15 years ago I would always recommend teachers to just teach speaking and listening.
“You can leave the reading till junior high school.” I would say.
The reason?
Simply because 15 years ago children’s primary mode of communication, by far, was speaking and listening.
TV and telephones, the most popular media for children and adults at the time, were both spoken, not written, media. It didn’t make sense to spend so much time on reading when so little of their daily lives involved that particular skill.
But now… it seems like I’m writing a post on phonics nearly everyday!
So what happened?
Well, basically, the world changed!
Now children, and adults, spend more time online, particularly social media such as Facebook, than they do on TV.
And text messaging is way, way more popular than telephone calls for kids and teenagers.
Even ebook readers are causing people to read more than ever. (Although, just as with paper, most people who buy a book still never read it! 🙂 )
So whereas in previous decades a child’s primary form of communication would have been over 90% speaking/listening, now that percentage is a lot lower.
Now don’t get me wrong, speaking/listening is still the most popular by far (just count up how many minutes per day you spend communicating by speaking/listening compared with reading) and of course, from a teaching English point of view speaking/listening always comes before reading (otherwise you end up with students who “know” lots of words but just can’t use them!)
Plus spoken communication skills are still cited as the most lacking form of communication amongst new graduates.
But, slowly, reading has become more popular and we certainly have to accommodate this.
So once we have the basic spoken fluency under our belts (which can be anything from 10 to 100 hours of lessons depending on how much time you have)…
… how much time should we spend on reading?
Well, do the test above, just count how much time you spend each day communicating in speaking/listening vs. reading. And that’s about the same ratio we should use in teaching those skills in class. (Do tell us what your percentage is in the comments!)
And as for writing?
Well, that hasn’t changed in the last 15 years.
Whereas in the 19th century, handwriting and penmanship were the primary forms of writing, today, just like 15 years ago, typing gives by far the largest economic and social benefit to both adults and children alike.
If you can’t type fast you are at a serious competitive disadvantage in this world, even if you have the most beautiful handwriting in the world.
Ask any person outside of teaching when the last time they had to handwrite something in business was, they’ll answer you just as soon as they finish typing that last email. 🙂
Be genki,
Richard
P.S. Very interesting talk I had last time I was in Tanzania. Apparently, because text messages are so much cheaper than phone calls, this is leading to increased literacy rates as everyone wants to save money by learning to text instead of talk on the phone! Similarly, because mobile phones are now an economic “must have”, and because the poorest communities can’t afford both, many families are now spending the money on mobile phones instead of tobacco, which is fantastic!
P.P.S. Yes there is a new phonics post today! 🙂 I’ve just updated the Phonics Workbooks so that there is now a break every 6 phonemes. The reason being that giving the whole book at once was tempting parents to force the kids to memorise all the future stories, which of course defeats the whole purpose of doing phonics! Ideally you would hand out one sheet at a time, after you’d done it in class and get the kids to put it neatly into a folder. But because we all know what kids are like with handling (scrunching, tearing, ripping) single sheets of paper (!), splitting them up into small books of 6 phonemes is a good compromise! Do let me know what you think in the comments!
I’m excited for more Genki Reading! I get practically giddy when I see Genki English has already provided a book in one of my chosen vocab units. When I teach ESL in the States we start “reading” right away so that the skills in the 4 domains are never divorced. It’s much easier to teach my Taiwanese 3rd graders to point to each word and read carefully/sound out words than it is with my Taiwanese 6th graders who had previously learned reading as something to be memorized with slight assist from IPA style spelling rules. No memorizing the language with the phonetic alphabet!
That said, I don’t use Genki Phonics (in the download pack) much because your American version still sounds filtered through your natural English accent. I also am a certified elementary ESL teacher and have been teaching phonics and phonemic awareness to my Taiwanese students nearly the same way I do in the US and it’s been working so I’m sticking with my own style. I appreciate the option being there and it is great for ALTs and cram school teachers who don’t have formal training to fall back on!
However, I think these new workbooks are pretty great for new EFL learners.
Hi Kathleen, thank you for the nice words!
The Download Pack Phonics are all 100% made in America, well they’re recorded by a Californian if that counts! 😉
Really, really cool. Thank you so much.
