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.

[zebedeee]

Thanks SoundsWrite. Rudely, I can only skim read your reply and run. I shall be able to read it properly, and reply, in a few days time.

[mrz]

"So, you have it from the horse's mouth that Sounds-Write does NOT advocate the teaching of sight words as whole words."

[SoundsWrite]

Okay, Zebedeee. If you have any other questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

[catkind]

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.

Finding that a little unclear SoundsWrite, if you're still around. Does the child learn to sound out the word, does the teacher sound out the word for them, does the child learn to recognise the word without it actually being sounded out when it arises in a text (but still presumably, given your focus on transparency, being aware of its phonemic structure)?

[mrz]

Sorry catkind what isn't clear about the statement

SoundsWrite Thu 17-Apr-14 09:22:43

"So, you have it from the horse's mouth that Sounds-Write does NOT advocate the teaching of sight words as whole words."

it seems very clear to me Sounds~Write doesn't teach sight words.

[catkind]

The bit I copied in bold wasn't clear to me. How the children are taught to "recognise" those words. I think under your definition, if I've understood it, any of the three options I outlined would constitute "not sight words"?

Feel free to clarify how you would define sight words if that's not right. We seem to have had a few misunderstandings on this thread through different people having different understandings of the term so I don't think I dare try to paraphrase it for you.

[mrz]

Does the child learn to sound out the word
yes

, does the teacher sound out the word for them initially the teacher will have to tell the child any sounds they don't know at that stage so depending on the word the teacher may sound out the whole word or may just supply the part the child needs in order to decode the word
, does the child learn to recognise the word without it actually being sounded out when it arises in a text the ultimate goal is that the child can decode the word automatically without saying the sounds aloud (but still presumably, given your focus on transparency, being aware of its phonemic structure)?

if you teach a child to read 10 words by sight (without "being aware of it's phonemic structure") they can read 10 words if you teach them to decode those words they can apply that knowledge to read any word containing those sound/spellings

[catkind]

That was a question to SoundsWrite not you mrz, you already said how you do it. It didn't sound in the quoted para like SoundsWrite was expecting the child to sound out the word but I hoped they might clarify.

I'm still finding it hard to understand how a child can know that say "o" can say "oo" and use it in some appropriate places (to, do), yet still need to be taught that correspondence again when it arises in the systematic progress through the phonics code. Like Letters and Sounds if that is what they mean.

I'm not saying that's what your system does mrz as you seem to be saying you're just teaching the sounds when they need them which I can understand as a method. It would just result in your children learning the correspondences in an order that is unexpected to me. You also said I think that you would teach more than one example of e->schwa not just the one, which is much more understandable to me than the idea of just teaching that correspondence for single use in "the" as would be implied if Letters and Sounds is indeed wanting the correspondences to be taught for the tricky words.

[mrz]

I use the Sounds~Write programme catkind

[catkind]

Here's a concrete example.

DS knows the word "earth" and reads it automatically. When he asked what it said we'd say, "look it says Ur, Th", pointing to the appropriate parts. I might also have said "sometimes e-a-r says ur". DS has never sounded it out like that because we didn't make any effort to teach him the correspondence ear-> ur independently, and he's only come across it in the context of that one word. He still knows how to split it down into phonemes because he has been taught reading in a phonic way and it doesn't occur to him that a word couldn't be split down. He doesn't know the correspondence independently and he has never sounded out the word though. He doesn't spell it yet. When I asked him he correctly put a th at the end, knew the "ur" was irregular and that it begun with E.

If we wanted to teach him the correspondence independently I'd sit down and write out the sound on its own, write out a few other words using it, get him to read them, reinforce the sound on its own the next day etc. Much more work. I expect at some later point school or we will do that and then he'll be able to sound out and spell the word fully.

I think it would make me a crazy pushy parent if I tried to teach DS to proactively use every GPC that came up in every book we ever read. And him very confused. We've helped him with some of the more common GPCs that keep coming up in his reading but only when we noticed he was coming up against several words with them and either hadn't been taught them or hadn't consolidated them fully yet from school.

