instruction in phonics would have done much for her self-esteem.

I hope it works out for you and your daughter maisiechain

Thank you! By the way, this is a surprise for me too. I taught for a decade in primary schools & we always gave extra phonic instruction to those who failed to read easily or in the time frames set.
Teaching children to read is my passion, so I'm not being awkward here on this thread, but just fascinated by it all really.
Phonics is essential, just not the only way, or at least some come to it much later. I personally think that is the key, reading should be left until at least 6 or later & then a slightly more individual approach is needed.

I'm not surprised and as I say hope it works out for you both

Maisiechain: Phonics is essential, just not the only way...

Yes, as your daughter has clearly proved.

mrz - I'm not 'claiming' I'm quoting.

Yes you said it was from the manual but I'm disputing that zebedeee.

Have you had the Sounds~Write training?

I'm intrigued how having the training would change what is written in the folder given out with the training. No, I've not personally had the training, but the folder I'm quoting was from the training course.

I wondered if you had access to the manual so you could read what it actually says zebedeee

Yes, I have a copy.

Zebedee, you have an old copy of our manual. The new copy changed the previous ambiguous wording to 'Reading and writing in text', precisely so that trainees don't get the wrong end of the stick. So, you have it from the horse's mouth that Sounds-Write does NOT advocate the teaching of sight words as whole words.
That isn't to say that there aren't some essential single-syllable words in English which are not spelled using the Initial Code: i.e. using simple one-to-one sound-spelling correspondences.
Our initial aim is to teach pupils a transparent system within which, if pupils can read a word, they can also write/spell it. We regard this as being important to their understanding that the English language is written as it is spoken, with each sound in every word represented sequentially by a spelling. Without this, pupils will always be prone to reverting to sight word memorisation and guessing strategies that we think may severely impair their literacy development for the rest of their lives.
This focus on transparency, however, can initially restrict pupils' ability to access text because, as I've stated, some essential single-syllable words in English are not spelled using the Initial Code. In order to minimise this effect and to support pupil's emerging abilities to read and write text, we help pupils at this early stage of their literacy tuition to recognise a few high-frequency, single-syllable words whose spelling (at this stage in their learning) is not transparent to them: words such as 'is', 'of' and 'the', which cannot easily be avoided when reading or writing text. When encountered in text, or in dictations, the teacher takes responsibility for these words in a variety of different ways, depending on pupils' conceptual understanding of the code, their skills, and their code knowledge.