Ideas for teaching a 10yr old phase 4/5 phonics

[GizmoIsSoFluffy]

Hi, TA here. I need to teach a 10yr old boy phase 4/5 phonics next year. He is bright, but has language disability.

How can I make it more interesting for him. He hates reading, but loves a giggle.

Thanks for any ideas.

Bumping... Hoping....

What about writing comics together? There is a comic strip builder on phonics play..
phonicsplaycomics.co.uk

Are you schools based, because if you are you might have to stick with the SSP your school is using?
Some of them are a bit twitchy about anything that isn't part of their scheme 🙄

But if you have some freedom then you can make your own games.. (you could probably find a few ideas on Twinkl/ Phonics play then modify them to suit him)

I think you need to be specific about what you want to achieve.. it might be that whole word reading is his thing (some kids never get on with alternates and just learn the words or by letter patterns etc)

Hope some of this helps!

I would go with something like RWI Fresh Start. Something systematic and structured.

It should however also be based on any recommendations in the report from the Ed Psych which I’m assuming he has if he has been diagnosed with a language disorder. The end part of any report is usually the most useful!

What's the actual language disorder, what does he struggle with? That will drive how you approach it.

Phase 5 has lots of good long vowel sounds which can work well doing silly rhymes/poems.

Phase 4 is a lot of consonant blends, always makes me think of activities around onomatopoeia words like "crunch" and "drip".

it might be that whole word reading is his thing (some kids never get on with alternates and just learn the words or by letter patterns etc)

Noooo please don't buy into this. People who learn by whole/part word recognition only tend to end up poor or slow readers as adults because they can't identify less common words. They can seem fine in daily life with high frequency words everywhere but to attain any decent level of higher education you need to be able to tackle far more text with unusual vocabulary and that requires phonics knowledge.

Absolutely! The class teacher or SENDCO should be planning the intervention based on what the Ed Pysch report recommends. The school should have an accredited SSP and shouldn’t be using a random mix Letters and Sounds Phase 2,3,4,5 materials any more.

i have a postgrad in literacy and dyslexia and the vast majority of pupils will be helped by a structured and systematic phonics programme which is driven by a sound initial assessment.

Ok, sorry to have caused upset about whole word reading and I should have been more specific 😂

I am an EYFS teacher and am a huge phonics fan, I spend my life teaching phonics and preaching about how important teaching phonics is (especially phase 1 which lots of places ignore or skip through too fast)

However, during my career I have worked with the occasional child with identified SEND needs or trauma damage who haven't engaged well with a phonics approach.
In these specific cases (with the recommendation from their SALT and ED Psych) these specific children work best with whole word reading.

Then I have taught them the sounds needed to pass the phonics screen in Year 1 because without that the world ends of course.

It depends on the child of course.

this is article is interesting.. It is a 'heavy' read though.. link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10648-019-09515-y in the 'how should I approach reading'... debate

They draw this conclusion:

Despite the widespread support for systematic phonics within the research literature, there is little or no evidence that this approach is more effective than many of the most common alternative methods used in school, including whole language. This does not mean that learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences is unimportant, but it does mean that there is little or no empirical evidence that systematic phonics leads to better reading outcomes.

If you type (or copy) the name of the article in the above link you will find it :

Reconsidering the Evidence That Systematic Phonics Is More Effective Than Alternative Methods of Reading Instruction

I was initially taught to read using ITA. Then had to relearn using flashcards and whole word. Whole word reading isn't a sin - it's how the majority of the UK learnt at one point. I am one of the fastest and most accurate readers I know.

The odd student will still learn best that way, I agree. Phonics isn't the be all and end all in learning to read, especially if the child is older and has failed to attain fluency by UKS2, as it actually pretty common. I see lots of students who struggle to unlock phonics. Whole word reading can and does help some of them. In fact it also encorages in depth looking at surrounding words to find meaning.

If you've been around as long as I have, you fully expect everything to cycle around again anyway.