How much phonics are your kids schools teaching

amother

Topaz

Thu, Sep 28 2023, 2:32 am

I did a bit of a survey via Facebook when that podcast came out as I have friends (many teachers) spread across the country.

People in MANY states were using Lucy Calkins, Fountas & Pinnell, or Reading Recovery (in fact a classmate of mine is a certified Reading Recovery teacher... in Florida). It was not simply a New York thing, or a NYC DOE thing, or a public school thing, or a red/blue state thing. One teacher in a Catholic school confirmed that her archdiocese had been using a version of it until this year. The sample size wasn't scientific by any means, but it was large enough and varied enough that I feel confident in saying that it wasn't a local issue. There's been a lot of reddit threads on it, too.

Most had some phonics mixed in, so it was not pure whole language (despite the name, balanced literacy isn't very balanced) but the discredited strategies like guessing and three-cueing were still present. A friend had her child's dyslexia missed until 8th grade in two states. Because kids did have phonics instruction (unlike the 1980s whole language I had, which almost dispensed with it) parents were under the impression that it was systematically and correctly taught. I can tell you that based on the switch that my local public schools did in the past two years (my youngest is in PS because of special needs -- not in New York) that it was not.

I am honestly as bitter about Calkins' writers' workshop model as her reading: as the parent of a student with autism and dysgraphia it was a complete disaster.

In the past year or two there was a significant movement against these programs, that began before that podcast. My district switched to an entirely different ELA curriculum (Amplify CKLA for K-5 and Amplify ELA 6-8) which is much more systematic and less solely focused on skills to pass the tests.

#BestBubby

Thu, Sep 28 2023, 7:35 am

amother Acacia wrote:

Same. I’m a bit embarrassed. I’m 45. I have a masters degree. I work in a secular professional environment. My kids are kah 8 and 3. But I don’t know what phonics are

Phonics is teaching kids to sound out unfamiliar words

While balanced literacy teaches kids to memorize sight words

And to guess unfamiliar words based on picture clues and context.

amother

Blueberry

Thu, Sep 28 2023, 8:10 am

#BestBubby wrote:

Phonics is teaching kids to sound out unfamiliar words

While balanced literacy teaches kids to memorize sight words

And to guess unfamiliar words based on picture clues and context.

This. Learning to sound out words in English includes memorizing rules, like "-tion" at the end of a word says shun, when c is followed by an I, the c is soft, etc. So for instance, is it better to teach a child to memorize the pronunciation for a word like pronunciation? Or to teach them how to sound it out piece by piece, knowing the rules?

amother

Thu, Sep 28 2023, 9:20 am

amother Pearl wrote:

I speak mainly Yiddish in my home. But my kids are exposed to plenty of English, though they never had any formal English instruction. The most they got was an aunt who told them the names of the letters in the alphabet.

So far, 8 of my kids have taught themselves to read English. They read at or above age level and some of them are very good writers as well.

Four of my kids learned to read Hebrew before they were taught to in school, although I had showed them the general principles first. (They had an edge here because they were able to self-correct when reading books in Yiddish.)

Wow!!!! Are your kids brilliant 😊

amother

Thu, Sep 28 2023, 9:25 am

amother Blueberry wrote:

But once you know tion, you know information, situation, transportation etc...if you memorize words then you have a lot more to memorize. Honestly, what really happens is you pick up rules by osmosis.

amother

Thu, Sep 28 2023, 9:29 am

amother Topaz wrote:

Thanks for your response! This sounds similar to what I've been finding online too.

amother

Acacia

Thu, Sep 28 2023, 9:29 am

#BestBubby wrote:

Phonics is teaching kids to sound out unfamiliar words

While balanced literacy teaches kids to memorize sight words

And to guess unfamiliar words based on picture clues and context.

Interesting. I honestly couldn’t tell you what methods were used in teaching my daughter to read, but BH she’s an extremely strong reader.

amother

Cerulean

Thu, Sep 28 2023, 10:06 am

As a kid we learned with Lippincott.

Year before first wenhad letterbooks. I loved my letter books. They were so exciting. They also had you sound out phonics words to make stories of characters. And first continued with phonics. We only learn how to read high frequency words that couldn't be sound out like the and said

My chassidish boys learn to read way to late. They

learn to read in yhe grade that would be second grade for a girl. Lanuage has to be picked up by 6 not 7-8. At that point they pick up. A word here and there by sight. Like the stop sign, Target, pharmacy.

A school that I worked in the year before first learn the letters of the alphabet and sound. That part is phonics based A few of the basic sight words.
I dont see why the alphabet cant be taught a year earlier. I know of schools that do it and kids are not any more mixed up with aleph bais.

First grade is very mixed. They teach the kids tons of sight words to memorize and they bring in phonics to back it up. So they first learn that s-e-e spells see separatley they learn the phonics of the words the sound tr makes and words that start that way. That ee sound makes ee like see and other words like tree. Some kids catch on right away they see the connection. The problem with that method is the new reader are sometimes confused if she is supposed to sound it out. Or is it from her long list of sight words. They correct the problem in second grade by grouping in second grade. There are groups for the kids that learn phonics and kids that learn the brake up of phonics. Its also good for their spelling.

Even with Lippincott as a kid we memorized spelling so I'm a bad speller because I never knew their were rules to spelling. Like we put a k in the beginning of the word if it follow a e,I, or y. Rules of double letters weren't taught etc.