RESTRICTED DRAFT: 17 NOVEMBER 2005



INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF

THE TEACHING OF EARLY READING

INTERIM REPORT

JIM ROSE

DECEMBER 2005

Independent review of

the teaching of early reading

interim report

Contents Paragraph

Letter to the Secretary of State

1. Summary

2. The remit for the review 1

3. Evidence gathering 5

4. Background 6

5. Aspect 1: Best practice 26

6. Aspect 2: The Early Years Foundation Stage 38

7. Aspect 3: Intervention programmes 46

8. Aspect 4: Leadership and management 54

9. Aspect 5: Value for money 56

10. Visits by HMI to schools 61

11. The Clackmannanshire study 65

12. Interim recommendations 69

a. Best practice 70

b. The Early Years Foundation Stage 74

c. Intervention programmes 77

d. Leadership and management 78

e. Value for money 80

12. Next steps and timetable 81

Appendix 1: Glossary of terms

Appendix 2: Definitions of analytic and synthetic phonics

© 2005 Crown Copyright

Dear Secretary of State,

This is the interim report of the reading review, which you invited me to undertake in June 2005.

By definition, an interim report is indicative rather than conclusive. Further work over the next few months will enable me to consider in greater depth those aspects of the remit that need more time.

Two contrasting background factors need to be borne in mind. First, this review comes at a time when it is widely accepted by practitioners, teachers and researchers that phonic work is essential though not sufficient in learning to read and write. Secondly, despite this positive consensus about the importance of phonic work, which is a considerable move forward in itself, there are deeply divided professional views about how phonic work is best taught.

This review is centred on judging the best way forward from the standpoint of the learners, that is to say those children who are beginner readers and writers. It follows that it is not the purpose of the review to sit on the fence between sharply opposing views. To do so would surely lead to uncertain, mediocre practice when the need is for confident, high quality teaching of phonic work that is embedded and sustained for beginner readers in all their settings and schools.

The good news is that there is much exemplary teaching of phonic work in our settings and schools that gives rise to high achievement in reading and writing. I am confident, therefore, that given the leadership and support they deserve, our practitioners and teachers are more than capable of teaching phonic work, and the wider aspects of reading and writing to which phonic work gives access, to a very high standard.

Yours sincerely

Jim Rose CBE

Summary

It is widely agreed that phonic work is an essential part, though not the whole picture, of what it takes to become a fluent reader and skilled writer, well capable of comprehending and composing text. Core phonic work, that is to say, teaching children the alphabetic principles to read and spell words in and out of text, should be taught regularly, discretely, at a brisk pace, and set within a broad and rich language curriculum that takes full account of developing all four interdependent strands of language: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

The development of speaking and listening skills requires fuller and more intensive attention to make sure that children acquire a good stock of words, learn to listen attentively, and speak clearly and confidently. These skills are the foundations of phonic work, for example, in building phonemic awareness. Moreover, they are prime communication skills, hugely important in their own right and central to children's intellectual, social and emotional development.

Phonic work for reading and writing should be taught systematically. For most children it will be appropriate for this to begin by the age of five. There are several methods of teaching it systematically and each of these can claim some success. Among them, ‘analytic’ and ‘synthetic’ phonics have gained prominence.

The approach which is generally understood as ‘synthetic’ phonics offers the vast majority of young beginners the best route to becoming skilled readers. Unfortunately, determining what constitutes best practice in ‘synthetic’ phonics is by no means clear-cut. This is because seemingly small differences in practice are often amplified as strongly held, conflicting views, even among those who champion 'synthetic' phonics. In consequence, there is a somewhat futile debate that risks distracting attention from the important goals of understanding how beginners learn to read and write and shaping practice accordingly.

Having considered robust research, and practice that results in highly successful outcomes for beginner readers, including the best that has been seen of synthetic phonics, the review therefore focuses on identifying the key principles of high quality phonic work, rather than engaging with that debate.