I don’t know if I agree with Kathleen, that this course is great for ALT and cram school. I think it is a very advanced course, indeed.
Richard, I agree with the handwriting and typing stuff. However, I just noticed that, when it comes to expressing themselves, kids do better, when they handwrite.
I’ve been doing diary writing with my 6th grade and up classes, and for one year I had them write me their diary per mail. It was suprising how even those who would have no problem of talking in a class, about their day or week~ they would completely mess up in the diary.
I had the impression, that if they talk, they are thinking in English and just talk (I give them a time limit, so they don’t haev time for much thinking). But when they write at home they are obviously thinking in Japanese trying to translate, which ends up in a mess.
So, I asked them to try handwriting instead, for a trial. And: it is amazing, but they are really good.
Any comments or ideas on this?
I’m a little wary of writing this on here (as very often when you give an inch people do take a mile…) but yeah, from a Success Education point of view, writing things down internalises them deeper than just typing.
For example with business ideas or language learning goals, actually physically writing them down makes a much bigger impact than just writing them on a screen. So yep, do indeed try it and see if it works –
But…. disclaimer coming up, 🙂 never spend so much time on it that it comes at the expense of speaking or typing. 🙂
Margit, try asking them to type while you watch. The culprit may be the internet. They may be using some translation software or using an online dictionary. I have seen some very strange English come from both these places. Also if they are handwriting they may limit themselves to only words they know.
GREAT WORK!
The genki phonics split into 6 phonemes works pretty well. The kids are curious to see what is ahead (after getting used to the whole thing), but they aren’t overloaded or distracted by stuff way down the line.
I’ve noticed amazing growth from many of the kids in my young class. Their handwriting has gone from terrible to pretty incredible (I didn’t spend much time on handwriting besides just making sure that their letters were legible). They can decypher most words containing basic (a – z) sounds, spell most words pretty decently, and read funky words pretty well.
Of course, some kids are a little slower than others (often a result of just being easily distracted from the task at hand).
Often when we do dictation, the kids are chanting for MORE words to spell. I often do three due to time, but the kids want more and more!
Every time we finish a book, I have a review lesson. We speed read the letters learned so far, then I give the kids a piece of blank paper. On the board, I write a word that they can decipher. I tell them they must read the word (in their minds, not out loud) and then draw a picture of what the word represents (i.e. “cat” – draw a cat)
It is amazing how fast many of the kids can do this. Just look at the board and start drawing away.
Then I’ll do some spelling races. I’ll say a word and two kids race to write it on the board. Now I can really see who is confident and solid on their phoneme recognition.
I’ve noticed a few problems with the Genki Phonics.
One of the readings (the one that contains the FUNKY WORDS – come, no) also contains the word “this” which at that point in the course, the kids haven’t learned the phoneme “TH”.
Books 6 and 7 leave more to be desired. The program gets into the more complicated spellings like AI, EE, IGH, etc., but it doesn’t get to ALL of them. Notable exclusions like EA (Long E). Is there a reason for this? Is it still a work in progress? As it is now, I would probably move away from using the Genki Phonics once I get into the more complicated phonemes, just because Genki Phonics doesn’t cover it all yet.
Just curious 😉
Hi Martin,
Fantastic feedback there, great to hear!! 🙂
I’ll check up on the funky “this” – I’m sure there must be a reason! 🙂
As for the other phonemes, Genki Phonics covers the entire UK government phonics curriculum.
Due to the law of diminishing returns you have to put a cut off point somewhere otherwise you end up with hundreds & hundreds of pages some with just one word with the grapheme/phoneme. So they make the cut off where we did as it gives the best results/effort ratio.
From then on you just teach the new words as they come up in reading practice, which is the most effective way of doing it. (Unless you have unlimited time of course!)
And materials wise that means a good graded readers programme, of which there are quite a few out there, so try some samples and see which ones resonate best with your kids.
But fantastic to see your results there, and hearing you ask all the right questions!, so pass on my congratulations to you and your students and keep up the great work!!
Okay. Looking again at the full curriculum, I suppose the biggest one that surprised me that isn’t included is the long E (ea)…unless I’m just not seeing it. I wish the later phonemes also had stories included.
