DfE: Core criteria for assessing a systematic synthetic phonics programme

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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DfE: Core criteria for assessing a systematic synthetic phonics programme

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The Department for Education in England published a guidance document to enable programme producers to self-assess the rationale and content of their programmes based on the official 'core criteria' and this 'core criteria' also provides a structure for headteachers and teachers to be able to evaluate phonics programmes and practices:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... rocess.pdf
Phonics teaching materials: core criteria and the self-assessment process

The department wishes to offer schools and early years settings support in choosing effective systematic synthetic phonics teaching materials. To assist in providing this, the department has published core criteria that define the key features of an effective systematic synthetic phonics teaching programme.

The criteria are not prioritised; they comprise an interdependent core, and a good support programme should meet all of them. The department is strongly encouraging heads and teachers to consider these core criteria when making decisions about the quality of commercial programmes and the suitability of them for their particular schools and settings.
The publication is not long or complicated, but below is a very important part of the guidance of the core criteria which I suggest is still an issue for schools to consider with regard to their phonics provision including the realities of the 'practice' for the learners themselves:
5. Multi-sensory activities should be interesting and engaging but firmly focused on intensifying the learning associated with its phonic goal. They should avoid taking children down a circuitous route only tenuously linked to the goal. This means avoiding over-elaborate activities that are difficult to manage and take too long to complete, thus distracting the children from concentrating on the learning goal.
As part of my consultancy work, I am privileged to be invited to observe phonics lessons and through this (and video footage via the internet), I have been able to identify practices which inadvertently hold children back - which relates to the guidance above. To try to exemplify this issue of children getting insufficient practice of the requisite code knowledge and phonics skills, I designed this graphic:

The Simple View of Schools' Phonics Provision

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/Sim ... chools.pdf

In addition, note the DfE's guidance regarding avoiding the use of multi-cueing word-guessing:
7. It is important that texts are of the appropriate level for children to apply and practise the phonic knowledge and skills that they have learnt. Children should not be expected to use strategies such as whole-word recognition and/or cues from context, grammar, or pictures.
This multi-cueing word-guessing, however, is still very common practice - children being given reading books to read independently which do not match the alphabetic code knowledge the children have been taught to date. The International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction has produced a leaflet about this issue here:

Why Book Bands and Levelled Reading Books Should Be Abandoned

http://www.iferi.org/wp-content/uploads ... oned-1.pdf

The UK Reading Reform Foundation has also produced a leaflet and blog post about this issue here:

An alternative to Book Bands for beginner readers

http://rrf.org.uk/2017/03/28/an-alterna ... r-readers/
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