Hi,
Some time ago I read a thread in here about a child who could read, but would fail a phonics test. After giving it some thought I have come to realise that my DD1 is exactly in this situation. She reads pretty well and with a lot of expression, however when she comes across a word she doesn't know, she simply cannot decode it.
She does not know her phonics.
She is now P3 (Y2) and really loves reading, but she reads like me... When I come across a word I don't know , I need to look it up, unless it is very easy; I can't decode words and I look at them as a whole, a bit as if they were ideograms (I was never thought phonics and English is not my first language, but my vocabulary is very good by any standard, so I get by easily enough).
So, my question is: is there any resource I can use to help her improve her/my knowledge of phonics? It cannot be too "small children oriented", otherwise she will feel belittled.
On top of that I hope that a better knowledge of phonics will help her with her spelling which is absolutely appalling.
Interestingly enough, although I have been following what my kids have been doing at school, I never managed to learn phonics. Perhaps because I've never really seen the point of it. Instead DD2 has an instinctive understanding of phonics, so, though not so expressive, she can easily read words she does not know or understand (so, often when she is reading, I have to stop her to ask if she knows the meaning of a certain word...)
And yes, for the teacher everything is hunky-dory...