Question about Phonics

[Hobsandpeanuts]

Hi,

Couldn't find a Phonics forum on the board, so I apologise if this is in the wrong place.

I have a question about letter names and Phonics. I am currently teaching my DS the letters. He knows the ABC song in part and recognises some of the letters. For example when he sees a 'S' he calls it by it's proper letter name.

So when you are trying to teach your children the letters do you say 'This is S and it makes a sss sound?'

Or do you point to the letter 'S' and just say 'This is ssss'.

Not sure I've explained that clearly enough?

Bit worried reading this thread.

I have a 3yo who knows the alphabet letter names traditionally. I've not gone near phonics as didn't want to get it wrong and thought it best to leave it to the teachers.

She is very keen on letters, can read quite a few words and often notices when words she doesn't know are similar to those she does - eg she'll see the word peppermint and say that's similar to Peppa Pig etc.

Is it going to be a problem that she doesn't know phonics but is starting to read?

Also she likes typing on my phone and asks me how to spell things so obviously I have been telling her the normal letter names. Is this wrong?!

(He doesn't know which way around b and d go, though, that's the tricky one to do without drawing it out).

If you start both letters on the line there's no problem; 'd' starts with its 'ball' and 'b' starts with its ascender (upright line). It's when they are both started at the top with the ascender that children get confused; they get to the bottom and can't remember which way to go.

As you should always write letters from left to right I don't understand why children are sometimes even positively taught to start at the top of the ascender because for a 'd' you then have to go back R to L, which messes up the L to R 'flow'. Then children get confused and before you know it someone is muttering 'dyslexia' because confusing letters is (erroneously) seen as a sign of dyslexia ['aarrggh'! emoticon]

Possibly. I say this because there is a child in my class who is very able and started to read way before she started school, but not with phonics. She find phonics very hard now and she actually gets a bit anxious about it sometimes.

Perhaps when she compares words like that you could say 'yes, ppp for Peppa Pig' so she is hearing it?

Check out this Youtube clip to hear all the
sounds:

Its the most helpful thing you can watch in regards to phonics!

Sorry, that was for WD41

Is it going to be a problem that she doesn't know phonics but is starting to read?

It's impossible to tell until she starts learning to read with phonics, and, more importantly, to write because that's where letter names get confused with the sounds the letters 'spell'. That's when you get spellings like 'thn' and 'cr' (think about them...)

I'd suggest getting started with some phonics in case she gets totally the wrong idea.

I'm assuming that she is currently memorising whole words?

Thanks, I'll watch the clip and try and familiarise myself.

The word recognition can be quite subtle - eg she commented that Clearance was similar to Florence - so not sure how I would approach that from a phonics point of view. It's the overall patterns of letters she's seeing

We're on the same wavelength, cremedecacao

Get a Jolly Phonics Handbook or have a look at the Phonics International website ( www.phonicsinternational.com ) Lots of help there on how to get started.

there is a child in my class who is very able and started to read way before she started school, but not with phonics. She find phonics very hard now and she actually gets a bit anxious about it sometimes.

I find it incredibly sad that instead of making parents and teachers more confident about helping their children with learning to read and write it has left many nervous and confused.

It really does not matter whether children first learn to call letters just by their sounds and learn the traditional names of the 26 letters as well.

The root problems is that all letters used for spelling the 19 English vowels, apart from ee, have more than one sound:
an, any, apron - even, ever - finish, find - on, only, once, other - up, use, busy -

sound, soup, double, boot, foot, laid, said, plaid, field, friend, pie ...

That's why letter names are quite useful when telling your child how spell a word, but it could work just as well if we all referred to a, e, i, o, u by their short sound (at, egg, in, on, up).

But however much u try shield your children from confusion, there will be times when they find either reading or writing difficult - because of the irregular way English is spelt.

Letters don't have sounds ??

Ah thanks maizie, will have to do more letter writing practice with him, he's not so keen on that part.

