Sound steps to reading
4:42pm Thursday 2nd August 2007
According to education watchdog Ofsted, there is an "urgent need" to tackle the problem of children leaving primary school without basic skills in reading and writing.
The Oxford charity Our Right to Read, which opened the Oxford Reading Centre, in Cave Street, in April, agrees - but says it can teach a struggling child to read - in just 18 hours.
Teacher Anita Weare said: "It may sound incredible, but that's exactly what we have done for more than 180 Oxford children since the end of 2003, using the Oxford Sound Reading System.
Ms Weare continued: "Oxford is known as a centre of learning, but there's as big a problem here as anywhere else.
"And these are children from private as well as state schools and from all backgrounds. We're not just talking about disadvantaged children.
"Using our system, the smallest gain in reading has been six months, but on average we expect a child to improve by two years with 18 to 24 weekly one-hour sessions.
"And this method works for everyone, regardless of age, sex, skill level and whether they are 'dyslexic'."
Ms Weare takes out a small pack of cards. She has an A4 whiteboard and marker pen and says we are going to build a word.
She shows me a picture of a cat. We count the sounds /c/ /a/ /t/ and she draws three short consecutive lines. Then she places three cards on the board, each with one of the letters on it and I build the word making each sound as I move the letters into place.
She explains that all words are formed in the same way, we just need to know which symbols (letters) are right for each particular word.
"The essence of the Oxford Sound Reading System is understanding exactly how the English alphabet code works and finding the simplest way to teach it. Unfortunately, children aren't always provided with this knowledge at school."
"As well as some phonic teaching they are also given a range of strategies including memorising whole words 'by sight', mnemonics such as Big Elephants Can Always Use Small Exits (BECAUSE) and 'guessing' words from the pictures on a page.
"By focusing attention on whole words instead of the sounds in words, they misunderstand how an alphabet code works and this frequently leads to failure."
She added: "Sadly, schools have the will to help, but may lack the resources. Children in large classes can easily get 'left behind' and this can affect their whole lives causing frustration, depression and behavioural problems. We have children come to us who feel 'stupid'. There are often tears.
"But our system is so simple and supportive that learning soon becomes an exciting adventure and progress is quick. Plus, Right to Read Foundation grants can be offered towards the cost of the teaching, so all children can benefit."
Wiping the board she says we are going to make words with the sound /ee/ in them. Together we build the words 'me', 'tree', 'team' and 'sunny' - but all the /ee/s are different. No wonder we get confused.
"If I was teaching you, you would sort lots of /ee/ words by their different spellings, and for homework you would write all these words in columns in an exercise book as well as practising looking for the different spellings in a story with mum or dad.
"In the coming sessions you would meet these words again and again and in this way a memory for the different spellings is built up.
"One of the most unhelpful things for children learning to read and write is to be told a word is 'wrong'.
"A child may say they have got all their spellings wrong but in reality they have probably shown just one sound in the wrong way, but the teacher has put a line through the word or a cross beside it.
The child then goes away thinking they have made a mistake but not really understanding why, so the mistake is often repeated.
"Here we show them that 'nome' for example has the 'ome' part right but that we show the n/ sound at the beginning with 'gn'. They will also learn the other ways of showing 'n' as in 'not', 'nn' as in bunny, 'kn' as in 'knot' and 'pn' as in pneumonia.
"The words will be sorted in their book and they will start to remember them.
"In this way we show them what they're up against and we give them the tools to deal with our tricky English spelling system. And that's a strategy they will have for life."
For details, call 01865 243217 or see oxreadingcentre@btconnect.com