I've taught phonics for twenty years
It's a shame then than u can't explain it to parents simply and clearly on here, Mrz.
The OP got me trying to write a proper explanation of English phonics for the past week. I'll paste it in and would be interested to know what u think of it.
Phonics and teaching children to read and write
The Reading Wars
Teachers in English-speaking countries find it difficult to agree on how best to teach children to read and write. For the past six decades the Reading Wars have been raging in all of them to a greater or lesser extent. This is mainly because many pupils have continued to leave school functionally illiterate, despite an average of 10 years in education. The blame for this has generally been put on poor teaching, or using wrong teaching methods.
In other countries with alphabetic writing systems there are hardly any such disputes, and they have less literacy failure. They just use phonics. Children learn what sounds their letters, or combinations like 'ai' or 'ch', stand for and use this knowledge to read (decode) words and to spell them (encode).
Because other European countries use nothing but phonics and achieve higher literacy standards than the UK or the US, some educational theorists concluded that it was insufficient use of phonics that was causing higher rates of functional illiteracy among Anglophones. This led to the development of various phonics courses, such as the still popular Jolly Phonics in 1992. In some US states phonics became mandatory in 1996.
<strong>So why is teaching children to read and write English so controversial? Why is phonics not the generally agreed best teaching method like elsewhere?</strong>
One big difference between English and other writing systems is that English is less phonic. Even phonics evangelists admit that English spelling is more complex:
1) Nearly all English sounds can be spelt more than one way (too/to/two, you, blue, shoe, flew, through).
2) And unlike in any other language, English spellings can have more than one sound (an – any, apron; ear - early, heart).
Advocates of phonics make much of the importance of teaching the English alphabet code. In their view, the cause of literacy failure is teachers' insufficient grasp of it and poor teaching. But can a writing system that is not a reliable guide to pronunciation or to spelling really be said to have a teachable spelling code? The word 'code' usually means a system for a reliable way of working something out.
In English there is no reliable code that enables children to work out exactly how to pronounce words like 'bomb, comb' or 'tomb', without already knowing them, or without having some idea what they should be, from their context or even picture clues. Like foreigners learning English, they have to be taught how to pronounce such words. At least 2,000 quite common English words pose such reading difficulties (only, once, other; done, gone; good, flood...).
English spelling is not completely uncodified. Apart from th which is used for two sounds (this thing) and the short /oo/ sound which is spelt with letters which are more common for other sounds (wood, should, put, woman – mood, shoulder, cut, won), most English letters and letter strings have a teachable main sound, as in 'a fat cat sat', 'on hot spot' or 'shout, out, loud'.
Most of the 44 English sounds also have a main spelling, (or several main spellings which depend on their position in words, e.g. date, day). Only 13 sounds are spelt quite as unpredictably as /ee/ (eat, meat/meet, meter, field, caffeine, machine, key, ski, quay), with ea in 152 words, ee in 133, e-e in 86, ie in 31, ei in 15, i-e in 29 and a few rarer ones; or /er/ (term, twirl, turn, earn), with er in 71 common words, ur in 72, ir in 39 and ear in 11. But between them, the different irregularities make some spellings in at least 4,219 quite common words unpredictable and in need of word-by-word memorisation.
The above irregularities obviously make teaching children to read and write English much more complex than systems with completely reliable 1 : 1 spelling codes which can be set out on a single page, as in several European languages. They enable children to learn the relationships between sounds and letters more easily and much faster. They also make children far less dependent on adult help for learning to read and write. After minimal phonics instruction, they can improve their reading speed and spelling accuracy by themselves. When they have difficulty working out the pronunciation of a word, they can refer to a reliable small chart, rather than having to turn for help to an adult.
In English, many children keep being stumped by words like 'women', 'thought', 'through' over and over again. They need lots of practice with an adult sitting next to them, helping them access the right pronunciation. They cannot read them easily, until they have met them often enough and can recognise them instantly, as whole words. They are far less able to access words by themselves than with more regular spelling systems. That's why schools expect parents to listen to their children read every day when they first begin to learn. Children who do not get such help in English are hugely disadvantaged.
