Reading ability - Yr 1 vs CP

[Debra]

The phonics method they are using at the moment in the schools in the UK is 'jolly phonics' which basically teaches them the first sound of each letter and thats it.  They mix that in with sight reading and a bit of spelling tuition each year (a minute amount, in my opinion).  Its supposed to be the best of both worlds - whole language and phonics, but it turns out its just confusing.  If you look at the national curriculum site and note what they learn each year you will see what I mean - the spelling is taught in a very bitty way.

As Dick Smith said in a post recently, it is now being recognised that this isn't good enough and there have been lots of documentaries lately about the problems it causes and the plan is for all schools to eventually move towards 'synthetic phonics'.  This is still not quite good enough, in my opinion after looking at it very carefully. 

I've settled on Romalda Spalding's systematic phonetics method for teaching my kids - the Writing Road to Reading.  I'm very happy with the results so far - both for my five year old who is practically starting from scratch after 18mths at full time school, and my year 3 daughter who was having awful problems with spelling and suddenly deteriorated at reading, after being taught with this mix of jolly phonics and sight reading.  My 7 year old could spell 'establishment' quite easily but I'm not sure about 'chateau' (unless he's come across it in a book already), but then I wouldn't expect him to be able to spell a French word yet!  This method teaches them to write and spell from the beginning and reading is simply a by product of that, not directly taught. 

Unfortunately, the planned changes will take time to implement across the national curriculum and won't help those children who have already been through the system or are going through it now.  There are remedial reading/spelling lessons available for children who have recognised problems in our local school - where they teach them using the systematic phonetics method.  Its just a shame they don't teach them all that way.

[Russethouse]

Isn't it odd, when I was at school I'm pretty sure my parents had absolutely no idea which system was used for what, reading, writing or arithmetic, they trusted the teacher to do their job.(and were probably able to better support the methods used because they were the same as the ones used to teach them )In the majority of cases we came out the other end, able to read virtually anything and with a fair idea of how to go about solving a mathematical problem.

You would think as time progressed and enlightened parents got more involved and knew more, things would improve further, but no, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Bring back Chelsea readers or Janet & John...I don't care that they were not politically correct or whatever, they helped generations of kids to read!!!

[Debra]

Probably because we were doing ok so they didn't need to worry or investigate!  Yep - my mum taught me the alphabet and used those readers to teach me to read before I went to school.  However, I also remember doing lots of spelling lessons at school - rote learning but it all sank in!  I think I was lucky to be in a school which taught 'the old fashioned way' - and eventually our schools will return to that tried and trusted way, boring or not: it worked.