@farrowmr @imagineinquiry There is overwhelming international evidence that systematic phonics for early readers is more effective than other approaches. The govt. tried to influence the profession to change its practice using a carrot and stick approach.

The carrot was the matched funding, the stick was the phonics check.

But what it didn’t do was help the profession understand the research that so clearly shows that systematic phonics is more effective. Or why it’s of fundamental importance to only use decodable books that match what has been taught rather than levelled books.

If children are taught phonics for 20 minutes but then practise using levelled books with words they have to guess- you might as well not have bothered with the phonics as you’ve undermined its key principle.

Yet many schools don’t know this- why would they since the work of e.g. Keith Stanovitch on this is not widely known. If the profession had a better grasp of the science, then there would be better understanding of why it’s really important to use appropriate decodable books

And to make sure teachers are not using multi cueing in the mistaken belief that this will support reading for meaning. Of course we want children to read for meaning.

But in the early stages of learning to decode, meaning needs to be scaffolded by the teacher reading back the sentence a child has just read. The child’s working memory will be totally consumed with decoding. That’s a natural stage.

Once children are more fluent in decoding, we can teach them to monitor their reading for meaning & don’t need to scaffold this vital element so strongly. At this stage it is really important to ensure children are asking themselves ‘does that make sense?’But not in early stages

Another problem with the phonics check is that in done schools it functions like a speed camera- scant phonics until just before the check then a massive burst to ‘pass’ then phonics dropped like a hot potato

When in reality scraping 32 is not a good indicator of being a fluent decoder. To be a fluent decoder, you need to be able to easily decode polysyllabic words. Not saying this should be by end of yr1 by most but phonics needs to continue throughout yr2 & for spelling in ks2.

Because the science behind reading is not well understood in English schools, phonics is not taught in the way it needs to be if it is to be optimally effective. Which leads people to conclude it doesn’t work for all pupils when in fact- it really does for almost all.

But instead of helping the profession understand thus, we’ve had the carrot and stick approach which means that people view phonics as something they have to do- not something they understand as essential.

When matched funding was introduced, very little was spent by schools on training, mainly on resources. Schools didn’t ‘get’ what the fuss was- didn’t understand the shift in practice necessary.

When schools do get training, it’s more about how to deliver a specific programme rather than actually understanding why it should be done in certain ways- why multicueing is counterproductive and why scaffolding for meaning is important early on because of working memory.

It’s like schools have had a vaccination against phonics working properly by using a weak dose - 20 minutes of letters & sounds followed by levelled books that encourage multicueing- rather than actually teaching phonics in a way that enables it to be optimally effective.