<< Teaching Your Child to Read  The Order For Teaching Phonemes >>

The  Limits of Phonics

As a teacher of children learning to read using phonics and the other methods I still hear a lot of people saying, “I never learnt phonics and I learnt to read no problem.” or “Books based on sight words are so repetitive and boring.” “Real books are the only ones children enjoy, I really hate ***** reading scheme, it doesn’t feel like real language.”

The problem with all of these statements is that usually the people saying them are parents who can already read and who are rejecting one particular method of teaching reading to their children. It could be that the way they learnt to read does not suit their child and they need to learn in a different way, or simply that by teaching all of the skills used in reading, their child would learn to read more quickly and easily. Learning to read online or offline requires a mixture of approaches.

Reliance on a Single Method for Teaching Reading

If we rely on teaching only one aspect such as phonics, this is very limiting. If we only teach children how to blend letters to read the words, they will only be able to read words which are spelled phonetically, and as there are so many different phonemes written in so many ways, it will be a good while before the children will be able to read more complex words. This limits their reading to books from schemes based entirely on phonics, which do not have natural sounding language and are often limited in content and interest due to the limit of words which can be read using phonics at any one stage. The advantage is that we are at least raising their phonemic awareness.

If we only teach sight words and reject phonics, we are limiting the children to reading only those words that have been learnt (either taught or picked up through reading). This either means reading books with a very limited vocabulary which are often repetitive and boring, or risking the children getting frustrated because when they come to a word they haven’t learnt, they do not know how to start to work out what it could be.

The Usefulness Of Reading Schemes

This is the problem with rejecting reading schemes altogether : most ‘real’ books have such a wide range of rich vocabulary that beginner readers get frustrated at not being able to read for themselves. Just because you use a scheme doesn’t mean that real books don’t have a place; hopefully you’ll be doing much more reading than simply the scheme anyway. Your bedtime story could be a ‘real’ book and you can read this to your child without expecting them to read anything, or read a ‘real’ book during the day only asking your child to read certain words or sentences which you know they will be able to. It is still important to read to your child and to really enjoy stories and books without any expectations or pressure on them. These books can be full of beautiful, natural, descriptive language and rich vocabulary which children need. When your child reaches a good level of reading, they can read ‘real’ books by themselves, with fluency, understanding and without getting frustrated at having to stop and ask what this word says all the time! And one last point – children can find almost any book interesting if approached in the right way by the person reading with them. If you show your boredom, your child will be bored too! If you talk about the story and pictures, relate them to things the child understands and is interested in, make funny comments etc. it will make almost any book fun to read with you!

The Blend For Learning to Read

If we didn’t teach phonics, or didn’t teach sight words, some children would pick them up naturally from reading and being told what unknown words say. However some would take an awful lot longer to work out for themselves the complex system that is our written language, and some may never fully reach that level of understanding on their own. In my opinion, teaching children how to use all the cues or clues (phonics, sight words, pictures, context, knowledge of grammar and what makes sense or not) to help them read is the safest, quickest and most sensible approach.