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.

[mrz]

Teachers were told not to post the actual words from the test CG and threads were removed from a number of sites (including MN if I remember correctly)

[catkind]

Regular at the level of phonics they've been taught I mean. In phase 2 they haven't been taught that e can say uh. What I'm failing to see is how a phase 2 child can read "the" without either recognising the whole word at sight or knowing the correspondence e -> uh.

[catkind]

That was to mrz, this thread is moving fast today!

[mrz]

Well they could use obscure real words instead of pseudowords but then some people would be saying why include words they will never need to know.

[columngollum]

I would be fascinated to see a discussion about good readers failing on real words (with the failed words on display) in the screening test.

Pretty please, if anybody can point me to such a discussion that would be beyond fantastic. (But the actual failed words must be included. I've seen general chats about how unfair the test is on "good readers" before.

[mrz]

They can read it because they are taugh. It's back to that bit in Letters & Sounds

4. Sound-talk the word and repeat putting sound lines and buttons (as illustrated above) under each phoneme and blending them to read the word.

5. Discuss the tricky bit of the word where the letters do not correspond to the sounds the children know

[mrz]

Some of my class had problems with fuel because they knew in blue and gruesome but hadn't learn in argue

[catkind]

Yes but unless they recognise it as being that specific tricky word (in which case they've already memorised it) how do they know which sound to change from the one they know and what to change it to?

I can see it makes sense to explain how the tricky words are made up phonically, so they know it's just another word where they happen not to know all the phonics for yet, not something scary and new. But not seeing how they're reading it unless by memorisation.

[teacherwith2kids]

CG, what is the difference - for the child - between a genuine word that is not in the child's vocabulary, and a phonically regular non-word?

So, given 'sprue' - a genuine word, phonically regular, but not in the child's vocabulary (unless they happen to have experience of manufacturing), a child trained in phonics will be able to read it. However, rather than search the dictionary for 'real, but obscure, short phonically regular words', like sprue, the designers of the test have decided to widen the range of test words they can use by also using 'non real but phonically regular words', like 'wern' because that tests exactly the same skill.

In your ideal test, I presume that it would be fine to use 'sprue', but not 'wern'?

[teacherwith2kids]

Apoliogies, the thread has moved faster than me.

However, for a child, an unknown real word is exactly equivalent to a 'made up' word. YOU are creating a distinction. I presume that you are saying that the ability to decode non-words (a side effect of being able to decode real words, and necessary to read Dr Seuss, or almost all names) is in some way not equivalent to reading real words? Or something?

[mrz]

because they have been taught that one letter can represent different sounds - th in thin and th in then or e in hen and e in he - and to try them both it's a small step to teach that some sounds aren't said precicely as in the

[teacherwith2kids]

catkind,

If you have read with an early reader who has been taught phonics well, the process is clear (it rapidly becomes invisible / automatic, so yiou don't see it as clearly in lder readers).

Child reaches a word they need to sound out. Say 'south', for the sake of argument. They may start out 's' 'ow' 'soft th as in then', blend quickly, shake head. Then try 's' 'ow' 'hard th as in thin'. Blend. 'Ah! South!' then carry on.

Phonics opponants sometimes seem to imagine that phonics-taught readers don't do that 'sense check' - does it make a word I know? (Which is why in the phonics test they are told they are alien words and they should not use that 'sense check'). I have taught children with very very smal vocabularies but who know phonics very well, and have seen for myself that both steps are needed - which is why phonics instruction AND exposure to a huge number of books and stories and words in school every day is so important.

[catkind]

At phase 2 they haven't been taught th at all according to the .gov link. But supposing they have, so they say th - eh, no that doesn't make sense, what can I guess that sounds vaguely similar? their, they, the, then, ... ?
I guess what I'm trying to get at is what is the thought process of a child in your class who's just been taught "the" as per Letters and Sounds but hasn't memorised it yet.

[catkind]

teacher, I'm seeing that in practice with DS with phonics he has been taught (or self-taught). But he's memorised the tricky words fast enough I couldn't really tell how he learned them, except he definitely knew them before he knew all the constituent phonics. e.g. he'd read go before he would try oh for a letter "o" if he came across it in a word he didn't know.

