Must reads including: The Vanishing Act in The Balancing Act, by Harriett Janetos and my (BIG) thoughts too!

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Must reads including: The Vanishing Act in The Balancing Act, by Harriett Janetos and my (BIG) thoughts too!

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

Harriett Janetos has written a really important review which is relevant internationally as it features the debate of just 'how' the alphabetic code should ideally be introduced to children - and what is the relationship between phonics teaching and 'comprehension'. And what about the teachers' roles and expectations placed upon them?

There is some consternation amongst academics and those in the literacy field stirred up by Dominic Wyse and Charlotte Hacking’s book, The Balancing Act: An Evidence-Based Approach to Teaching Phonics, Reading and Writing.

Harriet notes that this book, 'recommends replacing systematic, synthetic phonics instruction with contextualized phonics embedded within “literacy rich” lessons. The book’s title promises an “evidenced-based approach,” and It is this purported evidence-base that requires close scrutiny if we are to guard against being sold more stories about reading instruction as we have been in the past.'

Please take the time to read Harriett's review in full including references to the reviews of others:
The Vanishing Act in The Balancing Act

A review of The Balancing Act: An Evidence-Based Approach to Teaching Phonics, Reading and Writing by Dominic Wyse and Charlotte Hacking’

Reading Instruction That Ignores Orthographic Mapping and Cognitive Load Theory is a Setback for Students

Guest blogger, Harriett Janetos, Reading Specialist

Author, From Sound to Summary: Braiding the Reading Rope to Make Words Make Sense
https://highfiveliteracy.com/2024/08/28 ... ncing-act/
When a pendulum swings in education, how do we track its collateral damage? If what lies in disarray under its arc is a practice informed by research, this is concerning. When systematic and explicit phonics instruction decontextualized from literature is blamed for failing to improve comprehension, do we toss out those instructional practices—or do we make sure we have equally robust comprehension-building lessons? And if we do keep those foundational skills activities, does that mean we cease to examine their efficacy? Or do we continue to monitor student progress and evaluate our instruction in light of that progress?

Dominic Wyse and Charlotte Hacking’s new book, The Balancing Act: An Evidence-Based Approach to Teaching Phonics, Reading and Writing, recommends replacing systematic, synthetic phonics instruction with contextualized phonics embedded within “literacy rich” lessons. The book’s title promises an “evidenced-based approach,” and It is this purported evidence-base that requires close scrutiny if we are to guard against being sold more stories about reading instruction as we have been in the past.

Tug of War: Phonics Fallacies

First, it should be noted that the purpose of this review is not to refute Wyse and Hacking’s assertion that decontextualized phonics instruction does not yield the positive results claimed by its proponents—though many others have put forth such a refutation. In Jennifer Buckingham’s review, Groundhog day for reading instruction, of the Wyse and Bradbury paper, “Reading wars or reading reconciliation: A critical examination of robust research,” she cites three important studies that were left out of their synthesis. Moreover, several meta-analyses find mean effect sizes averaging .48 for decontextualized phonics instruction (12 meta-analyses comprising 426 studies) while whole language effect sizes average .09 (5 meta-analyses comprising 81 studies).
Harriett's review is thorough and very important. She provides a link to Jennifer Buckingham's review which is also very important and a 'must read':

https://fivefromfive.com.au/blog/ground ... struction/
Groundhog day for reading instruction

There are few things more disheartening in my work life than having to spend precious time unpicking and rebutting the destructive work of high status academics in elite institutions, in the hope that it won’t undo years of hard-won progress toward better reading instruction and outcomes.

The latest example is a paper by Professor Dominic Wyse and Professor Alice Bradbury. Wyse and Bradbury are from the Institute of Education, University College London. Wyse and Bradbury have written a paper called ‘Reading wars or reading reconciliation: A critical examination of robust research’, published in Review of Education and described in a report in The Guardian as a “landmark study”.

It is not a landmark study. It’s groundhog day — another paper in a long line of studies and reports that try to prove that synthetic phonics is ineffective.

