phonics: how many sounds did/do your kids know after 8 weeks at school?

[mydoorisalwaysopen]

We have just had our first parent consultation for DS1 who started school in September (he was 4 in July). The teacher said she is very disappointed with his grasp of phonics and he only reliably knows one sound. Dyslexia was mentioned. Apart from feeling so guilty because we have never tried to teach him the alphabet (until now ) we don't know if this is terrible as all the children seem to be getting very similar comments. I have been doing fun stuff since the meeting and think he knows more than one sound but probably not reliably. I'm not really stressing about this but just wondered what experiences others have had with slow starters.

Don't the government now recommend that schools teach four sounds a week - I am not sure. I can't keep up.

I have got the Jolly Phonics DVD and I didn't think it was that good. The sounds are not very pure for want of a better word. I like the rest of the Jolly Phonics scheme though and the Ruth Miskin stuff too.

There is a great programme on cbeebies called 'fun with phonics' It is really short and does one sound a day. You can get fun with phonics stuff from amazon now too.

here

Synthetic phonics is not complicated if it's taught properly as a result of high-quality training.

There will always be children like yours, needmorecoffee, (my first two children learnt to read in much the same way as yours, pre-school) but there are a significant number of children (20%+) who have poor visual memories (my third child was one of these, but he didn't arrive with that information printed on him) or have difficulty achieving phonological awareness, who simply can't learn to read by 'look and say' and looking at books.

These children can be taught how to read if the synthetic phonics method is used first, fast and exclusively. It doesn't rely on visual memory, and children become phonologically aware much more quickly when the letters (spellings) are taught alongside the sounds.

Surely it makes sense to use a method which virtually guarantees that ALL the children in a class will learn to read, rather than just the majority?

Furthermore, many children taught by 'look and say' and, those weasel words, 'exposure to print' go on to be terrible spellers.

Judging from the 5 min video on www.thrass.co.uk/wps08.htm it would seem that synthetic phonics is best if it is taught through singing! These young children look as though they are having a great time - and, as one of the teachers says, the children don't even realise that they are doing phonics!

Thanks for all the great resources. I deliberately didn't do any work with him before he started school because I didn't want to pressure him and also incorrectly believed that his nursery was starting some basic alphabet learning and number work. I have heard teacher friends complaining of parents confusing children by teaching them in a different way to the school so I was aware of this but it wasn't really part of my reasoning. The school had not given us any indication of their expectations for the first term so feel it's a bit wrong to be disappointed in him - when pressed the teacher wouldn't give any indication of her expectations for the second term other than that he should catch up and know all the sounds. Others on here have mentioned that their children bring work home but DS1 never does. I know I sound like I am trying to justify woeful lack of parental input so far but honestly thought having fun was just the thing for a 4yo .

Our school is doing the ReadWriteInc scheme (I have NO idea if that's the same or similar or not compared to Jolly Phonics, Synthetic phonics, etc.).

But apparently RWI is quite different from the National Literacy Strategy (which school was doing, and has happily abandoned). I guess some phonics schemes aren't that effective.

RWI has a reputation for getting children reading fast. DS was only just 4 in the summer, and has picked up about 15 sounds, I think. His HWork over 1/2 term was to practice blending sounds in a few words (oops, had forgotten about that until today ).

I also didn't do any phonics work with DS before school (neither did his preschools), he just wasn't ready.

Ds3 knows most of the single sounds reliably, just starting to get the double ones and knows some (ee, or, ai, oo, oi etc).

He was only 4 at the end of August but he did JP in nursery and he has two older brothers that have done them while he's been around (they are not much older) so he's been hearing the 'sounds' practiced for the whole of his life

I wouldn't be worried if he couldn't. Ds1 and ds2 could read pretty well by this point but he is nowhere near blending to read yet.

lljkk, RWI is a fab. synthetic phonics programme, and yes, it's quite different from the old NLS which used 'analytic phonics' as part of a mixture of methods, rejected as ineffective in the Rose Report. THRASS is, as they boast on their website, mixed methods too.

The THRASS programme retains the NLS 'searchlight' strategies: sightword memorisation and guessing. Programme developer and self-declared 'synthetic phonic expert'(!) Alan Davies states that '(T)here is no need to look for a new model of early reading to replace the ?Searchlights? model...It is wrong to believe that synthetic phonics is the ?best route to becoming skilled readers?, as stated in Jim?s report www.thrass.co.uk/searchlights.htm

Thanks for the Thrass link. It makes for intesting reading and it seems to make sense to me, especially this bit from Sky News...

