Appalling reading advice for parents and TAs

[Feenie]

This document is being flagged up in lots of the teaching pages i've liked on Facebook:

literacyforpleasure.wordpress.com/ta-guide-to-listening-to-reading-making-comments/

It's terrible, full of recommendations to encourage children to guess. Really depressed at the number of teachers tagging others to flag it as 'useful'. It really, really isn't.

If you're starting as a reading volunteer in September, I hope you're not given anything like this. Any advice encouraging children to guess words is really poor and awful practice.

If a child is 'stuck', encourage them to look at the sounds and blend - or if they're really stuck, give them the word and come back to it later. Feedback to the teacher on the sound they couldn't recognise is fabulous.

And thank you for volunteering in the first place - your help is invaluable and much appreciated.

I knew I'd seen that web page in Feenie's link before. Couldn't put my finger on where. It was the phonics as a backup strategy blog. There are quite a lot of basic inaccuracies there. I'm not sure you know the 'pro-phonics' argument as well as you think you do.

Ok, so phonics is king, scientifically. That doesn't mean there is no role for using prediction (guessing) well to increase engagement with the meaning of a text. My son is very easily distracted so I am including "guessing" in my reading teaching to help keep the pace up, and keep him focused. BUT I am explicitly teaching him to make a prediction and then check whether blending shows it to be true it becomes a discussion about how the wrong word would change meaning, synonyms, antonyms, all sorts. He has a thorough grounding in phonics, but finds it boring. For his goldfish brain, checking whether the word is the one he predicted keeps him focused and hopefully this is teaching him the importance of accuracy too. We use pictures too - predicting 2 different options and then reading to see which is the author's choice. It is possible to employ a range of strategies at the same time as reinforcing accuracy and practising blending. Banging on about phonics may be scientific, but without a wider application, it can be soul-less.

(missing full stop after "true"... I knew I'd deleted something but couldn't spot where!)

Gentleness I think that is well said (at 11:40 at night!) and seems completely reasonable too.

Unfortunately Gentleness the evidence doesn't support your view

"It is my believe that reading is about bringing meaning to a text and using that meaning to get meaning from the text."

I'm sure we all share that view. However meaning is compromised unless we accurately read what the author wrote. If we substitute words we think^^ might fit or we omit words we can't read or don't understand then meaning is changed and lost.

Teaching or encouraging poor strategies can be detrimental to many beginner readers and I'm sure you agree every child has the right to learn to read.

Following this thread carefully. A few questions Mrz. Of course l know phonics are vital but we never learned phonics years ago and l was a completely fluent reader after one year in primary. How did this happen? My dh was looking at something l was doing with phonics and he said l never ever knew any of that. I never use that to read any word. He is in a professional job educated to post graduate level. For years people learnt to read brilliantly without any knowledge of phonics so there has to be other skills being used too.
My df left school when he was 13. He was a complete bookworm reading history and biographies after a busy day working. He never would have encountered phonics.
All of the above including myself were avid readers from day one. We guessed words skipped over them everything just to get the story. Forcing a child to decode every word when they are reading for fun and pleasure is soul destroying.
I taught my dd to read long before she went to school using sight words only for things in her environment. We did it for fun as she begged me. She was reading whole novels by 6 and because of that never had a phonic lesson Iin her life as was allowed to skip on as would have gone mad with boredom. How is she such an accurate reader? Her reading for pleasure knows no bounds.
There is far more to reading than decoding and the danger is children will never know the pure pleasure of the story without being held up to correct an inaccuracy. Like others above l would allow a child plough on if. their mistake didn't take from the story.
I have taught a lot of children to read. Regular / gifted/ dyslexic/ autistic / children from the travelling community / speech and language difficulties etc. I have had great success over the years with seemingly " impossible " readers so lm very interested in the whole discussion.

One thing to add is that in my experience the whole relationship between learner and teacher plays a vital part and. If someone had been holding me up on every word to make sure l got it right l would have grown to hate and dread them. This is especially true for parents reading with children at home. Being relaxed helps the reader so any pressure freezes the brain and hinders success.

Mrz and Feenie- I'd welcome your view on teaching children who cannot hear or speak (or both) to read.
How does phonics work if you cannot blend?

Of course l know phonics are vital but we never learned phonics years ago and l was a completely fluent reader after one year in primary.

How many children in your class struggled with reading?
I was reading at a very young age (long before I started school) without anyone teaching me. Am I typical? Are you typical? Which children will find learning to read easy and which ones will struggle?