This is not the first time that I have written about work of a questionable standard from UCL’s Institute of Education. In 2019, researchers from the IoE published a study purporting to show extremely large, long-term benefits of participation in Reading Recovery. In reality, the study deliberately excluded an entire inconvenient group of students whose results undermined this conclusion, without declaring this omission of data in the published reports. When the methodological parlour trick was revealed, the people involved did not deny it was the truth. What happened to them and the report in the aftermath? Nothing. Everyone just carried on like it had never happened and Reading Recovery carries on unscathed.

It is therefore with a sense of resignation that I am going to nevertheless go to the effort of pointing out the critical problems with Wyse and Bradbury (2021). Greg Ashman has written a critique that picks up some similar issues as well as some others. EDIT: Since publishing this post I have seen a great response from Julia Carroll published in TES. EDIT #2: More excellent responses from Kathy Rastle, Michael Tidd and Rhona Johnston.

These are the main flaws in Wyse and Bradbury (2021) as I see them.
And, as you can see, Jennifer provides links for further important reviews. All these authors/reviewers are pioneers and specialists in the field of literacy instruction. You get a measure of the alarm of the academic community in response to the Wyse and Bradbury suggestions and claims.
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: Must reads including: The Vanishing Act in The Balancing Act, by Harriett Janetos

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

I have taken too long to add Harriett's review to the IFERI forum for which I must apologise. It's too easy for one's own life to get in the way of keeping up with adding educational/literacy developments across the world.

As always, I am very grateful to those who take the time, and apply enormous effort, to write such reviews.

Further:

Harriett has drawn my attention to some of the work of Claude Goldenberg including a new sub stack he has launched, 'We must end the reading wars...now'. I subsequently subscribed to Claude's free sub stack and wrote a long 'comment' to which Claude immediately replied including providing a link to Harriett's review. Thus, this prompted me to get on with starting a new IFERI thread featuring not only Harriett's review (and the reviews of others) but also to look more closely at Claude's work as recommended by Harriett - a bit of an appreciation-cycle then!

I have now watched this video and it encapsulates some of the agreements, but also some apparent lack of agreement - but it seems to me tantamount to a lack of understanding of what 'phonics' can 'look like' for each and every child. This was the thrust of my comment via Claude's sub stack. I found there is plenty of emphasis on screening of children, but no real emphasis on the practicalities, the 'actuality', of what phonics provision looks like for the children including a close look at the range of published phonics programmes - their resources and their guidance - and how this manifests in the classroom for each and every child - including for their range of capacities for learning.

I recommend watching this video as it encapsulates some of the issues around potential disagreements of what 'balance' of literacy provision can, or should, or does, consist of:
Coffee & Conversation with Jim Cummins and Claude Goldenberg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfwl47KbAzw

The description provided along with the video includes the following references:
7 Oct 2022

Following up on ARC’s August webinar, Jim and Claude come together to expand and deepen their discussion about the Science of Reading as it applies to multilingual, emergent bilingual, and English language learners. ​

This is a unique and exciting opportunity to hear two literacy experts discuss a range of important issues.


Subscribe now to be notified of upcoming webinars: https://americanreading.us20.list-man...

Visit https://www.americanreading.com/ for more information.

Twitter: / americanreading
Facebook: / americanreading

RESOURCES CITED:

The Reading League’s Science of Reading Defining Guide:
https://www.thereadingleague.org/what...

Knowledge Matters Campaign:
https://knowledgematterscampaign.org/...

Suggested Articles from Knowledge Matters website:
https://fordhaminstitute.org/national...
https://www.shankerinstitute.org/blog...

“Effective Literacy Instruction for Multilingual Learners: What it is and What it Looks Like” a webinar hosted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA):
https://ncela.ed.gov/Webinars

Claude’s recommendations:
https://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/bl...
https://www.illuminateed.com/blog/202...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/127Vb...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/127Vb...

Jim’s recommendations:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3...
https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/d...

