WHY don't some teachers teach pure phonics? And what impact does it have on how teachers are viewed?

[TeenPlusTwenties]

As seen on this board by a current thread (which I decided not to hijack) and another one this week on AIBU, there still seems to be a chunk of current teachers not attempting to teach decoding via phonics but preferring mixed methods (phonics, plus whole words, plus guessing).

Do you think the fact so many teachers are failing to teach phonics properly impacts on how the profession as a whole is viewed?

If the main thing that parents of young children understand is important (reading) is not being taught in the way deemed most effective from research, that is also mandated in the NC, doesn't that undermine trust and respect massively?

I'm trying to think of a good analogy, but in medicine there is NICE which looks at data on effectiveness of medicines and then says what can / can't be used.

Is this because teachers are so overworked they don't read the research? Or are primary teachers not maths-literate enough to understand data, and so prefer their own sample-of-one instead?

Do parents end up 'not trusting' teachers because they can see such a blatant example of not following good practice /not knowing what they are doing

I imagine most teachers are busy with the day to day, and are more likely to trust their experience rather than research. As a parent I am not going to rely on the school to teach phonics when DS goes - I'll do it myself. I was taught look cover check and had to be taught phonics when I couldnt write or spell at the age of 7 - although my reading was fine.

It could be the teaching. I'm fairly certain my year one child has not been taught that 'a' is sounded as 'o' if it comes after a 'w' sound. I have told her a few things such as that 'y' at the end of a word sounds like 'ee' or 'ay' most of the time not 'yuh'.
She can easily remember words that she struggles to decode so now I don't insist on it when we're reading at home, I just say the word and she remembers. I do get her to try sounding out but I think she finds it frustrating. She isn't known for her patience! Neither is her mother...

‘a’ as /o/ is one of the handful of alternative spellings I’d teach in reception even if you don’t teach any others.

In theory it should be covered because tricky/red words aren’t taught as sight words but by drawing attention to the ‘tricky’ part that hasn’t yet been taught. At that point you might as well teach was, want and what together as a group.

I'm teaching my five year old at home and I'm not stuck on one method but I started with certain books and realised it was too early for her (a couple of years back).
I then revisited it a year later with Read Write Inc and whilst my children love the fun of 'ay may I play?' I could tell they weren't picking it in terms of reading.
Now at the age of 5 I've picked up an old phonics books and it is much much better. It goes through the letters a little at a time and my daughter has immediately picked it up. I'm also not rushing her or expecting her to pass tests. The thing with schools is that teachers need to get through a lot in a small amount of time with 30 children and they simply can't do worksheets without knowing how to read due to time. That is why different methods can't be explored for each child and this is the negative side of the school system. I felt like as children we were given more time but today's children are not given that time and the reduction in teaching assistants who would sit with the children who could not grasp the mainstream way of learning and were free to explore in their own way.
I know a number of other languages and they are much easier to learn. English has many rule breakers but at the end of the day we have all learnt how to read. I feel every child should be given the opportunity to learn it the way that suits them best.

I WOuld have more respect for a teacher who could vary the methods used, thus reaching more chikdren and making the reading thing more varied and fun

But if phonics suits 95-98% why would you not try it with every child first?
And by phonics I mean a systematic phonics only method.

I’d like teachers to teach all children to read.

I can do fun.

I was sceptical about phonics, as the parent of a child who was reading happily without much apparent teaching (some activities at nursery, some early learning apps and lots of books in the house) before YR. Then the YR teacher explained that if she knew her digraphs and trigraphs, she would be able to spell better, and once I heard that I realised that that is how I spell things! I know the combinations of letters that ‘look right’.

This led on to me reading some of the threads on here about phonics, and I think a lot of the issue is that many teachers and parents think they don’t use phonics, as I thought. But once the light bulb goes on, and you realise that you do use phonics, just so automatically that you don’t notice, then suddenly it makes sense and you stop seeing it as something that gets in the way of reading, but instead as something that unlocks it.

That 80% learn to read with a mix of methods whereas 95% lean with pure phonics.

So, you're saying that if 100 kids are taught using a mix of methods, 20 of them will end up illiterate?

Professionals are allowed to be sceptical about, disagree with, challenge research. ‘Research’ isn’t some sort of sacred cow. Education is an area in which things are constantly evolving and changing, and that is driven by people trying different things and seeing what happens.

As the child who was an advanced reader, but failed phonics, I am thrilled teachers are not placing too much emphasis on that awful method.

My dd is similar. At age 9 her reading, writing, and spelling were evaluated as being at the university level. She isn’t quite as bad at me at phonics, but definitely struggles.

