tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post4560677731080827015..comments2024-03-20T00:30:11.702-07:00Comments on Home Education Heretic: The teaching of reading without the use of phonicsSimon Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10865289865412656573noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-47764573139793762292013-03-02T17:03:59.797-08:002013-03-02T17:03:59.797-08:00Keep on writing, great job!
Also visit my weblog;...Keep on writing, great job!<br /><br />Also visit my weblog; <a href="http://forum.craigdavid.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=121186&sid=93190bb105b4f67d07de91f86500446f" rel="nofollow">trouwlocaties alkmaar</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-86847047033758126432011-08-17T01:06:39.805-07:002011-08-17T01:06:39.805-07:00That reads almost like a Peter Williams comment.That reads almost like a Peter Williams comment.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-76780042846692624362011-08-13T14:40:03.465-07:002011-08-13T14:40:03.465-07:00Very interesting post - definitely continue! You m...Very interesting post - definitely continue! You may have stumbled across this: <br /><br />"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe." <br /><br />Now I know this wasn't actually a research project at Cambridge (it did the rounds via the interweb) but never fails to amuse me!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-91106511691244726102011-08-12T15:14:10.654-07:002011-08-12T15:14:10.654-07:00"In particular, several people raised the pro..."In particular, several people raised the problem of children with hearing difficulties;"<br /><br />Auditory Processing disorder was also mentioned, which of course is not a hearing difficulty, but the inability to process what is heard.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-63619613076588433172011-08-12T06:54:03.309-07:002011-08-12T06:54:03.309-07:00'I remember, with great fondness, the toddler ...'I remember, with great fondness, the toddler years as being packed with hundreds of little miracles every day.'<br /><br />Isn't that the truth! I am sure that a lot of exciting things also go on in the minds of fourteen year-olds, it is just that they have generally lost the habit of openess which small children have. I think that two and three are the most pleasurable age to be around children. (That last sentence does not sound completely right, but I dare say you know what I mean!)<br /><br />Simon.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-89564718100416407192011-08-12T06:19:43.909-07:002011-08-12T06:19:43.909-07:00That is surprising! Maybe it was the word museum ...That is surprising! Maybe it was the word museum being there that alerted her to the fact that the weird word with the z in it must be 'Nart-see' (a word she had heard spoken.) If she had picked up that Nazis were from some period in history and that things to do with history could be found in museums? That is astonishing in a three year old but I think three year olds are pretty astonishing. Presumably she had been to a museum by three and had probably also seen the word out in the world a fair bit - especially if you were living in London at the time. Nazi is also a word that features a great deal in TV listing magazines. It's very interesting though and I don't suppose you'll ever really know she did it. But it must be related to all the talking you did with her, surely?<br /><br />I remember, with great fondness, the toddler years as being packed with hundreds of little miracles every day.Alliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11321428226929318418noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-16890048226160523252011-08-12T06:02:47.657-07:002011-08-12T06:02:47.657-07:00' I remember daughter at about six reading the...' I remember daughter at about six reading the word overwhelmed (it surprised a grandparent, which is why I remember it) and I suspect this was possible because she already knew the word. '<br /><br />Desite keeping obsessively detailed notes, recorded langauge samples and so on, I was never able to figure out the precise mechanism by which my daughter became a fluent reader. Sometimes, it seemed beyond all reason. I used to get her to read out headlines from the Telegraph and I have one in front of me now with the accompanying notes. It was February 10th, 1997, which meant that she was three and a half. The headline reads 'Nazi rocket uncovered at air museum'. Five of the words are reasonably common and the spelling is standard. The word 'Nazi' though, with a 'Z' in the middle, is not. yet she read it perfectly as 'Nart-see'. I have to this day absolutely no idea how this worked.<br /><br />Simon.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-80916263021157382532011-08-12T05:51:03.055-07:002011-08-12T05:51:03.055-07:00But, what I find odd is that I was unaware of any ...But, what I find odd is that I was unaware of any 'next stage' between the initial moments of working out what words say and my children being able to just read everything. It really didn't take input at that stage (that I remember) as it was a sort of 'light the touchpaper' situation.<br /><br />I have wondered if part of what happened was the children's large spoken vocabulary was particularly significant at that moment. Once they recognised words in print, they found the whole, huge range of words they spoke and heard spoken around them. I remember daughter at about six reading the word overwhelmed (it surprised a grandparent, which is why I remember it) and I suspect this was possible because she already knew the word. Maybe the missing ingredient for reading fluency in a classroom situation is not enough talking?Alliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11321428226929318418noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-37188317420640092772011-08-12T03:39:42.941-07:002011-08-12T03:39:42.941-07:00'Another problem is that some children are tau...'Another problem is that some children are taught to rely far too much on things like context clues.'<br /><br />The theory behind this idea was that fluent readers used contextual 'cues' (as distinct from clues) which activated some words and not others, if the words were spelled similarly. Again the underlying problem was that non-readers were being taught to mimic the way skilled readers read, without being skilled readers.<br /><br />In other words, the theory was correct; it was the application that was at fault.suzygnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-10648437165991857442011-08-12T02:29:13.692-07:002011-08-12T02:29:13.692-07:00'Another problem is that some children are tau...'Another problem is that some children are taught to rely far too much on things like context clues. '<br /><br />Also known as guessing! This is a direct consequence of some of the ideology going the rounds in the seventies and eighties, whereby the important thing was thought to be 'extracting' or 'creating' meaning from the text, rather than just reading the words written there. If a picture showed a boy jumping and the kid read a word as 'jumped', even though the printed word was 'sprang', teachers were told not to correct the child. He had after all correctly extracted meaning from the text! I need hardly add this this produced illiterate children who could just about struggle through Roger Red Hat and the Village with Three Corners, but who would be foxed by a newspaper article.<br /><br />Simon.