[senco-forum] all of the grapheme/phonemes

I think it needs to be remembered that in the case of English 'phonics' is

I think that in the strategy which I am currently investigating, the learner 
does become his/her own teacher although that was not my specific intention. 
The adult role in the strategy is exclusively to manage the delivery of the 
sessions; adults are specifically excluded from the process and I would 
therefore claim that my strategy is heuristic as is of course, the strategy 
inherent in Electronic Library.  I am not however simply hoping that the 
learner will absorb grapheme/phoneme correspondences - I am structuring a 
set of experiences which I know from assessment results, does have the 
effect of extending sight vocabulary and my strategy really has nothing to 
do with 'whole word' tuition.  Where a poor reader's sight vocabulary is 
demonstrably extended, their reading progress is inevitable and 
self-evident.

I simply need to see

1.      this effect over a larger, more credible example in order to claim 
it as fact.

2.      that the assimilation of a more extensive sight vocabulary will 
impact on the learners ability to decode words not specifically held in 
sight vocabulary.

This is the point of my putting together a larger study.

No researcher or teacher can absolutely determine the content of sight 
vocabulary. In the absence of any blocking mechanism such as poor short term 
memory function, sight vocabulary fills spontaneously from reading 
experience with those words which are most frequently encountered taking 
order of precedence.  A poor reader with an extensive sight vocabulary is 
just as much a contradiction in terms as is a competent reader with a 
limited sight vocabulary.

I have produced a low-cost Home Reading Teacher programme for parents which 
includes three months online guidance and assistance which uses this 
strategy, combined  with elements of Electronic Library.  Sometime next 
year, I hope to be able to report back on the experience of parents seeking 
to resolve their own children's reading difficulties (age 8.5 + only)  using 
this strategy. The parent will have no teaching role; only (but very 
importantly) a management role but it is my experience that parents are more 
able to guarantee the execution of a daily regime than teachers who have to 
conform to their school's time-tables and ethos etc. I am particulary 
hopefule for this Home Reading Teacher approach because the parent not only 
has a personal commitment to the child but also, fewer external constraints.

Eddie C.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Philip MacMillan" <P.Macmillan at exeter.ac.uk>
To: "Eddie Carron" <eddiecarron at btconnect.com>; "senco forum" 
<senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2007 1:10 AM
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] all of the grapheme/phonemes

>I think it needs to be remembered that in the case of English 'phonics' is
> only a heuristic to help the learner acquire the 'real' rules.  English is
> organized at phonemic and morphophonemic levels not just grapheme phoneme
> correspondences.  Rather than allowing/ hoping learners will absorb the
> logic from exposure only ( the major flaw in whole language) might it not 
> be
> more effective to teach them so that each learner does not have to re 
> invent
> the wheel?  My work with incarcerated adults suggests that direct teaching
> of the code and rules in the context of words, sentences and 'nonsense'
> words is an effective way to do inculcate word recognition skills.  The
> trick is to make the learner the teacher.
>
> Philip EP
>
> Philip EP
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Eddie Carron" <eddiecarron at btconnect.com>
> To: <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
> Sent: Friday, August 10, 2007 9:52 PM
> Subject: [senco-forum] all of the grapheme/phonemes
>
>
> I don't specifically teach any of the grapheme/phoneme correspondences. I
> simply try to fill the virtually empty sight vocabularies of older poor
> readers by proactive priming.   Sight vocab is believed to be able to
> contain a few thousand words so even the most conservative estimates of 
> its
> capacity would permit all of the grapheme/phoneme correspondences with a 
> few
> thousand spaces to spare.   Sight vocab capacity is not a problem. The
> problem would appear to be gaining admittance to sight vocabulary.
>
>
>
> I am simply trying to structure a set of decoding experiences in such a 
> way
> as to increase the likelihood of extending a poor readers sight vocabulary
> where this is not happening spontaneously, possibly because of poor short
> term memory function. I do not regard it as accidental that WISC or BAS
> subtests on poor readers invariably show poor short term memory function.
>
>
>
> Sight vocab inevitably consists of the most frequently occuring words and
> these must obviously be useful in reading.  The most important outstanding
> unknown is what, if any, part does sight vocabulary play in decoding words
> not contained in sight vocabulary.  I believe that part to be very
> significant and although a long term enthusiast for SP for the initial
> teaching of reading, I depart from the fundamentalist SP view that all 
> words
> are decoded grapheme by grapheme, every time they are encountered and no
> matter how often they are encountered. That seems to me to be an utterly
> bizarre idea.
>
>
>
> I regard my researches as practical rather than academic or intellectual 
> but
> I do ensure  that they always have a reasonable logical basis.
>
>
>
> Eddie C.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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