[eal-bilingual] phonics and context

On Gordon Ward's post - I agree with these points, but once again the

John Bald's emphasis on understanding as an essential part of any teaching 
of phonics is heartening. Most of my concerns about phonics are about the 
particular methodology or materials used. Few people would dismiss phonics 
completely. As one of the available teaching methods, there is evidence that 
it is of value for many children in developing their reading skills - 
particularly in the early stages. However, there are particular issues 
related to pupils learning English as an additional language and these do 
need to be considered before a teacher embarks on teaching phonics to them.

One of the problems with phonics is the stage at which it is sometimes 
introduced - I have frequently come across teachers and teaching assistants 
introducing phonics to beginners. This worries me considerably - children in 
the earliest stages of learning English need to learn some survival language 
first and need to build their English vocabulary before they can be expected 
to generalise about the sound system.

A linked concern is that many staff only see language teaching in terms of 
teaching phonics. They are unaware of the need to ensure that children are 
learning tenses or learning idioms or developing the ability to ask 
questions or talk about possibility, etc. etc. etc.

cheers

Gordon

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Bald" <johnbald at talktalk.net>
To: "For practitioners involved in teaching pupils from ethnic 
andlinguisticminorities" <eal-bilingual at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 5:55 PM
Subject: Re: [eal-bilingual] phonics and context

> On Gordon Ward's post - I agree with these points, but once again the 
> disadvantage comes from not knowing the language, and this does not 
> invalidate phonics as a teaching method, provided it is matched to the 
> needs of the learners. My enthusiasm for Ruth Miskin's materials -   Read, 
> Write Inc   - comes from the way in which she ensures that children 
> understand the words right from the beginning in her "ditties", and lets 
> them illustrate them to show that they've understood. This seems to meet 
> Gordon's point about the language, and context. The questions associated 
> with the books become progressively more varied, and begin to ask about 
> matters implied in the text rather than directly stated, such as what 
> children think of characters, and why they do things. In other words, the 
> materials build up the understanding children need, rather than leave it 
> to develop by chance, which it won't with EAL children who may hear little 
> English at home. Giving children things they don't understand will never 
> teach them, whether it's lists of words or guessing at words from 
> pictures. The essence of successful teaching is building understanding. 
> Once this dimension is recognised, we can make progres. John Bald 