The teaching of reading and writing is in the news again. Last month the Daily Telegraph reported that 200,000 seven-year-olds are not learning to read properly. Last week the Government announced its plans to merge the literacy and numeracy strategies and, perhaps predictably, place greater emphasis on the traditional teaching of phonics in a further bid to raise standards.
In its review of the first four years of the National Literacy Strategy (NLS), Ofsted claimed that four in ten teachers still do not appreciate the importance of phonics. Although Ofsted found that teaching in reception classes is mostly good and only rarely unsatisfactory, attention has still turned to the Foundation Stage. David Bell, the chief inspector of schools, commented that 'if you get phonics right at an early stage, you are less likely to have to deal with difficulties at a later stage'.
The numbers of four-year-olds in reception classes continues to grow. So, if schools feel panicked by the Government, Ofsted and the media to put more emphasis on formal teaching, we are going to see an intensification of pressure on very young children for no good reason.
There is no evidence from anywhere in the world to suggest that formal literacy teaching of very young children is beneficial.
Experienced practitioners know that more pressure and more formal teaching will create difficult behaviour and special needs. Nor is it helpful for Ofsted and others to impose ever more limits on the judgment and professionalism of nursery nurses and teachers in the Foundation Stage.
Phonics have always swung in and out of fashion. In 1950s America there was a major revival of phonics, which was consolidated by the publication of the Dr Seuss beginner books like The Cat in the Hat.
Up to that point, the American system had relied heavily on the 'whole word' approach where children memorise words on sight so that they are able to read them in books. But this approach leaves children with a huge problem: there is nothing they can do if they come across a word they have never seen before.
With the publication of a best-selling book titled Why Johnny Can't Read and media attention given to alarming statistics about rising levels of illiteracy, the phonics approach was given a tremendous boost. It all sounds terribly familiar today.
Marian Whitehead, an expert on language and literacy in the early years, notes that 'phonics are the cure-all for any of the ills of education and society. Whenever things get complicated or confused, we are told that teachers should do more phonics!'
Since the 1950s, and often following trends in America, different approaches to reading have taken hold in the UK. In the 1980s, when I was training as a teacher, phonics had swung so far out fashion that they weren't even mentioned. The 'real books' movement was on top, with its attractive claim that 'children learn to read by reading'.
What works
What had started as a sophisticated understanding of the reading process ended up as a watered-down set of practices which focussed on attractive books and reading areas, but had little to say about how children actually learn to read, or how they can be taught some of the necessary skills.
The NLS attempted to cut through the rise and fall of these fashionable approaches by surveying a range of research and promoting 'what works'.
The NLS proposed that there were five 'searchlights' - including phonics - which children needed to be able to use when reading. This model more or less satisfied the advocates of different approaches because it included them all. But the practitioners who actually had to do the teaching were left with a mess.
Following the NLS guidance, practitioners have found themselves trying to teach children five different approaches to reading words in a 15- minute slot within the Literacy Hour - with predictable consequences.
Ofsted notes in its review of the NLS that this 'reduces the potential effectiveness both of the hour's structure and the objectives' and calls for the guidance to be revised.
So, the growing influence of the 'phonics first and fast' movement is an understandable desire for crispness and clarity where there is currently mess and muddle. The approach is easy to understand: children should be systematically and quickly taught their letter sounds and combinations, as soon as they start school.
Children start by learning six sounds and their letters, and are taught to blend the sounds together to build up words. The children quickly build up to learning all the sounds in the English language. They are taught to blend together sequences of letters like 'ah,' 'nn,' 'duh' to make 'and'.
There is research evidence that systematically-taught phonics programmes lead to clear improvements in the children's letter skills and knowledge, and their ability to process at the 'word level' - to see a series of letters, sound the letters out and then blend them together into a word.
Making connections
Sadly, the evidence also shows that all this does nothing to improve children's reading. When they are taken away from their worksheets and handed a book, they are no more capable of reading than children who have not received this type of teaching.
So what can practitioners do? First, we should not compromise on providing a good early years curriculum based on play and first-hand experiences. We need to hold on to what we know: children learn by making connections between different experiences, by moving and expressing themselves, by swimming like fish in a sea of meaningful experiences and activities.
Programmes that drill young children narrowly in certain skills do not work.
In any case, while one practitioner is focused on getting small groups of children through their phonics worksheets, what is going on in the rest of the room? The 25 or so other children will have to be pacified by mundane, quiet activities, damned by Marian Whitehead as 'a full-blown culture of trivial pursuits in the nation's reception and Key Stage One classrooms.'
Young children need Foundation Stage settings where there is a climate of interest and involvement in literacy for everyone. This means that the children have well-planned and organised opportunities to read and write while playing. They have practitioners who can share a love for books, songs, poems and writing.
Practitioners across the Foundation Stage need to work and develop together. Reception teachers need to understand what sort of literacy experiences children have before they start school, and how nurseries promote early writing and reading. All Foundation Stage practitioners need to know about the early literacy experiences children have at home, and how to support these and build on them.
Around this core, children also need contexts and routines for learning about reading and writing. As children become more experienced and confident in their experiments to write, they need to know the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make.
The approach suggested in the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage of teaching letters and sounds only incidentally seems unnecessarily haphazard, and the sole emphasis on hearing sounds in spoken language could actually make it more difficult.
Many children would find it easier to hear sounds if they could also see the letters that are being sounded. As children start to hit the limits of their experimental writing and know that their strings of letters are not readable by others, they need to know letters and sounds to enable their writing to develop.
Some children will catch on to this knowledge; many others will need to be taught it. This teaching can take place systematically and effectively in the contexts of writing - real writing, to express something important - and reading good quality books.
This appears, from Ofsted's report, to be established practice in most reception classes. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that alongside sessions that focus on the details of print, children need many experiences of being immersed in the story, with opportunities to talk about what is happening, how it relates to their experiences or what their reactions are.
Surely, while reading depends on certain mechanical skills, few of us would ever pick up a book if that was all it was about.
References
* For a review of recent research findings about the teaching of phonics, as well as the exciting impact of an early literacy programme in New Zealand, see Picking up the Pace at www.minedu.govt.nz/goto/pickingupthepace
* The National Literacy Strategy: the first four years is available from the publications section at www.ofsted.gov.uk
