My thoughts (and babble) on Phonics

This is possibly the forth time in my ‘adult’ life that I have come across the concept of phonics teaching and with every encounter I seem to feel more baffled, and more uncertain about how phonics should be taught.
A couple of years ago, I was a TA in a Reception class, and this was my first experience with the concept of phonics. In this class, Jollyphonics was the chosen phonics programme, and after their first week or so in school, the children were introduced to the letters ‘a’ and ‘s’. There were two classes in the Early Years Unit and phonics tended to be taught to the children as one group. Each letter was introduced by one teacher using the interactive smart board. She would write the letter on the board and then tell the children the action that went with that letter, whilst they sat on the carpet and then followed the action with her and the three members of staff (the other teacher, the other TA and me). Then she would open up a BBC website (I think) which would show short cartoon clips based around that letter, such as a snake that made the ‘sssss’ sound and wiggled into an ‘s’ shape. The two classes would then separate and the children would be required to complete a page of ‘s’, initially by joining up dotted letters and then by writing them free hand. Although I think the methodology behind this was fairly sound, the fact that this formula of teaching was copied every time a new letter was introduced must have been fairly dull for the kids (or at least for those whose memory served them well enough to remember the previous session!).

However, I am not wholly convinced that the principle of using actions to help the children remember the phonemes was useful for every learner. I can appreciate that kinaesthetic learners might find this helpful, but I had enough trouble trying to remember the actions, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether this was just one more thing for them to remember, and possibly might have been a bit of a burden for them – I suppose that I am questioning the use of mnemonics as a whole. I do think that the alternative kinaesthetic letter learning aids (some of which are mentioned in the photocopies Stephen gave us) used, such as writing the letters in shaving foam on the tables, were more effective. I was quite surprised to discover that a few of the nurseries that our children had come from had been ‘teaching’ Jollyphonics, but there was not much evidence that the children had been properly taught letter formation.
When the children were introduced to flashcards and then to books from a reading scheme, there was a very obvious link between phonemic awareness and ability to read: those who had grasped many of the letter sounds found word recognition easier. This school was Private though, which I suppose allowed them to introduce the letters in this slow format. I gather from my flatmate, who is a Reception class teacher in a state primary school, that the children are ‘flooded’ with letters at a much faster pace. Initially, I thought that the children might struggle with this, but I suppose it makes more sense as they are more familiar with the letters before they start the reading process. But it’s a bit of a ‘chicken and egg’ situation – do children learn to read after they have learnt their letters, or should they learn their letters before they start reading?

One thing that the Early Years Unit did do to help the children learn the letter sounds, was to encourage the children (and their parents) to bring in objects from home that began with one of the letters of the week. There was a definite tendency for the more able readers and writers to be the ones that brought in more items. However, I suppose this may have something to do with the fact that their parents were more enthusiastic.

During my time at this school, I became particularly aware of the benefits of cross-curricular teaching. Partly due to my love of food and cooking, and partly because no-one else wanted to go through the hassle and the mess, I devised a cookery programme to link in with phonics. Every Wednesday, I would take the children in groups of six into the role play/kitchen area and we would make something beginning with the letter of the week. I would encourage the children to touch the ingredients and they each got to stir or spread or cut (with child-friendly knives) and describe what they felt or looked like to encourage them to expand their vocabulary. This also helps the children to learn the letters and through context. Many of the children who struggled with the books they were reading, did so because they lacked general knowledge, and therefore could not use the pictorial cues in the books to help them to read the words. This leads me to believe that perhaps the analytic reading approach is more effective.

When I started working in a secondary school, I became involved in small literacy groups for year 9 students who had reading and writing ages of at least two years below their actual age. We followed a programme called THRASS, and this is the first time I really came across the terms digraph, phoneme and morpheme. One of the resources from the scheme was a phoneme chart that was referred to throughout the hour long sessions. I found this really quite complicated, and I was not very impressed by the synthetic nature of this scheme. The students were certainly not enthused by the reading books that complemented the scheme, as they were considered childish because of the cartoon characters and pictures. I also did not see it as particularly helpful for the students to have to learn the terminology that went with the scheme.

I can certainly see the potential for heated discussion with my flatmate, as she is a firm supporter of the synthetic phonics approach. I can see that this might benefit weaker readers, but I just can’t agree with its unrealistic nature and the fact that it doesn’t seem to promote common sense in the reader.

Thanks for your comment - I found it really difficult to condense everything I'd read! I think the idea of bringing things in that begin with a certain letter and cooking things sounds like great fun!