Amelia’s recommendations:
https://achievethecore.org/page/3338/...
https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/d...
https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandor...
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: Must reads including: The Vanishing Act in The Balancing Act, by Harriett Janetos

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

MY BIG THOUGHTS!

And now I'm going to take the liberty of chipping into this debate from my personal perspective and recommendations - as a specialist in the field of foundational literacy, and as the author and teacher-trainer for three main 'systematic synthetic phonics programmes' as 'validated' by the Department for Education in England (programmes used in different countries and contexts).

I have spent years pioneering for the need for 'systematic synthetic phonics' in our schools with no multi-cueing word-guessing (to lift new printed words off the page) including the need to challenge the, then, government in England back in 1998/9 when the 'National Literacy Strategy' launched at that time included some phonics but also promoted heavily the 'searchlights' multi-cueing reading strategies contrary to the research findings and to common sense! In 2001 I became the editor of the UK Reading Reform Foundation newsletter (numbers 45 to 51) and was invited to meet Nick Gibb to help inform him about the effect of systematic phonics provision. See: https://rrf.org.uk/resources/newsletter-archive/

In subsequent pioneering, I have had to explain, clarify and, quite frankly, respond to damaging detractors such as Dominic Wyse, Michael Rosen, David Reedy and many others including politicians, whilst also working practically as a primary teacher, as a primary headteacher, as a special needs teacher and as a consultant and teacher trainer. Very sadly, however, I also find myself on occasions disagreeing with other, fellow, pioneers for systematic phonics. We don't always agree -and the various phonics programmes (even those validated by the Department for Education) I find myself needing to criticise. It's all very complicated. But we now, in my strong opinion, need to get down to the minutiae - with clarity - of what happens in the classroom and for intervention - what does their 'phonics' and wider literacy and literature diet 'look like' for each and every child.

I am copying and pasting my initial comment from Claude's sub stack because there are international links to the 'reading wars' or 'reading debate' - indeed, research findings are drawn from an international pool of research and because the teaching of reading (and spelling) in the English language is particularly challenging even when it is the first/only language of learners (the English alphabetic code is the most complex alphabetic code in the world). My sub stack initial comment below will explain my direction of travel regarding scrutiny not just of the 'balance' between phonics versus comprehension (an idea so damaging couched as one VERSUS the other) - but that we must broaden the discussions and understanding more fully by a much closer scrutiny of ACTUAL practice and ACTUAL phonics programmes and how these work out for ACTUAL teachers, and ACTUAL children (and their parents and carers) in different contexts...

I wrote:
Where to begin? First of all, with thanks for creating this sub stack.

I've read the two papers you refer to - thank you. I'm a UK resident so I'm not knowledgeable about education in California but I am someone steeped in the field of 'foundational literacy' - in fact I much prefer the notion of 'foundational literacy' than the constant references to 'reading instruction' which neglects mention of 'spelling'.

Very recently, my attention was drawn to the podcast 'A Conversation with Former Education Minister Nick Gibb' with Emily Hanford and Robert Pondiscio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5hRfvSVkW0 because Nick mentioned my name. The thrust of this conversation was that the US is 'ten to fifteen years behind England' with Robert and Emily enquiring as to the developments in England's context for this to be considered to be the case. Note I refer to 'England' as officials in the rest of the UK are not as clear or apparently committed to guidance focused on the need for 'systematic synthetic phonics' provision in all schools with no multi-cueing reading strategies amounting to guessing new printed words.

