[senco-forum] Learning to read

Most kids who have failed to learn to read and who have ended up with me or
my colleagues in our dyslexia unit have subsequently learned to read and
write using synthetic phonics together with a filling in of their weaknesses
in operating those synthetic phonics - known as phonological awareness.  We
have had numerous successes - if we had NOT used SP these kids would still
be failing.

One 9 year old came in from another country able to read words of three
letters but anything of four letters or more defeated him.  His mother had
been trying to teach him phonics at home for years.  Turned out that he
needed work on sequencing sounds as well as learning a full enough range of
phonics to access text.  After 9 weeks of our programme, using Mum's support
following our guidance, he was a fluent reader.

Another student had stagnated in her decoding as she simply could not
discriminate rhyme.  She knew her phonics as sound sympbol relationships but
could not access text as she had not spotted patterns in words.  She had
everything else in place - that was the only gap.  Once it was filled in she
flew on.

Another student plateaued on reading at year 8.  She could decode but only
up to a certain level and not as well as she should have been for her peer
group or intelligence level.  Her gap was nonwords.  Again, she knew her
synthetic phonics, could blend, could segment and could discriminate rhyme.
What she did not do was generalise what she knew to other letter
combinations than the real words she had learned.  Sounds fantastic I know
but that was the only area where she was stuck.  So we hit nonwords.  Again,
once the light dawned - and it took some very specific and explicit
teaching, she flew on.

These are just a few examples.  Success breeds success.  Within the child.
Within the unit.  Within the school.  No-one would refer to us if we were
turning out failures using phonics.  We are over-subscribed.  People are
voting with their feet when they see the results.

Reading is a complex skill - there are lots of underlying sub units that
need to be in place.  For some children these units just slip into place
effortlessly and they do not need explicit teaching 1:1 as carefully as
above.  It does help though if class teachers understand that phonics is the
key to decoding, together with blending and segmenting as the absolute
minimum - as per the Rose report.  Letter deletion, substitution and rhyme
are also important to teach to classes but they won't need much work.  Once
decoding has been accessed the children move to recognising whole or sight
words.  Sight word reading, for most people, is the end product following
phonics acquisition.

The three wave approach is helpful - teach the class, then watch the
responses.  Move on quickly for those that have got it.  Reteach to small
groups of those who have not.  Explicitly teach in 1:1 for those who are
still struggling having used some assessment to work out which strands need
attention.  Sound Linkage (pub by Whurr) is great for working out
phonological awareness weaknesses.  It also has a teaching programme that
you can adapt and extend.

If they continue to struggle - and that happens in our unit too with some -
then investigate further.  Look at vision, visual processing, hearing,
auditory processing, sensory integration, diet etc etc.

Maybe how you use the flashcards and what you do alongside them is
critical?  We go through some stages of interactive work with sounds before
we start flashing cards at people.  Perhaps we all need to be clear what we
mean by the term "synthetic phonics".  It is not just showing children
flashcards, though fast letter recognition and discrimination are important
skills.

One bright dyslexic Y6 student came to us illiterate.  She had been
statemented in Year 2 or so in the UK and then sat with a TA who had none of
the above teaching skills for the next few years.  She made progress with us
but had to leave for the UK again when her father lost his job.  The
emotional damage of so much failure and lack of support was enormous.  I
hope they sorted out a tribunal to get the support they so clearly needed.

A good read on how phonics and the skills to teach phonics can work is
Thomson and Watkins Dyslexia A Teaching Handbook.  T & W are both EPs and
were joint heads of East Court School in Ramsgate before W retired.  That
school, or any like it, is well worth a visit to see how phonics works.
Mark College is another one.  Kobi Nazrul in East London is a mainstream
school worth a visit where literacy standards are high despite the catchment
area.

Philippa