We know that, to be effective, a high quality programme must go hand in hand with high quality teaching. A good programme of phonic work that is poorly taught is just as likely to limit children's achievement as a well taught flawed programme. Therefore, it is important for settings and schools to have robust monitoring systems in place. Those in positions of leadership must make sure that learning outcomes govern judgements about the quality of a given programme, and how well it is taught, resulting in immediate action where the teaching and/or the programme requires improvement.

High quality phonic work is also one of the most effective ways to prevent reading difficulties, but there will always be a need to identify, early on, those children who, for one reason or another, struggle with reading and have unusual problems in processing print. Provision and intervention programmes for these children will be given greater consideration in the final report.

The National Literacy Strategy’s (NLS) Framework for teaching, as well as the extensive training, guidance and intervention programmes that accompanied it, have contributed much to improvements in literacy, particularly in focusing schools’ attention on the direct teaching of phonics. It is unlikely that the prominence now given to phonic work and the most effective ways of teaching it would have taken place without the stimulus of the National Strategy.

The Framework has been in place since 1998. While the NLS has evolved in its practice since then, including in its treatment of phonics, the Framework has not been revised to take account of these developments. Inspection findings, research and leading-edge practice indicate that, in some important respects, substantial improvements can now be made. The new Framework must reflect what has been learnt since it was written about how children learn to read. Having examined the available evidence, it is clear that the ‘searchlights’ model should be replaced as part of the planned renewal of the Framework, within the broader context of the Primary National Strategy.

The forthcoming Early Years Foundation Stage and the Framework must be wholly compatible with each other. Both must guard against making unrealistic demands on practitioners and teachers that require them to fit more and more into the time available for teaching. We should take seriously the view that, to raise the quality of teaching phonic work, much turns on prioritising and improving that which is already in place rather than introducing lots of new elements.

There is no doubt that we have the capacity in our settings and schools to provide the high quality of teaching that is required for children to make good progress. That is to say, our practitioners and teachers are more than capable of meeting the professional demands of teaching phonic work well, and the vast majority of settings and schools have ample material resources for teaching it. Given these favourable factors, we need to ask ourselves why there is an unacceptable variation in the quality of teaching phonic work and take steps to overcome the obstacles that prevent some practitioners and teachers providing the quality of which they are capable.

Not surprisingly, the availability and quality of training are crucially important in overcoming these obstacles and establishing phonic work so that it is taught consistently and well in all settings and schools. The principles underpinning high quality phonic work and how children learn to read must be fully understood by and embedded in the training of all those who teach beginner readers. These principles must also be thoroughly understood by, and reflected in the knowledge and skills of, those who train them.

The remit for the review

1. In keeping with its remit, the review examines and comments upon three important aspects of the teaching and learning of phonic work in early years settings and primary schools:

Aspect 1

• What best practice should be expected in the teaching of early reading and synthetic phonics.

Aspect 2

• How this relates to the development of the birth to five framework (now known as the Early Years Foundation Stage) and the development and renewal of the National Literacy Strategy Framework for teaching.[1]

Aspect 3

• What range of provision best supports children with significant literacy difficulties and enables them to catch up with their peers, and the relationship of such targeted intervention programmes with synthetic phonics teaching.

2. In addition, the remit requires consideration of:

Aspect 4

• How leadership and management in schools can support the teaching of reading, as well as practitioners’ subject knowledge.

Aspect 5

• The value for money or cost effectiveness of the range of approaches the review considers.

3. For the purposes of this review, best practice is that which results in the greatest benefit to the learner. It must be capable of being sustained by practitioners and teachers, since experience shows that over-ambitious initiatives tend to peter out amid frustration and disillusionment. Two questions, therefore, that might be asked of best practice are:

• Is it replicable across the broad range of settings and schools?

• Can it be resourced and sustained at reasonable cost?

