It is absolutely essential that reading be taught by phonics and not by the so-called "look-say" methods currently in vogue in the public schools. If the child is not taught to read correctly, then the entire school program which follows will be so difficult that the child will have a very great disadvantage.
How often do we stop to consider what a wonderful skill to acquire is the ability to speak. The facility to communicate with each other in a complex yet straightforward manner from an early age is surely chief among proofs of our exceptional origins. None other of God's creatures have this gift, but mankind is made in the image of God so that there can be communication between us and our Creator. That places speech on a very high level.
Not only can we speak, but we are able to write down what we say so that other people can 'hear' our words in our absence. We call that 'reading' and the acquisition of this skill provides the gateway into every kind of learning and understanding. It ought to be easy to learn to speak and to read. Babies soon begin to copy the speech sounds they hear around them, especially as parents or siblings help them to discern which sounds are most important. Learning to read can begin at that stage too as very young children imitate those specific speech sounds which are the building blocks of written language.
Our facial features have been cleverly designed to influence our vocal chords and voice. When we speak we use the lips, tongue, teeth and throats and nose to shape the sounds we utter. Spoken words are these sounds uttered in sequence. We do it without thinking about it, but teaching reading means thinking about these sounds. Let us give them their official name: they are called phonemes. Thinking about them carefully and learning the symbols (or letters) which stand for those phonemes is the beginning of reading.
Altogether, when we speak we utter 44 phonemes: 26 of these are easily learnt as pupils learn to match the letters of the alphabet to objects that begin with that sound, 'a' for 'apple', 'b' for 'ball', etc. saying the sound the letter stands for, not it's name. Eventually pupils learn that the phonemes 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u' as they are used in some words, stand for the name of the letter and not it's sound: gate, here, ride, home, tune, for example. Later they will discover that more new phonemes are made when 2 or 3 letters work together. Five of these new sounds are made with two consonants, 'sh', 'ch', 'th', 'ck', 'ng'. Boat, girl and book are examples of vowel sounds and vowel consonant combinations. All of these phonemes are dealt with individually and this website will help you to know how to go about blending them into words. There are only 44 phonemes, but they can be represented by many more combinations of letters. This means simply that sometimes there is more than one way of expressing the same phoneme in writing. The 'ai' sound looks different in 'rain', 'play', 'eight' and 'plate'. So learning these phonemes is a bit like learning to unlock a code. Rather than having to learn lots of individual words by heart, we teach children the code and then they can unlock many words, even if they have never seen them before. This is why a good phonic system is empowering.
The speed at which 44 phonemes, and the combinations of ways to make them are learnt depends of course on the pupil's ability, but also on the patience and commitment of the teacher (or parent) and the systematic and regular teaching of the programme. We cannot over emphasise the importance of those things. Also, above all, the teacher must beware of 'going through the motions', just doing the job, without understanding what needs to be done and how important is this task.
Therefore, although the main teaching session each day is short, the careful teacher will be constantly looking for opportunities to apply the lessons to their students daily activities. This will ensure maximum progress. An easy to use, FREE phonics reading and spelling programme
To make it easy for you to teach your child to read AND spell with phonics, we have written our own simple systematic (each tiny step builds carefully ont he one before), phonics reading and spelling programme: Reading Made Simple.
What can you expect from the Reading Made Simple programme?