Nationally, then yes then roughly 20% will be working below age related expectations in reading. a smaller percentage will leave school completely illiterate. That figure isn’t necessarily spread out evenly by schools though.

Unlike having problems with maths, functional or complete illiteracy is something that people try to hide.

IIRC there are some OECD reports around on the low reading levels of British adults.

My ds could read before he started school, he had learned by recognising whole words. His reading went backwards when he started school because they insisted on him using phonics. It until Y3 to get back what he lost through being taught phonics. Why don't schools understand that one method doesn't fit all pupils.

But it is STATUTORY ?

The Year 1 phonic screening check is statutory for all state funded schools. The NC is statutory for all maintained (non academy schools).

@Nat6999 and @Purpleartichoke how can you/your DCs read unfamiliar words then?

You learn sounding out words automatically when you learn to read with whole words.

Similarly, I’m studying a language right now and one of the criticisms of the program i am using is that it doesn’t explicitly teach grammar. However, after just a few months, I could detail many grammar rules because they are obvious patterns you start to see as you learn. This method is working much better for me than the traditional approach of learning the rules of the language explicitly. By spotting the patterns yourself, they become truly natural.

I don’t think it’s the phonics teaching that breaks down the respect for teachers.

That ship has sailed. As this thread well demonstrates. Every parents now just Googles educational research and tells teachers how to teach specifically for their child.

What joy.

drspouse Ds has a photographic memory, he only needed to be told what a word was once & he remembered it & because he knew what short words were, he then worked out the longer words himself. It's hard to describe but he only needs to read anything once to know it by heart, at 15 he can quote whole paragraphs word perfect after reading once, he is autistic & this is one of his traits.

TBF, BelleSausage the OP of that thread was right and the teacher was wrong.

Teaching early reading is a fairly significant part of the job of a reception teacher. Not having the first clue about it is a bit of a problem.

WHY don't some teachers teach pure phonics?

DH think it because the whole education sector thinks opinion is on a par with proper research and there's a lot of bad research and science out there to confuse matters as well.

I think there a lack of good phonics teaching and training out there – so many schools seem to believe they are teaching phonics but are actually doing mixed methods.

I also think that 80% doing well with any reading method tend to mean rest get viewed as the problem - they must be issue not the teaching.

Plus many teachers and parents went through whole word learning - I do wonder if there more teachers in that 80% - many seem to have no clue how one of mine always regarded by teachers as hard working and bright can't spell or what to suggest to help.

Do you think the fact so many teachers are failing to teach phonics properly impacts on how the profession as a whole is viewed?

I think more damage was done by denying there were obvious problems – poor interventions are also rife, I think. On whole though teachers are more dedicated than ones we generally encountered in our education.

I’m more cynical of wait and see approach – favouring extra support as soon as possible little and often.

I do wonder how much outside school support – which tends to be ignored by schools – does make it seem like some children suddenly get things just by waiting.

Many of the words people seem to claim are non phonetic are not actually. They may well be high frequency words, or 'tricky' words and use the less common part of the phonetic code, but if you teach the full code most are not non-phonetic after all.

At my school we use the Floppy Phonics scheme. This is the linked phonetic code.

www.phonicsinternational.com/unit1_pdfs/The%20English%20Alphabetic%20Code%20-%20complete%20picture%20chart.pdf

It covers the fact that the /o/ sound is sometimes made using the letter a, such as when is is preceded by a /w/ or /qu/

It covers the fact that the /o/ sound is sometimes made using the letter a, such as when is is preceded by a /w/ or /qu/

In practice though, children will have encountered and learned the word was before you teach them that rule. At a certain point, the sheer number of rules combined with their arbitrary exceptions make the rules unhelpful.

Hence my point about teaching it in reception.

Not sure to what extent Floppy’s phonics has been adapted to match Letters and Sounds but I think Debbie Hepplewhite had a hand in it. Her own scheme does introduce this fairly early.

Ok off the top of my head:

• they question the validity of the research and the sample size.
• their own experience contradicts the research findings.
• they don't have enough fully decodable books for each stage.
• anyone who has been teaching longer than ten years will probably be sick of educational fads coming and going and then being expected to change their practice based on the latest recommendations.
• because each cohort of children is different and any teacher worth their salt will be responding to the needs of their specific class.
• because English is a very tricky language to read when you're only using decoding strategies.

I'm not a primary teacher btw but I work in education and I'm just trying to recall things my colleagues have said over the years.

Because they believe in a child centred education and believe phonics is not child centred.

Because phonics is right wing and teaching is left wing.

Because they are professionals and won’t be told what to do by politicians.

Above are reasons given to me for not teaching phonics correctly.

I think initial teacher training maybe to blame. Teachers think they are teaching phonics.