[senco-forum] Re Literacy

Eddie, I must take issue with you that Synthetic phonics is of use only to
children in lower ability bands.  Throughout my time teaching, especially
when asked to help able dyslexics, I came across many intellectually able
children who were failing at reading when expected to deduce the
significance of phonics for themselves- and who surged forward when they
were taught first that combining letters made regularly spelled words, and
then that they could use what they had learned to decode and spell
successfully for themselves.  This gave them the confidence to observe the
idiosyncrasies of  the many common words that don't follow the rules and to
deal with them.

In our Authority the regular system of teaching to read was based on Oxford
Reading Tree and also  involved them having to learn a block of irregular
sight words before progressing to the next book.  The child who couldn't do 
this
soon found him/herself left behind, was bright enough to notice and become
discouraged and depressed (at 5 or 6) - and the blow to his/her self-esteem
was considerable and lasting.

At that time the most successful way of helping these children was to put
them on the Acceleread/Accelewrite program-  do-it yourself synthetic
phonics with auditory feedback from the computer.

The Clackmannanshire experiment show us a better way- whole school synthetic
phonics, in Primary One, which produces independent reading for most
children.  The initial experiment took care to compare the synthetic phonics
approach with control groups.
See   http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library/documents7/interchg.pdf

The effect is summarised after 7 years work there on
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/02/20688/52460

I cannot see that  a 16 week program of synthetic phonics in year one would
be such a turn off to the majority of children - it wasn't,  in the
Clackmannanshire experience, anyway.  And the cohorts of  confident children
moving on from this beginning are having an enjoyable, accelerated primary
experience.

Why do we need to make 20% of the children  fail,  to get them appropriate
teaching, when there is now evidence that  it can be done so much better?

Elizabeth

PS My comment about the Elizabethan writes was meant to convey that however 
they learned to read, they WROTE in synthetic phonics- in response to your 
query as to how they achieved their literary greatness.  I expect that 
Primers and probably Look and Say rules deduced from the words offered 
produced their quota of failed readers in their general population then as 
now.

Original Message ----- 
From: "Eddie Carron" <eddiecarron at btconnect.com>
To: <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 3:59 PM
Subject: [senco-forum] Re Literacy

Elizabethans wrote more phonetically but that is hardly evidence of having
been taught to read using a synthetic phonics approach. Whether synthetic
phonics is boring or not is also, not the issue. We must not fall into the
trap that has engulfed the SP fundamentalists, many of whom appear to have
lost sight of what SP is all about. Synthetic phonics is just a means of
teaching reading which provides an experience of sound/symbol relationships
which the vast majority of children simply do not need because all the
evidence shows that they deduce it for themselves anyway. I have not seen
any cogent arguments to the contrary. This is something that we know NOW.
Let's not fall into the trap of 'discovering' it ten years down the line
when the next 'initiative' comes along.  Its use will certainly enable about
18% of children in the lower ability band to learn to read and to achieve
functional literacy and that alone makes it a valid instrument for use with
these children. In no way can that justify its use with the vast majority of
children who self-evidently have no need of it. SP will not take us into a
brave new word of educated, literate adults. Those in the lower ability band
will be still be in the lower ability band but rather than remaining
illiterate, they will be functionally literate and able to read tabloid
newspapers and whilst that makes it use with this particular group, very
worthwhile, surely it cannot justify its imposition on the vast majority of
children who learn to read without it.

In Education, we have a great tendency to latch on to fads and fashions and
we must be careful about rushing headlong into this one.  Politicians have a
very blinkered, short term view of life. What they want is to see is our
national literacy statistics brought into line with that of other developed
countries so that they can prove how clever they are. What damage they might
inflict achieving this end is not important to them but it its teachers who
will be left to pick up the pieces. Where are the valid, logical,
Educational reasons for teaching children something they very obviously have
no need of because they clearly master reading without it? The frequently
expressed view that it would do them no harm is simplistic, short -termism
and something I would expect to hear from politicians of the calibre of John
Prescott, Neil Hamilton and other similar intellectual giants. It is right
and propr that we should keep the lunatics in an asylum but putting them in
charge of the asylum is something that should at the very least, be given
very careful consideration.

Eddie C.