Amazing things. Two year olds reading. The whole of Peter and Jane finished by age 5 if not sooner - which in case you don't know would enable the reader to pick up the Authorised Version of the Bible and pretty much be able to read any passage from it. That's the age most children are when they start to learn their alphabet sounds! Most phonics programmes teach either reading or spelling. We aim to teach both. We take one tiny step at a time and build the next step carefully onto it, building success, often where others have failed. Not all phonics programmes are equal. Don't be put off if your child has speech problems. A phonic programme fits well with speech therapy. Teach your child to read as s/he learns to talk. My son was able to finish Peter and Jane by six and a half, having only started talking aged 3 and half with a couple of words. He could read better than he spoke, but his reading then brought his speaking on. FAQ The phonic language (phonemes, graphemes, digraphs etc...) is so complicated - do the children need to know it? No - and nor do you! It only complicates what should be simple. I deliberately refer to them all simply as 'sounds'. Little children (unless they become graduate linguists) will not need to remember this vocabulary - it serves no purpose in the process of learning to read and spell. Can all children learn with phonics? There are a very few children/adults who can not hear the phonic sounds. I repeat - a very few. In most cases of phonics failing, it is due to the teaching method/the teacher's lack of experience, not the fault of phonics per se. Phonics works with all children regardless, when taught well, as even those very few who do not hear the sounds, benefit from a good phonic programme teaching reading and spelling in a sctructured way, grouping patterns of words together (e.g: rain, pain, Spain, snail etc..) One of the main pitfalls I see that causes many children to supposedly 'fail' with phonics, is not spending enough time ensuring the child can blend (put the sounds together to make a word - c..a..t.. cat), and segment (isolate the sounds in a word cat: c..a..t..). Ensuring the pupil is competent in these two skills will ensue success, Do not rush over these stages. What's wrong with 'look and say' methods? Some children seem to start well with whole words methods but come unstuck later when they meet more and more words they have never seen before and have no plan for working out what they say. Or they come unstuck with spelling. Added to which, when your child is young you may not know that they have a difficulty such as dyslexia - which can be overcome as far as reading and spelling is concerned with a synthetic phonic approach. Better to teach phonics from the start and eliminate years of anguish. Conclusion:
To me as a teacher and then later as a parent, it has been of paramount importance that my pupils read well - not a second best programme that fails them as they reach higher levels. It has also been important to me that they spell well. Schools in general have very low standards - they are trying to teach towards tests, rather than with a long term view of an adult who is fully literate to an excellent level. They are working with multiple pupils and time is a huge constraint. Let's set a new standard We don't want to be proud, but we do want excellence. Choose your reading and spelling programme well - it matters more than any other subject in the early years. A child who can read can teach themselves anything! In fact, spend most of your formal schooling time in KS1 focusing almost exclusively on the 3 R's - Reading, writing and 'rithmetic. This is the time to lay a solid foundation. The rest of their schooling hangs on mastery of these fundamental skills. Get this right and the rest falls more easily in to place.
Find out more about phonics here: A simple guide to understanding phonics
I thoroughly reccommend the two books I have advertised in this post, if you would seriously like to know why phonics is the best method to teach reading and spelling.
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Research from the University of Bristol is suggesting that phonics, as a means of teaching reading, is of no more effect than other methods, such as whole word methods. Professor Jeffrey Bowers, from the University of Bristol, has said that despite "widespread consensus in the research community" that the reading method (phonics) is preferable to meaning-based approaches, there is a lack of "empirical evidence" to suggest that it leads to better outcomes. Is this correct? Should we just throw phonics out and let teachers once more have free choice? I believe that your answer will depend on what you mean by 'works'. If you want way to make sure that your child learns to both read and spell to a high standard, to read and write challenging material, then yes, phonics works. If you want to raise a child for the modern, entertainment driven culture where the need to be able to read is minimalised - then use whichever method you like. Remember though, that although many accuse the reading method debate of being hijacked by political parties, it always will be. Reading is political and history tells us why. If you can keep people illiterate, then they can be easily deceived: they cannot read to discover the truth. I am not a university lecturer, or a politician, just a plain, simple, practitioner with over 30 years experience of teaching phonics. However, if my knowledge of university lecturers is right, they usually have very little practical experience of teaching, tending to be rather insulated and divorced from real life. In addition, I have learnt through experience that in many disciplines in life - be it medicine, education or the like, 'evidence' is not to be trusted. Statistics are fine as far they