Is phonics the best way to learn to read and spell?

Allira

Daddima

Bad Granny here again! Why on earth is Sarnia ‘sitting doing spelling most days’ with the child, who’s finding it hard to forget’? To me, that’s piling reading related stress on her, guaranteed to make reading a chore rather than a pleasure.
Please, leave it to the teachers’ methods. Their ways may not be your ways, but it’s the way it is.
( And, incidentally, I am a wee bit obsessive about grammar and spelling)

Why on earth is Sarnia ‘sitting doing spelling most days’ with the child, who’s finding it hard to forget’?

I think because Sarnia's DGD will be taking SATS soon.
Some schools set spelling tests each week and sample SARS papers too,
It's really quite stressful, yes, but it's what happens in England. Whether it's a good thing or not I do not know but I have my doubts.

So, wouldn’t it be better if the results flagged up a problem ( if there is one)? I would still far rather be fostering a love for reading than making it a chore, and would wonder if maybe introducing different methods because of a test approaching would have the opposite effect.

MaizieD

I am curious to know what steps all you skilled readers (and your skilled children and grandchildren) would take to work out what it 'says' if you encountered a word which you didn't 'know' and had never seen written.

Equally, how would you go about spelling a completely unfamiliar word if it were presented to you orally?

Or work out how to say something like "live" is it as in "I want to live in a house" or "I want to go to a live concert". It's almost as if we have to use different techniques in different situations and phonics isn't a magic bullet anymore than any other technique

How many words have you sight read on here today and how many have you decoded with phonics?

Daddima

Allira

Daddima

Bad Granny here again! Why on earth is Sarnia ‘sitting doing spelling most days’ with the child, who’s finding it hard to forget’? To me, that’s piling reading related stress on her, guaranteed to make reading a chore rather than a pleasure.
Please, leave it to the teachers’ methods. Their ways may not be your ways, but it’s the way it is.
( And, incidentally, I am a wee bit obsessive about grammar and spelling)

Why on earth is Sarnia ‘sitting doing spelling most days’ with the child, who’s finding it hard to forget’?

I think because Sarnia's DGD will be taking SATS soon.
Some schools set spelling tests each week and sample SARS papers too,
It's really quite stressful, yes, but it's what happens in England. Whether it's a good thing or not I do not know but I have my doubts.

So, wouldn’t it be better if the results flagged up a problem ( if there is one)? I would still far rather be fostering a love for reading than making it a chore, and would wonder if maybe introducing different methods because of a test approaching would have the opposite effect.

I remember DD having a weekly list of spelling which she was supposed to practise at home with our (my) help.

GrannyGravy13

My just 6yr old GS (currently being assessed for being on the spectrum) asked me if he could read the bedtime story last night.

He picked up one of the new books (I constantly buy new books for when the GC stay over) and read it, using phonics on the longer words which were new to him.

He loves reading everything, books, road signs, anything on TV phonics has opened an entire world for him.

Did he sight read any of the words? Sounds like he did if he only used phonics for the new words.

Using various techniques really does work doesn't it.

theworriedwell

GrannyGravy13

My just 6yr old GS (currently being assessed for being on the spectrum) asked me if he could read the bedtime story last night.

He picked up one of the new books (I constantly buy new books for when the GC stay over) and read it, using phonics on the longer words which were new to him.

He loves reading everything, books, road signs, anything on TV phonics has opened an entire world for him.

Did he sight read any of the words? Sounds like he did if he only used phonics for the new words.

Using various techniques really does work doesn't it.

He has learnt to read with phonics, and still uses phonics when he comes across words he doesn’t recognise.

I don’t think we are expecting anyone who has learnt to read this way to continue to use it throughout their reading life

Like most things we learn in our early years we adapt and move on as we grow up/age.

theworriedwell

MaizieD

I am curious to know what steps all you skilled readers (and your skilled children and grandchildren) would take to work out what it 'says' if you encountered a word which you didn't 'know' and had never seen written.

Equally, how would you go about spelling a completely unfamiliar word if it were presented to you orally?

Or work out how to say something like "live" is it as in "I want to live in a house" or "I want to go to a live concert". It's almost as if we have to use different techniques in different situations and phonics isn't a magic bullet anymore than any other technique

How many words have you sight read on here today and how many have you decoded with phonics?

I was asking about completely new words, not familiar ones in different contexts.

