Learning to read

I had a couple of brief conversations today which made me think about the way in which my children have learnt and are learning to read. Often the question comes up about either phonics or look say methods. I can't say my children have been keen on phonics, they usually find it quite dull, and they don't like the silly, often meaningless stories that come in phonic readers. I continue to use the extra old Peter and Jane books, the same edition which can be viewed in a museum case. It works for us!
However this doesn't mean no phonics at all. I do the initial sounds and basic blends, through workbooks generally. But, maybe the main way I involve the phonic aspect is through the way I hear the child read the old Peter and Jane. I don't expect them just to memorise the word, I do expect them to have a go at sounding out the new words as they come up. When a word does not conform to the phonic rules, I just tell them that and they learn it as an exception. If the new word was "shop" and the child hesitated I would not just say shop to them, but rather I would make a "sh" sound and wait a moment, then I'd say "sh" "o", and so on. Often the child then gets it and finishes the word off. This is how I prompt them on words which they forget, so while we use the look say book, I try to show them the methods of working out new words, but I do this as the words occur, rather than teaching the sounds separately.
For us this works because it means that the children get to read books with actual characters and some kind of story, while learning how to use the various tactics needed to get round all the inconsistencies of English!
I also like the fact that the Peter and Jane books quickly have a full page of words to read, rather than just a brief sentence or two per page. I think this gets the child used to having plenty to read, so they don't get put off by lots of text on a page later on. Lots of text, but its easy to read, so nothing to be afraid of there then! Alhamdulillah.