Learning to read

My daughter learned to read with the ITA system in the 1970s . She can’t spell for toffee

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
Well done! And now you wish perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead, is said like bed, not bead -
for goodness' sake don't call it 'deed'!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt).

A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, or broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's doze and rose and lose -
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, I've hardly made a start!

I love to see carefully constructed writing with due attention to spelling, punctuation and grammar. However, I also believe that it now doesn’t really matter, thanks to keyboard competency, spellcheck and other aids to communication in the modern world. What I hope continues are imagination in storytelling, comprehension of the written word and confidence in getting a well thought out argument across.

“Ghost” letters present a lot of problems for some children: W in wreck, wrote, wrist, etc; K as in knee, knight, knot, knew; and especially G, as in Gnat, Gnaw, sign, reign and foreign; The ‘L’ in would, could, half, chalk, yolk, and salmon.

MaizieD

^There are phonemes which have many different spellings: h*e*, p*eo*ple, k*e*y, bel*ie*ve, s*ei*ze, mach*i*ne, C*ae*sar, s*ea*s, s*ee*, am*oe*ba, which are impossible to learn with pure phonics.^

They're not impossible at all, growstuff. They just have to be taught logically over time. Common variants first, then the ones less likely to be encountered in everyday reading. Especially in the first few years of learning. Phonics 'should' teach children to be very aware of the different ways of spelling phonemes and to be adaptable when decoding. (I say 'should' because it can be taught badly)

And how long would that take? Some pupils will just learn these as whole words. The issue comes when teachers slow these pupils down because they're not going through all the motions - and it happens. Sorry, I'm not knocking phonics, but there are other ways and my own experience is that some teachers and TAs have been so brainwashed by methodology that they don't know what to do when their methods fail. I've witnessed it as a parent and teacher.

P.S I'm not sure what your concept of 'pure phonics' is...

There are phonemes which have many different spellings: h*e*, p*eo*ple, k*e*y, bel*ie*ve, s*ei*ze, mach*i*ne, C*ae*sar, s*ea*s, s*ee*, am*oe*ba, which are impossible to learn with pure phonics.

They're not impossible at all, growstuff. They just have to be taught logically over time. Common variants first, then the ones less likely to be encountered in everyday reading. Especially in the first few years of learning. Phonics 'should' teach children to be very aware of the different ways of spelling phonemes and to be adaptable when decoding. (I say 'should' because it can be taught badly)

My son, who has Down’s Syndrome, was taught to be a whole word reader, which is okay up to a point, but of course, has the aforementioned drawbacks. One day, he was reading aloud from the newspaper, and I heard him read the words
‘ cracker specials ‘, which I thought sounded out of context, so I had a look, and the words were ‘ cocker spaniels ‘! A perfect example of guesswork, when the skill of using phonics is absent.

How do you spell FISH?

GH as in enough
O as in women
TI as in station

GHOTI

Sometimes dyslexia is considered, but it can also be a result of moving on to the next stage before the child is ready. If that happens, it leaves gaps. Teachers nowadays have to follow curriculum stages, within certain timeframes, which can mean moving on before some pupils are ready. I feel really strongly that reading should be ‘ child led ‘, as opposed to following a strict curriculum timetable.

growstuff

How is "ough" pronounced/

I was discussing this yesterday with DD who was teaching her overseas students the vagaries of the English language.

How is "ough" pronounced/

I’m with Lathyrus3, and those endorsing and supplementing her comments.. Me too, a professional. An Ed Psych, my MSc was on literacy acquisition, done early years classroom teaching and then SEND up to and including post grads, and professional training. Not sure of the need for an assessment, Sarnia. It will cost a fortune and they may say your grandchild has some other issues as well as spelling. Check with their teacher re handwriting and coordination. Unlikely there are visual or perceptual problems if they are a good reader. They do need to be able to write legibly so they can read it back and then they also need to learn to proof read.Might be better to spend the money on a ‘broad’ teacher who properly knows about the different ways of encoding. Building with phonics is only one way of doing it. If a child likes the teacher and becomes more confident then they are learning, if the child doesn’t take to them, get rid, cos they will be put off for a long time. Important to see if their handwriting is slow, as there are implications for finishing tasks, and potentially extra time when it comes to exams…..but systems might change by then so I shall say nothing more on that. So do check fine motor coordination, check handwriting/handwriting speed and do get a teacher rather then an assessment. A good teacher can do a ‘running assessment’ whilst teaching, and save money instead of an assessment and teaching.
PS I LOVE LITERACY AND LITERACY TEACHING