The irony is that in England's context, the various parliamentary debates and Sir Jim Rose's independent review (2006) were informed by research findings including the National Reading Panel's 'big five'. As a pioneer myself promoting the need for systematic all-through-the-word phonics at that time, I, and others, were calling upon the work of the international research picture and figures such as Professor Diane McGuinness and others such as: https://iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewtopic.php?t=1172

I found Nick's comments to be truly heartfelt - and I know that he has worked tirelessly in England to promote the need for 'Systematic Synthetic Phonics' so much so that people have joked that whenever he speaks, he mentions SSP! The developments in England that Nick describes are very significant - very important indeed - but there have been some flaws and lack of analysis and accountability along the way. The implementation of a statutory Year One Phonics Screening Assessment has been a hugely important step - but he also mentions his regret that providing the results publicly was prevented by others. Mistakenly, this check was presented along the lines of 'helping teachers to know how their children are faring' but this was a flawed notion. Teachers turned round to say, 'but we know how our children are reading' - the issue should have been promoted in a 'comparative national' way - how do teachers know they are faring compared to like-schools. In other words, the check is as much about the teaching - as about the learning - and the accountability is about a national picture. In truth, we do get a breakdown of national results as a 'national average' figure as Nick describes.

And Nick shows clear regret and is mystified about those schools not achieving as highly as the highest achievers. He does not know what is preventing all schools from doing well as he sees that schools with challenging circumstances can do well. So, the Department for Education has established 34 English Hubs purporting to be 'impartial' in their phonics support for regional schools - but they are not at all impartial. Further, the DfE has undertaken a 'validation' process for scrutinising many phonics programmes with a 'core criteria' (much akin to Prof Diane McGuinness's 'prototype' of ingredients drawn from research findings and best practice). Unfortunately, this is a very ill-advised step as, in effect, the DfE has now rubber-stamped 45 SSP programmes without sufficient knowledge and understanding about their pedagogy, their resource design, their level of support for various stakeholders, and their comparative effectiveness for supporting teachers, learners and informing 'home' about the content and how the children are faring on the content.

And this brings me to the topic of this sub stack. What I note is no reference at all to scrutinising or 'screening' the actual content of teaching in actual schools. What does that 'look like' for each and every learner - in their different contexts. It is great that there is a consensus around the provision of explicit and systematic phonics teaching - but what does the provision of 'phonics' actually look like in the schools and for the children with their different languages and backgrounds? Very often I find in the various literacy groups that it is literally banned to talk about specific programmes - invariably 'commercial' programmes possibly because of their 'commercial' links and because, I do understand, this can become a quagmire of people just referencing their preferred phonics programme - or the one and only phonics programme they may be familiar with. But if we want to truly 'understand' how best to teach children, and how best they learn, I am suggesting that it is really, really important that the whole (international) debate starts to look with far more open-mindedness and analysis about how these various phonics programmes contribute (or otherwise) to the educational picture.

Here are some conclusions I can make: Many children will still learn to read, spell and write even when the phonics provision in the school is 'impoverished', even when they spend their time in phonics lessons 'coasting' and doing no more than tolerating the lesson or engaging with it joyfully because they are children and enjoy collective calling out - for example, in response to 'flash card routines'. I'm not aware of any analysis on whether phonics programmes' mnemonic systems are fit-for-purpose or inadequate, or even on occasions rather crass and inappropriate - or sustained far longer than necessary or detracting from moving on. As many if not most children are able to learn to read without phonics provision, this leads to the notion that they therefore do not need to receive so much phonics or some would argue any phonics at all, or via cumulative, decodable texts - although it's good to see there is now general consensus about 'explicit' and 'systematic' phonics provision.

But, again, what does this really consist of programme to programme? And whereas many/most children are catered for with even poor phonics provision, the focus then becomes on the slower-to-learn children, children with dyslexic tendencies, those with language issues and more complex special needs. So what does the flash-card-diet look like for them. And the first paper I read today was massively about 'screening' the children - but no mention of screening their provision. This is the hole - screening the provision.

Research from now on needs to be down to 'time on task' and what does that 'look like' for each and every child. So - back to England's context for an example - the most rapidly promoted and adopted phonics programme right now with specific links to the English Hubs project mentioned by Nick Gibb has as its pedagogy 'strictly no worksheets and no workbooks'. In huge contrast, the very 'core' of my phonics programmes is the need for each and every child to have his or her own phonics Pupil Book or build up a phonics folder with paper-based content including rich, cumulative code, word, text level content - in addition to any reading books to complement the provision. These are not small differences - they are massive in my opinion - and yet, I'm not aware of any national conversations or understanding about this. Perhaps these differences make no difference to actual learning for the children. But how do we know? If the leaders in education are not looking at this in their universities, and the officials of education departments, and results are not public, and conversations are not shared - how do we know? Are the results of a one-off phonics screening check for reading sufficient?

