Primary School Phonics

purplepardalis

milliebear00001 wrote: »

Only if you aren't keen for them to learn to read...it's impossible to do if you don't know any letter sounds!

That's not true. Myself and my generation managed perfectly well without phonics. In fact, I'd be happy to stick my neck out and say that levels of literacy were higher.
Also, I want to teach my children a second language at an early age. Phonics won't help.

trufflebuggy

Well all I can say is without phonics my dyslexic son wouldn't be reading.

For the vast majority of people you can give them any reading scheme and they'll learn how to read, BUT for those who find learning to read difficult i.e. dyslexics it has been proven that synthetic phonics schemes are the only ones which will give a 100% reading success rate.

Even if my child wasn't dyslexic I'd still want our schools to be teaching phonics..... for the other children in this country who aren't fortunate to be able just to know how to read.

Hopefully your children will be in the majority of those who just can.

As for learning foreign languages.... most other languages have very simple phonic code were most letters have single sounds... transparent code. Unlike English which by its very nature has a mish mash of many old languages rolled into one, leading to us having 44 sounds (maybe a few more) and only 26 letters in which to make them.

So once your children learn the letter sounds of each letter name, for your chosen language I'm sure they will be off and flying.

Phonics are essential in my opinion, but each to their own I guess.

milliebear00001

purplepardalis wrote: »

That's not true. Myself and my generation managed perfectly well without phonics. In fact, I'd be happy to stick my neck out and say that levels of literacy were higher.
Also, I want to teach my children a second language at an early age. Phonics won't help.

Phonics were almost certainly how you were taught to read, albeit by another name (or no name as sounding out and blending sounds has been around pretty much since time immemorial). Try reading a word like this without knowing any letter sounds:

antidisestablishmentarianism.

If you don't know the sounds, you can't read any word you've never come across before - bottom line.

purplepardalis

milliebear00001 wrote: »

If you don't know the sounds, you can't read any word you've never come across before - bottom line.

I agree - but I think it's better to learn the sounds by learning whole words that are already known.

If phonics are a useful tool for teaching dyslexic children then the method should be kept for that - although I would've thought the diagnosis would be made after the teaching had started?

My step sons have learnt through phonics and I can say it was very frustrating to watch and much slower process

Running_Horse

purplepardalis wrote: »

I want to teach my children a second language at an early age. Phonics won't help.

The childminder taught my daughter to count to ten in French, so I continued as she is so keen to learn. In fact, I stopped her at 60 to consolidate and to avoid irregular numbers such as quatre-vingt. She has also learned other French words and simple phrases by using pictures and writing. I could be wrong, but suspect memory has more to do with it than learning sounds.

milliebear00001

purplepardalis wrote: »

I agree - but I think it's better to learn the sounds by learning whole words that are already known.

If phonics are a useful tool for teaching dyslexic children then the method should be kept for that - although I would've thought the diagnosis would be made after the teaching had started?

My step sons have learnt through phonics and I can say it was very frustrating to watch and much slower process

'Words that are already known' - and how do you think you are going to 'know' those words?

All the research (and there is LOTS of it) proves that for most children, blending sounds together is by far the most effective and efficient way of teaching children to read. It's not new at all - it's what we've always done in one form or another. It's other 'experimental' methods such as the alternatives tried in the 70s and 80s that are new (and failed rather spectacularly).

The OED lists about 250,000 English words. This is nowhere near the number of words in use. It is impossible to read effectively if you are learning just some sort of 'base list' of words, then working out any others using that base list. Far more effective to learn the sounds and blend them, then use the knowledge you have combined with the letter sounds you already know.

Just a point about other languages. Most other languages use phonics to teach reading (and in many the phonics are far easier/fewer than the sounds we have in English). Of course, the sounds are different, but you still (for instance) need to understand that the French down't pronounce the sound 't' on the end of their words, to be able to read French out loud effectively. You are talking about teaching a child to speak a language, rather than read it - they are not the same skills.

purplepardalis

I would be teaching to speak and read. And I think learning by memory a d practice is far more useful for the English language.

Anyway, I'm not trying to change anyone else's opinion on the subject and don't mind at all that there are people who think it's fab. I just hope my children will learn a different way! :-)

fudgecat

In answer to the OPs original post, it is actually neither pronunciation. This is because you should not add a vowel sound to consonant sound phonics.
For example:
C A T
if pronounced kuh ah ter and then the sounds are blended together, will result in a word of
C E R A T E R
which will be confusing.

C A T should therefore be sounded as K (the initial sound being cut off as quickly as possible) ah & T (the initial sound being cut off with equal speed).
Blend them together and you will successfully create CAT!
(From a Year 6 teacher who still believes in going back to basics with phonics!)
By the way my Mum went to school in Scotland in the 30s when virtually all young children could read. They always learnt with what we now call synthetic phonics, however some words are undoubtably "caught" whole from being read to (sight vocabulary). Synthetic phonics still kick in when older children encounter unfamiliar words (true also for adults!).
Apart from poetry and assonance, I am not a fan of onset and rime, though I freely admit I do not teach ankle biters to read...

pipscot

purplepardalis wrote: »

I would be teaching to speak and read. And I think learning by memory a d practice is far more useful for the English language.

Anyway, I'm not trying to change anyone else's opinion on the subject and don't mind at all that there are people who think it's fab. I just hope my children will learn a different way! :-)

Children who learn using memory of words do learn to read quite quickly at first (hence why you are thinking that phonics is slower). Unfortunately - the "word memory" bank is rather limited and once the child has learned to recognise about 200 words they will struggle to learn more using this method alone.
They can easily learn to read the type of books found in KS1 but cannot read unfamiliar words and rapidly fall behind in KS2 because they have not learned how to sound out unfamiliar words. This can lead to frustration and failure to progress with reading in many children.
Some children do actually take this baseline of 100-200 words and go on to teach themselves to read (studies have shown they have subliminally absorbed the "sounds" and rules of phonics without going through the synthetic phonics process) - hence why this method seems to work for some children. Unfortunately many children do not have this ability to teach themselves to read.
Multiple studies have shown that the best way to teach reading that works for the majority of children is synthetic phonics. I used to teach remedial reading to teenagers and can't begin to stress the difficulties caused by not being taught to read correctly from the outset.

bylromarha

purplepardalis wrote: »

I agree - but I think it's better to learn the sounds by learning whole words that are already known.

If phonics are a useful tool for teaching dyslexic children then the method should be kept for that - although I would've thought the diagnosis would be made after the teaching had started?

My step sons have learnt through phonics and I can say it was very frustrating to watch and much slower process

You should have been in our house then...son was reading the balcony speech from Romeo and Juliet at age 4. He'd always loved jigsaws, so at age 3, when I began signing words to DD, he asked what the signs were for the sounds. He asked, I gave signs that accompanied the phonics. He put them all together like a jigsaw and BAM!

3 months later he was reading any picture book he selected from the library. He had the skills to look at an unknown word and work it out. OH thought it would be "hilarious" to pull shakespeare off the shelf a week after his 4th birthday to see if he could. At age 5 he had a reading age of 12.

He'd probably have been just fine with learning sight words too, like you're describing, as he's been into books since birth, but phonics gave him the tools to know where to go with a new word rather than looking at the shape of a new word and not knowing how best to tackle reading it. Most children access reading quickly with phonics. It does have its faults, but lack of speed isn't one of them.