Cognitive neuroscientist Stanislaus Dehaene dertermined the sequence of actions performed by the brain in word reading.

Rather than plough through my copy of the book I asked AI to summarise his findings and timings of the process (the resulting table is slightly irregular because of formatting. It can't be tidied up on here)

This is obviously analysis of skilled reading

Summary table (Dehaene’s sequence)

Time after seeing wordStageWhat is recognized

0–100 ms Visual features Lines, edges
100–170 ms Letter recognitionIndividual letters
170–250 ms Letter combinationsLetter strings
200–300 ms Word-form recognitionWhole word identity
250–400 ms Phonology + lexical access Word sound & identity
300–500 ms Semantic processing Word meaning

END

An 'ms' is a thousandth of a second. So, half a second or less for the whole process. And the process starts with identifying individual letters.

As you see, 'decoding', including phonic analysis is how we skilled readers read words apparently 'on sight'.

You are mistakenly associating 'decoding' with the laborious process necessarily undertaken by a learner.

My daughter teaches infants. Phonetics, when applied and taught correctly, absolutely are the best way to learn to read.

Spelling absolutely is muscle memory, and some children ;and adults) have stronger memories than others.

M0nica

MaizieD I am on your side. My MiL was an infant teacher and for 3 terrible years under one headmistress had to teach children to read using the ITA, initial teaching alphabet. She said that the gransfer from that to normal spelling, pushed some children's reading skills back by about a year.

I was one of these pupils, made so much worse by the fact that I was already reading (normal reading!) by the time I started in reception. Luckily my grandfather, with whom we lived at this time and who was a classics master at our local his grammar school, popped into school and had a discrete work with my teacher and I was “allowed” to use “real” books. Some of my poor peers really struggled with correct spellings!

The adoption of ITA was a bit typical of our education system really. It certainly made learning to read easier in that it used a symbol for every sound used to construct English words. As we use about 44 'sounds' and only have 26 letters (well, 23 really because c, k and q all represent the same sound) we have to use combinations of them.

What wasn't thought through was the transition and the fact that millions of books could be inaccessible to children taught with ITA!

Still, it did inspire Sue Lloyd's Jolly Phonics: we should be grateful for that

It's better for some, maybe many, maybe most. It isn't the best for all as it doesn't work for all.

Cossy we had this problem with one of my children. Reading fluently at four and school insisted she had to start again. So initially books with just pictures, then phonics. She was so distressed we home educated for a time. So she missed phonics. Didn't stop her getting a first class honours degree from a top rated university in her subject and post grad qualifications.

If only she'd do e phonics!

Mai,ieD you realise whole words recognition is in there?

You didn't seem to understand about words like live. We read in various ways, with words like live context tells us which way it is used.

Once again the reluctance to accept that phonics isn't everything. Like I said earlier it is like a cult. If you believe in phonics you can't possibly open your mind to anything else. Like my GS who got nowhere with it, like my DD who taught herself to read well before school. Maybe, probably, they are a minority but they exist.

Once you can read, only unfamiliar words are decided using phonics. All the others are sight-reading, combined with understanding of the meaning as mentioned above with I live or live screening

I imagine that all posters on here would have hardly paused except possibly for deciding how to pronounce Dehaene based on your knowledge of words like Caesar, aerate, algae,
And when you’ve decided, find out how he pronounces his name in this video clip.
share.google/q0PNUw1Y3w8wtrjWA

My children learned to read by look and say, because that was what was available. They learned to spell by learning word groups containing the various sounds/letter patterns and the different spellings for the same sound e.g. write, rite and right again combined with meaning, a bit like learning ça and sa or ces/ses in French.
Phonics has been a good tool. During the time I’ve been teaching I’ve seen fewer children struggling to read with phonics than those struggling to read with look and say.
But even with phonics you have to have some look and say words there right from the start. (tricky in JP or High Frequency in RWI)
Even words like the, he, she, said, was or those which can eventually be sounded out when children reach that phase.

Mai,ieD you realise whole words recognition is in there?

Whole word recognition is in where?

Dr Dehaene is detailing how the brain recognises whole words. We are talking about the most effective way to teach children to read. Teaching words as whole units makes no sense whatsoever when it disregards the sequence of efficient word recognition.