On the other hand if I just told him the whole words he would miss an opportunity to use the bits of the phonics he does know and just be presented with a collection of black boxes. The discussion on this thread has confirmed my intuition that that would be a less helpful way to do it.

So this seems like a reasonable compromise approach for us. I guess I was guessing that schools were using a similar compromise approach for these irregular HFW. I think mrz called it a "mish mash" approach. May be an incorrect guess, may be some are some aren't. May be they are and they shouldn't be. DS's understanding of common irregular words like the, go, to seems to follow the same sort of pattern as far as I can tell. But he had them automatic fast so I might just have missed a sounding out stage.

[catkind]

I use the Sounds~Write programme catkind

I had guessed you might. It's the only one listed on the DfE site self assessments that made clear in its section on HFW that the children were taught to decode them.

But even they are now talking about "recognising" words not decoding them, words "not being transparent at this stage of learning" and "teacher taking responsibility" for such words. These terms do not sound like they're talking about a child decoding a word using GPCs they have been taught. Hence my request for clarification.

[mrz]

One of the authors of the Sounds~Write programme has stated on this thread "Sounds-Write does NOT advocate the teaching of sight words as whole words." I'm not sure how much clearer he can make it catkind

[catkind]

As I said, I don't think any of the interpretations I suggested for their post would be what you call sight words, but feel free to correct that.

I understand you are saying that they might go through all three options if being taught to decode the words. I meant them as options standing alone as the step before automaticity. Is this clearer?

a) Child is taught GPC, child decodes word as it arises in texts, child learns to recognise word.
b) Teacher decodes the word as it arises in texts, child learns to recognise word.
c) Child is taught to recognise word automatically, including its phonic structure, before it even arises in a text.

a) is how I understand you (mrz) are saying you do it. The phrases I picked out in my last post suggested to me that that's not what SW were proposing.
SW sound like they might be meaning b) when saying teacher "takes responsibility" for the word for example.

[mrz]

a if the word is to & the child already knows that is /t/ all the info the teacher needs to supply is "in this word is the sound /oo/ - say /oo/" child says /t/ /oo/
b if the word is to & the child doesn't know is /t/ & is /oo/ the teacher would supply all the info and help the child to decode the word (take responsibility for the word)

[catkind]

Okay, that makes sense as a starting point. And what happens next? Child sounds out word independently, or child learns to recognise word?

I find my DS doesn't learn a correspondence in the context of a word like that, he learns the word. He would be able to tell you that is /oo/ but he'd be doing it by recognising the word and deducing, like I said with "earth". At no stage would he be independently reading the word by sounding out. If I wanted him to learn the correspondence I'd have to go about it more deliberately as I described. Obviously just a sample size of 1, how does it work for most children?

[mrz]

And what happens next? Child sounds out word independently, or child learns to recognise word?

The teacher may have to support the child for some time or they may remember the next time they meet the word - teacher takes their cue from the child. The ultimate goal is for the child to be able to read the word automatically and to be able to apply the same knowledge in other words.

Some children (and adults) do work out the correspondences for themselves but it can often leave gaps in their knowledge which is why a systematic approach is more efficient.

[maizieD]

but he'd be doing it by recognising the word and deducing, like I said with "earth".

I am confused by your description of what happened with 'earth', When he asked what it said we'd say, "look it says Ur, Th", pointing to the appropriate parts., and the conclusions you appear to be drawing.

As far as I can see, when your son first encountered the word you modelled how it was pronounced and made each correspondence quite explicit by pointing to each one. This is a phonics driven approach and, luckily for him, your son only appears to need one exposure to a correspondence to 'learn' it.

I am puzzled as to why you don't appear to consider your 'method' to have anything to do with phonics teaching

I'm also not quite sure exactly how your son manages to 'recognise' a previously unknown word and then appear to work 'backwards' to 'deduction'. Can you clarify?

[mrz]

I think it would make me a crazy pushy parent if I tried to teach DS to proactively use every GPC that came up in every book we ever read. why would anyone do that?

