[SENco-forum] Re Literacy

Because of the high level of illiteracy I really do hope that more 'aware'
teaching of phonics does help the masses as promised. I am a great believer
that if it does no harm ( like salt water for a sore throat) then do it.
However, as has been pointed out synthetic phonics is not the be all and end
all.

My daughter knew each of the 26 phonemes & graphemes age 3.  We played lots
of games that did not involve any reading.  She knew digraphs sh-ch th etc &
did well in her school baseline assessment, but going unnoticed by everyone
was the fact that she could not blend nor absorb whole words.

Now every letter combination has to be taught, learned over learned in a
multisensory way that is not available to everyone.  Only when getting
specialist teaching ( age 10 and functionally illiterate with an IQ of 141)
has she made any progress at all.

Paired Toe by Toe did not work as the facts were too bald for her to get a
handle on.  Real books did not work -she was surrounded and immersed in them
from birth.  Phonic books with rhyming words that should have been
accessible if only by analogy were a mystery.  Any strategies or
interventions on my part only went towards 'hiding' her severe dyslexia for
longer.  I worry that this will happen to many other children and I hope
teachers will be trained to look out for these and other anomalous children.

Sharon Tringham

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