I have said before that some children intuit the phonics themselves, but those who don't are permanently disabled because they have no way of working out how to read unknown words. If they have been able to 'learn' 3,000 words as whole symbols (which is quite an achievement in itself) they can't go any further. Which closes off the remaining 247,000 words in the English language to them.

Your argument about 'live' has more to do with context than with word recognition. English has a fair amount of homonyms, the pronunciation of which are dependent on the context in which they are used. Children may be able to recall that 'live' has different meanings and pronunciation according to where it is used but if they've not been taught phonics what do they do with ;jive', which is not a word they're likely to frequently encounter? They might, if they've intuited the phonics, work out how it is pronounced but what if they haven't? Do bees live in a 'hiv' or a hive'. Are a number of married women 'wivs' or wives'?

There is no way that phonics is a cult. It is a practical and efficient way of teaching the greatest number of children how to read.

Perhaps you've never encountered a large number of children who still, after 6 years of instruction in whole word. Look and Say instruction can barely read a few high frequency words. It destroys their self worth, it diminishes any benefit that education might have for them and it can lead to severe restriction of their life chances. Did you know that up to 65% of the UK prison population are illiterate or barely literate?

The teaching of systematic phonics has only been mandated in English schools since about 2012. Before that it was a mish mash of some, or no, phonics, and Look and Say. The effect on national literacy levels has barely registered yet.

But after 13 years of mandated phonics in schools 25 % failed to reach the expected standard in reading at KS2 and 28% failed to reach the expected standard in writing.

These are children who have had the full teaching and learning programme of phonics through their school years.

So phonics aren’t working for quite a large number of children any more than the six years of Look and Say.

Which children were in this study? Which schools? What was their background? Need far more information on methodology than just listing raw data.

Well I suppose it was all the children in English state schools at the end of KS2.

Methodology questionable I give you.

MaizieD, the youngsters I was with with loved 'Wellington Square'. It worked for them. Gave them success and confidence.

MaizieD

^Mai,ieD you realise whole words recognition is in there?^

Whole word recognition is in where?

Dr Dehaene is detailing how the brain recognises whole words. We are talking about the most effective way to teach children to read. Teaching words as whole units makes no sense whatsoever when it disregards the sequence of efficient word recognition.

I have said before that some children intuit the phonics themselves, but those who don't are permanently disabled because they have no way of working out how to read unknown words. If they have been able to 'learn' 3,000 words as whole symbols (which is quite an achievement in itself) they can't go any further. Which closes off the remaining 247,000 words in the English language to them.

Your argument about 'live' has more to do with context than with word recognition. English has a fair amount of homonyms, the pronunciation of which are dependent on the context in which they are used. Children may be able to recall that 'live' has different meanings and pronunciation according to where it is used but if they've not been taught phonics what do they do with ;jive', which is not a word they're likely to frequently encounter? They might, if they've intuited the phonics, work out how it is pronounced but what if they haven't? Do bees live in a 'hiv' or a hive'. Are a number of married women 'wivs' or wives'?

There is no way that phonics is a cult. It is a practical and efficient way of teaching the greatest number of children how to read.

Perhaps you've never encountered a large number of children who still, after 6 years of instruction in whole word. Look and Say instruction can barely read a few high frequency words. It destroys their self worth, it diminishes any benefit that education might have for them and it can lead to severe restriction of their life chances. Did you know that up to 65% of the UK prison population are illiterate or barely literate?

The teaching of systematic phonics has only been mandated in English schools since about 2012. Before that it was a mish mash of some, or no, phonics, and Look and Say. The effect on national literacy levels has barely registered yet.

Do you realise that the children who don't progress with phonics feel just like the children who don't progress with look say?

I have acknowledged that it works for many children but you can't seem to accept it doesn't work for all.

I think it was you who said if phonics isn't working there are other strategies you use. Maybe explain them so we can understand that all the children matter.

Who are the we you refer to here tww?

I find your insinuation that anyone on here doesn’t think all children matter rather unpleasant.

FYI
Teaching reading with phonics also involves whole word recognition.

Different schemes refer to these in different ways, e.g. tricky words or high frequency words or key words.

Even before the consistent introduction of phonics, strategies like Reading Recovery, or Toe by Toe also helped.

youtu.be/AoX2Adi5knQ?si=9gAqBE0bDtImFH3A

You will note from that link that the demonstrator doesn’t use puh a tuh or duh o guh to spell pat or dog, but shortens the consonants to as near to a pure sound as possible.