I have so much more to add but I've said enough for now. I welcome any comments of course. Best wishes to all. X
I highly recommend people interested in the idea of 'balance' in the classroom, watch the conversation with Nick Gibb, Emily Hanford and Robert Pondiscio - here is the link again and the full title:
What Can the US Learn from England’s Rise in Reading Scores?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5hRfvSVkW0

Here is the information and description provided with the video:

Streamed live on 24 Sept 2024

In the United States, the “science of reading” movement is increasingly driving states to rethink literacy instruction to address persistent reading deficits. While researchers have advocated phonics-based literacy instruction for decades, many states are just now pivoting in this direction.

England, however, has long used a similar approach to early literacy instruction. Over the years, reading test scores in England have steadily risen, bringing the country near the top of international rankings with better-than-average post-pandemic recovery.

As the science of reading continues to gain traction in the United States, what can policymakers, researchers, and advocates gather from England’s experience? Former Minister of State for Schools Nick Gibb, who played a crucial role throughout England’s literacy movement, will discuss his insights with AEI’s Robert Pondiscio.

Subscribe to AEI's YouTube Channel
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: Must reads including: The Vanishing Act in The Balancing Act, by Harriett Janetos and my thoughts too!

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

Harriett introduced Claude to the DDOLL network thus:
Many of you may not know Stanford professor Claude Goldenberg. He is a prominent, outspoken advocate of better reading instruction in the United States in general and in California in particular, and is especially active in the English Learner community. I hope you will consider subscribing to his substack and weighing in to help drive the discussion.

Thank you!
Having received a warm and prompt response from Claude via his sub stack, and having watched the video in which he was one of the guests, I would also encourage people to support Claude with his endeavours to bring a community and conversation together via his sub stack.

People can easily subscribe to Claude's free sub stack here:


https://claudegoldenberg.substack.com/p ... dium=email
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: Must reads including: The Vanishing Act in The Balancing Act, by Harriett Janetos and my thoughts too!

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

And now I am going to take some further liberties to describe some issues around the teaching of the English language and spelling system - and give some food for thought for ways forward - the next generation of inquiry and hopefully improvements in phonics provision for all children as needed. I see too many children slipping through the net which then is attributed to 'within child' issues rather than an examination of the phonics provision - and I see too many children 'coasting' with phonics provision which is not sufficiently appropriate or challenging for them.

And I see too much emphasis on 'reading instruction' detached from 'spelling' and 'writing'. I love the references to 'foundational skills' made by Claude -and those foundational skills should of course include masses of spoken language experiences and exposure to rich literature as described by Jim Cummins in the video prior to any planned, systematic phonics provision in the school setting. Who can disagree with that? I am concerned about a lack of 'balance' between the teaching of reading, and the teaching of spelling, within the various phonics programmes.

But I've also witnessed in England's context a deep lack of appreciation for differences between phonics programmes and their underpinning guidance - with no apparent understanding or acknowledgement of this. This has contributed to me feeling forced to critique the fastest growing SSP programme in England as I consider these differences in programmes and provision is an issue. The differences may not matter one jot for many children, or even most children, but I am sure they will matter a lot for the slower-to-learn children and even, if truth be known, to early precocious learners.

HOW CAN WE NOT?

How can teachers not teach the most complex alphabetic code (spelling system) in the world both systematically and explicitly? This need should always have been sheer common sense - and yet the teaching profession has been beset with different ideas about 'phonics' over the decades and there have been times when 'phonics' was a dirty word and thought to be impossible to teach with such a complex code rather than finding ways to teach it despite its complexities.

