[SENco-forum] Re Literacy

I agree with the points that Sharon and Brendan have made. Although most

Dear Tim,
I understand what you say about a child not being perhaps able to take in
the phonics because they have weak phonological awareness. In that case the
phonological awareness needs to be strengthened in order to be able to teach
the phonics. BUT I do think we must be clear that phonics is not a method of
teaching reading - it IS the writing and reading code. We would not dream of
expecting a child to do maths without understanding number would we? The
numbers are the symbolic representation of quantity. In a similar way,
letters and letter groups (graphemes) are the symbolic representation of
sounds within the language (phonemes). That's how an alphabetic writing
system works. It is fundamental. And it needs to be made overtly obvious to
all children, not left for them to divine by themselves .... if they can.
Surely this is indisputable?
Any other method of getting a child to recognise words must be only
appropriate if that child has had good, appropriate (and preferably timely)
phonics teaching but cannot "get" it because of a learning difference that
makes it impossible for him/her. Such children will be a minority, even if
people can't agree to the size of that minority?
Don't you agree?
Best wishes,
Mary

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Tim Rupp
Sent: 01 January 2007 15:36
To: Clare North; kngbrndn at aol.com; SEN at tringham.net;
senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: Re: [SENco-forum] Re Literacy

It would be wrong to generalise over what works and doesn't work with any 
set of children as far as reading strategies are concerned as all the 
individuals within the group will be at their own level of understanding and

ability.

We all know that phonics is not the be all and end all of reading, but it is

a tool that most children find useful in the development of their reading 
skills. It needs to be recognised that the use of phonics is only 
appropriate for most children up to a certain point. After this the other 
strategies for decoding become more relevant.

Now I know children whose reading ability is hampered by their lack of 
phonological awareness, but they are not, developmentally, at the stage 
where synthetic phonics is apropriate.

Basically, I suppose that I am saying that we do need to keep reminding 
ourselves that these children are all individuals with individual learning 
needs. Ons strategy will not, necessarily, suit all of them.

In a classroom environment, however, teaching reading to a whole class of 
children is a compromise between what can be effectively taught to the whole

class and the time and resources to address the specific additional needs of

certain individuals.

I do favour synthetic phonics being taught to the whole class in the first 
years of school as it will do none of the children any harm. I do feel that 
common sense will mean that we temper this with alternative methods for 
those with specific additional needs.

I, personally, wish that the time and resources were available at this stage

of children's development for more assessment of potential learning 
difficulties. The earlier we can discover the weaknesses that may exist the 
longer we have to do something about those weaknesses.

Tim Rupp
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Clare North" <clare at clarenorth.co.uk>
To: <kngbrndn at aol.com>; <SEN at tringham.net>; <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2006 11:46 AM
Subject: RE: [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
>
> ---
> This email and any attachments have been scanned by AVG AntiVirus 7.5.
>
> -----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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