I fear that this discussion is going to go around in circles. Unfortunately, I feel some members are not reading my responses carefully and are misrepresenting my points. I don't know if this is deliberate or they are not reading for meaning.
I will just say that:
- I'm not advocating for phonics to be removed or not taught. I think it should be, absolutely.
- Children should be allowed to use their other skills while reading.
- Everything I have said is rooted in contemporary research and evidence which can be viewed by anyone who has a mind to. - goo.gl/9JvqGT
If anyone would like to get in touch directly, your'e welcome to email [email protected]
Thank you everyone for your time and some interesting responses.
I will leave you with my main post on here, which has points overlooked by some users.
From the off: I'm not and nor do I ever claim to be saying that phonics should be removed as a good method for reading unknown words, in fact it should and will be done by children regularly.
However, I am concerned by the philosophical view towards reading by some respondents. It is my believe that reading is about bringing meaning to a text and using that meaning to get meaning from the text. I truly believe that this is what makes reading such a wonderful activity.
This bringing of meaning can include their phonic knowledge, certainly. Children are also welcomed to bring their knowledge of the world, or other texts they've read and their sophisticated knowledge (from baby onwards) of how typical sentences are constructed - which Chomsky calls 'innate grammar'.
I guess my concern lies with the fact that children could grow up to believe that reading is very much related to just decoding. To just pronouncing words properly. I say this because if that's what they spend most of their early reading experiences doing, (let's not forget the phonic test places huge pressures on teachers to teach in such a way - I'm not blaming them though - its a tricky situation) However, children will have no choice but to come to this conclusion. Personally, I just find this a sad thought.
Reading really isn't a one way process. We aren't passive when we read. There is an exchange between writer and reading. Meaning is exchanged throughout. We bring our experiences and understandings and predictions to a text and we receive a lot in return too.
If we can remember that there is an exchange of meaning involved in reading then comprehension strategies like the ones I've just suggested, that other people say they have used with their children and use themselves, are perfectly legitimate.
We can't underestimate children. We shouldn't say that you're not able to read like I can because I'm an adult. Why hide our legitimate ways of reading from children who are looking to become readers just like us?
The fact is that within about half a second or less, children begin to forget some of the details of a sentence. Words take on specific meanings as they transact with one another on the page together – thus phonics, at times, due to its time consuming nature, can damage this process. Meaning is not in the text or words themselves but in the reader’s interpretations and of course phonics can make no contribution to this. So meaning emerges as a child engages with a whole text in context. – phonics can be a helpful friend to this process.
Phonics, when relied upon to much, can be an issue when dealing with single words which hold multiple meanings. Children need to use the other strategies I've spoken about the solve which option is the right one. Then of course you have many phonic rules which aren't rules. These words can be a nightmare for children if they rely heavily on phonics to aid their meaning-making process. There are a great many phonic rules which have more cases against the rule than for it - more than you would realise! (see my references at the bottom for details).
According to Frank Smith, reading makes you good at phonics, rather than phonics makes you good at reading. There is a lot to be said here. If we consider the amount of time children are away from books, learning phonic rules which are sometimes not always phonic rules. If they are spending time away from books too often, this can't be helpful to learning to read. Again, I'm not saying children should have no instruction in learning to read - of course they should. It just needs to be balanced (and there is evidence for this too - again, see below for link). I say this because we are seeing a steady decline in children reading for pleasure (NUT, 2016, The National Endowment Of The Arts, 2007). Some methods in school are turning children off reading.
In relation to the number of points made about education research and evidence. This is fine. I myself use a great deal of references to support my written piece about how children learn to read. However, laboratory study and observing narrow criteria won't always give us a holistic view of what goes on during reading, particularly over the long term. Reading is too complex to be regarded as 'habit-learning' alone. Children shouldn't be expected to progress from one decontextualised chunk to another until seen as competent. A behaviouristic approach to reading trivialises both language and learning. It is difficult to study meaningful learning under laboratory conditions. Unless you don't believe reading to be an exchange of meaning between reader and author, then you may well disagree at this point. In my view, children learn to read most when they are engaged in and observing activities which naturally involve the act of reading.
It’s important to remember too what Frank Smith articulates, which is: ‘in an evidence oriented enterprise, those who control the evidence-gathering, control the entire enterprise'. Presently, that would be major publishing houses (producing largely phonics material for schools) and the exam companies who received around £328m in the decade ending 2012. Respected Doctor of Language Reading, Ken Goodman states clearly that: ‘it’s a political campaign, tightly controlled, carefully manipulated, and [that] most of the players don’t even know they’re being used’.
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. This is because they have mastered an incomplete system, one they find lacking in marvel or mystery.
In conclusion, it is reasonable to conclude that phonetic cueing can act as an aid to reading. Meaning is the beginning and the end of reading, but the means as well. The fact children who have been exposed to a solely phonics approach learn to read does not necessarily mean that they learned to read because of the approach, though people unaware of the nature of the reading process and what is involved in learning to read are of course inclined to make this assumption. ‘What works is not always phonics, and, in fact, for young children, what works best in reading may seldom be intensive phonic instruction’ (Carbo).
As people's anecdotes on here have laid claim, the reality is that we have children who: do not need phonics to become good readers, children who become good readers despite phonics and children who are also unable to master phonics and so don’t become good readers.
Reading involves learning to bring one’s own experiences, feelings and knowledge to the task of transacting with a text, and it involves learning to use and coordinate all three language curing systems: syntactic, semantic and grapho/phonemic.
I have to say I don't have such a distrust of a child’s learning abilities. ‘Children are small; their minds are not.’ – Glenda Bissex
Children demonstrate all the time their power to abstract, hypothesise, construct and revise. Given this view of children, surely one role of reading instruction is to affirm each child’s inner teacher. When reading is taught with emphasis on meaning – context cues can become the dominant force and are the closest cues related to the actual purpose of reading, that of comprehending; a balanced approach encourages rather than thwarts the acquisition of good reading strategies. After all it is comprehending that makes an independent and life-long reader.
As a side note, I would like to say that there is evidence for what I discuss here, despite some members trying to claim that there isn't. References can be viewed at the bottom of this article -> goo.gl/9JvqGT. They are references from a wide variety of sources, many from contemporary evidence-based research, but not exclusively.