Forum Topic: Success of letters and sounds

Discussion

• Posted by: beanie at at 01 April 2008 - 14:15

  Last September I started teaching Year 3 in a Junior school after several years in Year 5. We put our children into ability sets and I am teaching the lowest ability children. It soon became very apparent that a lack of phonics was holding up their reading so I introduced a daily session. Having not been taught how to teach phonics at teacher training college and not having a recognised system in place at school, I have put together my own (rather basic!) system, using a variety of resources. It has been fairly successful, but we are now considering purchasing a phonics scheme, perhaps Ruth Miskin’s ‘Read Write Inc’. When the Numeracy strategy was introduced, the thinking was that not all children learn in the same way therefore a variety of strategies should be used. Having taught younger children recently I am convinced that a similar attitude should be adopted with reading. First and foremost a school needs a systematic phonics approach that is used consistently throughout the school, but I believe this can be combined with other strategies to support the different learning styles of children. As with all methods, they can always be adapted to suit the school and the children’s needs.

• Posted by: carolie at at 01 April 2008 - 14:51

  Use Ruth Miskin’s ‘Read Write Inc’ on a daily basis in my year 1 class. The results are really encouraging. However those children who have little or no support at home are still failing to thrive!

• Posted by: Bushnell at at 01 April 2008 - 17:52

  We implemented the ‘Letters and Sounds’ in September throughout KS1. We have seen great results particularly with the application skills. Children are experimenting more with the written word and are encouraged that they can read things in their setting even at the early stages of phase 2. The nature of the sessions mean that much greater emphasis can be placed on AfL as children can be quickly identified if they are in the wrong phonic group. We are also using it in KS2 to ‘plug’ gaps however, this is a little more difficult as the children who need phonic input have very individual needs that are often not conducive to small group sessions. One thing that we are finding is that without an on site nursery, children are coming into the school’s reception with very different phase 1 experience. Overall though, I have recieved a very positive respone from the staff.

• Posted by: Denise W. at at 02 April 2008 - 17:38

  Our Foundation teachers have really praised the new synthetic phonics programme and have seen rapid progress in the children in both reading and writing skills. They did spend a lot of time creating power point sessions for every day but will be able to use these again, hopefully, if they don’t change the system by that time! I teach Year 3/4 and look forward to having these children in 3 years time as my present Year 3 has a substantial number of children who have considerable gaps in their phonic skills and are still struggling readers.