Thoughts on “little waddle” reading method?

[Golaz]

My DD has just stated reception. We had a phonics workshop today where they described this methodology for teaching children to read and showed some examples of the books they would be using. It sounded really dumb and boring and the books look shit. I didn’t get it at all. Does anyone have any insights or experiences to share? Is this likely to be helpful in actually teaching my child to read and enjoy reading? At the moment she loves books but can’t read at all.

Is it this scheme specifically you don't like, or is it the phonics approach more broadly? Because I think a lot of it isn't how most adults were taught to read and so people don't like it (reading the same book over and over, only reading decodable books) but that's now basically universal across schemes. Unfortunately only using decodable books early on makes it hard not for them to be pretty rubbish because it puts such a constraint on the writer; they do get better quite quickly.

Thanks for the reply and that make sense. I think it might be the phonics approach more broadly , as you say it’s not how I was taught to read and it just seems really baffling to me . Maybe I have to open my mind.
Do you find it works?

It’s excellent and effective. Doesn’t stop you reading more interesting stories to your dc. But it’s a thorough and very consistent way of teaching phonics.

It's wandle not waddle but not sure if that was a typo.

DS has just started year 1 and did go from not being able to read at all when he started reception to being able to read at the expected level, so I guess it has so far! I do think you have to make sure you're still doing lots of reading to them, though, so that you can have more interesting and varied books. He complains that his reading books are boring and I am frequently inclined to agree!

Do you mean little wandle? My daughter is in Y1 & has been following that scheme since Reception. It's worked for her, she continues to love books and her reading is really coming on. The phonics approach seems to work. To be honest after a 6 week break from school I have been pleasantly surprised by how much she has retained from Reception so it must have been effective

.

Sorry typo!

But why do they need to learn phonics? Surely the aim is to learn to read? English isn’t even a very phonetic language.

That’s encouraging to hear ❤️

I was super sceptical but it honestly does work... just trust in it!

OP, what alternative would you propose to teach children to read instead of phonics?

Most early phonics books are boring because they have to be decodable so there’s a huge limit on what words you can use. I’m not the biggest fan of Little Wandle specifically from a teacher’s perspective but it certainly teaches children to read.

Every state school has to teach phonics this way and has to choose from one of a certain number of government prescribed schemes which are all pretty similar. The idea is that every single Reception child will therefore get the same experience of learning to early read and write and is based off certain evidence that Systematic Synthetic Phonics is the best way to teach most children to read mostly well, if that makes sense. Some teachers disagree with this and some children learn differently but it's the same in every school! Just keep reading more interesting books to them to keep the interest and love of reading going!

English is not perfectly consistent phonetically as we have so many borrowed words from other languages. But phonics has been shown to be the method which consistently gets almost all children reading competently. I was lucky that my dm was a primary teacher who has lots of expertise in this, and with her help I ended up teaching my dc to read at home, using phonics, before they started school.

it’s worth being open-minded about this: it’s not a fad - it’s genuinely a very effective way of getting the dc reading.

I have a yr 2 and a yr 1 that follow this.

my yr 2 (was 6 in june) is a full free reader and my yr 1 (5 in august) is tracking one level up and her writing and reading have literally exploded since last Christmas. She wrote 4 sentences for homework last night with minimal help all with sounding out phonics to spell.

I was sceptical as we started on a diff scheme when my yr2 was in reception but honestly it works!!

Yes, it’s one of the Gov permitted schemes - rebranded letters and sounds.
As others have said, phonics is the best proven way, rather than look and say which is basically memorising words.
In real life though, most children learn and employ a bit of “ look and say”. The theory is that every single word in our language can be read once all the phonemes have been learned. However, most children ( in my experience of being an infant teacher for 40 years) learn to read eg “once” , as in once upon a time, before they learn the tricky phonemes. Likewise, words like “ the”. No phonics fanatic could ever disagree that “ the” is “ sounded out” as opposed to just reading it as a whole word. Most schemes have “ tricky words” to learn as well as the phonemes.
It does tend to start off quite slowly and listening to children “ read” their phonics book is slow and tedious! However with rapid daily sessions most make really quick progress

I’m expecting to be shot down now by the phonics crew now….
Last time I answered a question on phonics and disagreed with a teacher, I was told that obviously I was trained so long ago that phonics wasn’t covered in my training….

