A basic book on how children learn to read please

[Sleepymorningcuddles]

Hi, I'm delivering music instruction and trying (despite scarcity of time) to teach some pre-notation concepts (chord charts).

It's got me interested in how children convert squiggley symbols into silent sounds into meaning-I wondered if there is a succinct well written popular type book anyone could recommend that explains how we learn to read? It's to educate myself because of the environment I'm in. It doesn't need to be teacher-training material, just for general readers.

Thanks.

Thanks for that ukulele link sleepy! As chance would have it, DP has just acquired an ukulele and is thinking about teaching DS to play.

The Letters & Sounds programme doesn't talk about explicitly teach oral blending and segmenting before teaching GPCs. Phase 1 is NOT a prerequisite to the other phases but should run alongside.

"Phase One activities pave the way for children to make a good start in reading and writing and are designed to underpin and run alongside activities in other phases."

Where does it say that mrz? Do you have sekrit teachers' instructions?
I'm looking here:
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/190599/Letters_and_Sounds_-_DFES-00281-2007.pdf
and it's definitely talking about moving on from phase 1 to phase 2 e.g.:
" Children’s curiosity in letter shapes and written words should be
fostered throughout Phase One to help them make a smooth transition to Phase Two, when grapheme–phoneme correspondences are introduced. There is no requirement that children should have mastered all the skills in Phase One (e.g. the ability to supply a rhyming word) before beginning Phase Two."
"During Phase One, there is no expectation that children are introduced to letters (graphemes). "

But not everyone uses Letters & Sounds, catkind. Phase 1 is not a necessary stage in learning to read. No other SP programme does this and they teach children perfectly successfully.

TBH, catkind, you'd be better getting hold of a handbook for any of the good commercial SP programmes and quoting from that. Most of them were written by practising teachers and field tested before publication...Not so L & S.

The quote I posted is directly from the instructions to "practitioners" catkind ... To run alongside other phases

It seemed like a good example to use L&S as it does pretty much flesh out the EYFS goals, and is in fairly common use, but ignore that if you don't like it.

It just seems unfair to pour scorn on meita for suggesting learning to identify first letter sounds is in harmony with EYFS when it's actually an explicit EYFS 40-60 goal, as is what I assume to be oral segmenting and blending as it comes up before any mention of GPCs. Don't forget EYFS starts before reception!

In part I just like meita's description of the montessori approach as it rather neatly describes the way my kids have naturally learned. Toddlers just DO naturally learn to hear and identify first letters sounds first don't they? Am I living in some freaky alternative universe here?

We're talking pre-reading skills here I thought, not really SP programmes at all.

Why do you consider Letters & Sounds "fleshes out" EYFS? To do so it would need to be fleshed out itself ... It's a a very basic overview of phonics instruction ( not even complete) without resources or even consistent training available. Many schools use it simply because it us free ( often the same schools still sending home Look & Say reading books), many unaware there is additional guidance for practitioners and teachers.

There is a good reason why most phonics programmes don't contain the type of activities found in Phase 1 ... they aren't necessary for reading instruction. Phase 1 is not a prerequisite for learning to read. Unfortunately so many people are getting hung up on those stupid phases children are being left behind. They were never meant to be used that way ... but that's what happens when you expect people to follow an instruction manual that doesn't have clear instructions.

Aaargh forget I mentioned Letters and Sounds. Or read the EYFS preschool goals and compare to Letters and Sounds phase 1 yourself and perhaps you'll see what I mean, but you probably won't because I'm not a teacher therefore wrong by definition.

Of course it's not "necessary" to have children with awareness of individual sounds before you launch on Reception reading instruction. Some children start school never having been near an EYFS setting or had parents supporting this kind of activity at home, we don't expect you to abandon them to the wolves. But we were talking about the way EYFS does it, and EYFS does encourage this awareness. To say EYFS doesn't do it this way just because schools don't do it this way is not the whole truth.

Catkind I have taught EYFS and work closely with EYFS Phase 1 does nothing to "flesh out" anything that's why so many schools choose to to follow the programme.

And it has nothing whatsoever about being or not being a teacher

Aaargh forget I mentioned Letters and Sounds.

I'm sorry this is stressing you, catkind.

All mrz & I are trying to say is that Phase 1 is not essential.

And, to be honest, as many EYFS 'practitioners' do things like sending home lists of HFWs for children to 'learn', so completely subverting the phonics instruction mandatory in KS1, I have my doubts as to the over all validity of EYFS..

Soooo, let's get this clear. EYFS doesn't do what it says it does, L&S doesn't do what it says it does, and in any case both of them are rubbish.

Stressed? No, more amused.

maizie, I'm talking about pre school EYFS here. Do nurseries and childminders really send home word lists? I think many of them do talk about words beginning with "b" or "ssss" though, and that it's a natural stage children go through being able to hear and separate first sounds but not necessarily others. Perhaps every toddler I've met is a freak of nature. Statistically vanishingly unlikely though.

EYFS does exactly what it says as its a statutory curriculum catkind and it even manages to do it without any help from the non statutory Letters & Sounds

Yes some nurseries really do send home lists of sight words to be learnt

it's a natural stage children go through being able to hear and separate first sounds but not necessarily others.

It is and it isn't.

Children 'naturally' and unconsciously are able to discriminate phonemes in all positions in words when they learn to talk. If they couldn't they wouldn't be able to tell one word from another or be able to pronounce them correctly. However, it is an unconscious skill and one which dropped as isn't required once they have learned to talk. They have to consciously 'relearn' it when they learn to read. Some find it easier than others and even though it is done in EYFS and/or by parents it is not an essential pre-reading skill. It can be learned as the child learns to read.

I would be interested to know if it was part of EY education,say, 20 years ago? In the era before phonics was seen as an important part of reading instruction. Would you know, mrz?

Twenty years ago teachers in nursery and reception routinely had a letter of the week ( rather than sound) often they would have a table and children would bring objects from home that started with that letter (not necessarily with the sound so A might display apples and acorns and action man and an ark etc) in some settings things haven't changed much.

And of course reception teachers routinely sent home word boxes containing the words they needed to memorise before they could have a reading book.

Rhymes and alliteration, identifying first letters, all EYFS pre reception goals. That's direct from EYFS not from L&S or anything else. What's "essential" got to do with it? It's all a learning curve, it all builds up and gets reinforced over time. Failing to master any of the EYFS skills in nursery doesn't mean a child is doomed for life. It doesn't mean those skills aren't part of EYFS though. That's like saying learning to draw is not part of EYFS or not a pre-writing skill because DS learned it alongside learning to write in reception. Of course it is both. DS was just slow on that aspect.

Nursery rhymes, number rhymes, rhyming stories and tongue twisters have been around for centuries catkind

That doesn't mean they're not part of EYFS either. Point?

And YY, I remember letter of the week and word lists. It was rudimentary phonics in that we were taught to sound out c-a-t, not instructed to memorise it. But they didn't teach enough correspondences so we had to work out most of it for ourselves until it was taught much later for spelling.

It means they have been a staple of young children's experiences for years than EYFS has existed. Tell me did you never read your child rhyming stories or sing nursery rhymes before they went to school? It means that young children can usually meet the "target" without the need for direct teaching.