Greyduster

I spend two afternoons a week in a local junior school listening to some Year 3 and Year 4 children read. They have all been coached in phonics, but quite honestly I don’t think phonics are helpful when it comes to sight reading in the reading scheme we are using. I can write words out for them using phonic spelling but the next time they see the word as it’s actually written, they don’t recognise it. I therefore prefer to write the word out, split it up into syllables and take them through the sounds a syllable at a time until they can put it all together. I make a note of any words they have struggled with and the following week we go through them again. I also have lists of words with silent letters, ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ letters (c and g for example), words with ‘gh’ in them, ‘tion’ etc. At the end of the day, it comes down to recognition and the only way to recognise words consistently is to read consistently. Unfortunately, there is no culture of reading for pleasure for many children these days and they don’t read at home, like my children and my grandchild did. Before I started doing this, I took the English language, which I love, for granted. In reality, it’s a complete nightmare😁! Try, for example, telling a child who has never seen either the instrument or the word before why cello is pronounced chello. It has opened my eyes to the difficulties that not only poor readers have, but those children for whom English is not their first language.

There are at least four ways the English letter word 'c' can be pronounced - cat, cake, ocean, cello. Not only that but there are homophones such as queue and cue. There are phonemes which have many different spellings: h*e*, p*eo*ple, k*e*y, bel*ie*ve, s*ei*ze, mach*i*ne, C*ae*sar, s*ea*s, s*ee*, am*oe*ba, which are impossible to learn with pure phonics.

As a retired infant teacher, who taught many children to read, I say that phonics is necessary for learning to read and spell. The high frequency words become recognisable for reading through repetition of use , but for working out how to read and spell new words, it’s essential that children know the sound of each letter of the alphabet. I never used alphabet names. I reinforced the sounds constantly by getting the children to draw a picture of something beginning with a given sound. We also matched sounds to pictures, then began putting two sounds together, then three. Ongoing assessment was essential, as there was no point in moving on until a pupil had succeeded in these tasks. It’s also importan, in the early days to ensure that pupils recognise the common words out of context, not just purely from memory of the text of the reading book that they have been using. You don’t want children to be what I call ‘ whole word readers ‘ , as in only being able to read or spell by memory of, or guessing words that they already know, as opposed to being able to use sounds to build up and break down words.
Apologies for the long post!

MaizieD

Lathyrus3

It’s an oldie but goody in reference to phonics - the word

Ghetio

Gh as in enough
E as in pretty
Tio as in station

I've always seen that as 'ghoti'. It's utter nonsense, anyway as that combination would never be encountered in English words.

Except, maybe, in one of the government's tests on phonetics! [wink}

The more you read the more you learn to spell, especially if you learn visually. I 'm good at spelling and part of the reason is that I somehow see it in my brain when trying to spell a challenging word.

I wonder if the teaching of spelling at GD's school is not the best. Confusing spelling mistakes with dyslexia would worry me, if my child was in that class!
There are lots of rules ( and probably most with exceptions which can help or hinder.) I can still remember, for example,
'i before e, except after c, and when the syllable rhymes with t'
There are lots of books out there that may help.

This is such an interesting post . My DH is dyslexic but it wasn’t diagnosed at school . He was told because he could read , the spelling and writing would come . It didn’t.
He has no problem reading but his spelling and writing is still poor . Siri has been a huge bonus for him. However his maths is brilliant. Whereas mine is rubbish .
Our 2 DC are both avid readers as am I . And I did put in a lot of work with them regarding reading , spelling and writing .

Lathyrus3

It’s an oldie but goody in reference to phonics - the word

Ghetio

Gh as in enough
E as in pretty
Tio as in station

I've always seen that as 'ghoti'. It's utter nonsense, anyway as that combination would never be encountered in English words.

are phonics the same thing as phonetics?m If so they were used in Scotland when I started school 69 years ago. We carefully spelled out "Ke -ah-te says cat" and so on. At the same time we recited the letters of the alphabet when teacher pointed to them on the wall chart using the names everyone else has always used in English. Confusing? Not to me. but then I was bilingual so was used to sounds being different and meaning different things.

That is a truly dreadful way to teach phonics, AuntieE. No wonder children like your adopted sister was confused by it.

Phonics teaches how the individual sounds in words are represented by a letter or group of letters.