I’m not a teacher , but as I say this is not how I was taught to read, so I know there are other methods. I think my concerns are that it feels completely unintuitive to me ( I can’t make head nor tail of the sounds 😂😆) and that the books look entirely meaningless / lacking in content. I suppose I worry that they may be restrictive in terms of imagination/ creativity building and also take the fun/ joy out of reading.

However, clearly I have no real experience here except my own from decades ago, and no actual knowledge/ expertise in teaching . So it’s really encouraging to hear from others that it does work and I will do my best to open my mind and just make sure we continue to read lots of more interesting books at home.

What is the alternative? Learn through instant word recognition?
Even as adults, if we come across an unfamiliar word, we sound it out using our phonetic knowledge. English is tricky as there are so many ways to write current phonemes but phonics programmes get most children reading pretty quickly.
And I the school have no choice - they all have to pick a phonics scheme and follow it to the letter. "Full fidelity to the scheme" is what ofsted will look for.

I understand that statistically phonics is a successful method of teaching children to read but I have to wonder how many children it turns away from a love of reading because the scheme books are so bloody awful and the system relies on dull repetition.

use. I’m not the biggest fan of Little Wandle specifically from a teacher’s perspective

out of curiosity what are your concerns about the specific scheme?

I think that teaching using synthetic phonics has a massively positive effect on spelling ability also.

Little Wandle sounds awful (read the same book 3 times in school then thrice more at home) but it does work and actually parents are more likely to read with their children if they're a little bit more confident, rather than making them slog through books they're seeing for the first time, which can be pretty painful in the early stages of phonics.

I think a lot of parents are sceptical of phonics at first then realise it works. It's been the primary method of instruction for over 20 years now - it's not a fad. Of course it makes sense to teach a load of sounds and make sure those sounds are in the books they read. It frustrates me a little that there's not much focus on learning common prefixes and suffixes, like ing, by sight, but most children do figure that out for themselves.

Euro chick, yes the turning off is a worry. Obviously not if parents share lots of other books with their children but that’s not always the case

Moonsoup, yes they definitely do work it out for themselves.
One of my youngest granddaughters is in reception and read her ReadWriteInc book to me. She knows her phonemes really well but insisted she had to sound out every word - eg cat.
“ you know that word nowlittlestorynanny, you can just say on the next page without sounding it out”
” I can’t do that! Mrs teacher says we have to sound out every word”

It does get less tedious!

yes, it helps spelling enormously, eventually!
I found that whichever phoneme we were working appeared in most writing attempts that day!
Eg “ layt” for late if we were learning ay
At least it’s showing they can hear the sounds that make up words

@Golaz I think it moves too fast in Y1. I don’t think children need to be learning that ‘eigh’ makes the ai sound (a very uncommon grapheme) when they’re not confident in their knowledge that a-e makes the a-e sound (a far more common grapheme). I also prefer actions to remember sounds rather than rhymes. It’s also intended to be taught as a whole class rather than in ability groups which has pros and cons. I think it’s a great scheme for children who pick things up quickly, but not so much your average student (at least the ones in the area I teach).

But phonics in general? I can’t imagine teaching children how to read in any other way. Teaching them to understand text and to love reading is a different skill but no scheme intends that phonics books and the only books children read/have read to them. Definitely keep reading her more interesting books at home. I wasn’t taught with phonics either, but I was also reading before I started reception so I don’t consider myself a helpful example. I do find learning/teaching phonics has helped me read unfamiliar words and make learning a second language easier though.