go, but the 'results' are very dependent on the interpretation of those statistics and a thorough knowledge of the factors considered in their collection, as all research is limited. My own personal experience tells me that I would not want to stop teaching phonics. I will tell you why. My Background I was trained in the late 80's/early 90's, when natural language methods were the vogue. Our lecturers shared their delight in the work of such as Marie Clay, and declared this to be the NEW way forward. We students were filled with hope and enthusiasm. I spent many hours on the phone to my mother, an infant school teacher in the heart of London, in a very deprived area, extolling the virtues of the NEW way and decrying her old fashioned methods of look and say flashcards. She had been taught in the 50's when 'look and say' had been heralded as the NEW method and phonics (though not very well understood and not always well taught) was on the way out, having held sway in the 40's. She too had become disillusioned with 'Look and Say', finding that it went so far, but not far enough as the child's capacity for memorising new words was eventually exhausted. She was at the stage of wondering why the older teacher in the room next door when she first started teaching, had better success. She now knows that the method this teacher was using - one that had not been introduced to my mother's cohort of students - was the phonics method. All that my mother remembers, is that the infant children in the class next door were reading and writing to a high standard, while she struggled to teach these subjects. BUT, because she had been taught the NEW methods, the staff were (foolishly) keen to learn from HER! However, she instinctively knew that the method I was acclaiming was not the solution. Whole Language Methods Marie Clay has been heralded for her work with reading recovery. She studied how children who learned to read easily learnt, and tried to apply that to help those who were struggling. The term 'emergent readers and writers' developed around this time - meaning that the skill was in the child, and all that had to happen was that a way should be found to help it 'emerge'. It resulted in children desperately struggling to 'read' and being rewarded for their ability to guess, though it wasn't put like that. It was called using 'skills'. It involved managing to ’read’ the text by looking at the pictures and using context and meaning. At no time, was any method introduced to the child to enable him/her to know for sure that s/he has said the right word. Similarly in writing, children were left to find their own way to write, which in practice resulted in classes of seven year olds filling pages with 'writing' that was undecipherable, and being rewarded for 'writing'. Maybe this is not what Marie Clay meant by her method, but it was sure the way it was put into practice at ground level, by inexperienced teachers. Any nay-sayers were dismissed. Clay was a psychologist and her mantra was 'it's all in the child' and that is what drove her work. Supposing she is wrong and it is not all in the child? What then? Putting theory into practice In college it sounded good. Until I was faced with a class of inner London children in 1991 and the Oxford Reading Tree Biff, Chip and Kipper books, and I realised that our utopic ideas were of no use. I had to use the scheme provided by the school and I had had no training in its use. Furthermore, the children in my charge had little literary experience before entering school. I was starting from rock-bottom - in year 1. My children had only started school in the preceding term. I tried - I honestly did. I wanted to make whole language methods work. I was convinced it was the right way. After one term I had to admit defeat. Yes, a few children were learning to read, but I was concerned about the rest - especially those whom I had quickly recognised as being potential remedial cases. These children were simply play reading: looking at the pictures and guessing what the text said. Sometimes they got it right, but in my mind this was not reading and I could not see how these children were ever going to make the necessary quantam leap into readership. Thankfully, the pressure for results was not as keen in those days as it is now, but I still felt acutely embarrassed by my lack of progress. Being young, I did not stop to think about asking the other teachers. I realised later, that had I have done so, I would not have found any better success. The Junior department had long given up hope of the infant children reaching their doors able to read. I expected chidlren to be able to read, whatever was put in front of them, whether there were pictures attached or not. Was that too much to ask? Later I learnt that some children learn to read despite the method being used: they find structure for themselves - but often cannot explain it - but you can see them applying it as they read. A solution I desperately looked for help and scoured the ads in the TES - a newspaper in those days. I found the advert for a phonics spelling scheme - a very simple approach that I could understand - no complicated language to learn. I began. The programme presumed that the children would know the sounds of the letters of the alphabet. I didn't know them myself. We learnt together. The children loved chanting 'AY says 'a', Bee say 'b' adding a new sound each day. And then the wonder as we started to build cvc words (though we didn't worry about calling them that). The children were so proud of their achievement. Better still I had parents of children with older siblings coming to me saying, 'What are you doing? My child is reading better than his older brother/sister,' or others new to the school 'He didn't get taught to read in his last school - this is amazing, he's making