Those of us who found learning to read easy managed to work out the relationship between those funny marks on the page and the sounds they represent. Furthermore we managed to workout that we could transfer that knowledge to other words to extend our reading vocabulary. We didn't need to memorise thousands of words as whole ...but many children struggled to see that relationship and as a result had a reading vocabulary of only hundreds of words. The difficulty we have as parents and teachers is that until a child is floundering we can't tell who will work it out and who won't, so it makes sense to teach all children that very basic but essential knowledge before they fail.

Phonics was the method used to teach reading and writing for hundreds of years long before Frank Smith and Ken Goodman theorised that reading like speaking was natural (it isn't, it's a man made system) and that children would learn to read by osmosis if we only expose them to enough books ...guess what it didn't work for millions! So when you say we never learned phonics years ago I'm afraid that isn't true. Whole word, Look and Say, multi cuing are all recent and relatively very short lived methods of instruction.

Ask yourself what strategy do you use when you encounter an unfamiliar word ...no pictures? Context is great for working out the meaning of new words but not that effective for accurately reading words in texts? So how do you work it out?

When you read to your child I assume you can read Gruffalo? Not a word you've learnt because it's one if those controversial pseudo words ...can you read Where the Bugaboo lives to your child or will you be unable to read Bugaboo because it's not a real word and you've not learnt it? Would you struggle to read Quidditch or muggle or horcrux or hobbit ... How do you do it?

My experience is quite the contrary of phonics being soul destroying and all that. It means they can read a book independently instead of needing to get help every other word. That's when reading for pleasure really takes off. My non sounding out readers in year 1 don't whizz through the book with enjoyment. They can't even make out a sentence once the book level stops being guessable.

I hope teachers are looking to nurture their students in an environment that convinces them they might want to read a book. I’ve seen too many proficient decoders, children who perform extremely well on standardised tests but are never willingly pick up a book.

Lit4pleasure you are making an assumption there that teachers tend to teach either strong phonics skills or a love of books. They are not mutually exclusive. In my experience the children who learn early on to rely on phonics quickly come to see that they can tackle more and more texts and become enthused by reading. In my Y2 class I insist on accurate phonics based decoding, but I'd love to see you ask the children and parents whether they enjoy reading books!

Another point, a few people have said that they skip words and infer from the context etc. I used to do this. I wasn't explicitly taught phonics skills (not much beyond 'c for cat' anyway) and yes, I learned to read and I had good understanding. I was one of the lucky ones. But even so, I made plenty of errors. I didn't bother to sound out words like 'eligible' and 'illegible' so although I recognized them and their meaning, I couldn't say them correctly and mixed them up in conversation. I didn't sound out the characters' names or place names, again meaning that it was hard to transfer my word recognition into conversation. It is possible to learn to read without full, explicit phonics teaching, but it doesn't work for everyone and it does cause problems. 'It worked for me' doesn't mean we should continue with it.

Namechange obviously it's more difficult for children with hearing difficulties and learning to read can take much longer. It often helps to find a quite space and sit facing the child so they can see your mouth when you say the sounds /words clearly (almost over articulating the sounds). I've found focusing on spelling helps with reading (I've seen it work with non verbal children with hearing difficulties.
The Scottish Sensory Centre run courses for teaching deaf children phonics and their resources link sounds to signs and mouth shape

I found this from lit4pleasure. It is a brilliant explanation of the fact that current focus on phonics is altering our (children's and teachers' ) perceptions of what reading actually is.

literacyforpleasure.wordpress.com/2016/07/07/why-children-should-be-encouraged-to-only-ever-use-phonics-as-a-back-up-strategy/

More and more children are now coming through who can 'decode' very well, but have no notion that they should think about the meaning of what they decode, it's phrases, sentences, the whole book.
These children who can decode without understanding are on course to replace those we've had in past years, who could make some sense of their books but didn't decode accurately enough to read fluently.
Children who can decode accurately enough (and this does not mean 100% - try getting a friend to hear you read and tally every time you make a mistake, there will be some) plus understand well what they are reading, are using the three aspects of reading, together. It is a mistake to think otherwise. Children bring far more to reading than a mere simplistic response to whatever aspect we ask them to focus on at any particular moment. We need to understand this, and trust them.

I would also look into the motivations of people on here who are rude and insulting about what lit4pleasure is saying? How many of them are commercial phonics scheme salespeople or their supporters?