Phonics and synthetic phonics
Phonics evangelists argue that they can reduce the need for one to one help with reading by more detailed teaching of the English alphabet code - by teaching the main alternative pronunciations for spellings, in addition to the main one. For example, they teach not just the main sound for 'o-e' (home) but also 'u' and long 'oo' (come, move). When stuck on a word, children are encouraged to find the right sound by themselves by remembering the different options. But most pupils find this very difficult. They can read many of the words with tricky letters only after they have been repeatedly helped to decode them by an adult.
Many teachers would say that such teaching of reading is not really phonics at all. They regard it as merely exposing children to the tricky words often enough so that they can recognise them on sight. They agree that phonics is useful for helping children to understand that we use letters to represent speech sounds and also for teaching the more stable letter sounds as in 'keep, sleep, deep' or 'chat, chum, shop, shut'. They call the teaching of the main English spelling patterns 'phonics', but not the repetitive word-by-word practice which is needed for letters with irregular pronunciations.
To some extent the disagreements between phonics zealots and those who claim that teaching children to read and write English requires a mixture of methods is just a disagreement about terminology. Adherents of the 'nothing but phonics' view claim that English has 'an alphabet code' and call all teaching of reading and writing 'phonics'. Others think that English letter-to-sound relationships have too many irregularities to be called a 'code'.
Whatever the teaching approaches are called, English-speaking children need much more time and practice to become fluent readers and confident writers than elsewhere in Europe. The inconsistencies of English spelling make English literacy teaching much more difficult, time-consuming and controversial. They also make it difficult to find a teaching method that works equally well with all children, like phonics elsewhere.
Many of the arguments between teachers are simply the result of failing to take a closer look at English spelling. Some are perhaps even reluctant to admit that, as far as learning to read and write goes, the English spelling system is not as good as others. They may be worried that if they admitted this, they might help to open the door to reform and modernisation. Not many teachers are keen on that.
It is however quite impossible to have a sensible, dispassionate discussion about how best to teach English literacy without taking note of the vagaries of English spelling. The disputes about teaching methods are all about how best to teach the irregular English letter sounds and the irregular spellings for sounds. Nobody disagrees that teaching the main spellings and their sounds is phonics, or disputes the need for it.
Phonics advocates confuse others by using terms like 'code' and 'phonics' in ways in which they are not normally used. They also tend to claim that those who do not accept the 'nothing-but-phonics' view of literacy teaching use no phonics at all, that they teach children to recognise words as wholes, or to guess them from pictures, without any attention to any of the letters in them. Others would say that all the teaching of small groups of words with irregular sounds, like 'he, she, we, me, be', is merely teaching children to recognise them as wholes, rather than using phonics.
Learning to recognise words as wholes
The final aim of all teaching of reading is to enable pupils to recognise all common words by sight, instantly, as all fluent adult readers do. The 'nothing-but-phonics' brigade work towards this goal as much as others. It is achieved mainly by encountering words repeatedly, decoding those with simple spellings and accessing the others in a variety of ways.
In Finland and Estonia nearly all children can read fluently by the end of their first school term, simply because they never have to cope with decoding difficulties. To become a fluent reader of English takes longer than in all other alphabetically written languages, simply because many English letters and letter strings are used for more than one sound, such as the o in 'on - only, once, other' or o-e in 'home - come, gone, move'. They make it harder for children to access words which they have not seen before. They ensure that an English-speaking child of average ability takes roughly three years to become a moderately fluent reader. Many less common words, such as 'echo, marine, epitome' (cf. choke, define, syndrome), keep causing problems for many pupils for much longer.
With more consistent spelling systems, children are able to read all words after learning to decode a small number that contain all the sounds of their language. After quite minimal phonics instruction, they can decipher even quite unusual words without help from adults. They merely need to improve their reading speed and fluency. If Finnish children get stuck on a word, they can consult a simple, totally reliable one page chart which lists the 38 spellings for the 38 Finnish sounds. In English, even knowing all the different sounds which a single or spellings can have, does not immediately tell children which one is right for words they have not met before.