The biggest problem with the English language is that it is a 'bastard' language made up of words from several different languages, words which are spelled as they would have been in the original language. And, as you noted different languages use different letter combinations to spell the sounds in the words. So instead of children just having to learn one way of representing a sound (phoneme), as they do in a language such as German, they have to learn all the different ways that sound can be spelled and where it is appropriate to use that particular representation when they are spelling a word.

Reading is a bit easier than spelling because the learner can see the letter/s and make a choice as to which sound to attach to it/them in order to produce a recognisable word.

Spelling is a matter of memory and particularly, as someone noted earlier, of kinaesthetic memory for the particular 'pattern' of a written word. The old fashioned method of getting a child to write out the correct spelling of a word they had spelled wrong several times was very sound in that it helped to develop kinaesthetic memory.

I am acquainted with the authors of several good phonics programmes, all of them trained teachers rather than theoreticians. Their programmes work extremely well if properly taught. None of them would claim that there is anything 'new' about phonics, it has been in use for centuries. What was 'new' was the 'look and say' method which was originally devised in the 19th C for teaching deaf children to read.

I spend two afternoons a week in a local junior school listening to some Year 3 and Year 4 children read. They have all been coached in phonics, but quite honestly I don’t think phonics are helpful when it comes to sight reading in the reading scheme we are using. I can write words out for them using phonic spelling but the next time they see the word as it’s actually written, they don’t recognise it. I therefore prefer to write the word out, split it up into syllables and take them through the sounds a syllable at a time until they can put it all together. I make a note of any words they have struggled with and the following week we go through them again. I also have lists of words with silent letters, ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ letters (c and g for example), words with ‘gh’ in them, ‘tion’ etc. At the end of the day, it comes down to recognition and the only way to recognise words consistently is to read consistently. Unfortunately, there is no culture of reading for pleasure for many children these days and they don’t read at home, like my children and my grandchild did. Before I started doing this, I took the English language, which I love, for granted. In reality, it’s a complete nightmare😁! Try, for example, telling a child who has never seen either the instrument or the word before why cello is pronounced chello. It has opened my eyes to the difficulties that not only poor readers have, but those children for whom English is not their first language.

My grandson is dyslexic, and as crusher said it is far more complex than simply having difficulty reading. I can remember when he was a toddler being aware that he had no eye/hand coordination and couldn’t manage a pencil. But it also has its advantages - I haven’t read enough about the differences between the average reader and someone who is dyslexic, but I do know that they have an ability to “see” a project and are very creative, although they approach a problem very differently to the average bod.

I do think that we should not see it as some form of problem, because recognised and treated properly it isn’t a problem. They just have to work in a society which isn’t dyslexic. If that makes sense.

My GS has an engineering degree (computer sciences) and he flies in this subject.

My daughter is dyslexic as is her daughter. They both, to this day, cannot read more than about a page at a time. After a rest, they can read a bit more, but it is extremely hard for both of them. It helped my daughter listening to her older children read, as they were growing up. Are you sure they didn't mean in numeracy? Writing, both my girls get b's and d's back to front.

I don't know what system was used when I was at school, or even if there was a system. All I know is that me and my siblings could read before we started school and so could my 4 children. As long as they have books read to them from when they are tiny most but not all children do learn quite easily. My youngest daughter learnt to read from her favourite book when she was 2. Probably she was just telling the story by rote but she soon learned to recognise the actual words and could apply those words to other story books.

I just find it really sad when people seem proud to say that they haven't read a book since they left school. I would be bereft without books.

are phonics the same thing as phonetics?m If so they were used in Scotland when I started school 69 years ago. We carefully spelled out "Ke -ah-te says cat" and so on. At the same time we recited the letters of the alphabet when teacher pointed to them on the wall chart using the names everyone else has always used in English. Confusing? Not to me. but then I was bilingual so was used to sounds being different and meaning different things.

In Primary 3 we stopped using phonetics and had to get used to spelling CAT as See-ay-tea.

What an utter waste of time!

And it utterly confused my adopted sister who was dyslexic, but no-one knew that when she started school four years after me. So, when her eyesight was tested and found normal, her teachers said she was stupid or lazy.

Daddy blew his top, as he knew she was neither, and he could see she was struggling. My maternal grandmother - the Danish one, solved the problem by saying when she tried to help my sister with her reading homework, "The child is word-blind" this being what it is called in Danish, and she as a retired teacher knew what it was and what you did about it.