4. Interim findings for each aspect are set out below. Because of the tight timetable for the review, the programme of work has been staged. At this point, the first aspect of the remit has received most attention. This imbalance in treatment will be corrected in the full report. For example, further work is needed on elements of special educational needs, early years matters and professional development.

Evidence gathering

5. The review draws upon a wide range of information from the following sources:

• research on the teaching of reading and other aspects of literacy

• written evidence and oral accounts of effective practice from contributors with acknowledged expertise and an interest in one or more aspects of the remit

• papers submitted by respondents to the Education and Skills Committee report, Teaching children to read. Respondents were invited to comment further on their papers if they so wished.

• a small scale survey by Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools (HMI), involving visits to an illustrative sample of 20 schools

• reports and data from Ofsted, particularly on the evaluation of the National Literacy Strategy

• visits by the review team, which included high profile research projects where good achievement in reading is related to a particular phonic programme

• responses to the review from correspondence and contributors to the review’s website (standards..uk/rosereview/)

A detailed list of evidence will be included in the final report.

Background

Education and Skills Committee report

6. In commissioning this review the Government took account of the publication of Teaching children to read, a report from the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee, in April 2005.[2] The report drew together the findings of the Committee’s enquiry, which focused specifically on the methods used in schools to teach children to read. The Committee acknowledged that ‘the acquisition of reading is an extremely complex subject’ and that a thorough examination of the factors which contribute to it was not possible in the time available to them.

7. The review has sought to strengthen and deepen the evidence base which informed Teaching children to read, for example by taking greater account of the views of practitioners and teachers who teach reading to young children regularly in settings and schools. This is because, like all else in the curriculum, the quality of phonic work stands or falls on the expertise, understanding and commitment of those who teach it.

8. Irrespective of differences in their views about the teaching of phonic work, virtually all those who have given evidence to the review so far have agreed that children should have a secure grasp of phonics. It should be sufficient for them to be fluent readers by the age of seven at the latest. This review therefore concentrates upon provision and practice for children to the end of Key Stage 1.

9. Understandably, interest has been such that some contributors have pressed for coverage of a wider range of issues than either the remit or the time available for the review allow, including comparisons and endorsements of published commercial materials for teaching phonic work. The final report will note issues that some contributors thought needed further consideration.

The renewal and development of the frameworks

10. The renewal of the NLS Framework for teaching and the development of a new Early Years Foundation Stage will add further impetus to the review, since it is planned that they will take account of its findings.

11. The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has announced its intention that the renewal of the NLS Framework will ensure that it can continue to meet expectations for supporting schools and settings in the teaching of literacy, and to respond to themes in the ten-year strategy for childcare and the 2005 Schools’ White Paper.[3] The Primary National Strategy is conducting a consultation that will help to shape the Framework's renewal, and plans to make the revised Framework, and supporting guidance, available from September 2006. (The Framework for teaching mathematics is also being renewed on the same timescale.)

12. The renewal of these frameworks is taking place in tandem with the development of the new Early Years Foundation Stage, which aims to strengthen links between Birth to Three Matters and the Foundation Stage.[4] It will also incorporate elements of the national standards for day care and childminding. A consultation will start early in 2006, with the intention that the new stage will be introduced from 2008.

13. It will be important, in the renewal of the NLS Framework for teaching, that the teaching of writing is given attention together with the teaching of reading. The teaching of both should make sure that children understand that segmenting sounds to spell is the reverse of blending sounds to read. Phonic work should pay attention to both these skills (segmenting and blending), as well as teaching children letter-sound knowledge (grapheme-phoneme correspondences).

The National Curriculum

14. Primary schools are required to teach phonics, the content of which is prescribed as knowledge, skills and understanding in the statutory National Curriculum programmes of study for English, to pupils from the age of five.[5] The programme of study for reading includes work on ‘phonemic awareness and phonic knowledge’. During Key Stage 1 pupils should be taught to:

• hear, identify, segment and blend phonemes in words

• sound and name the letters of the alphabet

• link sound and letter patterns, exploring rhyme, alliteration and other sound patterns

• identify syllables in words

• recognise that the same sounds may have different spellings and that the same spellings may relate to different sounds.

