[senco-forum] Re Teaching vocabulary

From the content of the posts on this thread, it would appear that if

Thanks mary that's exactly what I need - practical, do-able ideas to develop
vocabulary and comprehension.  My pupils have little experience to bring to
the table.  Imagination is difficult to use if you have little to build it
with so engagement and inferencing etc are very hard to develop.

My pupils dogedly maintain the films are far better than books (yet they
hardly engage with films).  This I think is because they have little
imagination (because they have little experience?).

Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk]On Behalf Of Mary Kelly
Sent: 07 February 2007 19:24
To: 'barbara'; 'dolfrog'; 'Eddie Carron'; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: RE: [senco-forum] Re Teaching vocabulary

Dear Barbara,
Do you have any useful tips for teaching vocabulary to a child who has
little experience outside the home and struggles to retain either concepts
or vocabulary long-term. I don't mean things like making semantic and
phonological links etc. or making experiences multisensory, so much as real
practical ideas of things to do, games, topics, and so on for a 1:1 session.
I hope that makes sense?
Thanks in advance,
Mary

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of barbara
Sent: 07 February 2007 18:24
To: 'dolfrog'; 'Eddie Carron'; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: RE: [senco-forum] Re Teaching vocabulary

Total misunderstanding of the purpose of teaching decoding/ synthetic
phonics  - which is just that - to understand the written code

 then what you make of it, having first acquired the tool,depends upon your
knowledge of the oral language and its nuances ie such things as cultural
background.( an able kid with background that uses words will 'fly' when
they can decode but many others will still plod on)

However once the code is cracked it is then possible to teach an extended
vocabulary and hence an extended comprehension

Barbara ht

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of dolfrog
Sent: 07 February 2007 18:05
To: 'Eddie Carron'; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: RE: [senco-forum] Re Teaching vocabulary

Hi Eddie

>From the content of the posts on this thread, it would appear that if
>you
use synthetic phonics only then children can decode from the text but have
no idea what they are reading, you may as well have them read perfect French
but still have no idea what they have read. It would appear to be like the
Monty Python Hungarian Phrase Book sketch, but not so funny, as these are
children who are supposed to understand English as their main fork of
communication.

It is like my son Who learnt to read books by recognising the shape of the
words, and again could read perfectly but he had no idea what he was reading
about.
So synthetic phonics seems to display from the content of these posts on
this thread, a complete lack of comprehension, and if you can not comprehend
what you are reading then you might was well not bother because you are not
able to use these skills are part of your means of communication, which is
the prime purpose of learning to read.
So may be if some were to actually READ the Clackmannanshire Report it says
that synthetic phonics should not be used on its own but should be used with
other reading programs, may be the posts on this thread are explaining the
reasons why that was the main conclusion of that ill conceived research
program.

Best wishes

dolfrog

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Eddie Carron
Sent: 07 February 2007 11:07
To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: [senco-forum] Re Teaching vocabulary

Graeme

Teaching SP doesn't create parrots - it creates people who are able to
decode.  No-one has ever implied anything other than that as far as I am
aware. This may not be of importance to you personally but it is a critical
skill for millions of poor readers.

Comprehension of language beyond a restricted expressive code is a
consequence of life experience and innate intellectual capacity.  It is
generally agreed that there is no specific and separate phenomenon called
'reading comprehension' - there is only language comprehension. If you
define 'reading' as the retrieval and assimilation of the intellectual
content of text then these children have learned to 'retrieve' but not
'assimilate'  It is not a weakness of synthetic phonics that some children
have limited language appreciation.  Another feature of innate intellectual
capacity is the inability of generalize information and this specifically
limits the ability to assimilate implied meanings. Such children usually
cope reasonably well with non-fiction reading material but generally fail
with fiction where inferrential comprehension is required. It is important
to appreciate that SP is about improving decoding skills and is not in any
connected with 'comprehension'

Eddie C.

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