Phonics

It bothers me that primary school teachers seem to be trained these days not to have any other tools in their armoury. Phonics don't work for all children.

Thank you Trisher. DGD does not get much help at Primary School but we know she will have more support next year at High School. Meanwhile she has a once a week brilliant specialist dyslexia tutor (paid for by her other Grandparents). She has many talking books and her Mum Dad and big brother take turns reading her class work for her. Her hand writing is beautiful but full of spelling mistakes but she mainly writes on her lap top with extensive use of its spell checker. She is totally confident on her lap top - spends her free time making videos, illustrating stories and designing patterns, clothes, etc. Her abstract drawing of a rainbow Christmas tree was chosen for the Dyslexia Scotland Christmas Card this year.

PS Strangely (or maybe not) she can read music nae bother - says that music is logical, the symbols and their position, always mean the same thing.

Granny23 your DGD sounds like a high functioning dyslexic. They often have amazing memories for some things-with my DS it's visual he can describe scenes in films with amazing accuracy.. I love her reasoning and perception. I hope she is getting all the help she needs and they are giving her all the equipment available. My DS uses his Mac Pro with a programme that reads things to him for almost everything. Your DGD would appreciate something like this as she would be able to remember the text when it is read to her.

Going off topic here although I think this is relevant. My DGD2 is very dyslexic. Now in P7 she really struggles to sight read out loud, but if she already knows the story, she will recite it from memory. Her spoken vocabulary is immense, hear a word once and she remembers it and uses it correctly in the right context. but don't ask her to spell it or write it down.

Her teacher added a note to her end of term report commenting on the fact that in maths and comprehension she is miles ahead of the rest of the class, while still very poor at reading and writing. He had asked GD if she knew why this was so. Her reply was that 'Numbers are easy because they always stick to the rules. Letters and words do not!" I thought that was fairly profound.

So the fact that people who thought they knew what they were doing interfering and introducing untried methods into schools was wrong, but it's OK now because there is more research and it's all changing. But it won't happen yet because people still don't understand what they are teaching. That means huge numbers of children condemned to illiteracy because of purist attitudes. Of course it won't be the better off children who will suffer because they will get the support from home that was once given in schools- parents/granparents helping them, telling them words, reading with them without knowing they are promoting a look and say method. The children that really suffer are those from the poorest backgrounds who have no one to read with them. But hey in a few years time it'll be alright.
Well when I started teaching reading I called phonics, sounds, knew a bit about reading and the little research that was done, but also knew that children need a range of approaches and constant practice and different experiences, using a variety of teaching materials. And those children are now the more literate 55+.

trisher

MaizieD does it not bother you at all that phonics, introduced in 1998 as the main way of teaching reading, altered and improved since then, with heaps of reading research behind it has produced 16 year olds with lower literacy levels than those 55+, who were taught in bigger classes with less early years support, when phonics was called sounds and we sometimes used 'look and say'?

No, it doesn't bother me because what you are saying is not true.

The National Literacy Strategy, which I presume is what you are talking about, had minimal poor quality phonics content and promoted mixed methods. The dreadful 'Searchlights Strategy' was completely antithetical to phonics instruction.

The 'breakthrough' for quality phonics teaching came in 2012 when structured synthetic phonics instruction was mandated as the only method for the initial teaching of reading. And even that has been subverted with poor training, resistance from Unis and staff trained in mixed methods and promotion of remediation programmes based on Reading Recovery by the Education Endowment Foundation.

The EEF is a govt. body established to supposedly undertake scientifically informed research into various aspects of education. Run by Reading Recovery trained Kevan Collins, who was also responsible for the dreadful NLS, it has given no time or funding to research bona fide phonics programmes which conform to the model mandated for initial instruction... Hmm....

It was only with the introduction of the Y1 Phonics Check in 2012 that teachers' minds have been concentrated on at at least attempting to teach phonics properly (that some still don't really understand it is demonstrated by the work sheet example GG13 posted which has sparked off this discussion) . So I don't expect much improvement in International Literacy comparison standings for a few more years yet.

MaizieD does it not bother you at all that phonics, introduced in 1998 as the main way of teaching reading, altered and improved since then, with heaps of reading research behind it has produced 16 year olds with lower literacy levels than those 55+, who were taught in bigger classes with less early years support, when phonics was called sounds and we sometimes used 'look and say'?

Alexa

Received pronunciation was and still is to a large extent considered posh because it was the form of language acquired through birth or education by the rulers of society. These elite groups were to be found in the south of England, close to the seat of government, and among old aristocrats and newly rich who sent their children to schools where they were trained in received pronunciation.

Richer people, aristocratic landowners and industrialists, from the North , sent their children to schools where received pronunciation was taught.

Yes, historically that is correct, but there are as many 'common' people in the south as there are 'posh' types in the north, so it doesn't hold true nowadays, other than amongst those who, as you say, have lived in the south at school for all of their formative years. A friend of mine has a broad Eastenders accent, but insists that when she goes to the north of England people consider her 'posh', which I find very difficult to believe.

As I said upthread it is interesting how many people consider themselves accentless when this is far from true. It is as though they only hear accents when they deviate from their own.

By the way MaizieD you never answered my question about words like 'aeroplane' which quite young children could read before they had the phonic skills necessary to use letter cues as current research seems to indicate, and the word shape explanation has been rejected. How do they do it?

Sorry, couldn't quite remember the question, though now I've found it it's more like a statement.

Here:
What it fails to explain is how children taught word recognition alongside phonics could adequately read words like 'aeroplane' long before they could actually recognise all the phonics involved.

