Year 1 Spelling and Phonics

[Royaldada]

In your experience is a good speller somebody who is also good in phonics

Reason I ask is because DD regularly gets 10/10 in her spelling tests spelling words like because, afterwards and thought quite comfortably however when it comes to phonics it seemed that she had trouble with blending and decoding words when it came to preparing for her screening test

Not sure.

My son is a good reader but really struggles with phonics and has just flunked his screening.
He only has a spelling bee (the only spelling tests he has done) once a term and doesn't do well and it's certainly an issue in his work he tends to learn better by repetition

betty If your son is a 'good reader' how does he read words he's not come across written before without phonics?
(i.e. how are you defining 'good reader'?)

OP is your DD a 'whole word' recogniser? So if she has seen a word before she can learn to read and spell it, even though she can't actually read 'new' words because she hasn't yet understood how you work out how to sound out words yourself rather than be told them?

Is she decoding the words to spell them, or just remembering the sequence of letters? If it is the latter then she would not have to be good at phonics to be a good speller.

DS is probably the reverse. He is incredibly good at phonics/word construction, and primarily uses this to spell words. Unfortunately he can get caught out by tricky or mis-pronounced words which means he isn't always a good speller (unless he makes an effort to check/learn the sequence of letters).

If it makes you feel better my dd can't spell any of those words. She is still on words like then, when, sail...and regularly only gets 2/4 right.

My ds is a good reader and good speller. I think he uses both word recognition(by reading a lot), and phonics knowledge. He remember some words as a whole, and some spell by segmenting. Once he break down words, he learns to spell instantly.
I think if she has good memory and can remember words as a whole, getting better at phonics makes her even better speller.

Please don't confuse achieving 10/10 in a spelling test with being a good speller. Many children regularly get top marks in tests but misspell the same words in independent writing.

I'm not sure. My Y1 DTSs are good at phonics and also good at spelling. Phonics has been used to teach spelling heavily in Y1, but I think most of it comes from reading a lot. My DS wrote 'ancient' correctly in a comic he made today...he's been reading about Ancient Egypt and I think it's just sunk in.

Teen and tween

He reads in context, he'll use Clues from pictures or recent text. He then adds these words to his memory bank. He had trouble with the phonics test because these words are not contextualised, there is no meaning to them.

So betty would he be able to tell between
'he has an eclectic set of interests'
'he has an eccentric set of interests'
'he has an electric set of interests'

If those words were in his vocabulary then yes he would.

He does have some phonics knowledge and understanding to help him but it is not his primary source of decoding a word.

There have been other issues within school, his health and home life that may have also attributed to his low score.

betty, what is your ds's primary source of decoding?
I ask because my ds learned to read without phonics. He watched TV, DVD, everything with subtitles from the start. He was actually seeing the words as it was heard. By the time I realized, he was able to read most of the words.(Or more like any words he encounters in books for primary aged children.)
And learning phonics really helped him to read more complex, unknown words later on.

betty
but what if they are not in his word bank, or only one of them is? Would he at least recognise it was a word he didn't know as opposed to substituting a similar looking word (but with wildly different meaning) he did know?
If he will misread words he doesn't know then that isn't good reading.
How will he read a new word, will he decode it, or does he rely on someone else to pronounce it for him?

He reads in context, he'll use Clues from pictures or recent text. He then adds these words to his memory bank. He had trouble with the phonics test because these words are not contextualised, there is no meaning to them

I'm afraid that's more a description of good guessing than good reading .

How would he read?

The milk has spilt.
The milk has split.

I'm afraid that's more a description of good guessing than good reading .

And a child who is good at phonics is just that; they are good at decoding. It doesn't equate to understanding what they are reading.

But your description of using picture clues isn't reading or decoding.

betty, Feenie and mrz are both great teachers. Please don't be so defensive and ask for advice. I would.

And I would amend your post to a child who is only good at phonics is only good at decoding - but why would that even happen? Phonics is never taught in isolation - and neither reading nor understanding is taught by letting children guess.

*How would he read?

The milk has spilt.
The milk has split*

I just showed him and he initially read both as spilt before realising they were slightly different and sounding out split. He then pondered on how milk could split as it's quite hard to split a liquid.... he hasn't come across the meaning of split milk before but knows very well of spilt milk!

I'm not dismissing the importance of phonics. I am just saying that at the moment it hasn't clicked for my Son and he will hopefully be receiving help for this which he needs especially for his written work. However barring the phonics check I was told, more than once, that he had reached the end of year one expectations for reading before Christmas.

Perhaps I have been duped by his teachers? I'm happy to accept I have. I have a meeting on Friday to discuss his result.

I don't think you've been duped by them. To me that implies they've been deliberately misleading you.

I think there's still a number of teachers that don't understand the 'simple view of reading' and think that some children don't need phonics so not passing is fine if they seem to be reading age appropriate texts fluently.

Pondering on and discussing the meaning of split milk is exactly the thing that he should be doing. It means that he can move towards learning new vocabulary from his reading. That's difficult to do if he's substituting guesses for any words he can't yet read.

Perhaps not so relevant to OP but a big best of mine - Spelling tests seem pretty pointless to me. My dyslexic children always get 10/10 on their tests as they spend a lot of time memorising them but ask them to spell the same word outside of the test and they cannot spell it at all.

Phonics possibly more useful than spelling tests so maybe concentrate on that OP.

Bug bear not big best!

My ds was amazing at spelling and even stopped bringing the lists home much to my frustration.
However, his phonics wasn't great and he was a beer average reader and has no interest in books now at 13 which saddens me as I'm such a bookworm.
He always said it was his photographic memory
He won an award for spelling every year and it astounded me.
I do believe there is a difference between the two.
About to go through year one with dd this September so will be interesting to see how that goes, same school and even same teacher but both dc have very different abilities.

Pls excuse typos, fat fingers here!
Very average reader not beer :)