Sight reading as a strategy in EYFS/KS1 - mrz?

[Guilianna]

What would you say to a SLT convinced that 'sight reading' is as effective a strategy as phonics, and who advocates teaching mixed methods?

[maizieD]

To go back a few posts!

I might go for Paj-your-iss-teez for the final one.

The 'g' would only spell a /j/ if it were followed by 'e', 'i' or 'y'

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Good point, maizie, which I should have spotted. You are right, but for some reason, that word is still looking to me like it should have a /j/ and I have no idea why.

[mrz]

I was thinking pag yoo rist eez

[FinDeSemaine]

That is more or less right, mrz.

Rafa, maybe because there is an implied Y sound in the ur?

[mrz]

I confess we were rockpooling yesterday FinDeSemaine

[FinDeSemaine]

Then you are quite some way ahead of me. In this case, I am a phonics mad Reception child who can read all those words but has NO IDEA of what they mean as they are not in my vocab!

[diamondage]

The 'g' would only spell a /j/ if it were followed by 'e', 'i' or 'y'

But that's what catches people out with coelacanth, they see a c followed by an o and assume it must be representing /k/, whereas because "oe" represents /ee/ the "c" represents /s/.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I think coelacanth probably counts as a 'tricky word' . For Christ's sake don't let masha see it. She'll add it to a long list with those other words you gave last night.

I must admit I only know how to pronounce it due to an obsession with David Attenborough documentaries and the fact that I watch most things with subtitles on.

[Hooliesmoolies]

I must admit, I find phonics hard, but I do see benefits for my child. But I really wish that once the teachers at my DDs school have been effectively trained, they would teach me. I do more reading with my child than anyone else, and I find it hard supporting her in her reading without knowing what I'm doing.

But, I have learnt not to use the magic 'e', and how to explain that (I think), which is a start in the right direction.

[Mashabell]

Mrz
yet we have somehow managed very successfully to learn our own language
Learning a language is not the same as learning to read one.
Many children start school already speaking English very well but have a hard time learning to read it, and even more to write it.

[mrz]

Perhaps you should look at the schools who manage to teach 100% of their pupils to read and write masha and ask if they can do it why can't everyone

[Mashabell]

Findesemaine
In Latin, Greek or German ... They tell you how the alphabetic code of that language works, just as we do when a child learns to read English.

The difference is that in those languages the alphabetic code is phonically completely consistent: eins, zwei, drei... vier, Bier, hier. Once u learn the code, u know exactly how to pronounce those letters in every word u meet, with very, very few exceptions, unlike:
ei in eight, height, ceiling, their or
ie in friend, fiendish, pie, science,
ea in treat, great, threaten,
o in on, only, once, other, woman, women, who,
ou in sound, soup, soul, should, double.....

That's why most children take several years to become proficient readers of English - even with excellent phonics teachers like Mrz - while most other Europeans do so in a few months, or even just a few weeks, e.g. Finns.

[maizieD]

But that's what catches people out with coelacanth,

Coelacanth doesn't have a 'g' in it

But I know what you mean!

[maizieD]

Hooliesmoolies
You might find this site helpful;particularly the charts which show the common spelling alternatives for phonemes.

//www.phonicsinternational.com

[diamondage]

mrz while it's true that some schools ensure 100% can read I'm still not sure it's with the same competence as an equivalent 100% from a country with an entirely transparent code.

Do countries with an entirely transparent code ever have adults discussing how a word should be pronounced?

Surely when most children leave our schools, they will still need to look up or be told how to pronounce some words originating from Greek, Latin or French?

Unless you're suggesting that what happens with adults at the moment is purely down to them having been taught with mixed methods, and that children with a thorough understanding of the complex code won't ever need to look up words to discover their pronunciation?

Personally I think our code is too complex for this because it includes phonics from too many different alphabetic codes, so unless you can recognise which country or language a word originates from then you will need help to decode it.

In fact, even this isn't enough, for example take banquet and bouquet. In the former we do not use the French pronunciation, whereas in the latter we do.

Presumably this is because we decided to tweak our own Middle English word banket, to match the spelling banquet but only changed the /k/ to a /kw/.

Whereas bouquet is a wholly French word that we've 'borrowed'.

