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

My goodness all these reading schemes sound complicated thank goodness all of us learned to read at home before we started school.

Children learn that they can sound out the words in green cards. They know how many sounds from the dots and lines .
Some Green words could be called “tricky” until the children have reached that phase.
e.g. blends like ee in three aren’t decodeable until children reach phase 3.

They're on different coloured cards because they're 'tricky', not because they're not decodeable.

And I didn't include 'is' in my short list of decodeable ones after learning satpin.. for the very reason you give.

As far as I recall, 'is' wouldn't be in a decodeable text at that stage.

MaizieD
RWI decodeable words on green cards
RWI Non-decodeable on red cards.

Even some early decodeable reading primers needed the addition of non decodeable words
e.g. As you said, the first letters taught are s, a, t, i, p, n. But that doesn’t make is decodeable because the s has a z sound.

My daughter was a victim of ITA. in spite of an A for A Level English she still phones me to check spellings (she's 51) Her brother was three years younger and by that time they'd given it up. His writing has always been almost illegible, but his spelling is fine.

Its not one or the otger. Phonics/Word Recognition/Look and Say all have a place. The schools metgodology is daft frankly

I was interested in the list of 100 HFWs you posted earlier. Do you still teach all of them by flash card? I ask because many of them are easily decodeable.

WRT 'tricky words' Ruth Miskin presented them like that because at the time she wrote her programme the curriculum called for teaching the HFWs. But, IIRC, she didn't teach the decodable ones separately, they were covered at the appropriate stage in her programme (and, TBH, in Jolly phonics with the first letter sound correspondences being s a t p i n words like an, in, at, it, would be covered in the first week or two of learning)

Ruth's instruction to teachers was to present the other HFWs as being 'decodable but with a tricky bit'. 'Tricky Words' is a nice name for them but it has caused a lot of misunderstanding.

Of course the HFW lists were produced to aid reading of the Look and Say books, which were never intended to support phonics teaching, and contained words very early on which no self respecting phonics teacher would introduce for their pupils to practice before they had got to that stage in learning the alphabetic code.

Glad you’re reassured tww that some words are still taught as sight words by teachers involved in teaching reading.
It’s the problem with not actually doing the job.

Elegran

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"

ITA, as it was called, has long disappeared.

By far the best method of teaching reading is parents themselves reading books and newspapers, or, a poor third, screens and also reading to their children.

For many children this will mean that they have already started their reading journey before they start chool, as many here have said. If nothing else it means children come to school reading ready.

Lathyrus3

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

Methodology questionable I give you.

Indeed, the results apply only to children in English schools. Scotland and Wales do different assessments. They are not necessarily the same as English SATs.

To assess the validity of the English SATs results you have to look at the criteria for marking the assessments. The 'scoring' of the results has changed since I retired, I'm only familiar with the criteria for the old English Levels. I cannot tell if the new criteria are similar or more rigorous. All I can say is that I worked with KS3 children from Y7 who had achieved the old Level 3, or below, at the end of KS2. As I recall Level 3 was supposed to show that children had achieved basic functional literacy though not at the level expected for children of their age, which was Level 4. In my opinion none of the L3 children had achieved a level of functional literacy which would enable them to access the KS3 curriculum. Their reading ages on a standardised test was never higher than 9 and they struggled with anything beyond simple one syllable words.

There were never fewer than 30% of Y7s who were L3 or below.

This was before the new English curriculum, which mandated phonics for the initial teaching of reading, was introduced in, IIRC, 2012. Children who entered school in 2012 would be the first cohort which was (supposedly) taught by this curriculum so the expectation was that no effect of the new curriculum on SATs results could be seen until 2018 when these children were in Y6. It is difficult to assess this because in 2018 the reporting system was changed from 'levels' to 'scores' . Comparing results after 2018 with previous 'level based results is problematic for me because I don't know if the assessment criteria changed as well in 2018.

Having said that, not only has the reporting system changed but children will have been affected by the breaks in schooling caused by covid lockdowns. While I know that teachers did their best to adopt to teaching remotely, with the best will in the world this was not conducive to the effective teaching of phonics which, in the early stages calls for daily structured sessions and teacher support over the rest of the day's lessons. Additionally, children who might be identified as slower to learn didn't have the extra support they would have had if they were in school.

All in all, I think that the 2025 SATs results which Lathryus reports are pretty good given the circumstances. The children who sat them were in Y3 at the time of covid (my DGS was one of them) and didn't have the support they would normally have had.

I wouldn't expect the real effect of the 2012 curriculum changes to be shown until 2027/28 when the first cohort to enter school in reception post covid take their SATs.

If you think that effects should have been apparent by 2018 you might not appreciate that there was strong resistance to the mandating of phonics, as teachers found it hard to relinquish the 'mixed methods' in which they had been trained, so the quality of the phonics teaching was very variable. There has been a lot of work done on retraining and assessment of suitable programmes done over the past decade.

I doubt if many of you have heard of the Reading Wars. The disagreement over the teaching of reading which raged in English speaking countries from about the 1950s (believe it or not!) the was truly like a war and very hard fought. Not only teachers but academics wading in from both sides. I hear its echoes in this thread

Yes lots of euphemisms rather than acknowledging what it actually is.

Read the thread lots of posts saying phonics phonics phonics. Whole words/look say doesn't work because you can't learn every word.

Suddenly seems much more open to various techniques today. I wish that had been the case when GS was struggling but good if things have changed.

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.

Ah.

Now it’s Phonics with Look and Say

rather than

Look and Say wth phonics - like before.

Plus ca change…………😬

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"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Methodology questionable I give you.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.