so much progress. ' The success was not just in reading - by the end of Year 1, these children, who had started at rock-bottom, were writing an A4 page of readable writing. The phonics programme had given them confidence to write - they enjoyed writing and they were blossoming. Meanwhile the head was ecstatic and decreed that phonics be used across the school. I was still young and rather bewildered, as I genuinely though that you sent your children to school to learn to read and yet - here were parents expressing surprise that I was teaching them to read! It is only with age that I have learnt the reasons why. Meanwhile, my mother had been sacked for trying to teach her class in inner London: she gave too much direction and she should have been letting the skills emerge. The result: 60 children in one classroom - aged 7, playing with sand and water all day with no direction from the teacher. This was the age of chronic teaching failure: thousands of children were used as guinea pigs for an experiment that failed them. Something had to change. These children are now in their 30's - an age group in which so many, I am finding, do not like to read, or consider themselves deficit in this area. These adults are now the parents of our primary children. The phonics battle Thankfully, while I was only just discovering phonics, others like Mona McNee, who had devised a phonic system of her own as schools had failed her Down’s Syndrome son, were busy campaigning for it to be brought back into schools. They faced a long hard battle and were very unpopular. Whole language experts accused them of just teaching 'decoding' without teaching meaning. For me, I found that as we decoded, we made sense of what we read. I didn't expect the children to decode words that were not in their vocabulary - not for a long time, at least. The children were delighted that they could read and it made sense to them. The decoding was a means to an end: as a word became familiar, it seemed to become a 'look and say' word and, over time, with a good reading scheme with a limited vocabulary, more and more words fell into this category. BUT, when they met a word they had not met before they did not have to guess - they had a sure-fire method of working it out - by themselves - without a picture to help. This must be reading. What good is context if you do not know what the individual words say? Does Phonics work? It depends what you are looking for. For me - it does the job perfectly. I have always found that where phonics fails, it is because the teacher has not studied the learner and matched the way of using phonics to the child. There are many ways of teaching with phonics - not all of them are helpful. Find a method that works, and make it work. Know your children inside out - individually - and tailor the method to the child - not the child to the method. Having taught children from Reception, right through to GCSE and beyond, and I can see the evidence. Children taught well by phonics leave the competition standing. The secret is in that little word ‘well’! Other posts you might like: How to teach phonics effectively How to: get the best from Letters and Sounds How to: help your Y1 class pass the phonics test Today we will look generally at things to bear in mind however you are teaching phonics to help you to teach more effectively.From my many years of teaching synthetic systematic phonics, having developed my own programme - Reading Made Simple, which incidentally teaches both spelling and reading, well, together, and having experience of Letters and Sound, I bring these practical suggestions which I hope will be helpful to some. A phonic programme is only as good as the teacher using itIn other words, in order to get the best results from ANY programme, you must have got 'inside' it as it were, understand the process that your children will go through, and be able to support them through it - as opposed to just delivering what is in front of you to deliver. In the cases where I hear a teacher saying 'S/he can't learn by phonics!' in most cases I see clearly that the fault has not been with the child, but with the teacher. Don't be one of them. Make it a mindset to want to make phonics work for every child. There is only a very small percentage of folks who cannot hear phonetic sounds - it is rare. These children however will still learn best with a structured approach.
Having said this - some programmes are better than others: on the whole the simpler it is to administer and understand, the more success you will have with it. No teacher has time to get to grips with a complicated method and use it consistently well without much expensive training. Phonics does not need a lot of training, only a willingness to embrace it and see the benefits. You will learn best with your children. A few tips along the way can help though. One third of your class will learn by any methodRealise that about one third of your class will learn by any method or none. Do not base your assessment of your class on these children. Look to the lower two thirds - particularly the lower third. These are the children that will be most helped by phonics teaching. Phonics gets all children reading! Do not think of the lower third as remedial - they are not! Don't let them become so. Make it your responsibility to do all that you can to help them to read well. By the way - the lower third are not necessarily the least able - history testifies that some extremely bright people were late readers! Among this group may well be dyslexic children, yet to be identified. Good phonics teaching is the best way to teach these children and actually to minimize the effects of the dyslexia on the child's future ability to read and spell - it can almost be eliminated. I hear of too many cases where a teacher lets these children 'drop