SYNTHETIC PHONICS

[Stanley]

SYNTHETIC PHONICS

6 June 2005

Well, it’s official, there is a better way of teaching reading and it’s called ‘Synthetic Phonics’. Great! No doubt there will be another diktat to teachers shortly and they will have to change tack and conform to another new set of rules.
From what I can make out they are going back to roughly the way I learned to read 65 years ago, we learned what sounds the letters made and what the combinations referred to. We had word lists and it all seemed quite painless to me. Funny thing is that as I understand it the new system doesn’t include learning the alphabet.
I don’t understand all this. I went to a fairly deprived school with old teachers long past retirement date because of the war and I can’t remember anyone who couldn’t read and write. Perhaps we were lucky, I have little doubt that the system they were using then was at least a hundred years old and it worked!
We had adventure comics like the Wizard, the Hotspur and the Rover. 2d each every Thursday and I read them cover to cover, no pictures, just text. I was a member of the local library and read hundreds of books. So what was the difference between then and now?
We had no distractions like TV and computer games. We had teachers who were left alone to teach and they had sanctions to use against us if we weren’t paying attention like a clip round the ear or the cane. All right, so all the do-gooders will throw their hands up in horror but the system worked and I don’t think I know anyone who was permanently damaged.
So why not go the whole hog, teach the alphabet and the times tables. Sing counting songs and learn poetry by heart. Most important of all, let the teachers get on with teaching, they know their job, they know the kids and they are the experts! Whitehall never taught anyone to read and this latest bout of interference will do nothing but fuel another round of debate and ‘action plans’ from a bunch of warring academics all of whom are convinced they are right. To quote Our Ernie’s Pa’ in the Knockout, “Daft I call it”.

6 June 2005