Learning to read

My mother taught me to read Welsh and English before I started school at age 5, she wasn't a teacher either, this was back in the early 1940s.

Crusher

If a child is Dyslexic, there is alot more to just reading being a problem.
I have a daughter who is Dyslexic. Besides the good old getting letters wrong, if wording is not of a certain font, colour, my daughter has difficulty reading it. Also Dyslexic people don't see what we see. So if a room is dusty, Dyslexic people don't see mess as we do. Dyslexic problems also come with Dyspraxia problems, which may seem like the Dyslexic person is lazy, which they are not.
I would look into Dyslexicia more, it's not just a school problem, it's a life problem. My daughter went to university and is a designer, to overcome problems she keeps reading, she has overcome many hurdles. I wish I knew, when she was at school, what I know now about Dyslexicia, that was 20 years ago. Dyslexicia is very complex.

Not only that, but poor spelling isn't always caused by dyslexia.

Maizie You're right about not decoding using phonics with suffixes such as "ation". Readers (and spellers) need to remember the "shape" of the letters in sequence.

Good readers will internalise the element so quickly that their brains don't bother to memorise the details, so they later could have difficulties when spelling.

When learning a foreign language, learners can read much more than they can spell. They look at a whole word or elements of words and can read (and usually pronounce them), but far fewer can actually spell them. It's a similar process when learning to read/speak/spell a native language.

But Maizie have you really read the literature describing the limitations of phonics and the alternatives when phonics don't work? Phonics have become something of a "religion" for believers, who seem blinkered about the criticisms.

If a child is Dyslexic, there is alot more to just reading being a problem.
I have a daughter who is Dyslexic. Besides the good old getting letters wrong, if wording is not of a certain font, colour, my daughter has difficulty reading it. Also Dyslexic people don't see what we see. So if a room is dusty, Dyslexic people don't see mess as we do. Dyslexic problems also come with Dyspraxia problems, which may seem like the Dyslexic person is lazy, which they are not.
I would look into Dyslexicia more, it's not just a school problem, it's a life problem. My daughter went to university and is a designer, to overcome problems she keeps reading, she has overcome many hurdles. I wish I knew, when she was at school, what I know now about Dyslexicia, that was 20 years ago. Dyslexicia is very complex.

Lathyrus3

Yes growstuff. I read in “blocks” not individual letters. It wasn’t till the film came out that I realised Gandlaf actually wasn’t😳

Which tells me that you're not decoding when you're reading...

I'd be interested to know which reading research you were involved with, I have read a huge amount of reading research, some good, some bad... I could bore for hours about phonics, too.

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

Lathyrus3

Yes growstuff. I read in “blocks” not individual letters. It wasn’t till the film came out that I realised Gandlaf actually wasn’t😳

My background is in foreign language learning and linguistics. I memorise words in "blocks" too eg. I know that the sound "ayshun" is spelt "ation" in English - and I remember the letters as a group. In other languages "ation" is represented by a different sound. "ation" is never pronounced a-t-i-o-n as individual sounds.

I can't remember how I learnt to read/write, but I started realising how I remembered new spellings - and it's not with phonics.

Yes growstuff. I read in “blocks” not individual letters. It wasn’t till the film came out that I realised Gandlaf actually wasn’t😳

Lathyrus You have (IMO) made some valid points. Anecdotally, I have a son who never learnt to read/write through phonics. He was so bad that he had to have "special" literacy lessons. Fortunately, the teacher was quite traditional and had other tricks to reading/writing in her armoury. Once the penny clicked for my son, he never looked back and I don't think I know anybody who is more bookish than he is.

Some reading theorists claim that some excellent early readers don't need to decode words by syllable, so they don't pay much attention to how words are actually formed. They visualise whole words, but can't always remember the actual letters involved, so are poor spellers.

Sarnia, my GD is also ten and a very fluent and enthusiastic reader but a poor speller.
She also has a diognosis of dyslexia! They are good readers - so let's rejoice in that! Please don't worry , if you daughter is dyslexic there are ways to manage that. Her spelling is poor - she will learn to cope. Good luck and I am sure you are giving your GC all the support and praise she needs. All will be well.

I am a retired Early Years teacher so have some insight here.
Over the years I was exhorted to use a number of initiatives, and this has led me to agree with Lathyrus that children ( and adults) respond differently to approaches. If one strategy didn't work, I was happy to try another.
However,the last few years, with it's total promotion of phonics- is- the- only- way hasn't been good for every child.
The Literacy strategy in Reception year was followed by Additional Literacy Strategy in Year 1, for those who were still struggling, then , you've guessed it , Further Literacy Strategy to follow - i.e. The Mixture as Before.. rather than a change .
And yes, spelling is different and muscle memory is involved, but....some of our Reception children are just four and lack the strength in fine motor movements, so can find this hard work.

I think I learned with Peter and Jane, definitely not Janet and John.

Our own children had Roger Red Hat, Billy Blue Hat and Grandfather Yellow Hat.

They had to memorise words from cards as I recall. Seemed strange to me, they didn’t learn the words as such, just remembered them.

But they ended up good readers, like me, so it must have worked.

NotSpaghetti

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?

I didn’t express myself well.

What I was trying to say was that reading ( in the initial stages when it is just decoding ie working out the word) fires off activity in the left side of the brain, with the left hippocampus interacting with logic and spatial awareness. Which is why logical phonic schemes often work well in reading.

Whilst encoding in the initial stages comes from activity in the right side of the brain with the right hippocampus interacting with with imagination and language.

This is just for the initial stages. Later on reading and writing uses practically all the brain I believe.

I was an early reader and have always read a lot.
I was also very good at spelling but my handwriting has always been poor. I never learnt the spellings for our weekly test at school but always got them right. I believe I am dyspraxic, hence the poor writing.
Lathyrus - your research sounds fascinating and I am curious how spelling and writing are linked when I am good at one and poor at the other?

My dh has never been much of a reader and his spelling isn’t that good so if he asks me how to spell a word I sound it out in phonics …. in ter res ting and he just doesn’t get it. Even when I break it into small bites and sound it out slowly. I have to spell each individual letter.
(He didn’t learn to read with phonics.).

SueDonim

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.

Absolutely.

There is no ‘one size fits all’ and I’m totally frustrated by today’s approach in schools that says if you’re failing to learn with the current emphasis on phonics then the problem is with the learner not the approach.

The remedy seems to be to give the learner extra lessons in phonics 😱

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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?

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.

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.