through the net' as it were and say to the parent 'Don't worry! S/he'll catch up!' These children are not for the remedial class - they can be taught by you. They will be in the remedial class by Y3 if you do not do your job properly! The games and worksheets on this site have mainly been developed through working with such pupils. Do not rely on parental helpParental help is wonderful and to be encouraged but no child should be disadvantaged because of a lack of parental help. It is your responsibility to make sure that every child can read and spell to the best of their ability. By all means send reinforcement activities home - but they should be just that - reinforcement - and you should NOT expect parents to help with them. In this way you will not be disappointed and the child not disadvantaged. The sending home is purely to encourage the parent to help, not as a valid part of the child's education. Never send home work/activities that the parent may have to help with - unless you have carefully explained what the parent should do to the parent before hand, otherwise the parent may inadvertently and well intentionally confuse the child. The best use I have ever made of 'homework' is to send home a book the child has already read well to me, to celebrate success - the child wanted to share it with the parents. You might guess, but homework and young children is something that I feel quite strongly against. Again - I sent home spellings - but only because it was school policy. I sent home a list of words with the sound we were working on, in the hope that some may get a bit of extra practice - but in all honesty it was usually the children in the top two thirds that benefited from this practice. Be careful what you send home. Have regular parents meetings to keep them informed - but don't let any child be disadvantaged if mum/dad can't come because they are working, or do not understand. Learn initial sounds and letter formation together Understand the learning processLearning is never forward in a straight line - and this is so of phonics, for both reading and spelling. If you have ever learnt a language for yourself as an adult (unless you are a 'language' person), you will know that as a new piece of information is introduced, just for a while, some of what you thought you knew becomes uncertain as you learn the new rule and how to apply it. This is evident in phonic teaching, when for example you teach that powerful 'e' changes a vowel to say it's name; you will soon see that children are putting 'e's' everywhere, until you have repeated the idea several times and helped them to see that all the words with a short vowel sound do not need an 'e'. I call this 'wobbling'. Learn to expect it - and not panic and think the children have gone backwards. Continue to move steadily forwards, giving lots of support. The upper third will grasp the new concept quite quickly, so devote your energies to the lower two thirds and especially the lower third. It will take them a lot longer and they will need a lot more support. These groups particularly respond well to the games on this website. Worksheets have a place, but sometimes a bit of light relief helps to 'oil the wheels' as my mother always said. Learn how best to cope with differing ability levels This is one of the biggest problems. We all love to have the child that can already read proficiently age 5, but how to meet that child's needs while teaching the others children in the class is not always easy - you risk making them feel different, set aside doing different work during the phonic time. The last thing we want is for any child to get bored through lack of challenge. How you cope with this will differ from school to school. Some split children into phonic groups from year 1. I have operated this way myself in the past. I offer this suggestion: Make sure that you, the class teacher, teach the lower group in your class. The upper third that learn by any method will thrive being taught by someone else. The lower groups need the continuity - you, the class teacher, with them all the time. It is absolutely crucial that you know exactly where these children are in their phonic development. Phonic teaching should not just take place for half an hour each day and then be forgotten. The diligent teacher will know each child inside out. If an opportunity arises during another lesson to reinforce the bit the child is struggling with, then the teacher can use it to 'plug' the gap. This constant revision and reinforcement it vital to the success of these children. Sometimes it will be a group of children that you know are struggling with a particular sound, or you have been trying to help a group learn a new 'tricky' word. In the geography session, later that day, you meet a word with that sound, or that tricky word. do not think to yourself 'This is geography not phonics!' Young children learn holistically, not in discreet subjects, so just take a second or two to briefly point it out to the child/children, before moving back to geography. Use a truly phonetic reading schemeBetter to not give the children books to send home at all, than give them ones that work against what you are doing. So many school fall down on this one point and I do appreciate that actually there are very few schemes that use phonics properly. Most will encourage whole word recognition and using 'context' (a nice way of saying 'guesssing'!). Contrary to popular thought, the Oxford Reading Tree scheme, despite its appearance of being phonetic, is still fundamentally a whole language reading scheme that has been given a phonics veneer. If you look at the early books in the scheme closely, you can see that there is still close matching of the text to the pictures. This is supposedly to help the child to use cues to ‘read’ but actually, for most