Reading Nonsense!

Reading is a means of communicating a message.  The whole point of it is that understanding occurs.  This is why I have to call into question the judgment of those proposing using made up words to test reading skills of children.  See Koob and Zort the non words in the new reading test for six year olds.

With over 200,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary, surely it is unnecessary to make up words in order to check a child’s ability to use phonic rules.  Apart from that, not all English words can be deciphered by use of phonics.  We have what are known as ‘Sight Words’ or phonetically irregular words, which are those that are pronounced without decoding the word's spelling, for example “these”, “because” and many other common words. 

As a teacher of reading, I constantly use reading tests and from these I can identify which words a child is reading by using phonic reasoning and sounding out strategies.  I also note where sight words are not known and base that child’s personalised learning programme on that assessment. 

The inclusion of non-words is completely unnecessary and I would argue potentially damaging.  Children rightly expect their teachers to be leading by example and ought to be able to ask the meaning of any word used and be given the answer.  By making up words we are undermining the whole learning process. 

I’m sure that I’m not the only professional educationalist who is getting tired of political interference of the micromanaging type.  We are told that we need more tests such as the phonics-based reading check for six-year-olds.  Good teachers know how well their students are doing and test in order to shape teaching and learning rather than for the sake of Government statistics and league tables.  Yes, of course we want to raise standards in reading but more testing isn’t how to do it.  This is certainly not done by making up nonsense words which don’t have a meaning to convey therefore do not deserve to be words.

I teach English and Maths to children as a tutor and I see the results of teaching every day. Some teachers are better than others but I am yet to find one who didn’t know more about how to teach children than the Minister for Education. What children need is education that meets their specific needs and tailored to their personal strengths and weaknesses. Clearly this is not something that is helped by this new proposal.

Jan Long

Centre Director

Kip McGrath Education Centre (Southampton)

Toddling off to the library

A Facebook status from a friend of mine today read 

Son just came out with "Want to read the book on the changing bench" exactly like that - should I congratulate him or ask him to use "I" at the start ... he is only 2 years and 2 weeks! 

The first response was from another friend who happens to be a librarian: “Impressed that he wants to read a book”. 

At this age, having lots of books around is the best approach. Reading whenever possible gives so much opportunity to enjoy each other’s company. Children grow up so fast that parents don’t have many years of being able to read together. Yes, we do all get fed up reading the same story again and again, and again, and yet again! This is so important for children though. They learn through repetition and they also ‘pretend’ to read by memorising their favourite stories. 

Don’t worry if they want to flick through the pages quicker than you can read. They are learning how a book works. Discuss the pictures - the old adage “A picture says a thousand words” is very appropriate in terms of initial stages of comprehension. It’s far more important that children enjoy books at this age rather than pushing them into ‘learning to read’. If they ask about the words then answer but remember that the idea at this stage is to let them discover the wonder of books. Books help them develop their imagination, whisking them away to strange places. There’s a wonderful mystery in the letters on the page, a code which they don’t yet know but are often eager to learn as one of the milestones of growing up. 

I love being involved in this journey of discovery. Usually, when a child comes to me the parent is worried that they aren’t reading and are falling behind. One little girl who was five when I first tested her knew her single letter phonics (as in Cah-Ahh-Tuh) but only a few words. She very clearly placed the blame for this on her mother as when I asked her if she knew the words in front of us, she boldly stated “Mummy hasn’t taught me that one!” She’s been with me for 1 term now having completed the Kip McGrath Early Reading Programme and is already doing cursive (joined-up) writing. Now that she’s got the basic sounds, she is equipped to work out many unfamiliar words for herself. 

English is in many ways a difficult language to learn to read because the spelling of a word may be very different to the sound of the word. Where the letters represent the sound, we call these sound words. Where the letters are less closely linked we call these sight words. So, a common sound word is “broom” where the sound of the letters represents the sound of the work while “light” is a common sight word. The reason for the difference is complex involving the Great Vowel Shift when pronunciation changed and the adoption of “loan words” from other languages such as French or German. 

All of this means that practice and guidance is essential when teaching a child to read. It pays off when you see a child learning the wonder of the written word. I consider myself very lucky to do this for a living. 

Until next time 

Jan Long

Centre Director

Kip McGrath Education Centre (Southampton)

Throwing out the books with the bathwater?

It is an interesting time to be working in education. I am a professional teacher. I used to teach in an inner city school and now I run and tutor at the Kip McGrath Education Centre in Southampton. As a result, I follow news stories related to education with considerable interest.

Let me quote from the BBC website from 28th December, 2010 - A million UK children 'lack access to computers' 
 

It is warning that many of the UK's poorest children face being severely educationally disadvantaged by their lack of access to technology.

My secondary school took delivery of its first computers two days before I left.  I remember it because my tutor, Mr Rivel, was head of maths and keen to show off these new machines to us.  We wondered what place they had in education.  Why on earth would a school need such things? 

At that time (early 1980s), the idea of home computers for other than the geeky was laughable.  We carried heavy bags full of text books crammed with information that we needed to remember.  Among the things that we learned was to draw conclusions and make a reasoned argument. We wrote essays, drafting out on paper first and then used dictionaries to check for spelling mistakes before completing the final version.  Computers were the things of science fiction.

Now many Schools can’t even afford textbooks and a great many lesson plans are based on material found on the Internet. This is not a problem specific to the UK. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed that schools should abandon the idea of text books entirely since California (not a poor state) cannot afford to buy books. Please see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8090450.stm

So is the loss of heavy text books a problem?  Apart from the burden of carrying them, what else have our children lost?  Have maths problems or equations changed and got out of date?  Has history changed or how science works?  No, not in any fundamental way.

With the Internet as a source of educational material how do we ensure that the quality of that information is maintained?  Many children go automatically to Wikipedia; a website that can be updated by anybody. There is no guarantee that this or any website is accurate.  News sites can be skewed by opinion so we need to teach our children how to identify bias or spot the more subtle advertising. Of course, there is always a concern regarding online safety.  Many parents are not equipped to protect their offspring from trojans, malware or viruses.  Another concern is the illegal downloading of music and video material. Under the Digital Economy Act that could result in loss of Internet access for a household.  This then takes us back to the first point of children disadvantaged by a lack of access to computers.

There can be no doubt that there are a lot of really great educational resources available on the Internet.  At my education centre, I will soon be delivering online tuition as well as face-to-face tutoring.  However, I am as reluctant to follow Arnies’ proposal of abandoning text books as I would be in giving up on teaching children handwriting in favour of typing.  

So, is online learning a bad thing? No, clearly not. It can be the only way when the teacher and the student are physically separated as happens in some parts of the world. Computers can, with the correct educational software, be a great teaching tool - I use them daily for this purpose. However, there is something to be said for the old approach of using textbooks and that something is that they work. Undirected learning from the Internet tends to be hijacked by social email and the use of Facebook. Old and new can and should be combined and, with a teacher or parent helping, do work. However, the textbook is not dead even if our schools can no longer afford them. Education is about learning and teaching is about using multiple tools to help the student learn.

With educational stories never far from the headlines, I am sure that I will have a great deal more to say. 

Until then, I hope you enjoy the rest of the holiday.

Jan Long

Centre Director

Kip McGrath Education Centre (Southampton)