literacy:
how to teach
an unnatural skill
Literacy is a term that rarely enters our consciousness until
our child starts his first year of primary school. Even then, we
may not give it much thought if he is picking up reading and
writing at the same rate as his peers, only looking deeper
into the subject if our child is struggling. In this, the second
in a series of three articles, Freya Simpson Giles examines
the various methods for teaching reading, with particular
emphasis on phonics.
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A
s dedicated parents, most of us are keen to be
involved in our children’s learning processes.
We feel a great sense of accomplishment every
time little Johnny masters a new skill that we
have been trying to impress upon him. That
said, few of us envy our children’s teachers the daunting task
of teaching them how to read. Teaching children an alphabet
containing 26 letters, each capable of making a number of
different sounds, not to mention the many, many vagaries
of the English language, seems like a mammoth task. And
parents aren’t the only ones who think so. Literacy expert
and ground-breaking researcher Maryanne Wolf states in her
seminal text Proust and the Squid that the process of learning
to read is “nothing short of a miracle”.
The fact is, the acquisition of reading skills is still not
fully understood. Unlike the development of speech, it is
not a natural process. Instead, it requires mastering a code
that uses written symbols to represent human speech. It
is generally accepted, although not without exception, that
learning to read requires instruction. Here opinions divide
further and reading instruction comes in any number of
forms, each different approach being shaped by its informing
For parents who wish to learn more about the
acquisition of reading skills, Maryanne Wolf’s book
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the
Reading Brain is an in-depth but readable look at the
development of the reading brain. It includes many
entertaining anecdotes along with some shocking
facts.
assumptions about what literacy is and how it is best learned
by students.
Approaches to teaching alphabetic languages include
phonics, which teaches the alphabet and the sounds each
letter represents before combining sounds; the “look and
say” approach, which teaches children to recognise whole
words or sentences; the “language experience” approach,
which involves writing down a child’s own words so that they
remember them better; and the “context support” method,
which involves the student focusing on two or three key words
while the teacher reads a longer sentence.
Sound it out
Although it has fallen in and out of favour, phonics is probably
the best known and most widely used method to teach reading
and writing in the English language. Phonics instruction itself
also comes in different forms. Two traditional methods are
analytical phonics and embedded phonics. Analytical phonics
encourages children to analyse phonemes (or speech sounds) in
a set of words. For example, they might discuss how the words
hat, hard and hen are alike. Embedded phonics teaches novice
readers about the individual letters in words opportunistically,
within the context of stories or student writing.
However, the most widely discussed form of phonics
instruction in recent years must surely be synthetic phonics.
This method quickly and systematically teaches children the
44 sounds in the English language and their corresponding
letters or letter groups. Students then learn to blend these
sounds to read and write words. It is code-breaking reduced to
its simplest form.
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In the UK, a mixture of analytical and synthetic phonics
was used up until the 1970s, when phonics was abandoned
altogether. In the years following this change, reading abilities
in primary school children declined and growing research
showing the effectiveness of synthetic phonics began to
receive attention. Synthetic phonics was reintroduced and
became mandatory practice for all primary schools in 2007.
It is also the recommended practice in both the US and
Australia.
Here in Hong Kong, synthetic phonics was introduced
at Clearwater Bay ESF Primary School in 2006 by then vice
principal Jo-Anne Dooner and some of her brave peers. The
programme proved to be an instant success as every single
year-one student mastered reading and writing to an age-
appropriate level. Jo-Anne, a literacy expert with over 20
years of teaching experience, believes the results speak for
themselves.
Jo-Anne claims that synthetic phonics is fast, efficient and
effective. Reports show that a child will learn 30 phonemes
in just 16 weeks. Research also shows that synthetic phonics
works even for groups that are traditionally more likely to
find reading difficult, such as boys, ESL (English as a second
language) learners and children with special educational
needs. Anecdotal evidence would seem to support this claim.
One local mother, whose daughter had consistently reached
developmental milestones late and struggled with acquiring
new skills in general, was amazed at the speed with which her
little girl picked up reading after starting a reading programme
based on synthetic phonics. Since 2006, synthetic phonics
has been adopted by over 80 per cent of English-language
schools in Hong Kong.
Despite its apparent success, synthetic phonics has its
critics. Since the synthetic phonics system teaches sounds in
isolation and out of context, some believe that it could prevent
children from developing a love of reading. Critics point out
that a passion for language is vital and must be gleaned from
understanding stories and being able to think critically about
them. While Jo-Anne Dooner is in complete agreement that
fostering a love of reading is a vital part of literacy teaching,
she says this is not at odds with synthetic phonics in practice.
Instead, Jo-Anne is keen to point out that synthetic
phonics should be taught as part of a balanced literacy
programme, the aims of which should include phonemic
awareness, synthetic phonics, vocabulary knowledge, reading
fluency and comprehension. “At Clearwater Bay School,”
she explains, “around one-third of the class time devoted to
literacy is spent working on phonics.”
While methods of teaching reading and writing have
evolved over time and will probably continue to do so, it seems
that synthetic phonics is here to stay for the time being.
Despite the criticism, it has earned a place in Hong Kong’s
education system by virtue of its high success rate, shedding
valuable light on the mystery of literacy acquisition.
In the final article in this series, we will look at the
practical ways that parents can help their children develop
strong reading and writing skills as well as the importance of
talking.
Jo-Anne Dooner is also the co-founder of Get Reading
Right, a great source of information and resources.
Click www.getreadingright.com.hk to learn more.
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