For decades there have been ongoing conversations, here and across the world, on the best way to teach children to read. There is a myriad of systems, research insights and at times, conflicting guidance, but to me it’s simple: phonics just works!
In fact it works long-term, as the ground-breaking Clackmannanshire Report discovered. Systematic Synthetics Phonics programmes (SSP) not only does it close early gender gaps between boys and girls’ reading, but more generally it accelerates reading and spelling to several months beyond expected levels.
It’s been widely publicised that people with low literacy skills are more than twice as likely to be unemployed than those who can read beyond basic levels, and that better literacy opens doors to “being paid well [and] being able to afford better food and housing”.
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