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-29726446550527588072011-08-12T01:57:52.767-07:002011-08-12T01:57:52.767-07:00'the existence of a long stage when children c...'the existence of a long stage when children can read but not fluently. This is something that simply never happened with either of my children. They both moved from simple word recognition (often using visual clues like font or location) and sounding out of cvc words, to being able to read anything you put in front of them, in a few months - or even weeks, perhaps?'<br /><br />Yes, mine took off very quickly to proper books etc. I think there may be several reasons for some children being stuck in a less mature stage of reading.<br /><br />One of them is the problem inherent in a class teaching situation. Children are kept back simply because of the mechanics of the classroom arrangements. There may be no adult available to 'get them onto the next stage' when they are ready and excited to do it.<br /><br />Another problem is that some children are taught to rely far too much on things like context clues. It's amazing how many secondary age poor readers I've encountered who will spend all their time scanning the page for pictorial and other clues as to what the word might be instead of looking at the word itself and employing phonic knowledge.<br /><br />Another problem is when reading is thought of by the child as something they perform for others, instead of something they use for themselves. A sort of performance anxiety starts to take over and inhibits them from reaching confidence and fluency.<br /><br />Just some thoughts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-62220856340012596772011-08-12T01:49:46.127-07:002011-08-12T01:49:46.127-07:00'Some commented, apparently believing that I w...'Some commented, apparently believing that I was saying that this was the only method which should be used. In particular, several people raised the problem of children with hearing difficulties; those with glue ear were mentioned.'<br /><br />I don't think that's what happened. I think someone just pointed out that the picking up of phonics skills can be difficult for children with extended periods hearing loss in early childhood. <br /><br />Also, it's not simply the fact that they miss out on hearing a few high-frequency sounds. That's looking at the issue too simplistically.<br /><br />Children who have frequent ear infections tend to miss quite bit of school with the recurrent ear infections, which can be very painful! (It wasn't until I had an ear infection as an adult, that I recognised just how painful they can be!) So, they miss critical periods of teaching. <br /><br />It also has a knock-on effect on their social relationships at school. If they can't hear terribly well, they tend not to get so involved in the same play activities and have reduced opportunities for practicing listening and speaking skills (broader language development. It can actually be quite a big deal for some kids.<br /><br />Anyway, pointing this out was not to say that SP isn't an excellent route in to reading. I used it (along with other things) with my kids, at age 3-4, and they both quickly became excellent readers, despite the fact that one of them had a borderline IQ and was on the autism spectrum. So, I am a believer! That doesn't mean, however, that there won't be children who find it difficult to learn to read this way.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-13517696621582789702011-08-12T01:39:34.803-07:002011-08-12T01:39:34.803-07:00'The difference being of course that although ...'The difference being of course that although everybody without some underlying pathology walks and talks, it is quite possible for people not to be able to read. '<br /><br />Agreed. It doesn't follow that people who don't read don't read only because no one has taught them to do so.suzygnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-55125949594302919932011-08-12T01:35:31.934-07:002011-08-12T01:35:31.934-07:00That was interesting. The text with and without a...That was interesting. The text with and without ascenders and descenders is a really powerful example.<br /><br />One of the things that has struck me about children taught to read at school - both children I observed when my daughter went to infant school and other children I have known - is the existence of a long stage when children can read but not fluently. This is something that simply never happened with either of my children. They both moved from simple word recognition (often using visual clues like font or location) and sounding out of cvc words, to being able to read anything you put in front of them, in a few months - or even weeks, perhaps? I find it rather mysterious how children seem to live for years with very limited reading ability that never 'takes off' in the way I saw with my children. I suspect it must be hugely frustrating and irritating and make it unlikely that those children will read for pleasure. Perhaps this explains the situation where there is actually a decline in reading ability over the course of a childhood.Alliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11321428226929318418noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-56533510682588444162011-08-12T01:10:38.042-07:002011-08-12T01:10:38.042-07:00'I predict that if you were to measure profici...'I predict that if you were to measure proficiency in reading, walking or talking across the population, you would end up with a normal distribution on all three measures.'<br /><br />The difference being of course that although everybody without some underlying pathology walks and talks, it is quite possible for people not to be able to read. <br /><br />Simon.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7881402584568285627.post-77530804573636085422011-08-12T01:00:20.385-07:002011-08-12T01:00:20.385-07:00Reading research shows that skilled readers use se...Reading research shows that skilled readers use several methods when reading: <br /><br />We don't fixate on all the letters in a word, or even all the words in a text, we fixate on the points in a text that will convey most meaning most quickly; <br /><br />We use a combination of whole word recognition and spelling out;<br /><br />We use priming to disambiguate meanings.<br /><br />This doesn't mean that the best way to teach children to read is by mimicking the ad hoc approach used by expert readers. <br /><br />Synthetic phonics is a systematic method that makes explicit the way our writing system is constructed, so it's not surprising that it's most effective for most children. But once they are fluent, regardless of the method they used when learning to read, expert readers resort (unconsciously) to the range of techniques that result in optimal reading efficiency. All my family learned to read using ‘look and say’ but all of us also learned, as we went along, the letter-patterns written English uses to represent speech sounds.<br /><br />There are indeed parallels between walking, talking and reading; the reason reading generally requires more explicit instruction is because in neural processing terms it’s a more complex skill. However, it’s worth noting that, like all complex skills, walking and talking are not skills that you either have or don’t have. A significant number of people are not very good at walking, or at talking, and some can’t walk or talk at all. I predict that if you were to measure proficiency in reading, walking or talking across the population, you would end up with a normal distribution on all three measures.suzygnoreply@blogger.com