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Synthetic PhonicsA Research Project looking at the implementation of a systematic synthetic phonics program.
ESTELLE EVANS
Read Write Inc. How will the implementation of a prescriptive
synthetic phonics program impact upon the staff and pupils?
Introduction
This paper discusses the recent implementation of a prescriptive
synthetic phonics program into the school and asks what effect it
will have. My research has been informed by reading, observation,
government legislation and recommendation and the media’s
attention to education policy. (Lefstein, 2008) I am working as a
Teaching Assistant (TA) in Year six in a suburban two form entry
primary school with approximately 460 children the roll including
nursery. A recent Ofsted identified that the school needed to
improve the quality of teaching, ensuring that higher attaining pupils
are challenged and lower attaining pupils are given correctly
levelled activities. (Appendix i) In a response to this, the newly-
appointed Head Teacher and Senior Leadership Team (SLT)
decided to implement the Read Write Inc and Fresh Start programs
to improve attainment and achievement of both the failing children
and those who are Gifted & Talented (G&T) in Literacy across the
whole school. I was recruited in November with a view to me
carrying out baseline assessments for every child in accordance
2 Estelle Evans
with the program as I had previous experience with the initiative at
my previous school.
LITERATURE REVIEW AND BACKGROUND
What are phonics?
The definition of phonics according to Torgerson et al:
Phonics instruction: Literacy teaching approaches which
focus on the relationships between letters and sounds.
Synthetic Phonics: The defining characteristics of synthetic
phonics for reading are sounding-out and blending.
Analytic Phonics: The defining characteristics of analytic
phonics are avoiding sounding-out and inferring sound-
symbol relationships from sets of words that share a letter
and sound eg, pet, park, push, pen.
Systematic Phonics: teaching of letter-sound relationships
in an explicit, organised and sequenced fashion, as opposed
to incidentally or on a ‘when-needed’ basis. May refer to
systematic synthetic or systematic analytic phonics.
(Torgerson, Hall, & Brooks, 2006)
What is Read Write Inc and Fresh Start?
The Read Write Inc and Fresh Start programs were devised by
Ruth Miskin, an ex head teacher and ‘phonics guru’ (Evans &
Estelle Evans 3
Marley, 2010) who now sits on various Literacy and education
advisory boards. It is a commercially available literacy package
produced by Oxford University Press (OUP) sold to both Primary
and Secondary schools, but also available to buy for the individual.
The program has been rolled out all over the country (to
approximately 1000 schools) in the last 10 years with a high degree
of success, but of course, does have its critics. Many schools took
on the program (including paying the not unsubstantial costs of the
training days1) after the Ofsted report ‘Reading by Six. How the best
schools do it’ revealed that seven out of the twelve schools in its
study were using Read Write Inc and/ or Fresh Start. (Ofsted, 2009)
The Rose Review, which emphatically encouraged phonics
instruction at primary level was triggered by a seven year study of
the teaching of phonics to 300 children in Clackmannashire in
Scotland. The research put the children up to three years ahead in
reading, but did not show a significant improvement in
comprehension. (Johnston & Watson, 2005) This report underpins
the general move in Great Britain in literacy teaching towards daily
synthetic phonics lessons from Reception class onwards.
Locally, a report by Leicester County Council concluded that ‘the
Fresh Start’ program had been value for money, having an impact
at both individual and school levels.’ (Leicestershire County Council,1 http://www.ruthmiskinliteracy.com/phonics-training.aspx
4 Estelle Evans
2009) The same report stated that there was added value ‘that data
can not identify, such as increased pupil confidence and self
esteem, amore positive engagement of pupils in all their learning as
well as reported improvements in the behaviour of some pupils.’
Leicester County Council’s report included some quantitative data
which I have organised into the following charts to show the
improvement of pupils attainment and achievement in both reading
and writing in one school year after the Fresh Start program was
introduced.
Baseline Assessment
December (Interim)
July (End of Year)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Level 4Level 3Level 2Level 1
Figure 1 Writing Assessment Levels
Estelle Evans 5
Baseline Assessment
December (Interim)
July (End of Year)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Level 5Level 4Level 3Level 2Level 1
Figure 2 Reading Assessment Levels
METHODS
How was the program implemented?
