Learning to read

Janet and John did the trick for me. (Note not the Terry Wogan version!)

My daughter teaches infants, they use phonics but combine correct spelling once words are learned and real reading starts

I'm with Aveline there. Grandchildren learn phonics I think .

My children were home educated and we chose not to use reading schemes.
We read real books untill they were "free" readers.
I don't honestly think reading and spelling are as related as some people think.

My spelling - especially of shorter everyday words has always been on the suspect side but I'm good with words that are longer and used less - such as say, rhododendron or onomatopoeia. I was an early and avid reader. I was good at spelling tests as I "crammed" the necessary words and promptly forgot them after the test.

My memory of the Janet and John scheme was how dull it was...
One of my boys liked what I thought were "dull" stories of the Milly Molly Mandy sort.

I'm less concerned about writing and spelling now than I was when my children were growing up.
There's much less call for handwriting now and anything formal/important will almost certainly be typed. There's spellchecker now too so it won't hold people back quite the same.

I should add, I can spot spelling errors (even my own) - maybe because I've read a lot?
I think if your granddaughter is a reader she will be fine.

No phonics around for me or my children. Just the old Janet & John and Peter and Jane for us. Weekly spelling tests and when my children were young we used to stick flash cards around their bedrooms to help them.

We can all read and spell.

And my memory may of course be tricking me, but I really don't remember there being so many people around when I was young who didn't know their "there" from their "their" and all the other bloopers you constantly see these days.

And even though I've read this post about 5 times it'll be just my luck that I've made a spelling mistake in it

Just been thinking - and really I suppose we did use a type of phonics naturally with our children. We didn't analyse phonic elements by name (as my grandchildren do in school) and didn't study "phonics" as a separate subject - but did break down words and notice how there are "families" of words. I think this is part of making rhymes and writing poetry.

I think what we did is maybe what they call "embedded" phonics these days.
I'd have to check that though!

When I attended infants there was a (ridiculous) reading scheme called ITA!

I was living with my Mum and Grandparents at the time and my dear Grampa taught me to read long before I started school (he was deputy Head and Latin Master at a local Grammar School)

The school wanted me to “unlearn” conventional reading and use the scheme, despite objections from my DM and DGF, I (apparently) ignored the teachers and just carried on with the reading I had learned.

Thank goodness this scheme didn’t last long!

I have no idea how I learnt to read. My mother said I taught myself. I could read fluently before I went to school, and was very impatient with those who couldn’t!

My children were much the same. I suppose they looked at the books I read to them, and picked it up that way.

We were lucky to have hundreds of hours reading time with out children.
Happy days!
😍

Reading, speaking, writing- they are the tools of language and will be learned however they are. I grew up with books and could read before I went to school, the writing came later. I was surroundered by the spoken word, however, constant chatter and banter going on in the home. I think this is what is missing now- so I suggest talking to our grandchildren is the more important thing these days.

Ahem, at the risk of sounding a knowall, I have actually taken part in some quite extensive research on how we learn to read and write, including spelling.

Notspaghetti is right when she says reading and spelling are not as related as some people think.

Reading is a decoding skill and phonics can be very helpful in this although I think the current emphasis on phonics in schools is detrimental to some styles of learning (but that’s a different debate). It employs the part of your brain that is concerned with perception- working out what an existing image is and is actually quite a visual skill.

Writing, including spelling, is an encoding skill. It uses a different part of your brain more closely linked to imagination. The image of what should be there has to be generated internally in the brain. That is why lots of people employ “does it look right” to check spelling. They compare the image they can see with the one that exists in their brain.

I could go on (interminably!) however re the OP.

There is a strong link between spelling and handwriting a word. Practically one of the most effective ways to improve spelling is repeated writing of a word/words with a pen that offers resistance like a felt tip or old fashioned fountain pen that also helps to imprint a physical movement on the brain.

Hope you haven’t all gone to sleep or just given up😳

Aveline

Janet and John did the trick for me. (Note not the Terry Wogan version!)

Although it might have worked even better!

ferry23

No phonics around for me or my children. Just the old Janet & John and Peter and Jane for us. Weekly spelling tests and when my children were young we used to stick flash cards around their bedrooms to help them.

We can all read and spell.

And my memory may of course be tricking me, but I really don't remember there being so many people around when I was young who didn't know their "there" from their "their" and all the other bloopers you constantly see these days.

And even though I've read this post about 5 times it'll be just my luck that I've made a spelling mistake in it

Same here.

All those years ago when my oldest DC was at infant school and learning to read by a traditional method, my friend's older DD at another nearby primary school was learning by a most peculiar method of phonics. My friend disagreed with the method but, as she was primary school teacher herself, taught her DD by traditional methods.

I always remember seeing one of her DD's reading books, it was very strange. They then had to learn all over again.

... I meant to say we were lucky to have hundreds of hours reading time with our children - not with out children!

Thanks Lathyrus3 really interesting (and obvious if you think about it).

Now I want to know how precision (and carefully formed letters) when writing is or isn't linked to creativity and imagination??.

Honestly! I could go on about all this for ages ( and bore everyone to death)😬😱

We do different things with letter formation. When we copy a letter image we implant it in memory, when we reproduce exactly the same image without being able to see it we retrieve it from the same part of the bran plus imagination.
When we start to develop our own style or decorate with letter forms we then use a third part that links with emotion.

