My daughter’s end-of-term report confirms that she is being taught by alien reptiles

Fearn

Rod you are a numpty.
There I was, a fellow parent enjoying the comments of someone else that wanted their daughter to do a bit more 'reading and arithmatic'when you suddenly jumped into the corner of the 'post 1960's educationalists. Didn't you know that phonics is the educational solution of the right - loved by republican home schoolers in America and pushed by George Bush? Gove doeesn't approve of phonics because he has been institutionalized he champions it in the teeth of enormous opposition from the 'post 1960's educatonal establishmetnt'. The literacy associations you quote with respect are led by the very teacher trainers you elsewhere claim are creating the brain washing of trainee teachers. Your artivle could more accurately read:Although I despise the educational establishment in general terms, when it comes to phonics I stand shoulder to shoulder with the teacher trainers, unions and left wing educational establishment.'
Where does one start in trying to expalin why phonics is hated by the left... Well I readf that at the last NUT conference there was a standing ovation for the teacher that stood at the front and said 'reading is for meaning.' to instruct children directly in how the words of their language are made up of letter patterns in some way harms their self esteem and motivation to read. Instead reading should be a form of child led discovery. Hence since the sixties teachers have ditched teaching children the building blocks of words in favour of immersion in whole language. Its a bit like teaching maths without ever explaining place value explicitly.
However, you shouldn't be concerned. Although you might think your child is learning phonics to read at school but thats highly unlikely. The educational establishment have to acknowledge that the weight of evidence in favour of teaching phonics is undeniable but it is sidelined to separare sessions and the majority of schools - following the dictums of the educational establishment, ensure that when actually attempting to read books the kids stick to 'reading for meaning' by using the pictures, first letters - in fact anything other than proper attntion to the words on the page.
ps Any self respecting advocate of phonics is in favour of spelling teaching being explicit. Its true that phonics makes children notice the individual patterns of letters in words, which is good for thier spelling. However its the left wing establishment that then claim this means you don't need explicit spelling teaching. The same people that can't stand real phonics teaching.

Fearn

Hmm. Horrendous typos are due to trying to use a friend's laptop that won't let me edit - honest...

annc

Was enjoying it till you went off on one about phonics. My mum left school at 15, taught me to read from the age of 3 - using phonics. I taught both my daughters to read the same way - but was told by my younger daughter's nursery boss, herself a retired primary teacher, not to teach them to read, as the teacher found it easier if all the children in the first year were at the same level (presumably the level of those who came from homes without books and who had never been read to). My daughters, now aged 31 and 29, have both taught their own children to read, using phonics. Agree that teacher training colleges produce strange, brain washed, jargon spouting left wing bigots, and after 30 years of relentlessly refusing to teach grammar, for example, or any British history perceived as non PC, most teachers under 40 are themselves ignorant. But why pick on phonics!!! It works. Try it on your daughter yourself, go on.

Nick Maley

Rod, spot on regarding the malign influence of teacher training colleges, and the meaninglessness of report cards, and the whole political correctness thing. But the debate between Phonics and Whole Language in teaching basic literacy has a history. For example see here:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6995

The current emphasis on Phonics in English speaking schools is the result of a conservative counter revolution, not a ‘progressive’ takeover at all. To be sure, its re-introduction has been used by some as a excuse to abandon standardised spellings, and that is a bad thing.

Nobby

Well said Rod. I became aware of this in the about fifteen years ago in the Mid-nineties when my girlfriend of that time completed a teacher training course. Thereafter, I fond myself talking to the female thought police.

Predator

really, enjoyable and informative articles
thanks

toby runcorn

Yes it is all true I am afraid. I teach overseas and have to cope with similar cultists from the USA, Canada and Australia. The latter country has a feast of PC agendderisation. Massive documentation, rubrics and self-assessment forms. And dare you write anything negative. My accurate sentence, 'She is bossy,' had to be changed to 'She co-operates with her peers most of the time.' I had lunch with the 10yr old, now 30, last month. We reminisced about that. 'Yes I was bossy,' she agreed. 'My parents were so grateful that you told them so at parent's evening. They did not get the report meaning.'

Insular Japanese

I agree with Rod that phonics is a bit bollocks when applied to the English language. I taught a private 'coffee shop' lesson (3000 yen p.h., the yen is strong at the moment, and it's cash-in-hand, so why not?) to an astonishingly low-English-level Japanese 22 year-old student in Osaka tonight (I don't think he graduated from senior high school, and possibly not from junior high school, either).