I think I’m also taking over another primary level class that is a few lessons ahead of where my old class is and I will need to determine a course of action for phonics. Hard to know where to start. When I did phonics at my old school and I made my own material, I focused heavily on the vowels and everything NOT basic (a – z).
You are right about having that cut-off for all the different spellings even if there are a few fairly common ones still left out…seems like the Long Es don’t get any love (ea, ie, ei).
Martin,
great to hear some feed back! Thanks!
Richard, in fact it seems the “this” is in there too early.
So, either you could put it up as another “funky word” or, change the word in the story to “It’s”.
What do you think?
Martin,
I can almost promise you, you don’T have to worry about the different sounds that are not included. Running through the first time, I also noticed a lot of them. But as Richard told you, advised me, and I trusted it and went on. Meanwhile I am through the whole course with another class (3rd generation! now) and they are all great.
Actually the big difference towards other phonic materials is that there is not TOO MUCH. I mean, yeah! There can never be enough practice and more is better than less, but my kids are neither native speakers learning to read, nor do I want to spend most of the lesson time on this matter. And with only 10 minutes per week for reading this is perfect.
So, what happens with those sounds?
From my experience the absolutely hardest time for the kids is the first 26 one letter, one sound phonics.
It’s all new, the letters have names, some of them have heard and need to get rid of, they need to learn how to blend, …
so, this takes lots of practice and review.
But then book 2 gets really exciting and easy,
and Book 3 has the long” a/o/u/e/i e”sounds, (“magical e” in other phonics course books), that always took me ages, especially for Japanese kids it is hard. But this has gotten so easy and fun with GE phonics!!!
So, during the last book I already start reading leveled readers with the kids, and of course there are a few sounds included like you are mentioning, but they just get it right away!
Give it a try!
A~forgot!
I have stories for each story through the end, and I guess I could work on those again some time.
But I honestly think that from somewhere around the middle of book 2 there are already so many great leveled readers that just fit , I don’T know if my stories would be needed.
(Even I am not using them right now!)
Well the issue is finding the appropriate level readers and the great thing with the Genki Phonics stories is the fact that they only contain the phonemes learned.
I totally agree about the TOO much problem that is found in most other Phonics programs. The school uses Scholastic Phonics which is a REALLY in-depth book (100s and 100s of pages of activities and very very slow blending and introduction of letters)…and to compound the problem, the way the phonics course is integrated into the course that we are sharing from another school.
Our primary students use Hip Hip Hooray! book series. It is pretty good…at least better than what they had been using. They divided the course up so that the Hip Hip Hooray book would be covered in 30 lessons. Now this series also comes with a decent pair of Phonics books where they introduce all the letter sounds (for most of the consonants they introduce them in pairs of voiced and unvoiced sounds – b vs. p, t vs. d)
However, the school we “cooperate” with felt this just wasn’t in-depth enough and grabbed this Scholastic phonics series and chopped it up into smaller books to pair with each 3H level. Then it works out that we have class 37 times (once per week) for two hours each time (foreign teacher teaches first hour, local teacher the second hour). I believe each unit in the 8 unit 3H book is covered in 4 meeting times (6 hours spent on the 3H book and 2 hours TAUGHT BY THE LOCAL TEACHER on the Phonics). Now in 2 hours, you should be able to get through a load of phonics…and even better, just spend 15 minutes EVERY week on phonics as opposed to 2 out of 4 weeks on it and you can get the kids really good. No dice.
I’ve looked at the phonics books for the third level of our primary course (each level takes 10 months) and after two years of learning, they’re are still working on blending three letter CVC words.
I have a young learner class that I’ve been using Genki Phonics with each class (twice a week) and we are through the 26 basic letters after about 4.5 months and the kids can read and spell pretty much any length word that contains the basic phonemes. I challenge older kids in the primary levels to spell words and the results are quite poor in comparison.
So, yay Genki Phonics!
I would love to get those stories for all the letters, just to have a more complete series.
I haven’t had any experience using the Genki Phonics beyond Book 5 (z, qu, ch, sh, th, ng) yet as I made my own material at my last job where I taught the classes from the beginning and at this school I’ve taken over a year or two into the classes and it is harder to know really where to start with the primary students who have been getting a spattering of different phonics lessons.
@Phonics stories:
Let me talk to Richard.