Pellau Magazine

So if education could be bought in a box for over a thousand dollars, then why do our children continue to fail in schools? Parents have come to our school with children who are either unable to read or who are reading far below their age level. These same parents would tell me that they have purchased the phonics programmes. So then, tell me, why are their child still under-performing in school?

Firstly, similar to those ads design to seduce consumers into parting with their hard-earned dollars, they promise an easy solution. All parents would have to do is pay and the problem would go away.

Secondly, I can tell from experience that, while phonics is indeed important for children's reading development, those phonics programmes are unnecessary. Save your money and buy the First and Second Primers. Phonics is only suitable for anyone who is now learning to read. At the school, we use the First Primer, even with adults who are learning to read. Our oldest remedial student is over 40. He started with the alphabet and then the simple two-letter words. In the initial stages of working with the phonics, we also use the "sight words" method. I recommend the Ladybird series. There are 6 books, each at a different level. I like these books because new words are gradually introduced and repeated during the entire texts. 

One of the greatest shortcomings of phonics is that it gives young students the false confidence that all words can be sounded out. They would spell the word as it sounds to them. The English alphabet is phonetically imperfect (unlike Spanish). There are 5 vowels (y is a semi vowel) and these vowels have 16 sounds. 

Students should learn to spell the words while they learn the meanings and how to use them in sentences. As you can see, vocabulary is very important.
Example of the confusion with homophones:
(1) eight, ate
(2) read (present or past tense?)
(3) sow (to plant a seed or a female pig?)
(4) their, there, dare, deer, dear
(5) through, true, threw

The phonic programmes attempt to introduce long and short vowels. Which child has time to learn all of this? Imagine, you are already struggling to learn to read and now you have to remember that too? Why frustrate the child even more? Even parents have professed to me that those linguistic concepts are extremely difficult for them to understand or explain. When I was growing up, I never knew anything about long -u or short -e and I ended up reading just fine. For that matter, I only learnt about the word "phonics" when I was in University. 

These phonics are seriously wreaking havoc on children's spelling ability. Ninety five percent of the kids who attend lessons at the school are spelling far below their grade level, even those who can read extremely well. It is something that I find quite alarming.

Parents should stop buying costly phonics programmes and just encourage their children to read aloud to them and to use a dictionary. If a child could already read well, the programmes would definitely help them read better, but if a child has dyslexia, NONE OF THOSE PHONICS PROGRAMMES COULD EVER HELP HIM/HER. Children with that learning difference require a special teaching which caters to their specific needs. 

The children are the future of the nation and it is up to parents and educators to ensure that they have the necessary tools to create posterity.

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