Phonics

I've lost the plot. Blooming tablet and predictive text!
WWWales, for Wales, but Whhhhales in a strong Glaswegian accent for whales.

Starting again. ? I sound it as whhhales!

Mollygo, I pronounce a very long whhhhh, when say I
Wales^, totally different from Wales.

The what or wot must depend on where you live. We say wh words, what, where, when and why, with a breath with the W. It’s less noticeable with whales though.

Bodach I’ll support you on February, often accompanied by liberry for library. Also hate Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer when they say ‘And if you ever sore it’ and drawing pronounced droring.

Google isn't supporting you Bodach!
www.google.com/search?q=february+pronunciation&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBGB834GB834&oq=february+pro&aqs=chrome.0.0l2j69i57j0l2j0i395l3.8359j1j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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. ☺)

Sorry - just looked in again on this old thread. I have to say that I can't really hear any difference either on the audio of these links. To which I say: they should have hired people with better pronunciation skills! They probably pronounce "what" as "wot". There's a HUGE difference between "wh" and "w"!
And still no-one is supporting me on the abomination that is "Febuary"....

But at least it keeps people concentrating on de-coding the written word - which is a good start!.

Apparently, in some contexts it is considered rude to use conventional spelling and grammar in texts. Texting has it's own set of unfathomable rules.

The reason I think it could encourage poor spelling is that people don't always write words correctly in texts. For example, ur for you are.

To answer Fennel's question, although I imagine it encourages poor spelling, I should think that texting encourages children to learn to read. If they can't read, they can't join in.

This topic has always fascinated me - I was also a remedial reading teacher for years and agree that each child has their own individual way of learning.
Also speech and language developmen is an essential foundation.
In my days there were still many parents who couldn't read themselves, due to missed school time.
These days, seeing so many people of all ages texting on their phones, young children too, do you think this helps in developing reading skills? (Forget about spelling.)

I have never in my teaching career met anyone, who thinks the use of phonics is the sole way to teach reading.

There are three methods which should be combined.

Phonics
Whole words (Look and say)
Language Experience.

Having just finished a Zoom language lesson, with my DGD, I can tell you it's not easy! I'm exhausted.

Having taught many children to read I am always amazed that anybody thinks thatthere is one method which will suit every child. It couldn't happen in any other situation. I have seen children struggle with sounding out words suddenly blossom when they started reading whole words, children who knew all their sounds but simply couldn't blend them and many other varieties and styles of learning. As I said middle class children won't suffer the most from this because others will read with them, the children really being let down are those from the poorest backgrounds who struggle and then simply give up.

adaunas My son was at an Essex school, which had a dynamic headteacher who was, at the time, a trailblazer for phonics. Having had a child who had learnt with "mixed methods" and being a languages teacher with more than a passing interest in language development and linguistics, I was shocked at how myopic the methodology was.

Qwerty

Don't know where my first post went! I was trying to say our 6 year old granddaughter says 'barth' living down south and tells her father brought up in the north he can only say 'bath' when he's up north!
Personally I think phonics need to be taught alongside whole word recognition and context. What works for some children doesn't work for all.

I know what you mean. I was brought up on Merseyside, but my father was from Surrey and I was forever being told that "grass" rhymes with "arse". These days, I speak more southern English, but my grass still doesn't rhyme with my arse.

adaunas The reason I think that is from personal experience (admittedly anecdotal). My very intelligent son was a slow reader and was even placed on the School Action register at one stage. His extremely pleasant and lively teacher was a phonics addict and knew no other way of helping him. The special needs lead in the school was worse than useless too. Fortunately, he changed school and his new teacher was more flexible and didn't look down her nose at my encouraging my son to read real books. He went from a non-reader to a level 3 in KS1 SATs in a few months and then KS2 Level 5 and GCSE A* in Eng Lang and Eng Lit. He was bored senseless with phonics, which didn't make logical sense to him anyway because he could read some "unphonetic" words, including his own name.

There are even posters on this thread who have criticised mixed methods and I've read a number of disparaging comments from phonics addicts that the reason they don't always work is because teachers don't stick with them.

As a modern languages teacher, I know that it's even a fad to spend a few weeks teaching foreign phonics before teaching pupils anything meaningful and fun. I am just so grateful I don't have to follow such a silly scheme of work. It would bore me silly, never mind the pupils.

In the thirty years I was a classroom teacher, I can honestly say that I didn't see a significant and sustained improvement in literacy in the new Year 7s.

In a secondary school

growstuff

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.

You are absolutely correct there growstuff.
I trained as a primary teacher only four years ago and prior to that I was a primary HLTA.
I am now the Reading Teacher secondary school, so I know of what I speak.
I have mainly avoided this thread as the current over reliance upon phonics drives me mad. I am not a fan.

Don't know where my first post went! I was trying to say our 6 year old granddaughter says 'barth' living down south and tells her father brought up in the north he can only say 'bath' when he's up north!
Personally I think phonics need to be taught alongside whole word recognition and context. What works for some children doesn't work for all.

I meant 'up north' and 'it's barth'!!

growstuff I’m surprised you think teachers are trained to have no other tools than phonics for teaching reading. It isn’t my current experience either where I work or in the schools where my grandchildren go.
The thing that their teachers are more aware of, is the need for consistency between classes. There were some excellent teachers teaching reading when I started, using both phonics and whole word recognition. The problem was that each teacher developed their own scheme ‘that really worked’.
Not a problem for those who learnt quickly, but that meant the slower learners were often presented with a different presentation each time they changed class. Now there is continuity and progression in each class because there is a scheme, with phonics and identification of words which don’t follow the early phonic phases-words like ‘the’ ‘said’ ‘I’ ‘you’ often with reading scheme books containing words linked to phonics phases, allowing children to practise reading words using the sounds at their phonics level e.g Vulture Culture. I watch more children moving on confidently.
No, phonics doesn’t work for all, which is why children’s progress is closely monitored and other strategies tried e.g. Reading Recovery and Toe by Toe.
I’m concerned that your experience is so negative. The schools I know are in Cumbria, Cornwall, Hampshire and the North West. Where are you finding the problems?

Marydoll

Before the days of interactive whiteboards, I had to draw the character from today's Letterland sound on the blackboard. I was not the best of artists!

As a modern languages teacher, I became quite good at drawing stick figures on the blackboard (remember them?) too.

Before the days of interactive whiteboards, I had to draw the character from today's Letterland sound on the blackboard. I was not the best of artists!

trisher

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?

My daughter loved Letterland and all the stories. She even made up her own, such as Clever Cat made Hairy Hat Man sneeze, which is why 'c' and 'h' says '(a)ch(oo)'.