In order to appreciate just how complex the English spelling/reading system is, it helps enormously to START WITH, for all stakeholders, a tangible, visual version of the alphabetic code. Make this more powerful still by contrasting an overview of the English code (so not all the spelling variations for the sounds) to an overview of a much simpler code such as the Spanish alphabetic code. I've been promoting the power of this for years and in this endeavour provide a range of free overview Alphabetic Code Charts for different users and uses. I've been urging other phonics providers to adopt this kind of resource but most have been tunnel-visioned. Many important pioneers for phonics provision have a view of 'phonics is time-limited, first you do fast phonics, and then children are readers' (implication, phonics is for beginners, then 'job done' - just get them up and running with their reading...). So, they've ignored my pleas to get on board with overview, ever-present, Alphabetic Code Charts.

See here: https://alphabeticcodecharts.com/free-code-charts/

IS PHONICS REALLY TIME-LIMITED? ABSOLUTELY NOT. THE PERCEPTION OF PHONICS MUST CHANGE.

Even the most important and influential promoters of the need for systematic and explicit phonics teaching have promoted phonics being 'time-limited'. I disagree. In effect, they too have been rather apologetic about phonics provision and down-played it. They have reduced the notion of phonics not only to 'time-limited' but to the domain of 'infant teaching' - and the vast majority of phonics programmes are designed for infants with their graphics and their level of simple words and language.

Phonics is then perceived by all involved - teacher-trainers, academics, teachers, programme authors, publishers - the learners and parents themselves - the politicians - and the general public - to the idea that phonics is largely infant stuff. When it's actually in ALL PRINTED WORDS, FOREVER. IT IS ADULT STUFF.

Even literate adults will call upon their phonics decoding skill to come up with a pronunciation for a new printed word that is not in their spoken language. Even when writing or typing an unusual or longer word, literate adults are likely to call upon some form of phonics chunking or segmenting to spell the word from beginning to end - but they may not even be aware of this process as it's so subconscious.

Imagine the damage to older learners' self-esteem when they struggle to get on board with fluent reading and strong spelling and then get some kind of phonics 'intervention' provision.

You see, we must, must, must change the PERCEPTION of phonics beyond it just being about teaching the beginnings of reading (and spelling). It needs to be promoted and understood as a life-long reality for reading and spelling at least the new, longer and more complex words. If this was the case, at a stroke we address the variety of learners in their many and varied contexts with their many and varied capacities for learning and language backgrounds.

In any event, across the world, and in English-speaking countries, there are many learners for whom English is a new or additional language - and some of those may be leaning English as an older learner. They need quality phonics provision too.

Over the years I've observed various people get excited as they've learnt about 'systematic synthetic phonics' programmes and then they go on to evolve into 'but then you need morphology and etymology' as if it is 'first you do this, then you do that'. Phonics and early teaching and learning is not like that. Phonics should be reflective of actual spoken language which involves morphology, grammar, some secure spelling rules or patterns, and an interest in where words have come from and their relationships - from the outset. Some of these aspects of literacy can be informal and incidental - as required and as arises - and then go on to be formally planned and structured no less than a good phonics programme. It's not one or the other, and again this has sometimes felt like the diminishing of phonics provision as SSP becomes taken for granted and deemed and demoted to be just for beginners and for the infant years.

But the need for phonics reference continues - this does not end - even if it is largely a matter of 'support' or a contribution for spelling as learners go through the upper primary and secondary sectors. That is another reason why 'overview, ever-present Alphabetic Code Charts' can be so supportive and important - along with 'building up knowledge of spelling word banks' which we can provide a kernel of within the phonics provision (words that are spelt with the same alphabetic code in common).

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO PROMOTE 'PHONICS FIRST, FAST AND ONLY'?