It’s really fascinating to see different parts of the brain firing up. I think I was so lucky to be involved in the research and to live in a time when we can actually see our brains working.

I just wish people who make decisions in education would pay some attention 🙄

Well I was a prolific reader from an early age. In fact I was given a travelling prize when I was at school which was a large amount of money for books. Also my leaving report stated that I had an understanding of good books which was far beyond my years.HOWEVER my spelling was also hit and miss. It improved when I went to College years later and I wrote essays with a dictionary next to me to ensure that words were correct.I also went to a lecture on spelling and was told that spelling was a different skill. I think you will find that many authors have spellings corrected before publication. Scott’s Fitzgerald for example. In this day of predictive text etc you can always blame the computer.

Lathyrus3

Ahem, at the risk of sounding a knowall, I have actually taken part in some quite extensive research on how we learn to read and write, including spelling.

Notspaghetti is right when she says reading and spelling are not as related as some people think.

Reading is a decoding skill and phonics can be very helpful in this although I think the current emphasis on phonics in schools is detrimental to some styles of learning (but that’s a different debate). It employs the part of your brain that is concerned with perception- working out what an existing image is and is actually quite a visual skill.

Writing, including spelling, is an encoding skill. It uses a different part of your brain more closely linked to imagination. The image of what should be there has to be generated internally in the brain. That is why lots of people employ “does it look right” to check spelling. They compare the image they can see with the one that exists in their brain.

I could go on (interminably!) however re the OP.

There is a strong link between spelling and handwriting a word. Practically one of the most effective ways to improve spelling is repeated writing of a word/words with a pen that offers resistance like a felt tip or old fashioned fountain pen that also helps to imprint a physical movement on the brain.

Hope you haven’t all gone to sleep or just given up😳

Very interesting post. Thank you.

Practically one of the most effective ways to improve spelling is repeated writing of a word/words with a pen that offers resistance like a felt tip or old fashioned fountain pen that also helps to imprint a physical movement on the brain.

I was taught it builds muscle memory.
I was also taught that using cursive writing, ie not taking the pen off the paper until the end of the word, helps imprint the spelling in the brain.
It's fascinating isn't it?

Dyslexia does not just cover reading - the decoding of text, it also includes the encoding of text - that is spelling.

For most people with dyslexia they have problems with both decoding and encoding text, but some do just have a problem with one aspect only, reading without problem but real problems with spelling - like your grand daughter, Sarnia - or even struggling with reading but having no problem writing or spelling correctly

This is a really interesting subject Lathyrus3 - of course when my own children were small we did what seemed right for them.
That was the lovely thing about home education. We had no one proscribed path.

I went to a small montessori school and though I didn't "need" (for example) sandpaper letters, I loved to see some of my own children exploring them as toddlers.

I think I interpreted
Writing, including spelling, is an encoding skill. It uses a different part of your brain more closely linked to imagination.
to mean that there was a link between writing and creativity..
I think you meant a "brain link", Lathyrus? As in part of the way the brain functions?

Both of my children, who are now in their 40's, were excellent readers, but had poor handwriting and spelling. Their father had problems with reading and spelling as did their paternal grandfather.
When they were at school they were taught reading with the aid of Letterland.
By the time I became a primary school teacher that scheme had gone out of fashion. My first placement school used a mixture of phonics and word recognition to teach word building and reading.
Other schools used different methods.
The teaching of phonics nowadays is much more standardised.
I do have doubts as to the necessity to teach 5 and 6 year olds what a digraph and trigraph is, but thankfully, I no longer have to worry about that.

I was taught to read using phonics, as in "what is a 'w' a''h' and an 'o' " to the consternation of my parents. In my teaching career I used 'Look and say'method for Dick and Dora, Ladybird, Reading Tree, Ginn 360 and others; the latter part of my career teaching of reading reverted to phonics although the proponents behaved as though they had just discovered it, and also I.T.A. (initial teaching alphabet which never succeeded because children had to unlearn the phonic combinations they learned to begin with using invented shorthand symbols).
The teaching of spelling is not addressed clearly enough, and the use of magic lines (write the initial sound and teacher will fill in the rest) and Emergent Writing, where you acquire spelling rather than learn it (many don't) did a great deal of damage in the 1980s and 90s.

There are different types of spellers who learn in different ways: photographic, syllabic, sounds, recognition, phonemes, digraphs et al, by rote, cursive handwriting to reinforce writing strings and patterns (can't remember the correct terms,) but the damage is done by early teachers who say 'spelling does not matter; it is communication that counts.'

Thank goodness for the spell checkers and little red lines. Good readers generally remember and visualise the words because they are familiar with the words.

Lathyrus wrote I just wish people who make decisions in education would pay some attention.

I also wish educators would acknowledge that learning literacy is not achieved with a one size fits all approach. One of my GC has struggled to learn to read despite being articulate and well-rounded in all other areas. Curiously (to me, at any rate!) is that she has had no problem learning writing and writes clearly and tidily, despite being left-handed.

Part of the issue is down to her school, I suspect, as more than half of her class is below the expected standard at their age, which to me suggests it’s the teaching at fault, not the learners. One 40 minute literacy lesson a week surely isn’t enough to embed reading at age five? Her parents reinforce at home but not all parents can do that. I can see now how children can pass through the system and emerge at the other end with very poor literacy skills.