Over-reliance on phonics leading to poor spelling in Y3 & 4?

[pickledsiblings]

How do you mitigate against this? Lots of reading?

Is a whole word approach to spelling in these years for these children the right thing to do?

One of the authors also contributed to this research www.iier.org.au/qjer/qjer14/fletcher-flinn.html

After basic phonics, with regularly spelt words of the 'a cat sat' kind, learning to spell English is mainly a matter of learning if a word looks right'.
Some children manage to do so mainly with lots of reading, but most simply have to work at it by learning, over and over again, from their mistakes.
It is easy to group words according to their spellings for teaching purposes - food, mood, brood - lose, move, prove - group, soup, youth - brute, flute, truce - but picking the right alternative in independent writing is a very different matter.
Children have to learn
a) if a word uses the main pattern, e.g. - cool, fool, moon, soon, spoon ..
b) and for those which don't, which spelling is right:
shrewd, rude, bruise, truth....

Phonics works quite well with consonants, but with vowels much less so.

I have to say, my eldests (yr2) spelling is blooming shocking because everything is spelt phonetically.
I raised it with the teacher, she said they are now starting to relearn words to correct the spellings.
She said this continues through into yr3/4.

That's bonkers! Teach correct way from the beginning its more difficult to correct later really shows poor understanding of phonics teaching.
Decoding for reading and encoding for spelling are two sides of same coin and should be taught together

NicoleWatterson, that sound totally wrong!!!

I have to admit, It sounds ridiculous to me to have to relearn something when you've been taught the 'wrong' way.

Absolutely wrong! The more you write a spelling wrongly the more the muscle memory of the wrong spelling is strengthened and the more difficult it is to correct. I suspect that many teachers just don't understand what a large part muscle memory plays in spelling.

Phonetic spelling is acceptable while children are learning the full range of letter/sound correspondences but really should be corrected as soon as possible.

Please would someone be so kind as to critique this response to the head of our learning and achievement committee regarding our most recent phonics results?

To clarify, the 'downward trend' comment was made with specific reference to our EYFS profile data (% GLD) and the related phonics screening check data (% pass) for 2014 and 2015

61% GLD in 2013 >> 77% pass 2014 (difference = +16%) [SEN = 6]
80% GLD in 2014 >> 75% pass 2015 (difference = -5%) [SEN = 3]

This is the 'downward trend' to which I was referring (although with only two years data it is arguable whether or not it can actually be referred to as a trend). This raises the question: "If our 2015 phonics cohort had a stronger GLD profile than the 2014 cohort, why are their phonics check results lower?" This is a fair question to ask and whilst you have not necessarily answered that particular query in this email you have done a very good job of highlighting the lack of any particular trend for specific cohorts. You are right to point out that with a very small data set there is not much that can be gained by analysing specific trends within cohorts.

X reassured me during the meeting by reminding me that individual children at risk of not passing the phonics check are identified early and interventions are put in place. My next question then is: "Are we as governors confident that these interventions are being applied effectively?" i.e. are all children making a good level of progress in their phonics learning or is there anything more that can be done to ensure that more children reach the government's expected standard in phonics by the end of year 1? X has previously reassured me that we have great success with our interventions so I'm expecting the answer to this question to be yes. So then my question becomes is there anything else that the school could be doing in respect of phonics provision? Do we have enough resources to support phonics strategies eg fully decodable books etc.? I have asked this question on a number of occasions and been told that the school is doing all that it can.

I suppose that we just have to accept that despite our best efforts, 3 or 4 children each year fail to reach the government's expected standard in phonics at our outstanding school. I feel that it is worth mentioning that my aspirations are not for all children to get 40/40, I am 'just' expecting them to pass. Failing the phonics check at the end of Y1 means that after 2 years in full time education (this is not the case nationally as other schools still phase in attendance in YR) a significant proportion of our pupils (>10%) are unable to read 32 (or thereabouts) out of 40 words correctly. Those children with very specific difficulties related to reading would not be expected to pass the check. To my knowledge we have only had one such child in the last 4 years.

mrz or anyone else, are my expectations of the school too high? Am I being unfair in expecting more?

I only worked in KS3, but you must, by now, be aware that I have a great deal of interest in the teaching of reading in EY & Primary and that I follow developments quite closely. So this is just my personal opinion.

75%/77% sounds poor to me even though it is around the national average. I know of schools in deprived areas which are consistently getting over 90%. But, I do realise that figures can be skewed by a very small cohort, where 1 child can equal a lot of percentage points. You don't say how many children in the cohort. Also, individual school results are not made public, so one only gets to hear about a school's results if the school is happy to disclose them.

Your HT sounds, from the 'overreliance on phonics' comment as though s/he is not particularly convinced by rigorous phonics instruction and perhaps this is reflected in the way it is taught in the school. Their 'interventions' don't appear to be as succesful as they would have you believe but, of course, as a governor, you cannot be suggesting alternatives.

I think that perhaps the only option you may have is to float the idea of further phonics training for the staff. Even here there is a problem in that the very best training will be given by 'commercial' providers as they are usually phonics experts, who set up in the days when phonics was marginalised; they really know their stuff. LA training is a cheap option but LA trainers have often been trained on the old NLS 'mixed methods' strategy and don't themselves have a very good understanding of the principles and practice of SSP. (Apologies if I'm maligning any LA trainers on here..)

maizieD thank you for sharing your opinion. The cohort size ranges from 22-25 and like I say, 3 or 4 fail to pass each year.

