Why every teacher should
understand the importance of
phonics
Dr Wendy Jolliffe
19 November 2012
Session outcomes
To gain an
understanding of:
• the impact of poor reading skills on accessing the
curriculum
• the role of phonics in the teaching of reading
• the features of systematic synthetic phonics
• the alphabetic code
• methods of support for struggling readers
The impact of limited reading skills
Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
Chronological age 10 -11 years
Reading age
10 -11 years
Chronological age 10 -11 years
Reading age
years
9 - 10
1 year adrift
Percentage of words unknown
8.3%
Chronological age 10 -11 years
Reading age
8 - 9 years
2 years adrift
Percentage of words unknown 17.4%
Chronological age 10 -11 years
Reading age
6 - 7 years
4 years adrift
Percentage of words unknown 44%
Understanding the role of systematic synthetic
phonics in reading and writing
Reading has two essential key
components
Decoding (word recognition)
Comprehension (language comprehension)
Can you read this?
bj bj blac xkp
hav yu eni wol
yes sm yes sm
trk bagz fol
Word Recognition
Good language
comprehension, poor
word recognition
+
-
Good word recognition,
good language
comprehension
+
Good word
recognition, poor
language
comprehension
Poor word recognition,
poor language
comprehension
-
Language comprehension
The research evidence
Explicit teaching of phonics within meaningful context of
texts (Adams, 1990)
Importance of developing phonological awareness
(Bryant, 1993, Goswami, 1995)
Three major international reviews:
• National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000)
• Independent Review of the Reaching of Early Reading ‘Rose Review’
(DfES, 2006)
• Australian government review (DoEST, 2005)
Educational neuroscience (Dehaene, 2009, McCandliss,
2003) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxcyt5UqiCA
Phonics and the alphabetic code
1
2
3
c
b
f
kn
a
ir
i
igh
t
d
sh
t
These words each have three phonemes (separate sounds).
Each of these phonemes is represented by a grapheme.
The complexities of the English language
24
consonant
phonemes
20 vowel
phonemes
44
phonemes
26 letters
A phoneme
can be
represented
by one or
more letters
The same
grapheme
may
represent
more than
one phoneme
The same
phoneme
can be spelt
in more
than one
way
Segmenting words - Sound buttons
fin
catch
bridge
daughter
Teaching systematic synthetic phonics
In primary school, pupils are taught phonic knowledge in a systematic
way:
1. to blend CVC (consonant–vowel–consonant) words, for example ‘b/i/g, ’‘ch/i/p
2. to recognise all 44 phonemes
3. to blend adjacent consonants (e.g. bl, br, dr, sp, tr)
4. to know all long vowel phonemes
Struggling readers at KS3 should be assessed against these 4 aspects
Strengths/weaknesses need to be identified and teaching strategies developed
across all subjects
’
Supporting struggling readers
Supporting struggling readers
Consider the following aspects:
Phonics - decoding complex words
Orthography – knowledge of common spelling patterns
Semantic knowledge – vocabulary
Syntactic knowledge – structures of sentences
Morphological development – knowledge of meaningful roots of words
Supporting struggling readers
What can secondary teachers
do?
• Examine the specific subject and context of
what is to be read and make links to pupils’
own experiences
• Provide opportunities for brainstorming,
group discussion, displays, diagrams,
charts and summaries
• Provide glossaries of key words
• Provide opportunities for collaborative work
Plenary
What is the role of
phonics in the teaching
of reading and writing?
Consider how it can be
used to support older
struggling readers
In seminar groups –
revisit your
understanding and
consider how you can
support in your subject
area
Further reading
Dehaene, S. (2009) Reading in the Brain: the new science of how we
read. New York: Penguin.
DCSF (2010) Teaching Struggling Readers. National Strategies/ DCSF
Publications.
DfES (2006a) Rose, J. Independent Review of the Teaching of Early
Reading, Final Report, March 2006.
Jolliffe, W. and Waugh D. (2012) Teaching Systematic synthetic
phonics in primary schools. London: Sage/Learning Matters.
Any questions?
[email protected]