children just encourages guessing, which is a pernicious habit that is very hard to break, especially for the lesser ability children, who often become those in need of remedial help. Having worked with many ‘remedial’ children (who most would never have become remedial had they have had phonics well taught from the start). I know it is a popular scheme, but it does not help your phonics teaching as you will end up expecting children to read words for which they have not yet been taught the skills to decode - or resorting to look and say - or worse still, guessing. My best advice - write your own! Mine do not fit with Letters and sounds, but rather with my own programme Reading Made Simple - however they show how simple the books could be. See them here. Today's parents may feel illiterate due to the poor educational standards in the 90'sThese were days when teachers were trained in increasingly progressive methods which included 'whole language' methods of teaching reading (see my post here for more information on this) - which have been proved many times to fail many children. Most schools had progressive reading schemes, like the Oxford Reading Tree books. Many parents at the time thought that their child had 'problems' because they didn't learn to read. Dyslexia clinics country wide were flooded with anxious parents - who in the end were told 'There is nothing wrong with your child, they just haven't learnt to read!' who knows how many of the present parents of KS1 children feel inept when it comes to reading and spelling - it is known to me that many are acutely aware of their own deficiencies. Be aware of this - you could make a real difference by teaching the parents along with the children. Hello, today we continue our posts looking at teaching phonics looking specifically at making Letters and Sounds work effectively. Although as we have already said, Letters and Sounds is built on sound principles, it does have some weaknesses which you would do well to know about. Weakness 1: Going too quicklyIn its attempts to be rigorous, Letters and Sounds tries to attempt too much too quickly. Most Reception children will not cover the ground suggested to be covered in this year. In my experience in a London Primary school, it was probably fair to say that the eldest Reception children, those who turned 5 in the Autumn Term, were able to learn the initial sounds and start to blend CVC words by the end of the year. Now obviously, there are always going to be exceptions to this, but generally the children seem to need time to settle and get used to school life and then the maturity to make use of the teaching given. The younger Reception children often do not get much further than learning the initial sounds. But do not lose heart. Once these children enter Year 1, then work can really begin. For me, year 1 is the year for the most rapid progress in phonics. So, if you have a group/class of children who are going great guns, then fine, go for it! But if not, do not panic: aim to get the initial sounds learnt and at the very least the ear trained to hear CVC words, and the children will do just fine in year 1. Weakness 2: Expecting children to learn technical language |
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Make reading as multi-sensory as possible
When you are working with older children who have not made expected progress in reading, a multi-sensory approach is most often beneficial as it links sight, sound, movement and touch. These help the necessary brain connections to be made. So as you plan activities, think of how to make them feel, look, listen and get them physically moving as much of their bodies as you can!
Here are some ideas:
- Feeling how the mouth changes as different sounds are made, the position of tongue, teeth and lips. Use a mirror so that they can watch them selves saying sounds in the mirror.
- Make sandpaper letters for them to trace.
- Let them physically hold letters: arrange magnetic letters on a metal tray.
- Write on different surfaces: chalk board, white board, as well as paper.
- Play games.
The fishing game
This is great every once in a while for a child who finds it hard to sit still for very long, as they can get up and move about. Do be prepared for 'tricks' that they will soon find, like picking up more than one word at a time. I never mind this as they have to read more words!
Print out a page of fishes.
Write a cvc word clearly on each fish.
Attach a paper clip to each fish.
Make a pond with a piece of blue paper/card.
Make two rods with cardboard tubes (the stiff ones from rolls of tin foil are best), a length of string and a magnet to tie on the end.
Take it in turns to catch a fish. If they catch more than one, I allow two (after all it means more reading!)
Name has been changed for confidentiality
This simple format can be easily adapted for one 30/45 minutes session.
So what does a typical lesson look like?
- Since the beginning I have had Ben arrange magnetic letters into alphabetical order. This had been a very foundational part of his current success. I found that Ben was very confused by some of the letters that looked the same. Not just b/d/p/q but also n/u, and when we did the capital letters, Z and N. By letting him handle physical letters he could turn them round to see the difference between them. This is multi-sensory learning that is vital for all children not least those with any special need.
- Once he had arranged the letters, I asked him to point to each letter as he said the alphabet. Ben had great trouble with 'l,m,n,o,p'. I find this is common as the usual alphabet 'song' gabbles these letters. A better tune is The Grand Old Duke of York, if one is needed. Older pupils will be happier just saying the alphabet. In this case, emphasise the rhythm and stresses: ABCDEFG, HIJKLMN, OPQRSTU, VWXYZ.