It is perfectly possible to teach some children to memorise whole words as 'pictures'. But it won't help them when they come to read completely unfamiliar words. Unless, as some children do, they can intuit the 'phonics' of the word for themselves and apply that knowledge to new words containing some, or all of those graphemes. However, Prof Morag Stuart demonstrated in an experiment in the 1980s, using Look & Say books that it took a long time and multiple repetitions for children to learn individual words as 'wholes'. And when they've learned them they have no transferable knowledge (unless they've intuited the phonics) for new, previously unseen words.

Whereas in the same time they could have learned a number of phoneme/grapheme correspondences and put their knowledge to use in working out a variety of words containing them.

The other thing about learning words as wholes is that the child always needs someone to initially tell them what the word 'says'. There's no intrinsic reward for them in that. There is in working out a word independently.

Yes, I can see the idea of a child being enthused about being able to read a 'big word', but, with some phoneme/grapheme correspondence knowledge they could equally be able to work out a polysyllabic word for themselves. Even better...

Word shape is useless as so many words have the same shape...

Maizie

Maisie:"I'm not complaining, just saying that that is what always happens grin"

It seems so. I sometimes ask if I may deviate, so they know I know I am deviating

You're absolutely right it is Letter Land. I never said it was a good way of teaching phonics. It was however a story that children loved and remembered, because it was funny.
By the way MaizieD you never answered my question about words like 'aeroplane' which quite young children could read before they had the phonic skills necessary to use letter cues as current research seems to indicate, and the word shape explanation has been rejected. How do they do it?

Alexa

Me too I am sorry for my deviation

Don't be daft!

I'm not complaining, just saying that that is what always happens

W is Winnie the witch and H is Harry the hairy hat man. When he is next to her Winnie consistently hits Harry on the head so he can't say anything until they get to 'who"when he gets fed up and hits her on the head.

Jolly Phonics?

That sounds more like Letter Land to me...

The whole point of phonics teaching is that you don't need complex explanations like that. It's just another way to spell the /w/ sound (along with 'w' and 'u')

Me too I am sorry for my deviation

MaizieD
I have talked 'phonics' on many message boards and forums and, unless the discussion involves only people who teach reading, it always ends up as a discussion of the way people pronounce words and regional accents . That is actually related to phonetics, not phonics, but a good time is always had by all... grin

Well, I don't know if it's an acceptable excuse, but I did at least acknowledge and apologise in advance for my deviation from the OP. ?

Received pronunciation was and still is to a large extent considered posh because it was the form of language acquired through birth or education by the rulers of society. These elite groups were to be found in the south of England, close to the seat of government, and among old aristocrats and newly rich who sent their children to schools where they were trained in received pronunciation.

Richer people, aristocratic landowners and industrialists, from the North , sent their children to schools where received pronunciation was taught.

MamaCaz That's just reminded me of the story used in Jolly Phonics to explain the "h" in words like when and where. W is Winnie the witch and H is Harry the hairy hat man. When he is next to her Winnie consistently hits Harry on the head so he can't say anything until they get to 'who"when he gets fed up and hits her on the head.
My primary school teacher -who said "wun" also insisted that the "h" in those words was pronounced. Think of it as breathing out slightly more through the lips as you say the "w".

MamaCaz

Maybe it's just me - I still can't hear a difference between 'whale(s)' and 'Wales'!

dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/whales
dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/wales

(Sorry for this deviation from the OP, but as this has been mentioned on here already, it seems the obvious place to post this. ☺)

I have talked 'phonics' on many message boards and forums and, unless the discussion involves only people who teach reading, it always ends up as a discussion of the way people pronounce words and regional accents . That is actually related to phonetics, not phonics, but a good time is always had by all...

In 2016 adolescents in England had a lower literacy rate than any of these countries www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/02/which-countries-have-the-best-literacy-and-numeracy-rates/ They also had a lower literacy rate than over 55s.

And why do you think that might be, trisher? Anything to do with the fact that they were all taught by 'mixed methods'?

Maybe it's just me - I still can't hear a difference between 'whale(s)' and 'Wales'!

dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/whales
dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/wales

(Sorry for this deviation from the OP, but as this has been mentioned on here already, it seems the obvious place to post this. ☺)

When I taught in London u was pronounced in a southern way, when I moved to Birmingham I changed the pronunciation to suit the children . As a teacher you have to adapt to the situation to help the pupils you have before you to learn. being in the South has little to do with being posh. The children I taught in Whitechapel were not a bit posh.

As has been said before ,there is no one way for a child to learn to read. Some children are good orally and some are good visually.
I always remember a 6 year old in Birmingham who couldn't read much at all when he went home one Friday and came back on Monday as a fluent reader. He was absorbing the skills needed before he was prepared to demonstrate them. Each child is different, that is why teaching reading is such an interesting task. A puzzle at every turn

Trisher
"What's the matter?"
"Pig's in t'water"

In my part of Yorkshire, that wouldn't have rhymed. ?
Not amongst my generation, anyway, but probably amongst my grandparents'.

My generation must have got quite posh, as 'wa(r)ter', with a long 'a' was the norm, not 'watter'.
But we would have been less refined on the question - it would normally have been cut down to "What's matter?", with a glottal stop between the two words (just as we would have had a glottal stop between 'in' and 'water in the reply).

I find language, its variations and its evolution really interesting ?

What about singing, in school or elsewhere? In a good choir, everyone has to use the same pronunciation of vowels if the sound is to blend properly. A friend of mine taught music in various schools, both private and state, in Cheshire. She was told she was not to ‘correct’ the children’s pronunciation. Very reasonably she pointed out that she had to use some sort of standard if her choirs were to be any good.

We should have a list "drarw" and "drawring" were as big a no-nos as "fillum" I seem to remember-any more?