I used the assessment pro forma from the handbook which comes
with the program; Read Write Inc is aimed at children from
Reception to Year 4 who are working below level 2 and the Fresh
Start Program is primarily for children from Years 5 and 6 who are
working below level 4. The assessment process, however, only
looks at the child’s ability to read, not write. For this reason, some of
the children’s assessments were wildly differing from previous
teacher assessments – more often than not these anomalies were
producing higher results than expected, especially from boys.
Children were not differentiated by Special Needs; all children,
6 Estelle Evans
whether on the Special Educational Needs register or not can
access the program (including those with dyslexia).
It was advised that only one person administers the assessment for
the whole school to make the test fair; some of the assessment
criteria could be evaluated as vague and so taken to mean different
things to different people. (The words “some” and “most” are used).
(Appendices ii/iii) All assessment results were then recorded in
tracking grids (Appendix iv) and the children grouped according to
ability in homogenous groups (sometimes a ‘best fit’ criteria was
used if a group only had one or two children assigned to it.)
Children who could read, with ease, all the associated material in
the assessments were deemed not to need this program (classed
as a Wave 3 Intervention) and were put on the Read Write Inc or
Fresh Start Comprehension program. These were the children
already working at the correct level for their chronological age.
Once the assessments were finished and collated all teachers and
TAs were trained on 2 inset days by a trainer from Ruth Miskin’s
organisations RML. (Appendix v) The training was mostly focussed
on Read Write Inc, but the teaching of phonics for Year 5 and 6 are
similar and the theory is the same for both programs, starting with
the 44 sounds in the alphabet code. Before the initiative was rolled
out in school a further inset day of training was held; was mainly
Estelle Evans 7
focussed on how a daily Fresh Start lesson would be organised.
(Appendix vi)
The resources needed for each group include phoneme cards,
“speed sounds” chart (Appendix vii) , green words, red words, (see
Fig 3) white boards, module booklets (Appendix viii), a teacher’s
handbook and, wherever it was possible an Interactive White Board
(IWB) with the phonics software installed. (Appendix ix) (Galloway,
2006) The lessons are divided into different activities each day
starting with a ten minute spelling session followed by
ten minutes of phonics
“speed words”
“hold a sentence”
“build a sentence”
learning new vocabulary
reading a text
“find it and prove it”
comprehension
reading with fluency and expression
editing sentences (for grammar, punctuation and spelling),
partner work
deconstruction
long writing task.
8 Estelle Evans
It is a multisensory approach so that children learn variously from
simultaneous visual, auditory and kinesthetic activities. All learning
styles are therefore taken into consideration. (Gardner, 1993).
Fig
4 A
selection of resources needed for a Fresh
Start lesson
The modules are grouped thus:
Introductory, Modules 1 – 5
Modules 6 – 14
Modules 15 – 20
Estelle Evans 9
Modules 21 – 34.
Depending on which text the children read with confidence in the
assessment, this decided which Module set they started with.
As I am delivering the Fresh Start element of the program, my
school research has been centred on the homogenous group of
children with whom I work. All teachers and support staff are
delivering the program to small groups of children. My group started
on Module 21 and has been running since the end of February.
Initially I had seven children but now have thirteen as one member
of staff has left.
My group is made up thus:
Year Group Boys Girls
Year 5 2 5 (1-EAL)2
Year 6 6 0
There has been an impact on staffing since the program started.
Because every member of the teaching staff is running a session,
absences are difficult to cover. Supply staff rarely know how to
deliver the program, and even though planning is left for them, it will
never be delivered in the same way. Absences from children also
2 English as an additional language
10 Estelle Evans
have an impact as they may miss the introduction of a new
phoneme/ grapheme or the long writing task, which is marked and
used for assessment every Friday. Some members of the support
staff only work part time, therefore their group has to be adopted by
another part-time member of staff for part of the week. The change
of practice has been well received by the majority of staff and
children alike. It is now more imperative than ever that children are
in school on time as lessons begin promptly at 9 o’clock and run for
one hour and ten minutes. Figures show that punctuality has
improved since the program began. (Unfortunately I was not able to
gain access to the actual data). I have heard one or two members
of staff use the words “ major upheaval” and “inflexible” while
discussing the pros and cons of the initiative. They have also had
positive things to say about it, for example, there is minimal
planning as all the planning is in the teacher’s handbook and the
children have taken to the vertical streaming well.
THE READING WARS?
As discussed, the government recommended daily phonics lesson
following the Rose Review (Rose, 2009) Phonics were a
‘fashionable’ method of teaching children to read right up to the
1960s but lost favour to the ‘whole word’ approach (Chomsky,
Estelle Evans 11
1986). This has been dubbed ‘The Reading Wars’ (Schnarr, 2008).
More recently in primary education (especially in Key Stage 1) there
has been a ‘searchlight’ effect where either the school or individual
teachers taught a mixture of phonics (mostly Letterland3, Jolly
Phonics4 and Letters and Sounds5) as well as whole word
recognition or analytical phonics but the outcome of this has led to
lower level of attainment and children slipping through the net
(leaving primary school at age 11 and not being able to read).
In an interview with The Guardian in 2005, Ruth Kelly advocated the
teaching of synthetic phonics as a “back to basics” approach
(Curtis, 2005). Then followed Michael Gove’s recommendation for
all five/ six year olds to be assessed on their ability to read phonics
which announced in November 2010, to be implemented in 2012.
However, there has been a backlash from teaching unions (Ward,
Unions united in rejection of phonics test to 'screen' Yr 1 readers,
2011) and Dame Clare Tickell. The Tickell Review recommends
that this initiative should be scrapped in favour of testing children on
how well they read. (Ward, Phonics knocked off perch by official
review, 2011) The review found that in the past three years
although the expected phonics level has risen 5%, the
corresponding rise in reading has been only 2%. (Tickell, 2011)3 www.letterland.com4 www.jollylearning.com5 www.letters-and-sounds.com
12 Estelle Evans
Phonics Reading70%
72%
74%
76%
78%
80%
82%
84%
86%
88%
2008
2011
Fig 4 Findings from the Tickell Review: the rise in phonics attainment levels have risen from 76% to 81% while the corresponding reading levels have only gained 2% from 85% to 87%.
The current revised conditions for success are set out on the
Department for Education’s website following observations by
Ofsted and schools’ self-assessment. (SEF). Briefly, these finding
summarise that any phonics program should:
Present high quality systematic, synthetic phonic work as the
prime approach to decoding print, i.e. a phonics ‘first and
fast’ approach
Enable children to start learning phonic knowledge and skills
using a systematic, synthetic program by the age of five, with
the expectation that they will be fluent readers having
secured word recognition skills by the end of key stage one
Estelle Evans 13
Be designed for the teaching of discrete, daily sessions
progressing from simple to more complex phonic knowledge
and skills and covering the major grapheme/phoneme
correspondences
Enable children to progress to be assessed. (DfE, 2011)
FINDINGS
Quantatitive findings (Nationally):
Of the seven schools in the Reading by Six report that subscribe to
Ruth Miskin’s Literacy program, three had data for Fresh Start:
Bourne Abbey (Lincolnshire), Old Ford (Tower Hamlets) and
Woodberry Down (Hackney). I have collated the data available
which is shown in Figure 5.
Bourne Abbey Old Ford Woodberry Down0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Level 4
National Av-erage Level 4
Level 5
National Av-erage Level 5
Fig 5 Data from ‘The schools and their approaches’ (Reading by Six. How the best schools do it.) (Ofsted, 2009)
14 Estelle Evans
As you can see, all schools achieved over the National Average at
Level 4, but interestingly two of the schools did not achieve the
National Average at Level 5.
Locally
This leads me to question whether it has been left too late for
children further up the school in Key Stage 2. The report from
Leicester County Council also identified this problem saying that
support is less successful when:
“needs are identified and addressed too late, for example just
before national tests.” (Leicestershire County Council, 2009)
School
In my own school five children in Year 6 have been identified that
have, essentially ‘slipped through the net’. None of these pupils can
read at anywhere near their chronological age. Two of the children
(one of whom has Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), the other, who
it is suspected has complex needs including Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) ) have their Read Write Inc lessons
with the Reception class as they are currently assessed as being at
level 1c. The other three are grouped together working with a
teacher at a level 2a. At the same time of writing this research
paper, the Year 6 pupils will be about to take their Scholastic
Aptitude Tests (SATs) but these five children will not be able to
Estelle Evans 15
access them; they neither have the decoding skills to read the
paper nor the comprehension skills to encode them. For these
children it seems, this program has simply been introduced too late
to have any impact on their attainment. This is not to say, however,
that it will not have any impact on their achievement overall as they
are now being given the basic phonics skills with which to build
upon from now and once they transfer to Secondary school.
It has been difficult to produce figures for my school as the program
is still new. However, I have interim data from my own group of
children. It looks at their reading ages at November 2010, their
baseline assessments from the tracking grid and compares them to
today. (May 2011). (Appendix x)
16 Estelle Evans
Child A
Child B
Child C
Child D
Child E
Child F
Child G
Child H
Child I
Child J
Child K
Child L
Child M
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Reading Age Nov 2010Reading Age May 2010
Findings from these figures suggest all children have made
improvements in the past 5 months, both with their phonic
knowledge and reading ages. Not one child has regressed and
some have made remarkable progress with their learning which
goes on to have a positive influence on their ability to access the
rest of the curriculum.
Qualitative Findings
I designed a questionnaire to find out what the children thought of
their new literacy lessons and the findings are in Appendix xi.
All the children agreed that they have made improvements in their
reading and writing, however, from marking the work I have found
that some children are struggling with the writing, especially boys
and the long writing on a Friday. (Annotated examples are included
in Appendix xii ).
Estelle Evans 17
230
240
250
260
270
280
290
300
310
Phonics Score Nov 2010Phonics Score May 2011
Conclusions
So far there has been little discussion about writing and
comprehension. Dealing with the latter first, Chew (2006)
summarises
“what is clear is that although decoding does not guarantee
comprehension, comprehension is impossible without decoding.”
The ‘balanced approach’ takes the ‘whole word’ movement and the
phonics based pedagogy and tries to find a common way, which
ensures attainment and achievement in both reading and
comprehension. ‘Whole word’ stems from the theorist Noam
Chomsky and his views on language acquisition, while Adams
(1990) penned the term ‘balanced literacy’, but it too has been
criticised as ‘whole language’ methodology with a new name.
The analytic approach underpins the constructionist-based ‘guided
reading’ prevalent in many schools today. In my school guided
reading lessons are still ‘in situ’ but is to be reviewed after the
results of the interim assessments of the children are available.
The emphasis on phonics to date has tended to focus on reading
rather than writing – recognising the phoneme rather than the ability
to write the grapheme. Read Write Inc and Fresh Start incorporates
chances for children to write; practicing spelling, finding and writing
answers from comprehension and a longer writing session that
18 Estelle Evans
incorporates the elements learnt previously. The modules from
which the lessons from Fresh Start contain age-related texts in a
variety of genres, ranging from Shakespeare to problem page
letters and everything in between. The lessons are fast-paced and
kept interesting with a variety of objectives for each session (An
example lesson is available on the attached podcast Appendix xiii).
I started this paper asking what impact the implementation of the
prescriptive synthetic phonics program would have on staff and
pupils. The impact has been
1. Financial
2. The way the school day is structured has had to be changed
3. The staffing levels are critical in order for so many groups to
be taught each day
4. Time needs to be managed efficiently
5. Lateness and absenteeism by pupils effects progress but
there are opportunities for 10 minute catch-up sessions
6. Children are responding well to vertical streaming but it may
be too late for some pupils.
7. The school is responding to government legislation, Ofsted
and a need to ensure all children can read.
As Ruth Miskin says:
Estelle Evans 19
“when children can’t read there is low self-esteem, children are
messing around and get bored. We want them to be reading with
confidence, to be able to read quite sophisticated texts at an early
age.” (Coughlan, 1999)
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24 Estelle Evans