This is a very damaging phrase, and notion, that I believe started in England's context and which has gone on to damage the promotion of systematic, explicit phonics provision. It's another way of saying phonics is time-limited and should be 'speedy' ('speedy' being a damaging notion too in more than one way). The 'only' part is referring to 'no multi-cueing, word-guessing strategies to lift the words off the page' because it was the notorious multi-cueing reading strategies that needed to be understood as potentially damaging - and needed to be warned about - according to research findings.

The 'first, fast and only' expression was interpreted by many detractors as meaning that children should not be allowed, or exposed to, a wide range of literature before, or during, receiving phonics teaching. This was always nonsense - and there is no phonics promoter that I have ever encountered that demonised exposure to wider literature.

The issue was refraining from asking children 'to read aloud to an adult' from reading books that they simply couldn't read without resorting to guessing printed words from accompanying pictures, the context, or initial letter or letters. Instead, the promotion of 'cumulative, decodable reading books' is to enable children to 'apply and extend' the alphabetic code knowledge they have already been taught/learnt and to practise their decoding skills for these new printed words. This helps to build up their confidence in reading new material aloud. Re-reading also helps to build confidence and fluency.

Again, I found myself needing to respond to this common misunderstanding via various teacher forums, my teacher-training and talks and some documents I created - for example, see the explanation on page 3 here:

https://phonicsinternational.com/teachingmodel.pdf


RICH LITERATURE - WHAT CAN THIS LOOK LIKE?

There is no need, however, to restrict children from exposure to wider, rich literature. And this does NOT mean only 'adults reading aloud to children' which I hear over and again. This is where people say, in effect, whilst children are building up knowledge of the alphabetic code and provided with cumulative, decodable reading material, the adult reads aloud any rich texts to the children to build up their oral language, familiarity with books (etc) but (implies) that the children are not to use these books themselves or attempt to read them.

This has become somewhat of a danger in England's context. The Department for Education (DfE) became enormously micro-managing when 'validating' the various SSP programmes. It was right to promote the need for cumulative, decodable texts for children to apply their code knowledge and skills, but the manner in which this has evolved has become very restrictive and led to teachers becoming very FEARFUL of what they may, or may not, provide in the classroom. It's led to demonisation of perfectly good reading books (a lot of waste) and it's led to confusion of how teachers address those children who can soon self-teach and race ahead in reading compared to their peers. Advisors and the inspectorate have also been misled in some cases about what teachers may, or may not, provide or do in the classroom. Abigail Steel and I have provided webinars about this fearfulness and over-prescription, here is an example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWqlujD-m-c

Following these videos, I was approached by literacy specialist, Ann Sullivan, who started to create a graphic to encapsulate the literature content in primary. We then worked together - later joined by Lynne Moody - to create a graphic for parents as well:

https://phonicsinternational.com/wp-con ... v-22-2.pdf

https://phonicsinternational.com/wp-con ... Nov-22.pdf
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: Must reads including: The Vanishing Act in The Balancing Act, by Harriett Janetos and my thoughts too!

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

TIMING READING ALOUD

As an aside and having just introduced a video with Abigail Steel, another issue which is concerning us is the rise in 'measuring' or 'timing' children reading aloud to an adult. This has stemmed from, or been exacerbated by, mention of 'words read per minute' linked to 'reading fluency' by Ofsted (the inspectorate in England) and the Department for Education. More recently, I am horrified to find a whole new range of reading books for junior children (which may be excellent in their content) featuring the notion of 'words read per minute' and reading fluency. So, it's becoming a thing in England to time children read aloud.

Abi and I think this is a very worrying, unnecessary, and a totally inappropriate development and practice. Any adult worth their salt can ascertain whether the children they are listening to are succeeding with comprehending the content of the book and respond accordingly in the moment and for any record-keeping.

For some children, the added pressure of speeding up their reading aloud to an adult is enough to make them go mind-blank and to slow them down - adding extra pressure to struggling readers or weak decoders. There are any number of challenges to reading that individual children may have and pressure in school where reading aloud and being timed has become common practice is really not acceptable. We need conversations now and in the future regarding this development. Apart from anything else, some books are naturally read more slowly for expression and artistic effect - all fiction books for a start!