Brilliant ...total fiction.

I've posted the Scarborough reading diagram on another forum in response to literacyforpleasure's nonsense. Phonics isn't taught in a vacuum. It's a great criticism designed to discredit phonics but has no grounding in reality.
If you can decode the words and they are in your receptive vocabulary you will understand what you've read. If the words aren't in your receptive vocabulary you won't understand even if someone else reads the words.

"How many of them are commercial phonics scheme salespeople or their supporters?"

Not a single one! Another theory that doesn't hold water

My children have both "guessed" the word from looking at the context. It seemed to come naturally to them to do that.

Predicting and guessing are two.different things. Please help.them to read the word to check.if their prediction was right!

junebirthdaygirl, my ds learned to read before school, he is one of the lucky ones that managed to figure out how to read without phonics.
Yet he enjoyed learning phonics at school, and it helped him to have secure basic skill to decode any word.

He is a big fan of computer games, and they give you most complex names you can imagine, but he can read/pronounce them easily.

Also I was watching him learning French online, he pronounce the word French way, then when he type the word, he was actually segmenting phonics way to get the correct spelling.

Phonics learning for him was never dull/soul-destroying. It was really valuable.And made him great speller as well.

I would also look into the motivations of people on here who are rude and insulting about what lit4pleasure is saying? How many of them are commercial phonics scheme salespeople or their supporters?

What an interesting first post, user1472625800. And you just happened upon this thread and the nonsense blog, you say? Gosh Your accusation is both v silly and way of mark, btw - we're all teachers. I'd put money on you being the other 'co-author'.

Yes, mrz the Scarborough model is very nice isn't it.
I think you'll find that the 'guessing' you are so dismissive of comes in the
'language structures syntax, semantics etc' thread, under 'language comprehension'.

Lit4pleasure's guidance and understanding of what reading is includes all the threads.

It actually isn't. The whole blog post is based on a false premise. One that is old and has been debunked many, many times. A cursory attempt at googling before writing would have helped here. Consequently many of the points further down the thread become invalid.

There are basic errors in the understanding of phonics and what it is used for, that are understandable in someone with little training, but not great in someone positioning themselves as an expert in the topic. The entire phonic rules section is a problem, not least because modern phonics teaching doesn't use rules. I doubt that any of those 'rules' could be found in letters and sounds which is used by most schools. A couple are found in jolly phonics, which was published 20-30 years ago and you do still see quoted but they are definitely in a minority as phonics has moved on since then.

The 2007 study into enjoyment of reading is not a good one to support the idea of phonics teaching reducing the enjoyment of reading. The introduction of phonic only as a strategy was in Sept 2006. The children in that survey would have been taught to read under the old mixed methods/multicuing strategy you are suggesting. However, it isn't possible to draw any conclusions at all about causes of the decline of reading enjoyment from that type of study.

I also think that John Taylor Gatto, may be surprised by his own viewpoint, given how selectively he' been quoted in this thread and that blog. I'm not sure whether it's deliberate or accidental, although it is funny from someone who seems to be pushing the meaning and context of text over reading accurately.

I am sure guessing doesn't make you a good reader.
My ds is learning my native language, which isn't alphabetical.
I noticed him guessing some word from the starting sound. It won't make him a good reader if he carries on doing it. I always ask him to decode properly and he succeeds.
It is very hard, but he wants to learn it because he wants to read my books in my language. Doesn't put him off reading at all.

I read the blog and I don't agree with it.

I came to the bit about the postman putting a l_ through the door. What if it actually said "leaflet"? If the person reading it guesses "letter" are they close enough because that's one option? It's not "reading" to guess from the first letter and the context. My DD does this sometimes - she "reads" the word she's expecting based on the story. Sometimes it's close to what is actually there and sometimes it completely changes the meaning of the text. I stop her and make her go back and she can be completely surprised by what it really says. Guessing might be enough to get her by in some cases but it's not a good strategy.

I think you'll find that the 'guessing' you are so dismissive of comes in the
'language structures syntax, semantics etc' thread, under 'language comprehension'.

I think you'll find it doesn't. The strategies described by the link in the OP and written by lit4pleasure use syntax and semantic clues under the deoding strand. It's a very different thing to the skill listed under the comprehension strand although easily confused. One is an important skill for reading, the other a bad habit in poor readers that should never be taught, which is why it doesn't appear in that diagram.