What learning to read English involves
English-speaking children start learning to read much like all others. They begin with learning the main sounds of English letters, with simple words like 'a cat sat' or 'ship, shop, shut', gradually progressing to the likes of 'main, rain, train', 'came, late, plate' and 'eight, weight'. And for as long as they are only asked to read words with spellings for which they have been taught the sounds already, most children make good progress.
Even at the most basic level, English-speaking children have to cover more ground when learning to read, because the 44 English sounds don't have just 44 spellings, but 205. Some of them are used in only a few words, such as '-ye' for the long /igh/ sound in 'bye, dye, rye', but 84, occur in large numbers of words.
A, a-e, ai, aigh, eigh, ay, ey (cat; plate, plain, straight, eight, play, they),
Air, are (hair, care); ar (car); au, augh, -aw (sauce, daughter, saw); b (bed);
C, ck, k (c/at/ot/ut, pick, kite/kept), Ch, -tch (chat, catch); d (dog);
E (end); ea, ee, e-e, ie, --y (eat, eel, even, believe, funny),
Er, ir, ur, (herb, girl, turn), F, G, H (fish, garden, house);
I, i-e, igh, -y (ink, bite, high, by); J, -dge, -ge (jug, bridge, oblige); L, M, N, ng (lips, man, nose, ring)
O, wa, qua, (pot, want, quarrel), O-e, oa, -o, ol (bone, boat, so; old), Oi, -oy (coin, toy),
Oo (food, good), Or, -oor, -ore, war, quar (order, more, wart, quarter), Ou, -ow (out, now);
P, Qu, R (pin, quick, run), S, -ce, -cy (sun, face, emergency); Sh, -ti-, -ci-, (shop, station, facial),
T, -te (tap, delicate), Th (this thing), U, u-e, -ue (up, cube, cue), V, -ve (van, have, river),
W, -x, Y- (window, fix, yes); Z, -se (zip, wise), -si-, -su- (vision, treasure)
-
consonant doubling for indicating short, stress vowesl
(adder, letter, litter, hotter, butter versus lady, legal, biting, coterie, cutie).
After learning the pronunciation of all the above, they have to learn to cope with alternatives like 'paid – said, weight – height, they – key' and so forth.
What complicates matters even more is that many of the most used English words have irregular pronunciation: an – any, go – to, here – there. They make the early stage of English literacy teaching even trickier.
Children cannot read much outside the classroom until they have learned to read those, but most phonics courses for beginners nowadays delay the introduction of words with irregular pronunciations, with specially written texts and booklets which avoid them. This means that even after several months of learning to read children are unable to readquite simple stories which are not written specifically for teaching phonics. In other languages children can start reading anything after just a few lessons.
Many English letters and spellings have no irregular pronunciations (e.g. ee: see, steep, steeple), or have them merely in a few words, like 'ai' in 'said, plaid, plait'.
The spellings that cause most decoding difficulties are:
ea (treat – threat, great, react),
ei (veil – ceiling, height, heifer),
ie (field – friend, died, diet),
o (on – only, once, other),
o-e (bone – done, move, women),
ou (sound – soup, couple, should),
oo (boot - foot, flood, brooch),
ow (down - blown),
u (cut - put, truth),
ui (build - juice, ruin),
ch (chat - ache, machine),
g (get - gentle)
-se (ease - grease),
redundant -e endings (delicate - cf. locate),
undoubled consonants after short, stressed vowels (e.g. hideous - cf. hidden, hide)
and needlessly doubled consonants (arise – arrive – cf. arrow).
The last three make nonsense of the English method for showing long and short stressed vowels, as in:
Tennis, surprise – promise; hide, hidden – hideous; bone, bonnet – connect.
I wish i could explain it more briefly or better.
Perhaps u can?