Ok, so for English we have various articles to read and take notes on, so I'm gonna do that here, because...well that's what my blog's for!!
So we had to read 'What is phonics and which type is the most effective?'
An overview: the article discussed analytical and synthetic phonics and compares how these styles differ. It looks at the advantages of each one, linking in with research to provide proof.
Analytical phonics starts by children learning some words by sight, followed by letter sounds at the beginning, end and finally middle positions of words, then learning to sound and blend.
Synthetic phonics has children learning a few letter sounds and then sounding and blending straight away. According to research, children learn to read and spell much better with this approach.
There is a combination of these, which is funnily enough described as 'analytic then synthetic' phonics!!
I'm going to use a mixture of the the format I used last time, and just my general thoughts and notes.
Why am I reading this?
Basically, I want to improve my phonics knowledge so that I am a more effective teacher of this subject, and have a better understanding of how and why it works. For those that don't know, phonics is pretty complex to start with, especially as it basically has its own little language-full of weird words that take a while to become familiar with. Once having taught it though, it's much easier, which is good, as I spent the whole year teaching it with my little Reception kiddies in Kuala Lumpur.
What are the authors trying to do in writing this?
Quite simply, they want to inform people about phonics, so that they go away with a better knowledge and understanding of what it is and how it works
Moving beyond the questions....
There is a lot of discussion over whether children need to be able to decode and sound out words, or whether it is more important for them to understand what they are reading. Well how can you understand it, if you can't read it? However, what's the point in being able to read the words, if you don't understand them? The whole language approach was developed as a result of these issues, this basically means that unfamiliar words are to be identified and 'read' aka understood from the context or pictures, rather than from breaking it down into sounds etc. The problem with this however is that children may guess incorrectly and therefore are giving themselves misleading information as they will then recognise the printed word incorrectly next time.
Analytical phonics was often used and became a 'drill it in' method, by providing children with lists of words. It appears that children were shown words with the same starting letter, such as 'milk', 'mum', 'man' etc, with emphasis placed on the 'm', this developed a sense of usefulness of letters, once all the letters had been looked at, they then selected the letter sounds at the end of words, then the vowels in the middle of CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words.
With regards to segmenting and blending, it was argued that children be taught segmenting first as they are generally better at this, so it fits the process of development, however it has been shown that teaching blending early on is very effective.
With synthetic phonics the children are taught the letter sounds, which mean they are able to independently pronunciate things, thus being a self teaching approach. Its been shown that children learning by analytical phonics read and spelt age and stage appropriately, however children using a synthetic approach were ahead of were they would be expected for their age. It was also found that at the end of a particular time period, the 'synthetic children' could use their knowledge of their word ring, to be able to decode 'sing', however the 'analytical children' were unable to do this. Synthetic phonics has a better long term effect, also proven by research, also boys perform better than with analytical phonics, and with synthetic phonics they were better than girls in some parts.
Synthetic phonics is better for boys, possibly as it is more structured and has a 'constructional element', which may suit boys more. It has also been shown that synthetic phonics help children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
And that's pretty much it...in conclusion, synthetic phonics is great!! haha I have decided, that although teaching phonics is actually quite fun...reading and writing about it is not!!
Hope I haven't bored anyone to death!! Now it's time for bed...looking forward to an extra half hr in bed in the morning, as I don't have lectures until 10.30!! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment