Dick - you said this:
The obstacles are the interests "all over the place" that are benefiting from the ideological "reading wars and skirmishes."
And I agree.
Nick Gibb remains committed to promoting Systematic Synthetic Phonics but, as I keep describing, the job is 'not done' in England although I suggest that we have certainly made progress in England that could be described as 'historical developments'.
The advent of the, then, Department for Education and Skills providing schools with copies of the 'Letters and Sounds' publication in 2007 was a very important step in England's 'development' and made a huge difference in the uptake and promotion of systematic synthetic phonics.
Sadly, however, because of its 'official' status, it has continued to take precedence over a deeper analysis of evaluating and comparing phonics programmes, their similarities and differences - and other issues of phonics provision in schools.
What I suggest is needed now is a deep analysis - drawing a line under the 'Letters and Sounds' era - and building on it.
One very simple issue, which is nevertheless quite profound, is the fact that the leading systematic synthetic phonics programmes' authors in England all suggest in their guidance (and in their experience and wisdom) that this idea of '20 minutes of discrete phonics provision per day' has become a very limiting feature of phonics in England.
It states in the 'Notes of Guidance' for 'Letters and Sounds' the figure of '20 minutes' for discrete phonics teaching. There may be several reasons for this - one big one being that the famous Clackmannanshire research (Johnston and Watson) was based on only 16 weeks of explicit systematic synthetic phonics teaching for 20 minutes a day. We also had an idealogical battle between phonics promoters and the influential early years advisors who were not persuaded by the need for explicit, systematic synthetic phonics teaching for pre-schoolers (e.g. the four to five year olds) and therefore, back in 2007, '20 minutes of phonics' became the establishment norm.
The leading-edge systematic synthetic phonics programme authors in England, in contrast, suggest at least 30 minutes to one hour is closer to what is needed in very practical terms. After all, we are talking about infant teachers with up to 30 children or so in their classes - of all needs and backgrounds - and the teaching of the most complex alphabetic code in the world - along with the skills required for reading (decoding), spelling (encoding) and handwriting 52 letter shapes (26 letters but in lower case and upper case). From my perspective, we also need to ensure quality vocabulary enrichment and language comprehension within phonics lessons - and not just skate over the cumulative bank of words introduced within phonics provision. We need quality teaching and not the quick 'rush-through' provision that I observe so often.
What I personally see during observations in schools is adults working very hard but children not getting the right kind of practice or sufficient practice for all their needs. Of course the ones who suffer the most are the slower-to-learn children - and, to an extent, the quicker-to-learn children who could do with more demanding 'extension' type activities.
From my graphic of the 'Simple View of Schools' Phonics Provision', you can see that I've observed certain patterns of practice which have become very formulaic. It's not that a 'formula' is wrong per se, but it does show how very different the 'formula' for systematic synthetic phonics provision can look in school to school.
In other words, although all the adults are to all intents and purposes teaching the same alphabetic code and phonics skills, they are doing it differently and, as you say, we need to know what this really 'looks like' across England - comparing the most effective schools with patterns in the least effective schools and taking everything into account (including the reading results themselves - BOTH 'technical' word-reading results and language comprehension results).
We also know that in many schools in England from the three years of surveys conducted by the NFER (2012, 13, 14) that 'mixed methods' - as in the 'searchlights' multi-cueing reading strategies for word-guessing - may still be a dominant feature.
My view is that the damage of multi-cueing isn't really unpicked or understood because it doesn't lead to children who
cannot read - some can read very well and for the long-term.
It does lead to weakening phonics teaching, learning and application - and it does lead to a lot of 'word-guessing' or 'lookaliking' by many children which will impede their reading capacity as noted by some secondary teachers who are becoming increasingly enlightened by this issue (as so well described by Jacqui Moller-Butcher - see link below).
This word-guessing tendency will impede many children (the hidden drawback) but many, if not most, infant teachers may be oblivious to this state of affairs as, to all intents and purposes, children who can 'read' left their hands.
All of this is about 'disconnects' - lack of joined-up thinking and action, but also professional training and understanding - but we are in a process, Dick, a development, a journey - I just wish we could speed that journey up a bit!
The theme of this thread is Tim Conway's observation that science has shown us what to do to reduce or prevent learners with dyslexic tendencies (plenty of phonics teaching) - but he shouts out about the disconnect between science and teaching - but that is what our new IFERI organisation is all about - trying to address that disconnect by drawing attention to it.
Here is the link to the thread featuring Jacqui Moller-Butcher's description of 'lookaliking' - word-guessing caused by insufficient understanding of the importance of phonics teaching and learning - and the worrying continued acceptance by perhaps most teachers that children need 'a range of reading strategies' for lifting the words off the page:
http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewto ... ?f=8&t=518