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I have now moved away from always physically arranging letters to having him write out the alphabet. This again has highlighted difficulties in letter formation and we talk about the letters as we go. Ben does now know the sound each letter stands for securely. I have made some sandpaper letters for him to trace to teach the right formation. We do one letter until he has mastered it. He seems to take great pride in being able to do each letter properly, though does love to tease me by doing it wrong sometimes!
- I then have him put the vowels in order for me, saying both their name and sound. This is important as a secure knowledge of these five letters is the foundation for starting to put them together to make new sounds.
- On Mondays we start with the dictation (see Reading Made Simple) for last week's sound. He writes it in a special exercise book. his writing is still not great, but there is a marked improvement. I still have to give a lot of support, but whereas to start with he was reluctant, thinking he couldn't do it, he now tackles it confidently, knowing I will help if he gets stuck.
- Then we review all our flashcards, including odd/sight words.
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- Then I teach him the new phonic sound for that week. I show him the list of new words (as found here) and he reads them. Then I hide the list and dictate them to him. At first he was only comfortable writing them on the white board. He now takes great care writing them in his spelling book.
- If there is time I will give him some sentences to read with the new sound in.
- Then we play a game.
- The next session that week we start by reviewing our flashcards, and doing handwriting practice. This can be copy work, or letter formation.
- Then we work on the spelling of the new words using a worksheet. Sometimes I give him speed tests - a list of words containing the sounds he has learnt and he reads from top to bottom as fast as he can. This helps to train his eye to see the letters in the words and aids in fluency.
- Again we finish with a game.
Additional notes:
At first Ben was somewhat reluctant to have to sound out my words. He wanted a quicker way - to guess, but he soon began to realise that when he sounded them out, he was able to read all sorts of words that he didn't know he could read. This has slowly begun to change his attitude to the lessons. It has been truly wonderful to see those odd, albeit rare 'light bulb' moments when you suddenly realised that he has totally engaged with the lesson and has taken a step forward.
We have progressed from cvc words, onto four letter words and now beyond to the 'Moving on with phonics stage'. Now, Ben is not secure with consonant blends. We have done a lot of work with them, for several weeks, but I felt that he at least now knows what I am talking about when we try and spell a word, for example, sleep: he wants to put one letter for sl, but we talk about it and say it's two letters, now what two sounds can you hear? So I am still very much supporting him with this, but by moving on I am giving him a sense of progress. Most of the words in the Moving on with phonics actually only involve three sounds. He can do these confidently. He will get plenty of practice with consonant blends by the end of this stage.
The need for flexibility when teaching special needs children
The lesson is a simple procedure. What is not so simple is handling the unpredictability of Ben's moods/behaviour and adjusting the lesson on the spot to however he presents each lesson. This however can be true for children with no special needs. They are not all on peak performance every day. Be ready to change activity if the one you have planned doesn't seem appropriate. Be ready to cut the lesson short if need be. Be ready to take advantage of anything they might bring up. Ben will often make an observation about some words - for example, one day he wanted to say pat for pit and he thought they should be the same. And so I diverged into a lesson on how vowels change a word. Because he had brought it up, he learnt more from it than my planned lesson, which I saved for another day.
Reading Made Simple gives you all the guidance you need for lesson format for all stages of the programme. All you need to do is to adapt the teaching technique to match your student and work out exactly what to focus on each session, while following the sequence of the programme.
I hope with these little insights into our lessons, to show you what tutoring an older child looks like in real practice.
Let me know how you are getting on!
Welcome
Hello, I'm Lilibette, qualified teacher (B.Ed Hons). I have taught phonics in mainstream education, followed by have home-educated my two sons to 18, and am now a private tutor.
Reading Made Simple (a completely free systematic phonic reading programme) and Sound-it-out are the results!
I aim to bring advice and resources aimed at enabling parents and teachers to EASILY teach phonics effectively. That is: to help children become life-long readers, forming a bedrock on which all further education can be built. My mother helps to draw the pictures and between us we have many years experience of teaching KS1, special needs and ESL. We hope you enjoy browsing our site!
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