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Have we become over-reliant on phonics for early reading?
This month, in our ongoing collaboration with Edge Hill University curated by ALICIA BLANCO-BAYO, Early Years Lecturer and WTEY Programme Leader at the University’s Faculty of Education, we’re delighted to hear from PGCE Early Years QTS student JENNIFER SEDGWICK.
As early years practitioners, a substantial amount of our time is spent planning and delivering lessons and interventions to enhance children’s reading. The way in which this is taught has significantly changed in recent years, many argue that these changes aren’t improving reading but are in fact hindering the skill. Across early years settings in the UK, Systematic Synthetic Phonics is
now the ‘dominant’ teaching method for early reading in young children (Bradbury, 2022). Even though there are many variations of phonics schemes, they all work in the same way which teaches children to link graphemes (letters) with their corresponding phonemes (sounds). The children decode new vocabulary using their phonics knowledge, they also use their phonics knowledge to sound out and spell when writing short sentences. There is now a justifiable concern that children are over-reliant on their phonics knowledge to read. Having recently been on three placements in early years classrooms I can see how this is impacting children’s reading with the biggest problems being fluency and comprehension. After listening to children reading on my current Reception
placement, the overall majority are still sounding out most of the words within their book, even high frequency words. What is the reason for this? Children have repeatedly been exposed to certain words such as: and, dog, boy, then and very but they continue to decode these words using their phonics knowledge. Many practitioners might blame this on phonics schemes; however, I believe that although phonics can help early readers hugely, it should not be the only method used to teach reading. From my experience, children aren’t using aids such as pictorial cues which are part of the book. For example, the page in the book has a picture of a boy on a swing and the sentence reads ‘The boy is sat on the swing’, my observations suggest that children would phonetically decode the word swing because they are focussed on the words alone. When they understand the context and take note of the illustration, they might recognise that the word could be swing (after sounding the first letter) and therefore sounding out the full word might not actually be necessary. The repeated phonetic decoding seen in children highlights not only a
fluency problem in early reading, but also an issue regarding their understanding of the text and recalling events within the story. Concentration levels are so high on decoding words that lots of readers might not be able to tell you what they have just read immediately after reading it. Phonetically decoding a sequence of words is not reading and it might not encourage reading for enjoyment. It will however help children to pass their phonics screening test. So, what is the answer? Traditional teaching methods need to be
incorporated to help children build upon their fluency, understanding of words and the text as a whole. Whole class reading and the use of pictorial cues need to take place more often, research has found that many teachers admitted to replacing their English lessons with more phonics due to the pressure of phonics screening (Wyse and Bradbury, 2022). Phonic schemes are an excellent resource for early reading; however, there is still a place for other traditional teaching methods. Children need to be encouraged to develop a love of reading. As Douglas (1845) stated, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
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www.education-today.co.uk
Continued learning over summer
In her regular column this month, STEMtastic! founder KIRSTY BERTENSHAW looks at different ways to encourage children to keep learning through the summer holidays.
While a rest is important over summer, practice to retain skills and knowledge is also beneficial. But how can students be motivated to continue their learning journey independently over summer? Online options Some students are more inclined to complete their homework if it involves the use of technology. Students could complete online quizzes, especially if using a quiz site like
educationquizzes.comwhere each student’s progress has a separate log-in and the quizzes they attempt, and the score, is recorded. Students should be able to redo the quizzes throughout summer to remind themselves of the topic or revise if they have forgotten content. There are many good quality educational games online which are free to access, from “Guardians Defenders of Mathematica” for KS2 maths to
Nrichmaths.org which has a wide range of age-categorised maths games. Students can take screen shots to paste into documents or add to an email to show their teacher.
Topmarks.co.uk allows teachers, parents and students to search by subject and age and lists many spelling and grammar game options, along with science and maths and several other curriculum areas. If the curriculum content is more complex, a selection of educational videos with accompanying quizzes can be prepared to ensure the students have gathered or revised the information in the video. A combination of closed and open questions works well for this style of activity. Research topics Students could be allowed some free thinking and choice researching a topic area to present their research in a way they choose, e.g. an essay, animation or video, comic strip etc. This could be a summary of the previous term’s learning or a preparation for topics planned in the new school year. Students could potentially show their research once back in school. Longer-term experiments Students could be given experiments to complete over summer where they carry out observations and form conclusions from them. For example, they could be given a small plant pot and seeds or a plant bulb in class and record the changes over the summer, either with photographs or drawings. Another option is crystal growing. Magnesium sulphate crystals take a long while to form and can be frustrating in class, but over summer could be prepared at home using instructions and equipment from the teacher, placed on a shelf and checked once a week. Cross-curricular themed homework Departments could work together to produce a cross-curricular themed homework task. For example, students could design a café, plan balanced meals to offer customers, work out calorie content or budgeting for the café, write adverts and decide on the best location and best way to provide power for the café. A framework would be needed to guide students through each task, but they have scope to be creative with their designs. Puzzle books For recalling key concepts and content of larger subject areas in an alternative way, try producing puzzle books for students. There are many premade crosswords available, along with word searches where the left- over letters spell out a phrase or ask a question. Spot the difference with scientific diagrams, or spot the mistakes, are good ways to reinforce features, for example on a diagram of the heart or a bacterial cell. Scrabble-type tasks where students see how many words they can make from the letters, or maths mazes where students have to answer the sum correctly to find the way through the maze, are also more fun than a standard page of tasks from a textbook.
Kirsty is the founder of STEMtastic, an education consultancy with a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths
www.stemtastic.co.uk
July/August 2022
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