Knowing that 'et' can be a spelling for either /ay/ or /e/t/ helps me know it is one of the two, however in this case even knowing that the words are typical French spellings doesn't help me know for sure. I have to first learn the pronunciation so that I can then encode the spelling.

I suppose the point is that perhaps most 12 year old children taught a language with an entirely transparent code can literally read (and correctly pronounce) any word in their language.

I don't think the same can be said for most UK 12 year olds. Perhaps most can read banquet and bouquet but that's because they're reasonably common. Nevertheless, unlike their counterpart from a country with a transparent code, I'm sure it would be possible to find some English words that they'd find a challenge to decode without help.

[diamondage]

Coelacanth doesn't have a 'g' in it

Indeed, but the same principal applies for 'c' with respect to the soft rather than hard sound we produce when followed by vowels representing the /e/ee/i/igh/er/.

The tricky part is that 'oe' is representing /ee/ which is a rare or less probable sound for this spelling to represent.

But you already know all that

[Hooliesmoolies]

MazieD Thanks for that! It looks really helpful.

[Mashabell]

Diamondage
I suppose the point is that perhaps most 12 year old children taught a language with an entirely transparent code can literally read (and correctly pronounce) any word in their language.

Perhaps not all recently imported words from another language, but otherwise yes. Completely.

In English, many secondary pupils are regularly tripped up by quite common words. Bouquet would make the majority hesitate or stumble. Being asked to take part in reading a play is mortifying for many for this reason.

[LittleMissGreen]

But given that the scientific names are scientific names aren't they the same in every language, so French/Finnish etc children won't be able to pronounce them using their own phonetic code either? Certainly when I worked in a lab with fluent Welsh speakers I could only keep up with some of the conversations was because I could follow the common scientific words.

[maizieD]

You really, really like to get to the bottom of things don't you, Diamondage

I don't think that the pronunciation aspect is such a compelling one when you consider the enormous variation in the pronunciation of words among English speakers world wide. Even UK wide. As a southerner I could tell Northerners until I was blue in the face that 'grass' is pronounced 'grarss' but it wouldn't change the fact that they pronounce it with a 'short' 'a'. The very essential point is that we can all read the word 'grass' and get to its meaning of a plant with sword shaped long green leaves which has a multiplicity of forms and uses. People can read a word and mentally mispronounce it for years without it affecting the fact that they know what it means (though it may cause a bit of embarrassment when you find you've been pronouncing it wrongly all that time...) and can understand it correctly when read and use it correctly in writing.

I agree that with some words, coelacanth, bouquet etc. you may have to be 'told' how to pronounce them at some time, but is this an insuperable problem for competent readers? You get to know the correct pronunciation and use it from then on; it really isn't a problem. And somehow you manage to remember all those odd correspondences, as will most children who have learned to read and are extending their vocabularies.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that we never stop learning and encountering new words and that we are quite able to take them in our stride. (Which is why I get a bit cross with objectors to the Phonics check who say that 'good readers' are thrown by the nonsense words; as if 6 year olds know every single word in the English Language already and don't need to learn anything new!)

[maizieD]

But given that the scientific names are scientific names aren't they the same in every language, so French/Finnish etc children won't be able to pronounce them using their own phonetic code either?

Interesting point! I wonder if the pronunciation of these words does vary a bit, anyway, according to the nationality of the speaker?

[Bonsoir]

Latin when spoken by a French person does not sound the same as when it is spoken by an English person!

[Mashabell]

'Phospate' is 'fostfat' in German, with the /a/ sound of ask, task, mask of S England, rather than 'fosfait'.

In the 16th C printers stuck -e endings on many words in English, irrespective of need and undermined the vowel-lengthening role of -e, e.g. gave, have; survive relative.

English changed the pronunciation of many imports too, but sometimes without changing the spelling (couple, double), as used to the case with earlier imports from French (bataille - battle; boeuf - beef).

That's what u get when there is no authority of any kind whatsoever to keep an eye on things and spellings are allowed to 'evolve' according to the whims of printers and dictionary makers.

[mrz]

diamondage I'm sure that children from countries with transparent code have to look up the pronounciation of words that enter their language from other sources as frequently happens as the world is shrinking thanks to technology

[mrz]

banquet and bouquet are both borrowed French words