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.

Both. We do that all the time either words. It's a phonetically plausible pronunciation. Just so happens it uses another option. Like the many spellings of ay.

No. You need to know how to apply the phonetic sounds for this word.

You are getting wound up over the word 'sequin' (which I’d argue shouldn't be on a year 1 phonics screening test). It they gave a sensible phonetic option, it should be correct (which is why the words need to be chosen carefully to avoid just this sort of ambiguity).

The

to

go

little

Just because they’re not 'beginner phonic sounds' (too tired to think of a better way of phrasing that) doesn’t mean they’re not phonetic

Phonetic would assume the sound of the letter makes, makes the sound within the word. Not the rules of phonics.

So "The" comprises of a Tee, Haych, and Ee.
You would have to know the rules that a tee and haych make thuh or learn them by sight

"Little" again at the end is an "eee" sound phonetically, you need to know the rules of phonics to know the "ell" (L) and eee (E) sound makes L

The O sound is a hard sound rather than "Oh" as it is pronounced phonetically.

My point is, on the same test, there are nonsense words for which children are told NOT to apply their language knowledge and to read them purely phonetically as well as words they are told are phonetic but they must apply their previous knowledge of vocabulary in order to “guess” the correct pronunciation.

And I assure you, victuals is absolutely not phonetically pronounced in any way for someone to “apply phonetic sounds”

What are you talking about?

'The' is /ð/ and the schwa sound (/ə/) (when in front of a consonant).

Letter names are irrelevant here.

1. It’s not in front of a consonant so I’m assuming you mean after
2. what about in the word “me”? It’s not a schwa sound after a consonant in many examples.

You seem to think "phonetic" = one-to-one grapheme-phoneme correspondence.
It doesn't.
You can't learn to read English without knowing all the phonetic code.
Yes, you also need context to be a fluent reader and understand everything you are reading (and that's true of all languages, including those which do have a completely 1:1 grapheme-phoneme correspondence).
But you can't teach children to read any word at all by using a non-phonetic method. You can teach them this using a phonetic method. If they come across a word where there's more than one possibility for the phoneme combinations, they can try out the ones they know might work, and see which one corresponds to a real word.
A child needs to know that "e" can sound like "ee" or "eh" to be a good reader.
Why are you making this so hard? You can't be a good reader without knowing all the grapheme-phoneme correspondences.

Have you ever had anything to do with the Year 1 phonics screener? Ever?

Just because something is irregular or unusual does not mean it is not phonetic.

The foot - schwa
The answer - not schwa.

Again, "phonetic" does not mean "one to one correspondence". Give up.

the dog

the cat

'the' in front of a word beginning with a consonant. The pronunciation of 'the' changes in front of a word beginning with a vowel.

'me' applies a different phonetic sound to the letter 'e'.

Are you being deliberately obtuse or are you a bot? I cannot believe someone who proclaims your qualifications cannot get this.

Anyway, it’s getting too late for all of this.

Just because something is irregular or unusual does not mean it is not phonetic.
sequin isn't even irregular. It's just one of a few ways "e" can be pronounced. Not the most frequent but probably not the least, either.

Don't bother answering grinandvomit because they are insisting on an incorrect definition of "phonetic" when the rest of us know what it means.

What are you talking about?

I'm quite clear in my explanation.
It's the difference between a word being phonetical and you reading it following the rules of phonics?

The' is /ð/ and the schwa sound (/ə/) (when in front of a consonant)
Is a rule of teaching in phonics.

Letter names are irrelevant here

But they are not when people are talking about words being pronounced phonetically. Saying them how they sound !

Are you being deliberately obtuse or are you a bot?
I think you've got it...

👍 that’s very true.

Ok. It’s getting late. Good night all. Sorry to the Op for derailing this slightly!

If an ESL learner pronounced the e in sequin with an e like in pet because they hadn’t heard the word before, they would get that word wrong.
This proves it is a test which involves vocabulary knowledge and not purely decoding ability.

because they are insisting on an incorrect definition of "phonetic" when the rest of us know what it means.

I couldn't agree more. People are confusing something being pronounced phonetically with the learning of the rules of phonics.

Phonics is learning the sounds letters and combinations of letters make. Learning that that two letters can make one sound, such as ‘Sh’ and th’and ‘ch’ . It works for most children but some learn by sight and shape of words. Other ‘tricky’ words that can’t be sounded out need to be seen lots of times and memorised such as some,could, door, because. Phonics is part of the process but really does help children to decode words by breaking them down into sounds - ch-i-ck-en for example.

OP, yes, we used the wandle books and it was fine once we got our heads around it. As a PP said its not how the letters sound but how groups of letters make certain sounds together.
The best explanation is the one below from the PP

Phonics is learning the sounds letters and combinations of letters make. Learning that that two letters can make one sound, such as ‘Sh’ and th’and ‘ch’ . It works for most children but some learn by sight and shape of words. Other ‘tricky’ words that can’t be sounded out need to be seen lots of times and memorised such as some,could, door, because. Phonics is part of the process but really does help children to decode words by breaking them down into sounds - ch-i-ck-en for example

As the books move on to more complex sound groups the books do get better and any reading is good, so you can read to your DDor her to you any books. The school normally send out sheets with the letters grouped together and the sound they want you to learn that makes to help you along.
Stick with it and yes memorising those tricky words that cant be sounded out its just like the old sight learning method for those ones

Just out of curiosity, if a child could read fluently before starting school but couldn’t learn phonics, would the school still try to insist? Just thinking about when I went, I was reading pretty much anything put in front of me (reading age tested and off the scale) by the time I started school but I have no ability to sound out words even as an adult; I read by the shape of words and always have done. Would seem a waste of effort to persevere with phonics if someone can already read.

I think so too. It took me a while to get familiar with all the sounds myself, but ds7 can read so well. He reads all kinds of things and his spelling is great. So it seems to be working out really well.

@Alstroemeria123 we wondered this so i researched the teachings of phonics starting in pre school, to help learn the same way as school.

He could read before going in and knew words by sight, so it worried me phonics would confuse him again. They also use Phonics methodology when explaining to them about spelling words, so it comes into all aspects of the English lessons, so i dont think you can escape the phonics element. He did well with it though, maybe get learning the methodology of phonics just to help support when they are asking them
to write.

I was going to say they will match him with a book to his reading ability, but they did send our DS with the level 1 at first which was just pictures, and he had to talk us through the story; but he quickly whizzed through them and also their comprehension has to match the ability to know the words.

I have no ability to sound out words even as an adult; I read by the shape of words and always have done.

When you come across a word you've never seen before, how do you know how to pronounce it, if you can't sound out words? How do you read aloud?

If they can't read new words that they've never seen before, they can't read fluently.
If they can, they are using phonics.

Would seem a waste of effort to persevere with phonics if someone can already read

They also drop "phonics" teachings part way in year 2 (for most the class). As they believe they have taught them enough of the rules of the phonics methodology to decode any word, know the sight words and read freely.