Here is Abi's video featuring the timing of children's reading:
What do we know about reading fluency?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS6uuEflemI
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: Must reads including: The Vanishing Act in The Balancing Act, by Harriett Janetos and my thoughts too!

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

And now I'm going to make a suggestion that really warrants discussion...

TIME INTENSIVE - BUT NOT INTENSIVE FOREVER

Having already mentioned the idea that phonics should not be understood as 'time limited' - rather is is 'time intensive' at the point of formally planned, systematic, explicit phonics provision - we need to consider then what 'forever, adult phonics' can look like.

First of all, however, phonics provision still requires a very, very close look at what different phonics programmes and approaches really look like. Jim mentioned he would be happy with '6 minutes' or even '15 or 20 minutes' if this was of the Jolly Phonics variety for discrete provision. In other words, he indicated a reluctance to think phonics provision might be a more substantial proportion of the day to the neglect of other literacy-rich and literature-rich activities.

We have to find some commonality of agreement that, OF COURSE, the provision for learners at home in the school needs to be language and literature rich - as much as possible.

The question remains as to whether the phonics provision takes up too much time - perhaps for the more precocious readers (but what about their spelling) - and we witness various conversations around 'how much' code should be taught in a planned way - meaning the actual number of letter/s-sound correspondences introduced in a phonics programme or phonics provision. These arguments go round and round - but the number is irrelevant if very close attention is not paid to the minutiae of WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE for all the children - slower-to-learn, average learners, precocious learners.

TWO-PRONGED SYSTEMATIC AND INCIDENTAL PHONICS PROVISION

In my work and approach (programme design, rationale, training), I promote not only the route of 'systematic and explicit' but also 'incidental' phonics provision.

And what this means is NOT ONLY teaching phonics as a planned, systematic body of work, BUT ALSO dipping into the complex code, teaching beyond the planned code introduced to date, as necessary in the wider curriculum where reading and writing are involved - sensibly. This may well include referring to new code in 'authentic texts' but, in effect, as an aside - taking care not to detract from the quality of sharing the text with the children. This is not using the 'authentic text' to provide the teaching of phonics so it is not akin to the approach of those promoting only the use of such literature for teaching phonics.

There are a number of reasons for my two-pronged approach which work very well to address the wide variation in children's needs as beginners, in any one class, from year to year - and for those learning English as an additional language. - and for spelling as a continuum.

See: https://phonicsinternational.com/Debbie ... andout.pdf

Teachers are caught out at the get-go when they ONLY teach phonics via a linear approach. I learnt this during a period of teaching in a Reception class in England (four to five year olds), when Alice tackled me about the sound /s/ being in her name, but not the letter s that I was introducing for the first phonics lesson. I had to think on my feet to get round that one - but it's the best thing that could have happened to me in the development of my first phonics programme and its accompanying rationale. Quite frankly, I think this two-pronged systematic AND incidental phonics approach is the way forwards for all phonics provision - and this does not mean that children are drowning in phonics.

I refer to Alice in this document. I am forever grateful to Alice and the effect she had on my practice...

https://phonicsinternational.com/Debbie ... g_Tips.pdf

Here is a wide range of what-could-be useful documents for Continuing Professional Development:

https://phonicsinternational.com/free-resources/

UNAPOLOGETIC

I have been a practical person in this field basing rationale and resource and programme design on real teaching, parenting, training, consultancy - and rubbing shoulders to an extent with the academics. I am not an academic, I am a practitioner and proudly so. I'm happy for any challenges or questions that may arise from this thread. I joined the teaching profession nearly fifty years ago. Claude is right, we need to put any reading wars to bed.


My email is debbie@phonicsinternational.com

Here is my (partial) critique of the fastest growing phonics programme in England - I am unapologetic about my observations and analysis.

YOU SEE, DEVELOPMENTS CAN GO BACKWARDS AS WELL AS FORWARDS!

https://hepplewhite.org/2024/09/23/sept ... s-revised/
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