I began by showing him some upper- and lower-case 'Alphabet flash cards' so as to teach him the pronunciation of letters and beginning sounds. Unfortunately, the supplementary material that I had prepared included key words such as 'Germany' and 'generation' (both, obviously, pronounced as 'j' (from 'Jonathan', 'Japan', etc).

Mecha confusing desuyo, as I thought to myself in the coffee shop (that's got nothing to do with phonics, by-the-way, it's just how I felt at the time...and still do).

Paige

Mr. Liddle,
I am currenty in a U.S. graduate school, and I stumbled upon your article. American schools have experienced similar situations to those detailed in your editorial. I was nodding my head all through, until the part about phonics. Have you heard of SAXON phonics? If not, look into it. Of course I do not know the particulars of your child's situation, but I can attest that phonics indeed work. Among my own family, there were siblings who were taught phonics and siblings who were not. Those taught with phonics rarely need spell-check and can read rather well. Contrarily those who weren't taught phonics cannot spell worth a flip, and do not read nearly the amount the others read. Possibly your child's teacher doesn't have a clue how to teach reading in any format.

Paige

@ annc,
Heaven forbid children be at different levels! It would create an actual challenge for the teachers. That teacher was simply lazy. Cudos to you for reading to your children.

Janet

I don't know which school Rod Liddle's childen go to, but his experience is not mine. My grandchildren go to what Alastair Campbell would call bog-standard local authority primary schools in two of the poorer London boroughs - Waltham Forest and Hackney. They are all literate and numerate, enjoy reading and are encouraged to read modern fiction and classics. The curriculum includes science, history and citizenship - how to treat people as you would want to be treated yourself. One is learning French, the other Spanish. There is plenty of sport, art and craft and after-school clubs. They have made plenty of good friends. The teachers are lovely - they work hard and are serious about their responsibility to the children. Not an alien in sight. How about support and encouragement for teachers instead of non-stop bashing?

Nick

I worked on the National Strategies project to provide a centralised curriculum website for teachers in England and Wales. It cost dozens of millions and was put into the National Archives barely 6 months after it was launched due to the change of government. However, I can't help feeling this was a good waste of money because the curriculum was a spectacular example of social engineering. No subject was immune to having the multicultural agenda shoe-horned into it. Did you know that toddlers were marked on their cultural awareness? And English Literature was an opportunity to read "stories from around the world"?

Clare

Your child still makes things out of loo rolls, Rod? Perhaps we need to get Elf n' Safety on this one. I thought they'd been banned because you can catch nasties from them.

As for phonics, I was educated at a trendy sixties school which had decided that breaking words down in any way at all was hopelessly unfashionable. The big new idea then was that you just looked at a word and remembered it. This worked very well for some kids (often the ones who had already been taught to read at home using more traditional methods) but was useless for others, who were still staring blankly at pages several years later. The phonic system is far from perfect but at least it gives children some sort of clue.

DR

I can't help but sway in total agreement. My daughter, now 20, went to a state school and though barely literate, at one time was taught at length feminist theory between the wars (though not the wars). My two sons, six and four, have been sent to a fierce little French school (taught in French, English one hour a day) and now excel at both languages. The French don't buy phonetics, let me tell you that.

gerard reid

Learning properly often consists of hard work. Today's education is geared to the antithesis of this. Student responsibility, alongside hard work, is anathema in today's PC educational nonsense. And this is what allows many weak teachers to also come through.

Minnie Ovens

Fearn
July 9th, 2011 4:50pm
Hmm. Horrendous typos are due to trying to use a friend's laptop that won't let me edit - honest..

Don't worry Fearn, I was bored witless by the end of the first sentence.

john

I learnt phonics in the early seventies with weekly spelling tests. Result reading good spelling poor, until a Nigerian colleague showed me how to spell tommorrow or is it tommorow.
Tom
Or
Row

V. Salt

I enjoyed Mr Liddle's article until he started attacking phonetics. My daughter was taught reading this way, but now in Year 3 the school focuses heavily on spelling with a test every Friday.
It is not the technique itself but how it is used. It cannot replace spelling but it is a good way to start teaching English, because the relationship between the sounds of the letters individually and when they appear in words can be considerate in this language (unlike Norwegian or German for instance).