"The best thing they [parents] can do, if they want to teach their child to be literate in English, is to put a three-year-old child on their knee and turn over the pages of a favourite book to anticipate the story and the pictures?."

Surely, Alan Davies is right and phonics is not the best way to start the reading process with very young childen?

Surely it is a combination of developing a love of reading and then also doing some sounding out with our children (with, say, the tricky words that they can't work out)?

SueM, do you have a financial interest in THRASS?

If its any help mydoorisalwaysopen, my DD's teacher told me at the first parents evening that DD only knew 4 sounds. She told me this in a very solemn way, suggesting that there was something very wrong.

By the end of the Reception year she was reading Level 9 books (think that's a reading age of approx. 2 years ahead of her actual age). However, this had more to do with the reading and other work she was doing at home IYSWIM!

If I were you, I'd just carry on with what you're doing at home. You may well come to find that your experience and views of your son's reading may well differ significantly from the schools!

P.S. He is only just 4!

I am surprised that you question the motives of mums who draw attention to programmes other than the one you promote. I note that you ignore all the postings that talk about mums sharing actual reading books with their children. How can any mum not be impressed by all the happy children singing when using the THRASS singing rsources? I think every mum (and dad) should have the chance to watch this short video www.thrass.co.uk/wps08.htm - and well done to the school and to THRASS for doing it!

AFter half-term lots of mums and dads will return to driving their children to school, and many will be stuck in traffic jams on short and long journeys, so isn't it a good and fun idea to sing songs with your children to help them learn the 44 sounds of English? and to learn 44 different musical styles at the same time.

For the record, I don't have a financial interest in THRASS but I wish I did!

sorry, my reply was directed at maverick, not you critterjitter!

SueM, I happily promote any programme that closely follows synthetic phonics principles

Another memorable quote from reading expert Alan Davies:

'Parents need to understand and use four 'searchlights' for reading with their children: a 'Word Recognition Searchlight', a 'Phonics Searchlight', a 'Context Searchlight' and a 'Grammar Searchlight', as set out in the National Literacy Strategy that the UK Government abandoned in 2005. The Government's new synthetic phonics programme, 'Letters and Sounds', focuses on the 'Phonics Searchlight', an approach which is inadequate for both parents and young children? (THRASS press release Jan 08)

Synthetic phonics was found, through pilot projects, to be a very successful method for teaching reading, giving the children taking part in the pilot project an average reading age in advance of their peers nationally. It was not adopted as change for the sake of something new. Too many children had been failed with combination methods leading them to be confused and mostly these were the less able children who really needed a simple consistent clear approach to learning to read. As I understand it that is why synthetic phonics was adopted nationwide, so that all children, particularly the less able, would have the best chance of learning to read.

It is not the only method and I have to say that my ds has obviously got a very good word recognition memory so he learned a lot of vocabulary with me form my old Peter & Jane (key word) reading scheme books. HOWEVER, if he encounters a new word he decodes it using phonics first, then applying recognition of certain parts of the word and their sounds (e.g. "tion" or "ly/ley" etc). He advanced quickly with reading because he has a good memory for words but faced with something new he uses phonics in the first instance because it is such a sound tool for decoding large parts of new words.

To answer the OP, ds knew about 10/12 sounds from nursery/preschool and about 20 sounds after 8 weeks at school. By the end of reception he was on ORT stage 10 books. I didn't teach him any of the phonics sounds, he learn't them with the pre-school staff or the reception class teacher.

I was surprised that many other children in his class had been to pre-school but very few seemed to have much knowledge of basic phonics sounds to build on once in reception.

maverick, I'm confused. Given your views about THRASS, why have the government given THRASS 10/10 for synthetic phonics www.thrass.co.uk/10outof10.htm. Is yours a particular kind of synthetic phonics?

Ah yes, the DCSF's phonics website

The independent assessment group, was set up by the DCSF to scutinise the accuracy of the self-assessed programmes on the government's phonics website, www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/phonics/
It approved the THRASS programme, amongst others, even though it includes the old, NLS multi-cueing strategies the Rose Report rejected.

This is not surprising as two strong advocates of 'mixed methods', *Greg Brooks and Nicholas Bielby, were part of the group. This clearly indicates that inclusion on the DCSF phonics website, with approval by the independent assessment group, does NOT necessarily mean that a programme IS a high quality, synthetic phonic programme, only that it is 'systematic', a point conceded by Brooks at last year's RRF conference.

Caveat Emptor: Buyer Beware!

*Greg Brooks was one of the trio of academics who produced the flawed, 'Review of the Research Literature on the use of Phonics in the Teaching of Reading and Spelling' see- www.syntheticphonics.com/articles/Torgerson%20article.pdf and Tom Burkard reviews Nicholas Bielby's book, 'Making Sense of Reading' www.amazon.co.uk/review/R1YCF5MX9CVOEE

But Maverick, given that you were quick to ask whether SueM76 had a financial interest in THRASS, surely you see the issues in your links from your most recent post - Diane McGuiness and Tom Burkard, each with their own set of resources to sell, are pretty much bound to be critical! I'm not criticising synthetic phonics, although I'm not as devout a believer as yourself (we've argued the toss before on other threads) but fair is fair!

Education City (website) has a really fun game for reception kids to learn their letter sounds, as well as a lot of other fun stuff. You can do a 14 day free trial to see what you think of it. I used it a lot when I was homeschooling my two and they loved it.

Virginia, I don't see Diane McGuinness or Tom Burkard on Mumsnet continually pushing products from one particular company, do you?

My gripe with the THRASS download is the pronunciation of sounds, particularly b, d, y and w. The Rose Report clearly cites adding a schwah to sounds as an example of bad practice by teachers. I know it still happens.
I tend to see children who have not mastered the 44 sounds and this leads to problems with reading and spelling later in school. The rate/quality of teaching is not working for all children - still some fall through the net. And parents don't always have easy access to information - overheard in playground (from intelligent mum) "The word you are looking for begins with a tuh" - word in question was thank you and child is just 4 years old. Another eg - at new parents' meeting, teacher said to us, "In Jolly Phonics a suh is pronounced ssss and a muh is pronounced mmmmm" - no explanantion of why.

Silly sausage of a teacher . More worried about her own results than the needs of the kids. It's not a race, and it's never worth fretting if little'uns can't read at 4. The rest of Europe hasn't even started school at this age. I think you should only start getting worried around 7 or 8. Most kids are absolutely fine by then.

We know hardly any phonics in this house. But we're great at reading Lego websites. Much more fun if you ask me, because there's some point to it.

As a reception teacher I'm not a huge fan of THRASS.
Jolly Phonics is much more child friendly and fun. I teach 5 sounds a week and most of the children know most of the sounds taught so far.
Debbie Hepplewhite has produced some good materials on her Phonics International site.
The governments Letters & Sounds site can be quite useful for information and fun games too.

I am not a lover of phonics
i started dd whos 5 this week and already done a year in nursery and now in reception,on the oxford learning tree as shes got an amazing memory.She loved it then we went to a session at school before we broke up for summer and I was told i was doing it wrong

i have had two sheets of letters/words since she started in Sept (sit,tap,pip and so on) which we are doing.But shes not enjoying it and started off on the yellow table (top table for abilty) and is now on the green.The saddest thing is that she worked this out for herself and is upset as she likes to do well.

Synthetic phonics would definitely have helped my very dyslexic ds - he too had an amazing memory and as he has two very able older sisters the school (and I) did not realise for quite a time that he had big problems with reading.

Dd3 gets the brunt of it - I'm really hot on pure sounds and pronunciation (no mumbling allowed in this house - if she learns to say probably and recognise clearly each time, she's got a better chance of spelling them). At school they do 3 sounds a week, and dd has just started on ORT books. I guess they've done 12/15 sounds at school now.

This thread appears to be a bit stale, but I only just found out that my name was mentioned. I hate to make a liar out of Swedishmum by plugging our phonics programme, but just to put the record straight, I think that many of our competitors/colleagues produce excellent programmes too. Sue Lloyd, the principal author of Jolly Phonics, is an old friend, and I know Ruth Miskin (Read-Write) very well. They are amazing teachers who faced a lot of hostility from the educational establishment during the 'real books' era. Their phonics programmes are first rate--but it's only right that there should be a lot of different materials so that parents and teachers can choose the ones they like best, and the ones that best suit their circumstances. As Sue Lloyd & I have discussed, the skill and determination of the parent/teacher is far more important than the phonics programme used.

This said, here's our plug: our Sound Foundations books were designed so that parents and teaching assistants could use them, without the need for much in the way of training. They are totally self-contained, and no lesson-planning is needed. You just pick up the book and go. Our books can all be viewed in full as read-only PDF files on our website www.soundfoundationsbooks.co.uk , so you know exactly what you're getting. Enough said. And many thanks to VirginiaWoolf for pointing everyone to my review of Nicholas Bileby's book--my feelings about him, I confess, aren't quite so charitable.