However, you still have to know phonics in order to make progress, even if you use them unconsciously, not realising that that’s what you are doing.

I can recognise a few Russian words on sight, but I couldn’t build on that skill until I know how to read/write the sounds that make those words.

-Speed drills also help children recognise HF words on sight. I used these to boost automaticity of recognition.

Automacity doesn’t make children fluent but it means they read or spell words without having to sound them out.

Incidentally, one problem with children reading less, or having less spoken communication or fewer opportunities to hear stories, is that they have to learn the vocabulary alongside learning to read it regardless of what strategy is used.

Mollygo

Who are the we you refer to here tww?

I find your insinuation that anyone on here doesn’t think all children matter rather unpleasant.

FYI
Teaching reading with phonics also involves whole word recognition.

Different schemes refer to these in different ways, e.g. tricky words or high frequency words or key words.

Even before the consistent introduction of phonics, strategies like Reading Recovery, or Toe by Toe also helped.

youtu.be/AoX2Adi5knQ?si=9gAqBE0bDtImFH3A

You will note from that link that the demonstrator doesn’t use puh a tuh or duh o guh to spell pat or dog, but shortens the consonants to as near to a pure sound as possible.

However, you still have to know phonics in order to make progress, even if you use them unconsciously, not realising that that’s what you are doing.

I can recognise a few Russian words on sight, but I couldn’t build on that skill until I know how to read/write the sounds that make those words.

-Speed drills also help children recognise HF words on sight. I used these to boost automaticity of recognition.

Automacity doesn’t make children fluent but it means they read or spell words without having to sound them out.

Incidentally, one problem with children reading less, or having less spoken communication or fewer opportunities to hear stories, is that they have to learn the vocabulary alongside learning to read it regardless of what strategy is used.

I found it offensive when reading being about the majority of children as I believe it is for all children, even the ones who do t progress with phonics.

Thank you for acknowledging that even teaching phonics involved whole words recognition which we all know really even if we can't acknowledge it.

tww Who are the we you keep referring to this time, who can’t acknowledge it.

If you’ve read any of the posts on here which mention tricky words, High Frequency Words, (HF) or key words, maybe you didn’t understand that those are sight words.

I’ve attached a list of the first 100 HF words used in school, which are taught alongside phonics. The words with a red line under could also easily be sounded out.
I hope that reassures you that even the most ardent phonics teacher will be teaching some sight words, usually with flash cards in the same way as they used to be taught.

For further practice of helping children to gain automaticity in recognising words on sight, you might look at the Toe by Toe link.

I don't think anyone is advocating using only one method. There was a shortish era when it was phonetic notation that was in vogue - sounds were represented by official phonetic symbols which often bore no resemblance to the normal spelling of English at all. There were far more of these symbols to be learnt by a beginner than the 26 letters of the alphabet, and once they had learnt them and were fluent in reading their (specially printed) books they were then weaned into "real" words and "real" books. Is that still done?
My impression is that all early reading teaching is now done using a mixture of phonics and whole-words, depending on the child and the words. I think it is well-known that some words lend themselves to recognition as a whole - "elephant" is a lot more distinctive in shape than "winnow" or "minimum"

Ah.

Now it’s Phonics with Look and Say

rather than

Look and Say wth phonics - like before.

Plus ca change…………😬

Lathyrus3

Ah.

Now it’s Phonics with Look and Say

rather than

Look and Say wth phonics - like before.

Plus ca change…………😬

That's it isn't it. I learned to read almost 70 years ago, we sounded out so c-a-t says cat so phonics which got "discovered" decades later. The books would have lists of the words in the book at the back and before you moved to another book you had to read them, bit of look say but just revising what we'd done in the book.

My eldest learned to read 45 years ago, look say which I was dubious about but just the other way round so he learned some words and then sounding out introduced for some words so if gate appears in the book you'd then have a section with words like late and hate.

Then we had DD teaching herself to read before school but school very unhappy as she had to learn with phonics. Follows virtually trying to take her back to not reading so she could learn the "proper" way. Deputy head told me she couldn't read as you can only read if you've been taught by a qualified teacher. Reading test by another teacher proved otherwise.

The sad one with GS just not getting phonics being diagnosed as dyslexic which later changed and he wasn't dyslexic at all.

I still think most kids will learn with any system, some children will do well with a particular system and others won't.