[mrz]

but when the "tricky" words are introduced they are taught the alternatives for that word catkind even though they haven't been taught those sounds at this stage - that's what the lesson in Letters & Sounds is describing

I was using th as an examples

it could be in dog and in go
or in pin and in mind
or in cat and in was

[teacherwith2kids]

"what can I guess that sounds vaguely similar? their, they, the, then, ... ?"

A child well-taught phonics, and given mostly reading material appropriate to their ability to decode won't do the guessing bit. In particular, they know that it only has 2 sounds, do can't be most of the things on your list.....

[catkind]

So you are teaching th at the point described in phase 2? and alternative sounds for o for example? I don't see how you can teach a single-word alternative phonic sound as they won't know to apply it until they know they're in that specific single word, i.e. they've memorised the word.

Could someone be kind to the beginner and spell it out for me please, what is the thought process of a child who's only been taught phase 2 Letters and Sounds phonics and hasn't yet memorised "the" when they read "the"?

[mrz]

Yes catkind it is a lesson introducing "tricky" words

If you were teaching using L&S - you would introduce the word go and the child would have been taught /g/ & /o/ so the teacher would teach that the letter in the word go is a spelling for the sound /oa/ so the child can decode the sounds /g/ /oa/ and read the words go, no, so.

If you were introducing "the" in letters and sounds you would tell the child the sounds because they haven't been taught any at that point

different programmes introduce the sounds in different orders and only L&S has those stupid phases

[mrz]

Some teaching is done "incidentally" - If we are reading The Gingerbread man the teacher would point out that the /j/ sounds in ginger are spely and if you then read Jack and the beanstalk the teacher would ask if they remember how the /j/ sound was spelt and explain that giant has the same spelling and if there is a Gemma in the class she will know already ...

[catkind]

This gets more and more confusing. If you're teaching the sounds for those words then in what way are the words tricky? They're just more phonic words that they can read normally.
Ah well, I give up, DS is muddling along fine however he's being taught it.

[mrz]

They aren't tricky it's just a name to distinguish the words containing spellings that hadn't been taught before the word is introduced. Jolly Phonics and Letters & Sounds use the term "tricky" RWI calls them red words the scheme I use simply calls them words.

[maizieD]

I get that the difference with regular words is that they can read it as many times phonically as they need to until they have it memorised, and fall back on the phonics if they forget.

Can I just revert to this post?

Once a child has sounded out a word a few times it goes into long term memory and it is highly unlikely that the child will ever 'forget' it. That is the interesting thing about phonics teaching; it isn't about consciously 'learning' words at all.

I like mrz's last comment about the programme she uses regarding those HFWs as 'just words' because that's all that they are and for a child being taught phonics they don't really pose any more of a problem than other words because the child already 'knows' about sounds and their spellings and how to build words by decoding and blending.

I think that they cause more of a problem for adults who are convinced that there is something odd and difficult about them. Which there jolly well was in the days when children were forced to learn them as 'wholes'. Words learned as wholes just don't get into long term memory as easily. Some folks on here think that they do, but they really, really don't.

[Feenie]

They're just words in Floppy's Phonics and Phonics International also.

[columngollum]

If you were teaching using L&S - you would introduce the word go and the child would have been taught /g/ & /o/ so the teacher would teach that the letter in the word go is a spelling for the sound /oa/ so the child can decode the sounds /g/ /oa/ and read the words go, no, so.


heh?

That's not how you do L&S

go, no and so are totally different words.

So, you teach the lyrics to Alison Moyet.
Don't go.

[catkind]

maizie, long term memory isn't just a box you drop things in then they never fall out. Things gradually become more and more entrenched in long term memory the more you reinforce them. Which children can do for themselves if they know the phonics.

Initial cost of learning the phonics sounds, big gain in that they can then learn any words using those sounds.

But for a word like "the", the initial cost of learning "t-h-e says the" and of learning "e sometimes says uh" is about the same. And "e sometimes says uh" is not a rule they're likely to use for anything else any time soon, so the number of repetitions they get for building it into long term memory is the same.