[SENco-forum] Re Literacy

I agree with the points that Sharon and Brendan have made. Although most
of us appreciate the importance of phonological awareness and phonic
skills, many of us also have examples of children who have found it very
difficult to learn to read using only approaches which focus on these
skills. 

In his email Eddie says " the most effective preventative strategy is
appropriate instruction in the early years of their schooling which
teaches them the sounds the letters make and how to synthesize these
sounds into meaningful words."

I think we need to qualify this statement so that it recognises that for
SOME children 'appropriate instruction' may not necessarily use a purely
phonic approach. 

I also work with older disaffected pupils and personally feel that
'inappropriate teaching' (my words) is not the only reason for their
lack of skills. Youngsters today are not the same as they were some
years ago. I have always enjoyed reading but many do not. Youngsters
today have many more activities - particularly electronic games etc.
which they prefer to do. TV is all day now (it was only evenings when I
was young) and many prefer these activities to reading. Don't know if
anyone has any thoughts on this ....

Clare

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-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of
kngbrndn at aol.com
Sent: 29 December 2006 11:17
To: SEN at tringham.net; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: Re: [SENco-forum] Re Literacy

One of my current parent's children had severe glue ear when in early
years/primary (he now has 2 tubes fitted rather than grommetts). He
had/has fluctuating hearing loss. He now has a profile of very low level
auditory processing and verbal skills, but is in the 'gifted' range in
visual / spatial skills. I reckon phonetic (whether organic or
synthetic) would do (and probably did) no good at all for him. He is now
doing much better with multi sensory specialist advisory input and 1:1
TA support in literacy -- aged 13. There are very many such children --
and others with varying degrees / types of dyslexia -- children for whom
phonetics is an entirely unsuccessful approach for them. Brendan 

-----Original Message-----
From: SEN at tringham.net
To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Sent: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 10.01AM
Subject: RE: [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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