Yr 1 report - informed me she failed phonics test.....

[sugarhoops]

But she was given expected and exceeding for all report areas and her main report gave no mention of failing the test (the phonics test result was on a separate piece of paper, included in her report pack).

I have to confess, I was a little alarmed at the fail in the phonics test (29/40). I've been told by the teacher at last parents eve a month ago that DD is in the top group for phonics, one of the top readers in the class and is excellent at literacy. I was surprised to see she failed the phonics test, but then was given expected and exceeding for all her report areas, with no mention of needing further phonics support.

Can you just have an off day? My Ds passed the test a few years back and was definitely further behind with reading and phonics compared to dd at this same stage of yr 1. I'm confused, and not sure what to do to support her so that she passes in yr2 retake.

I think even down the road a slower accurate reader is probably at an advantage over a reader who reads fast but makes errors. Obviously the end goal is a fluent and accurate reader but focusing on the fluency too early can lead to children who look like they are fluent on the surface but are making addition/deletion/substitution errors.

For most children the fluency/speed probably just develops on its own as they read more and practice their skills.

... as they can recognise more and more words instantly, on sight, without needing to resort to decoding.

How do you tell if they are decoding or not?

You could give them a text made up of nonsense words to force decoding, and then give them a comprehension test afterwards to ensure that they hadn't just skim read it.

????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Decoding words isn't something that anyone 'resorts to'.

That's as ridiculous as saying that mathematicians 'resort' to using their knowledge of times tables when working out complex equations.

It's the foundation, not a last resort.

U can't compare maths with learning to read and write English, because maths is about the logical application of systematic rules, whereas learning to read and write English involves much memorisation and brute learning by rote.

Many pupils who are outstanding at maths have problems with English for that reason.

And many people who are outstanding at English struggle with basic maths ...

Isn't it more like saying mathematicians resort to repeated addition if they can't remember a multiplication fact? The thing about knowing the phonics (or repeated addition) is you're not just memorising random facts and lost if you forget one, you have a framework to recalculate them. I think it is resort to, but that it's really good and important to have something to resort to.

Saying nothing about what the subconscious process of reading is, talking about conscious decoding here. Though would be very interested to know if the reading process for adults that learned by sight reading is ultimately different from those that learned by phonics.

In my experience, and on the whole, kids who are good at maths tend to be good at reading, because it's very much about pattern. Not so much other aspects of English like composition or writing.

My point about 'resorting to' is that using phonics/numerical knowledge isn't something you do if everything else fails.

It's what you do as a first (and can be only) strategy, albeit very quickly if you're absolutely secure and accomplished in your knowledge.

I wonder if some of the pupils who are outstanding at maths but struggle with English have been taught to remember whole words or that phonics aren't necessary once you have got the basics?

Likewise, struggling with maths is often due to poor, inflexible teaching that teaches children that it doesn't matter if you don't understand it, as long as you can do it (that's how I was taught in the '70s, although I'm rather good at maths, definitely despite not because of how I was taught).

I think one of the issues people have with phonics is that we all remember being taught to read without phonics at all. I was certainly taught by 'Look and Say' - and was a totally fluent reader before starting school. (My mum often cites that I had read Alice in Wonderland - the 'proper' version - when I was 3!!).

And I think the problem is that it is ENTIRELY possible for many people to learn to read this way - I think I absorbed the phonic stuff just by reading, in the same way that lots of children learn to read music by absorption. Certainly Alice in Wonderland is a book where you do need some phonic knowledge, because many of the words are nonsense words and won't have been encountered before.

I'm prepared to believe however that some children will be left behind by that strategy, and the current thinking is that phonics is a better catch-all, in which case it is better to focus on that in the classroom, rather than doing a mixture of methods, or chopping and changing.

But whilst people remember how they were taught, the phonics stuff can all seem a bit alien (!) .

"I think I absorbed the phonic stuff just by reading"

This is entirely possible. Explicitly teaching the code makes the process quicker in general, and means that fewer pupils struggle. Those are both worthwhile in themselves.

Problem with Whole Word teaching was that it was more than just 'some' children who were left behind. It was probably more like 50%. There were penty of children who 'got by' but who were not reading as effectivey as they should have been able to.