[catkind]

maizie, the point I'm making is we were teaching him the word with understanding of the phonic structure, but we were not teaching him to sound it out. He has never sounded it out. We sounded it out for him or read it for him until he knew it. If he thinks about it he can deduce from knowing "earth" and knowing "th" that the "ear" makes an "ur" sound. "ear"->"ur" has never been and still isn't one of the GPCs he knows.

If we wanted to teach him to sound it out we'd be going through the whole, "what sound does ear make? yes, and what other sound can it make? that's right, ur. Look, here are some other words using that sound, can you read them?" etc etc. Then he'd know the correspondence properly, and that is the long term aim, but it would not be practicable to do that for every word he uses. As mrz says, why would anyone do that?

I never said it had nothing to do with phonics teaching, of course it has to do with phonics teaching, why would you not encourage the child to make use of the phonics they do know. I just said my impression was that they didn't teach the new unusual correspondences that are needed just for "tricky words". Mrz seemed pretty emphatic earlier that no, the child was taught the new correspondences so they could sound out the word.

[mrz]

I'm not sure how you make the leap from teaching him the sounds he needs to decode high frequency and tricky words to teaching the correspondences in every word you ever read with him ... if you are reading, then read and enjoy the story and the pattern of the language together, if he is reading and meets a word he doesn't know how to decode support him so that he can read the word.

[catkind]

I'm just pointing out there is a way to teach words within the context of phonics without necessarily teaching every correspondence, and that we have to do that in some cases at least to avoid absurdity. (Earth is a HFW from DS's point of view due to his particular interests.) That would be a possible way to teach HFW too, whether that's how it's done or not I don't know. Looking at the self evaluation forms on the DfE site most of them do sound more like that than teaching the extra GPCs properly.

Is my line of thought really this hard to follow? I don't usually have such problems making myself understood

[mrz]

I feel as if we are going around in circles catkind - what you describe is what SoundsWrite called the teacher taking responsibility for the words.

[catkind]

I feel like I'm chasing people round in circles trying to pin them down to a definite statement of how these words are taught. Because if what I was saying is how you are doing it, I wouldn't say you are teaching the GPCs, you're teaching the words albeit within a framework of understanding the phonics.

If that's so then I'm really happy because my intuition of how the whole process works is not the way off I was thinking at some points in this thread.

I'm going back to read earlier in the thread, because I thought you were being quite adamant that children be taught to decode everything including HFW from the start.

The key question I would like to pin down the answer to is are you expecting the children to be able to independently and fully sound out HFWs at the stage they are taught. (Obviously in the mid term you are aiming for them to be read automatically, in the long term you are expecting them to know even unusual correspondences so they can sound out everything.)

[mrz]

catkind phonics is taught in the context of words and sentences and texts not in isolation if that is what you mean.

Whan you tell your child that the sounds in earth are /er/ /th/ you are teaching him to decode the word - he is able to recall that and read the word automatically but you are still teaching him the skill of decoding. Hopefully because you have taught that he would be able to apply that knowledge to words like earn and learn and pearl and search ...

some children like your son will recall the word after one or two exposures others will need many more before can read they can read it automatically.

[catkind]

catkind phonics is taught in the context of words and sentences and texts not in isolation if that is what you mean.
That's not what I meant no. The way DS school do it they start with an isolated sound, then build up to using it in words, then texts. So yes taught in the context of texts, but not taught through texts. Just as one of the articles you quoted showed that children learned words better when they are presented in isolation not just in a text, I would expect that they'd learn sounds better when they are also presented in isolation as well as in words. That's certainly my experience with DS's phonics.

Telling a child how to decode a word and teaching a child to decode a word are different things. Passive understanding vs active usage. I repeat, my DS does not and can not decode earth. He can not read earn and learn and pearl. Okay, he might possibly try to sound them out using ear-> "eer" then guess that it's like earth, but it's unlikely with only one example to generalise from. If I wanted to I could teach him that GPC for ear, but I would have to put some effort into teaching that. Including writing it down by itself and in different words for example.