The HT is v. accepting that a few children will fail due to things like 'a lack of maturity' or a child might be on an IEP or have weak skills in other areas. However we don't tend to have DC on p-scales.

Luckily when phonics became compulsory we had an NQT in place in YR who appeared to have been well trained. That teacher is still at the school and in theory should be doing a better job now than then (+4 years experience).

I'll have a look back through the training record but iirc there has been ongoing training for phonics (although possibly for TAs).

Your YR teacher might be superb at phonics instruction but what about Y1? Unless there is a uniform strategy across the year groups which is monitored teachers can more or less do what they like to teach reading. Though the new NC 'should' make it a bit more consistent.

I, personally, think that 3 or 4 out of 20 - 25 is still too many. If they're not on P scales they shouldn't really have a problem; associating sound with symbol is a very lower order skill. Immaturity isn't really much of an excuse, either.

Best of luck!

The thing about training is that it is often done by LAs, and in many cases it's the same people that were providing mixed methods training. It's possible they won't have had much more knowledge than the staff they were trying to train.

I would ignore the national average for the check. It's artificially low imo. I would think 90%+ would be a reasonable aim. Perhaps lower if you often have children joining part way through yr1 with poor knowledge. 95%+ would be a challenging target but achievable with some work.

I don't buy the maturity thing either. I thought the reason for it being at the end of yr 1 was so that wasn't an issue or at least was less of an issue.

What would happen if you drew their attention to specific schools that are achieving better results and suggested that the literacy coordinator pay them a visit?

I'd wondered about that, too, kesstrel. Hard to say if they'd think it a good idea or be miffed at the implication that they're not very good..And hasn't pickledsiblings said somewhere that it is an 'outstanding' school'? Perhaps they'd think they've nothing to learn from others

It's a good idea.

You'd have to do a bit of research to find out which ones have the good results because they aren't published. But I doubt that ones with the best results have too much of an issue with sharing them.

Thanks for the reassurance maizie.

I have mentioned before that other schools do better (based on what I've read on MN) and it has been hinted at by the HT and another senior teacher that they probably cheat at those schools.

Is it unusual for the HT to do the check? I'd have thought that the regular class teacher would be the best person to do it.

Phonics sounds like a good idea for very early reading but why on earth teach fake words and spellings. It sounds like a rather odd teachig method.
I have no expertise at all in this but I would be very interested how phonics itself came to be a formalised teaching method. Some of it sounds rather out there and unhelpful.
And as other posters have said if it is only useful if taught in a certain way then it is open to real problems.

We'd see things like hate spelt like hait - not flagged up to the child at all

I did meant seen in school work and not marked or indicated to the child it was wrong - we've always corrected at home when they write but the bulk of their writing still happens in school - or did at that time.

Had similar response to NicoleWatterson in year 2 - though no actual teaching of spelling seemed to occured in yr3 or beyond bar the spelling lists being sent home.

Anyway good luck pickledsiblings as parent we got no where with the school but really hope as a governor you do.

mean not meant.

Kennington - if you read the links I posted you's see phonics is the oldest method of teaching to read - whole word came in 1950s, 60, 70 and was seen as a more modern approach though actual research backs good phonics teaching as being better method.

Teaching wrong spelling - is more a sign that phonics teaching is not being done particularly well.

Kennington, phonics doesn't involve teaching fake words and spellings. Fake words are used to TEST how much phonics children know. This is because you can't learn a fake word "by sight" from previous exposure, so the results of the test are more accurate.

The vast majority of primary school teachers have had little or no training in phonics. This has led to some of them believing that teaching fake words is somehow helpful.

It's really no different to teaching any other subject not very well. If I left huge parts of the maths curriculum out it wouldn't be that useful either.

Phonics isn't a 'method' as such. It's just the body of knowledge that children need to know in order to be able to read and write properly.

I'd agree that teaching children to read and write fake words is a rather odd strategy. Although probably not for the same reasons.

it has been hinted at by the HT and another senior teacher that they probably cheat at those schools.

Well, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility but it's not universally true. Some schools just teach phonics well. More excuses from the HT, I fear.

Sorry if I've sounded a bit depressing, pickledsiblings. I just thought it's as well to be aware of how the school might react to your suggestions.

maizie I have been raising my concerns about our phonics results for the last 3 years but this year is the first year that we have fallen below national despite v. good GLD results the year before.

As I said I will be observing some phonics sessions. Any tips on what specifically I should look out for?

I know when the phonics check was introduced the way of teaching phonics at the school had to change so that the children were ready for the check. A previous teacher told me that they were teaching phonics prior to this but at a much slower rate.

As an aside, we have a child at the school with APD who was diagnosed at the end of Y3 (parents got GOSH involved). The HT still seems to think he has some sort of hearing problem. To me as a governor, this DC was always mentioned with 3 or 4 others in the same class who struggled with phonics and were having a small group intervention. The intervention did not help any of them to pass the check the first time although they all passed the second time.