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

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!

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

I was an avid reader when I was a child but for years when I was young mispronounced some words in my head.
Misled - mizzled.
Apricity - Apri as in April followed by city.

However, as teenagers my friends and I used to learn words such as antidisestablishmentarianism and that Welsh place name Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

It makes us sound rather nerdy but we weren't!

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?

Molly I would think a variety of teaching methods are used - at least I hope they are, but teaching seems to be more prescriptive these days as compared to when I was young. Teachers seemed to have more flexibility in the way they taught. Not always a good thing, but I remember some really good teachers - and that was in a fairly working class area in the 50's.

SARS
Autocorrect again, not my spelling!
SATS

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.

Eloethan

I am not an "expert" but my feeling is that phonics has a place in teaching but other ways of learning should also be employed. If some children find phonics difficult, other methods should be explored, otherwise children become anxious and alienated and then decide they are not good readers and they don't like reading.

Don't you think that happens?

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)

MaizieD

^Phonics are vital for learning to decode words but look and say, or the whole word approach, has its merits, too.^

Would you like to explain what the 'merits' of whole word teaching are?

As for 'children learn differently', how is it that children from countries with a language which doesn't have so many spelling variations (and so have more straightforward letter/sound correspondences in the written word) all teach phonics as a matter of course and have a very high success rate?

Okay get a book and sound out every word. Not very enjoyable is it because the majority of the words you recognise as whole words normally which makes you more fluent. . Same with my GC, nearly three years of phonics and still no enjoyment of reading. He learned probably about 100 words as whole words, suddenly he was reading and enjoying it. Harder books with some words now decoding one word in ten or twenty is much more fluent and most importantly fun. It is how I learned to read nearly 70 years ago, whole words and then you learn to decode.

Phonics first, because that's what it is as we all learn whole words, works best for some kids but not for others. I find it weird that people seem to view phonics like some sort of cult which can't be disagreed with

Mollygo

theworriedwell
One thing I find odd is if a child isn't progressing after two or three years with phonics the schools response was more phonics.
Sorry. Should have said 2 or 3 years, but the implication in your sentence is that the child could have been given more phonics after 2 years or after 3 years.

2 years of phonics-that puts a child in
Year 1.
Yes, with the assessments we do I’d be concerned if they showed a child was making no progress with phonics by the end of Reception, never mind Y1 unless there was an underlying problem, e.g. hearing, vision or speech delay.
By year 2 something would already be being done, not necessarily more phonics.
Maybe that is just a problem at your school.

Well it's not my school. I don't think I implied that at all.

Something was being done in reception year one and into year two. Bit was more phonics, slightly different scheme, same result.

I am not an "expert" but my feeling is that phonics has a place in teaching but other ways of learning should also be employed. If some children find phonics difficult, other methods should be explored, otherwise children become anxious and alienated and then decide they are not good readers and they don't like reading.

Witzend

TBH I’d thought other methods such as ‘look and say’, and the ITA (initial teaching alphabet) have now largely been discredited, or have at least fallen out of favour.

ITA was abandoned decades ago. 'Look and Say failed a very large number of children and, extraordinarily for such widely adopted method of teaching reading in English speaking countries in the 20th century, has no scientific basis whatsoever.

Whereas there is an extensive body of scientific research which confirms the principles underlying phonics teaching and the superiority of its results. (A great deal of which I have read)

Phonics are vital for learning to decode words but look and say, or the whole word approach, has its merits, too.

Would you like to explain what the 'merits' of whole word teaching are?

As for 'children learn differently', how is it that children from countries with a language which doesn't have so many spelling variations (and so have more straightforward letter/sound correspondences in the written word) all teach phonics as a matter of course and have a very high success rate?

TBH I’d thought other methods such as ‘look and say’, and the ITA (initial teaching alphabet) have now largely been discredited, or have at least fallen out of favour.