From the final report 'Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading' by Jim Rose, 2006:

Teaching letter names
79. The teaching of letter names is often left until after the sounds of letters have been learned, in the belief that it can be confusing for children to have to learn both together. However, research indicates that children often learn letter names earlier than they learn letter sounds and that five year olds who know more letter names also know more letter sounds. The reasons for this are not fully understood by researchers.
80. Given that children will meet many instances outside, as well as within, their settings and schools where letter names are used, it makes sense to teach them within the programme of early phonic work.
81. It appears that the distinction between a letter name and a letter sound is easily understood by the majority of children. Professor Morag Stuart has observed that it seems:
... sensible to teach both names and sounds of letters. Names may be
easier to learn because, being syllables rather than phonemes, they are more perceptible, and also because children expect things to have names and are accustomed to rapidly acquiring the names of things.

The authors of the Clackmannanshire study, which is mentioned positively by Rose, write 'it is logical to teach both letter names and letter sounds together' and that 'In our studies, the letters of the alphabet were initially taught through an alphabet song where the children learnt to associate the letter names with upper and lower case magnetic letters in alphabetic order.'

I don't know whach research Rose is referring to in the first quoted paragraph; it may well be the predominately US research which found that knowledge of letter names was one of the apparent predictors of success in learning to read. It is as well to note that US research was carried out on children who were mostly taught to read by Whole Word/Look & Say methods, which have a high failure rate. (And, from what I understand, those methods still predominate in the US) So, although there is an observed correlation, correlation is not causation; the result may well be due to other influences, such as a literacy rich home environment, parental teaching of phonics pre-school or just children who learn easily and are able to intuit the alphabetic code for themselves.

From what I have read of US teaching methods, where letter names are actively taught, it does not appear that this improves the success rate. However, there may well be studies which I don't know of in which groups taught letter names are compared with groups not taught letter names. I'll have to do a bit of googling!

Personally I think it best to err on the side of caution; to not make unnecessary cognitive demands of children learning to read and to eradicate possible causes of muddlement. But maybe I'm biased because my work was exclusively with the 'muddled' children.

Well, how interesting. I googled 'letter names & learning to read' and the very first paper I found was this:

The Effect of Letter-Name Knowledge on Learning to Read
S. Jay Samuels
American Educational Research Journal
Vol. 9, No. 1 (Winter, 1972), pp. 65-74

His conclusion: Task analysis would suggest that it is not letter-name, but letter-sound training which is useful in facilitating the reading acquisition process

Which doesn't say that teaching letter names is harmful, but it certainly suggests it is not useful for learning to read.
(can't post a useful link as I got it from an institutional access)

Oh, found a link: tinyurl.com/p8ayd2b

I think it is possibly a case of correlation not equalling causation. My guess would be that either those children that learnt letter names early were taught them by parents who also taught sounds and therefore had a head start over children who hadn't been taught either names or sounds or the skills required to match a letter name to a symbol are the same as those required to match a sound to a symbol so those that struggle with letter names also struggle with sounds.

Rose says the majority of children cope fine. I'm not sure anybody would disagree with that. But the job of a teacher is to teach all children to read, not just the majority, and it seems a little harsh to screw up the reading of the minority, when leaving linking letter names to letters until the end of reception won't hinder the other children at all.

The problem is not correlation, I believe that it is important that young children have some exposure to letter names.

Rafa, in my experience the children who are taught letter names by parents are the ones who HAVEN'T been taught any phonics.

The problem arises when children start trying to blend and spell using letter names, i.e "see...ay...tee" instead of "c...a...t". When encouraged to then try again using phonics, this can be disheartening. I know to be extra sensitive in these cases (the minority of children, to be fair) and to praise the fact they know letter names as well as reinforcing the sounds of the letters.

Possibly a difference of experience then. The few children we did have that had been taught some names did also know sounds. None of them had been taught to blend but even in yr 1 I've had some children that would intermittently attempt to blend using a combination of names and sounds.

Mind you the whole class had a lot of problems with phonics, so it could be that that specific problem wasn't caused by letter names at all.