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.

Ds hated phonics, he could already read simple words when he started school, up to some 5 letter words & moaned every day he had phonics to the point he fell out with reading altogether. He found the Biff & Chip books boring & in the end, we never opened them at home & read our own books instead. By the time he was 7, he was free reading & could read things like Paddington with no problem, by 9, he was reading adult magazines on his passions of trains, planes & buses & fiction for older children. He failed his phonics test because he refused to do it.

I have to ask someone how to pronounce it. Or (more usually) look it up online. Then I remember it. But I don’t need to know how something is pronounced to be able to read it.

I’m not great at reading aloud.

Something pretty dramatic has gone wrong here. A child that can read like this should get full marks and if she didn’t pass she was a long way off. Strange.

Right. And so many words in English are like this

It’s a good basic starting point.
Expand at home with games if you’re not keen on reading the books every day 😊

But not at reception/ year 1/ year 2 level. There are far, far more words that are easily read with the simple application of phobic knowledge (including an understanding of the different sounds that can be made by the same letters) than cause difficulty.

If you look for problems, you will find them, but none of them need to be a barrier to learning.

If children (at that level) find the books boring, then that lies with the adult.

No child should be finding them boring. Honestly. Reading/ decoding is a small part of the 'book' experience. The adult might need to work harder, but there is always something fun you can find in them.

Children tend to pick up on cues from adults.

Then you're not a fluent reader. (No judgement)

So mute people cannot be fluent readers?

Yes I am - I can read anything you put in front of me.

I grew up in the 70s and then became a primary teacher in Scotland. We always learned the sounds of the letters up to about P3, then used this to build words up for reading and spelling. I guess it's what the great Phonics thing is all about.

I had an English friend who was appalled that his child was being taught the sounds of the letters rather than their names. I tried to explain how it worked but all he said was "But we taught his his ABC before he went to school".

Phonics is nothing new. It just seems to have become the be all and end all of literacy in English schools.

Thank you . I’m willing to do whatever really just as long as it works ☺️

So say something is so irregular it only occurs once: you say “but it’s still phonetic! Because it’s a type of way you can say it.l!” Then what’s the bloomin point?

The huge advantage of having been on MN years before I had children is that I was well aware of what phonics was well before my child reached reading age. Though even when I first heard of I didn’t find it that hard to understand, though I am bilingual in French and English so I don’t know whether that helped. One of my children has done Little Wandle and I thought the books were absolutely fine. It’s only one book out of many that my child reads/has read to them each day. The earlier ones are restricted by the range of phonics they have learnt at that stage, but they’ve done a pretty good job considering. I also really liked the inclusion of non-fiction (eg my child loved the one with instructions for making different paper aeroplanes).

If you don’t teach letter sounds, what would you say to your child who can’t read the word ‘photo’? They might start with a ‘p’ sound so you explain that ‘p’ and ‘h’ together sound like ‘f’.
That’s phonics basically. Recognition of sounds of letters, digraphs(2 letters, 1 sound e.g ph, ck, ch, sh, th) and trigraphs( 3 letters one sound e.g igh, ear).

English has many words from other languages. And also this is kids. At around 8/9 you move on to a more chunking way of reading - morphology. Which is what we all do when meeting an unfamiliar word. We look for stem words and prefix suffix and yes we use contextual knowledge of words of that class and we figure it out, but guess what just like kids with phonics we don’t always then pronounce it right. Phonics is integral even to adults spelling.

Again, you're being obtuse.

Of course they can. They would still need to apply phonics. My reference to 'not being a fluent reader' wasn’t directed at the reading aloud part quoted.

Because the words you’re referring to don’t apply to KS1 children.

Look. Go with it. Enjoy the books with your child (you can make every book aimed at that age fun if you try).

You might just find it works 😉 and all of this stress was for nothing 🙂

I teach phonics in a reading recovery program targeted at older children, but it's part of a whole school approach which starts at the first year of school (my students have usually come from another school or have a learning difficulty which impacts reading). I firmly believe it's the very best approach. I see my students improve dramatically in both decoding and encoding, and I can see them using their understanding of phonics to successfully read unfamiliar words. So impressive. Decodable readers are limited to using the sounds that the students have been working on, so they aren't particularly interesting if you are a fluent reader.
However, they are amazing for students because they provide lots of opportunities for success and that's vital for a learner. Lots of things have changed since you were a child, have some faith in the professionals.

I didn’t love little wandle when it was first introduced. My eldest used a different scheme before and I found the repetition quite annoying. She used to memorise the text so she wasn’t reading by the third time and was bored shitless reading the same thing over and over again. But… it is a method that is working for many children. You can supplement with other books. We always used to use songbirds as extra books which we liked more than some of the school books.

It’s brilliant, my 2nd child did it and he’s just started year 2. His reading is brilliant. Thanks to little wandle. I wish it was around when my first started school. She really really struggled with the phonics, the actions, the annoying chip and kipper books. Bless her she’s nearly 11 and has just been diagnosed with severe dyslexia. So maybe it still would have been a struggle but I still love the little wandle way.

@HmumR I know this a thread is from last Sept, but wonder if you could tell me what you don't like about it? I have to write something for an assignment comparing different reading schemes (3 good points, and 3 could do better!)

I don't have access to Little Wandle so looking for someone with practical experience of using it.

Thanks

Having studied a Post Grad in Education and having written many an assignment on Pedagogy; often analysing theory’s on Learning Styles and Differentiation I was shocked when my LO started school and was introduced to Little Wandle. From what I can see, this is a ridged ‘one size fits all’ regime that does not bend or adapt for any form of differentiation. For experiential Learners or those who need stimulation and/or need to understand the meaning behind what they are learning - these Schemes totally exclude them. Having worked with older children and adults for many years I feel I am starting to understand why there are so many who are illiterate. I would not be surprised if it is because they got left behind while all their obedient / neurotypical class mates or those with proactive parents rode off into the distance on the phonics scheme train. It does not take a qualification to realise that after Reception this scheme is just boring and feels meaningless. It dissects the English language into something both bland and confusing. I am a good reader and although I didn’t pay much attention at school, I learned to read through reading and I loved reading! my Mother (a primary school teacher) simply just encouraged me to read! Now fast forward a few years (okay maybe decades) and I had to work out what some of these phonemes were actually for. I found myself googling them so I could show my son the actual words and teach him those as he refused to engage with the phonemes alone. Meanwhile school are sending him home with books that provide no challenge and rarely include any of this term’s phonemes. I’ve heard of some teachers (including Heads) who have to secretly deviate from the scheme in order to teach the stragglers or the ones struggling for fear they will end up a statistic and then hide the evidence from OFSTED! How crazy is that? Can someone please explain what is so good about Little Wandle? I guess for regular kids who just tow the line it would set them up for when they start learning to spell?? Or does someone in government have shares in these schemes? I just don’t get it. Please tell me something positive as it is just so worrying as a parent and genuinely it is just so depressing!

You do know that Learning Styles are total twaddle and neurobollocks, right?

I think phonics also helps with writing and spelling. I am from a pre phonics era and could read very well age 3, but distinctly remember arriving at school age 4 and not being able to write my name. I really struggled learning to spell.

Can speed read still now, I presume it's down to having good pattern recognition rather than actual reading of the words. The phonic approach that my DS followed meant he was at an equal level across reading writing and spelling.