Scotland: Very important article in 'Teaching Scotland' - 'The science of reading'

[Debbie_Hepplewhite]

I've added full links below to the thread featuring Anne Glennie's parliamentary petition drawing attention to the lack of evidence-informed teacher-training in Scotland - and further developments in Scotland.

Teacher, Alison Taylor, wrote a letter to the Editor of Teaching Scotland describing her worries about this lack of teacher-training and also about the adoption of the intervention programme, Reading Recovery, known to be a whole language, multi-cueing word-guessing programme that has been discredited by a number of reviews internationally.

Subsequently, a fantastic article has been included in Teaching Scotland - all credit to the Editor - it mentions Alison Taylor, Anne Glennie and her petition, and also the research of Dr Sarah McGeown and Professor Kathy Rastles and colleagues - all very important content:

The science of reading

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=911&p=2332#p2332

[Debbie_Hepplewhite]

Here is a direct link to the online version of Teaching Scotland which includes Alison Taylor's full letter to the Editor on page 8 and the article 'The science of reading' on page 39:

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.c ... 51b7ede658

[Debbie_Hepplewhite]

Here is Alison's unedited letter:

SCIENCE BEHIND READING

Dear Editor

I was disturbed to see an article in Teaching Scotland no.75 about Reading Recovery. This 'intervention' has been withdrawn in many English speaking countries because it does not tackle the core of the literacy problem, and yet here in Scotland we are promoting it!

To Raise Attainment for All and Close the Gap, Scotland must improve the teaching of beginner readers, so it is essential to educate all our primary teachers in the science behind reading and evidence based methods to use. We are not taught the complexities of the English Alphabetic Code at university so can end up using a mixture of effective and ineffective approaches.

About 21 months ago I was introduced (by Anne Glennie – The Learning Zoo) to teaching decoding through Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) which is part of the Big Five for teaching literacy. This started my reading journey of the science behind reading. In the schools I work in, we now use evidence based methods to teach literacy both universally and for PEF interventions. This has had a huge positive impact on developing the literacy skills of our pupils.

In my experience many pupils are included in intervention groups (such as Reading Recovery) that encourage pupils to ‘guess’ words using multi-cueing (use the picture, first sound or context clues) when what they really need is systematic and explicit teaching of the Alphabetic Code from simple to complex code. They then require SLOP (shed loads of practice) in decoding and encoding using the Codes. Schools need decodable books as a resource to do this. Many schools teach phonics but do not have this vital resource to enable children to practise the Codes they are learning. All beginner readers need to be taught the same skills and knowledge. Some children including those with ‘dyslexia’ need lots of extra practice to retain their learning of sound to print.

Many poor readers are relying on memorising words for decoding and have no other strategy to use when they come across new words. Teach them to decode using SSP and they have skills and knowledge that will stay with them forever. Get them to practise to mastery and we help all pupils. Reading is a life skill and we must not let the children in Scotland down. Let’s get it right from the start.

Alison Taylor (Scottish Borders)

Alison informed me that editor of Teaching Scotland, Evelyn Wilkins, interviewed Alison, Dr Sarah McGeown and Professor Kathy Rastle and then wrote the article, 'The science of reading'.

Well done all!