ThatReadingThing

Again, the programme was both heart-warming and heart-wrenching. Lessons learned?

1. Teachers (and parents) have a lot to answer for.

2. “Not like school” is paramount for people who feel that they failed every single day they walked into a classroom. I’m not convinced that Phil ever understood what he did wrong by writing quickly on the board and using words like “connectives”.

3. Commas are important for some people and not for others (yet).

4. General knowledge builds vocabulary which increases comprehension. Kelly didn’t understand her son’s report because she wasn’t sure what was meant by “reading between the lines”, not because she couldn’t read the words. Phonics is an essential ingredient in learning to read but not the only one; that’s why for every hour TRT lesson, I suggest 45 minutes of TRT and fifteen minutes of talking about a wide range of subjects.

5. The squiggles on the page represent the sounds we say and nothing in teaching reading and spelling should go against that fact.

It’s this last fact that hasn’t been used to its full potential. Adults who struggle with reading and spelling need to know that English is limited and learnable. You can use all sorts of activities to accommodate various learning styles but it’s not fair to allow people to continue to believe that the language is utter chaos.

Yesterday, Kelly got stuck on the word “touched”. She should have had all the tools to read “t” _ “ch” and “ed”. Even if she had read “towched” she probably would have got to the right word instantly.

So the answer to, “What word is t-o-u-c-h-e-d?”, is (learner in italics):

Say the sounds and tell me what you hear.

“t” “ow” “ch” “d” “towched”?

Do you know a word towched?

“Oh - touched!”

That’s usually how it goes. There are only 4 sounds represented by the ou spelling. (house, you, touch, soul)

That leads to Linda’s experience with cutting up the word trouble. Phil suggests tro-u-ble “troe-oo-bull”) as a suitable “spelling strategy”. This caused me to yell “NO!!” so loud that my husband asked if I was ok. And I wasn’t.

The problem with using a phonics method for children is that it doesn’t present the code in an adult way. Phonics isn’t just for communicating that “c” “a” “t” says “cat”. It’s also for communicating that /ou/ is a normal way to spell the sound “u” in common words like trouble and touch. For a more in-depth explanation, read through this: ThatReadingThing - The Basics.

It didn’t look as though Phil gave his students time to understand the more complex English code. If he had, Linda would have been encouraged to cut her spelling word into sounds: t   r   ou   b   le. Then I would have had her write the word, saying the sounds clearly as she wrote. The only difficult bit of “trouble” is remembering that you spell the “u” sound ou.

Phil’s assertion that Linda is a “whole word learner” is condemning her to a life of poor reading skills. She will never be able to memorise enough words to read the books that she has on her shelves. She is certainly very visual but she needs to practice associating what she sees with what she hears. Read more about working with an adult visual learner here and here.

In short, use every gimmick available if that suits your style of teaching, (I quite liked the space-hoppers but could never carry it off), but don’t lose sight of how the language works. Linguistic principles don’t change according to learning and teaching styles. If we translate that into maths, every learner needs to know that 2 is less than 3 and more than 1 - whether they learn best by manipulating cuisenaire rods (my favourite) or by writing sums.

Roll on episode 3.