Here is another article in The Conversation - please do check out the 'readers comments' too:
Why Australia should trial the new phonics screening check
https://theconversation.com/why-austral ... heck-69717
In the face of unacceptably low literacy standards in Australian schools, the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) recently advocated a trial of the UK Phonics Screening Check (PSC) as one part of the solution.
A national PSC, similar to the program launched in the UK in 2012, is a worthwhile endeavour to boost not just literacy standards for students, but the ability of teachers to implement them effectively.
Phonics is a teaching method that focuses on the sounds within words – creating explicit links between these sounds and the letters that represent them.
It allows children to decode written words independently, without having to guess or be told what they are.
When taught well, phonics confers an essential skill set that helps all readers to decode text. It can be taught using off-the-shelf programs, but these are not necessary if teacher knowledge is strong.
Research from 2005 found:
Explicit teaching of alphabetic decoding skills is helpful for all children, harmful for none, and crucial for some.
This teaching is particularly beneficial for disadvantaged students who often sit in a “long tail of under-achievement”.
Despite these findings, no Australian state or territory has formally adopted the recommendations of the 2005 National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy (NITL).
This is SHOCKING:
Despite these findings, no Australian state or territory has formally adopted the recommendations of the 2005 National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy (NITL).
Why Australia should trial the new phonics screening check - Authors:
Pamela Snow
Professor and Head, Rural Health School, La Trobe University
Anne Castles
Deputy Director, ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University
Kevin Wheldall
Emeritus Professor of Education, Macquarie University
Max Coltheart
Emeritus Professor, Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University
Rod Ewins notes the same point about the lack of official uptake of the guidance in the 2005 NITL report and writes a 'reader's comment' thus:
One of the most disturbing sentences in this article is, “no Australian state or territory has formally adopted the recommendations of the 2005 National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy (NITL).” That such a well-qualified group should have spent so long undertaking such a careful report, only to have it ignored by Education Ministers in EVERY STATE in Australia, goes a long way to explaining the problems of poor literacy and illiteracy in this country. There would be few if any of those ministers who could match the knowledge, experience and qualifications of ANY of the expert panel who compiled the report, let alone the combined wisdom of them all. Yet they choose to march to the beats of their own tiny drums instead.
I just had a look over the Report and Recommendations. It covers many of the points made by the various respondents to this article, including assessment. The whole report seems to me to be an eminently fair and well-balanced examination of the available evidence on the subject. That Education Ministers in all of our States have chosen to ignore it is inexcusable, and parents should be taking them to task about it.
Darren Stopps agrees with Rod and writes:
Rod, it is unconscionably negligent that the report was entirely accepted and yet none of the recommendations ever enacted. The effect on generations of children, now functionally illiterate and semi-literate adults, is evident. The situation was desperate then, and another 11years of continued wrong practices has only increased the problem.
In a later comment, Darren writes:
The phonics test is essential to identify those at risk, but will only be helpful if it is backed up by evidence-based teaching. Something not evident in Australia (that’s not me saying that - it’s the comprehensive research). The substantial body of teaching practice, still uses faulty, damaging strategies for teaching reading. These have resulted in some of the highest (perhaps the highest) levels of functional illiteracy in the English speaking world. Despite this, and in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, they are still supported by many educational academics.
The “fear” of the phonics test might be that this will create an obligation for something to be done to address the problem, and the expertise and knowledge to do so is not there.
44 sounds in English are represented by 70 phonograms (graphemes). Their pronunciation governed by a set of rules which ARE easily learned. The “confusion” then is gone. If only this was taught explicitly, and thoroughly.
The timing of this is poignant, as we see Australia’s recent rankings for academic performance slide to the depths.
Sally Howell writes in response to Darren Stops:
I couldn’t agree with you more but it is not only educational academics who promote damaging strategies. The NSW Department of Education has spent millions of dollars training teachers to implement the L3 Kindergarten literacy program supposedly designed for ‘at risk’ students. This training does not include how to teach phonics explicitly and systematically. It does include the three cueing system. Unsurprisingly ‘Literacy Leaders’ and L3 trainers are not required to have knowledge and experience in the delivery of explicit and systematic phonics instruction.
Strong relationships exist between universities and education departments such that senior bureaucrats are appointed as honorary or adjunct professors who then sit on university committees that make decisions about the content of teacher training courses.
As long as education departments are wedded to ‘practice as usual’, regardless of the evidence, the content of undergraduate training is unlikely to change. As suggested, a pilot of a phonics check will give a clear indication of whether there is a need for better, evidence based instruction in this crucial area. To date no amount of research evidence has been sufficient to move the non-believers but surely results of an Australia wide pilot will carry some weight.
Later, Darren Stops writes something which gets right to the heart of the matter - the continuation of multi-cueing reading strategies in the classroom which teach children to GUESS words and take them away from learning and applying the complex English alphabetic code and the phonics skill of sounding out and blending the sounds (synthesising). We KNOW that this damages at least some children in their reading development and in their long term reading reflex (habits). Darren writes:
If we look at the 2005 national inquiry, or the last 50 years or so of reading research, it does not support the comment about not needing explicit teaching of phonics, nor the assertion that children “already had instruction in phonics”. Quite the opposite on both counts.
It’s very clear that explicit teaching of synthetic phonics is NOT done in the vast majority of Australian classrooms, and that teachers are NOT adequately trained to understand phonics, let alone teach it.
Yes, there are large numbers of children who are terrified of reading because they fail. They fail because their only strategies for decoding the text are ineffective, confusing and nonsensical. Just pop into a classroom and see what strategies are posted on the wall - and what is sent home to parents. It’s false cues: guessing from the first letter, guessing form the shape of the word, guessing from the pictures, guessing from the context. Sometimes, the last point on the list might be to “try sounding out the word”. But wait - how can the child “sound out the word” when there is no instruction (or wrong instruction) in what sounds the letter groups make? In any case, the scientific evidence for analytic phonics isn’t there. Synthetic phonics has the evidence base - when taught explicitly.