I heard from a former school governor that the systems of "phonics" taught to children discourages parents from reading anything except the prescribed texts. Is this true? If so, what room is there for pleasure and exploration in children's reading? It sounds awful. It's our education system. - ThreadSky

eve.gd • 58 days ago

I heard from a former school governor that the systems of "phonics" taught to children discourages parents from reading anything except the prescribed texts. Is this true? If so, what room is there for pleasure and exploration in children's reading? It sounds awful. It's our education system.

Reposted from Elizabeth Draper @draperel

@TeresaCremin.bsky.social
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Comments

blangry.bsky.social•57 days ago

Nah, they ask you to not try and teach them to read using other systems at the same time or to make them read books aloud that are beyond them, but encourage you to read to them as widely as you can.

eve.gd•57 days ago

Hmm. Still unsure about this, then. First experiences of reading, in that case, are prescribed rather than exploratory.

blangry.bsky.social•57 days ago

I think drawing a hard line between reading yourself and being read to doesn't map to the experience of how mine interact with books.

lizgloyn.bsky.social•57 days ago

The more I think about it, the more I am nodding furiously to this - the key is ensuring that engaging with books, independently or with adult facilitation, should be a delight rather than a struggle, and that there should be lots of it (which having a parallel reading teaching method futzes with).

lizgloyn.bsky.social•57 days ago

That wasn't our experience - there's still a lot of encouragement to read books with your children at the phonics acquisition age. It's more about making sure (I think) that their foundations are soundly set to given them the confidence to explore. (But #puer took to reading quite naturally.)

blangry.bsky.social•57 days ago

Most of what they seem to be trying to protect them from is being overwhelmed and going "I CAN'T DO THIS" which is absolutely the (regularly available) tantrum you need to avoid for an activity you want them to love.

lizgloyn.bsky.social•57 days ago

*furious nodding* Yes, and remembering that their tiny brains are still tiny, so running two different operation systems for how to read at once is waaaaay beyond them however much various systems try to push them into being miniature adults even in the Early Years stage. (Moi? Views?)

eve.gd•57 days ago

OK - well, you are parents with experience of it -- I'm just an external observer with a vested interest in people enjoying reading but seeing increasing numbers of headlines that say "kids don't enjoy reading as much now" and wondering whether the way we teach it is part of it.

bibliowingate.bsky.social•57 days ago

I learned to read through phonics and that’s totally not true. Frankly, it fits it with what you’d likely naturally tell your kids as you read with them: “sound it out!” We read the “homework” texts at home alongside whatever books I wanted to read

stephdriver.bsky.social•57 days ago

There are different types of phonics. The kind when I learnt to read had us learning similar sounding words and with context help us to decode them. I can’t get my head around the synthetic non-word no-context version, and utterly reject the one-size-fits-all approach that mandates it.

stephdriver.bsky.social•57 days ago

People learn in different ways - and I’ve yet to witness any “one true way” on any topic that works for everyone.

johngcanning.bsky.social•57 days ago

I've never heard this before, either in my capacity as a governor or a parent.

dlbroox.bsky.social•57 days ago

Phonics is the correct way to teach people how to read. Sight reading has proven to be inadequate. Parents can sit with kids and help them decipher words. The time it takes to teach them how to read will be worth it when the kids can sit and read books to the parents in the future.

stephdriver.bsky.social•57 days ago

This was my conclusion from my PGCE. I seriously considered quitting completely over the way the government mandated phonics so tightly that forced us to teach the method and not child themself. I’m not saying it doesn’t work, but it isn’t right for all and should be one tool among many.

annagunin.bsky.social•57 days ago

I taught my son to read when he was four. Just did it intuitively, sounding out the letters to show how they make up each word. Turns out I was using phonics. We didn’t use any prescribed text, just a single learn-to-read book, then graduated to ordinary books.

nickhall.bsky.social•57 days ago

That was not our experience. There are set phonics books which align with the teaching. Just like when we were in KS1. But nothing to discourage broader reading.

(That said Ruth Miskin and the Read Write Inc empire probably do need a deep dive investigation)

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