[senco-forum] Re Literacy

As Mary says - 'phonics is not a method of teaching reading - it IS the

But the Rose review says that the second of these - meaning to sound - is
about understanding LANGUAGE. I don't think anyone is advocated that we stop
helping children with language? I think we are debating how to teach them to
decode i.e. to turn the symbols on the page into words???
Mary

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Chris Gravell
Sent: 03 January 2007 12:25
To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Re Literacy

At 12:00 03/01/2007 +0000, Eddie wrote:
>As Mary says - 'phonics is not a method of teaching reading - it IS the 
>writing and reading code'   Everyone who can read has mastered this code 
>and it is not possible to read unless this code is mastered. That surely, 
>is beyond question.

No it isn't -- this is one element of reading, which has at least three 
correspondences:

         -- sound <--> graphic symbol
         -- meaning <--> sound
         -- meaning <--> symbol/sign

Many readers without hearing or auditory processing ability do very well 
with the last element.

And of course it all depends on prior knowledge of what the world means, so 
teaching the first element without that knowledge is going nowhere.

All the best

Chris