I can't remember how I was taught to read, it was so long ago, and phonics did seem very alien at first. But having used 'other methods' with struggling readers, which didn't work, the logic of phonics appealed to me; once I'd been using it for a while it all fell into place. And it worked far better

Wouldn't adults primarily using phonic decoding really struggle with scanning through large amounts of text e.g. when trying to find their page in a book or looking for a pertinent bit of info on a webpage?

No, because most adults can read instantaneously - they instantly decode.

Like an accomplished musician can instantly read a musical score and doesn't need to focus on every note.

But in that case it would be word recognition rather than decoding, wouldn't it?

I don't have a dog in this fight BTW, just interested.

I'm not an expert, but in the examples you give ie trying to find the correct page in a book or a pertinent bit of information on a website, you'd been looking for meaning as well as the actual words. Eg if you were looking for information about cats, the word 'feline' would catch your attention.

So I'm not sure if that's the best way to discuss the difference between phonic decoding and word recognition iyswim.

I can't source the research (although I'm sure someone on here can), but whole word recognition is only effective for a few thousand words. Then memory banks run out and children don't have strategies to decode unfamiliar words.

Fwiw, I was taught 'look and say' methods in the '70s, but I must have worked out the phonic codes because I quickly became a very fast and accurate reader. The current research suggests that this would have been more by accident than design.

I don't buy the 'it worked for me' argument, as I definitely remember children at primary and then secondary school who couldn't read confidently or well, and am glad that teaching phonics and early identification of children who aren't secure in their knowledge will mean that fewer children go through school and life thinking that they're 'thick' because of inadequate teaching.

Not blaming teachers btw, more the prevailing methodology of the times.

Well, yes, if you weren't taught to spell and were only allowed to access Look and Say words through a slit in the top of a sealed box, then, I'm sure, the magical 2,000 word limit of sight words would run out and you wouldn't be able to finish reading the Borrowers, for lack of vocabulary.

Luckily, that doesn't happen very often. Even sight readers learn that if you take the word ben and add another letter it can make a new word. It's called spelling.

But in that case it would be word recognition rather than decoding, wouldn't it?

It would be but it is word recognition as a result of decoding and blending a word sufficiently often to get it into long term memory. Some children only have to do it once, some need loads of repetitions but the result is the same.

It may seem to have the same end result* but there is a huge difference cognitively between 'learning' a word by decoding and blending and 'learning' it as a picture, or, 'whole'. The biggest mistake ever in the history of teaching of reading was the assumption that, because skilled readers 'appeared' to read words as 'wholes', children should learn to read them as 'wholes'. It just doesn't work that way.

Even though we appear to read words as 'wholes' the brain processes them by a bottom up process, letters > sounds > to words, albeit so fast we are not conscious of it. Well, that's what the neuroscientists say...

*It doesn't really even have the same end result because the people who end up a skilled readers are mostly those who have intuited the phonics by themselves so it is phonics that is producing good readers.

I'm not really arguing about the rights and wrongs of phonics, but I think it is unlikely that someone could 'use up' their memory bank with sight words without absorbing any phonic knowledge!!

I'm also a bit about the idea that there is a 'limit' on how may words can be learned that way - thinking about the vast amounts of music it is possible to memorise....but am no expert in memory.

All I was saying is that as a generation we learned to read differently to our kids, and that may be why lots of people are a bit sceptical about phonics.

(Just to add to that post, am not criticising phonics here, or saying we shouldn't use them, just musing on differences!).

And how do they know what letter to add, Dora?
"Oh, I'll need a /d/ sound on the end to make 'ben' into 'bend'; that'll be 'd' to add"
It's called phonics

I'm also a bit hmm about the idea that there is a 'limit' on how may words can be learned that way - thinking about the vast amounts of music it is possible to memorise....but am no expert in memory.

Chinese, which is a more 'logographic' writing system (though it has a phonietic element) has about 3,000 basic characters to memorise for day to day literacy requirements. It apparently takes many years to learn.

The English lexicon contains some 1,000,000 words apparently. There are about 250,000 in a standard dictionary. How many years to learn all of them?

I think memorising pieces of music is probably completely different. And the 'phonics' of music is very simple. What would the full range of notes cover on a stave? 28/35 positions to remember? Plus sharps/flats, note durations and tempi?