tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9462344.post5482491658424197715..comments2023-06-28T17:05:30.899+01:00Comments on The Literacy Blog: The whys and hows of using non-words.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13315146014179526480noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9462344.post-73428311647844102732015-11-30T11:36:29.641+00:002015-11-30T11:36:29.641+00:00Hello E Abel and thank you for your comment.
i don...Hello E Abel and thank you for your comment.<br />i don't disagree with you at all. We obviously are of a mind on the importance of teaching the skills and, although you don't mention it specifically, presumably, the code knowledge.<br />So, what about the question of comprehension? In one particular study, Italian Downs children were taught to decode (Italian being very easy to teach, as you probably know) and the teaching was successful. The only problem was that they couldn't understand what they had read. <br />I am currently teaching a boy with a specific language impairment: his segmenting and blending skills are great and he understands everything I say to him. The problem is that he finds it difficult to remember the spellings for sounds and therefore stumbles all the time to such an extent that he doesn't understand what he is reading.<br />I have written about some of the confusion around the issue of phonics and comprehension here: http://literacyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/decoding-comprehension-and-muddled.html<br />Of course, it doesn't necessarily apply to children with some types of special educational needs.<br />However, one thing is certain, if a person isn't able to decode, they can't get past first base. And, I'm not proposing that we should be teaching phonics and then later teaching comprehension. The two go hand-in-hand, with verbal abilities greatly outstripping decoding abilities in the early stages of learning to read.<br />So, if children are to comprehend what they are reading, they need to be able to decode with a high degree of fluency and they need to have acquired a lot of knowledge in order for them to understand what it is they are decoding.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13315146014179526480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9462344.post-43686498102075582532015-11-30T10:36:27.349+00:002015-11-30T10:36:27.349+00:00This post was of particular interest to me, having...This post was of particular interest to me, having engaged in numerous Phonics lessons revolving around nonsense words during both my first (Key Stage 1) and third (an SEN setting) School Experience placements. <br /><br />I have seen from both such experiences how important it is for children to practice their segmenting and blending skills, which is precisely what such activities encourage them to do and may be lost if teachers strictly follow a Letters and Sounds scheme.<br /><br />I feel that providing children with decoding and encoding skills is of course, essential, yet it poses for me an issue which I feel may never be one that is solvable. It is of course the problem of comprehension. During my SE3 experience, I taught a child with autism, who was able to decode almost any word given, finishing whole stories with incredible speed. Once he finished the story however, he found it very difficult, if not impossible, to answer any comprehension questions on the text. This may of course be linked to his additional needs and therefore could not be used for an iron-clad argument against phonics teaching, but it acts for me as an example of the pros and cons of such an approach.E Abelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10230857205030797027noreply@blogger.com