15. In other words, the National Curriculum treats phonic work as essential subject content, not a method of teaching. How schools should teach that content is a matter of choice, which may, or may not, be guided by the non-statutory Framework for teaching and any other materials that the Primary National Strategy publishes. Many schools also choose to use commercial programmes for phonic work. Some use them in place of the NLS materials; others, simply to complement the NLS, particularly in teaching letter-sound correspondences.

16. The Foundation Stage, as a distinct stage of learning, was introduced in September 2000 and is a statutory part of the National Curriculum for England, alongside Key Stages 1 – 4. It begins when children reach the age of three and prepares them for learning in Key Stage 1. The Curriculum guidance for the foundation stage sets out the principles and aims for this stage of learning and provides guidance for practitioners in all early years settings on how they might support children to ‘make progress towards, and where appropriate, beyond’ the early learning goals. [6] These goals are described as ‘expectations that are achievable for most children who have followed a relevant curriculum’. They include within ‘communication, language and literacy’:

• hearing and saying initial and final sounds in words, and short vowel sounds within words

• linking sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet

• using phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words.

The National Literacy Strategy

17. Although now incorporated within the Primary National Strategy, the NLS has been in place for seven years. The Year 6 pupils who took the national Key Stage 2 tests in 2005 were the first cohort to have been part of the NLS from its first year, i.e. when they were in the Reception year.

18. From its inception, the NLS has focused strongly on the teaching of reading. A memorandum submitted by the DfES to the Education and Skills Committee set out the context of the NLS and its achievements, including:

a Framework for teaching which schools delivered through the Literacy Hour … subject specific training for teachers, intervention in schools that were failing their pupils and the setting of clear targets at school, local and national levels. The National Year of Reading, and the continuing Reading Campaign which accompanied the National Literacy Strategy, had a significant impact on raising the profile of reading not just with schools but also with families and the wider community.[7]

19. As part of this focus on teaching reading, it published extensive guidance on the teaching and learning of phonic work, which began with the word-level elements of the Framework for teaching and the accompanying initial training in 1998. Progression in Phonics (PiPs) was introduced in 1999, in response to evaluation by HMI of the first year of the NLS.

20. While there is considerable debate about some aspects of the guidance from the NLS, such as the speed of coverage of the letter-sound correspondences (the alphabetic code) at the earliest stages, and the degree of emphasis given to blending, there is wide acceptance of the basic description of phonics given in the NLS’s guidance, Progression in phonics (PiPs):

Phonics consists of the skills of segmentation and blending, knowledge of the alphabetic code and an understanding of the principles which underpin how the code is used in reading and spelling.[8]

21. PiPs set out seven steps for the teaching of phonic knowledge and skills and an extensive programme of training for teachers in the Reception year and Year 1 was undertaken to embed this in practice in these year groups. PiPs was updated further for early years settings and schools in 2004 in the publication, Playing with sounds.[9]

22. As part of its evaluation of the implementation and development of the NLS (and, later, the Primary National Strategy) since its inception, Ofsted has reported on the extent and quality of phonic work. In evaluating the first four years of the NLS, it concluded:

After a very uncertain start, there has been a marked shift in teachers’ understanding of and attitudes towards the place of phonics in teaching reading and spelling.[10]

That shift is very largely the result of the NLS. There is certainly more phonic work taught in primary schools now than in the last decade. However, the indications, for example, from work observed by HMI, are that we need to improve the quality of that teaching to raise standards further.

23. In sum, there is no doubt that the National Curriculum and the NLS have strengthened teaching and raised children's overall achievement in reading and writing. However, new research and leading practice continue to stimulate professional dialogue as well as a rigorous scrutiny of the approach to phonic work advocated up until now by the NLS. These raise questions as to what more might be done, or done differently, to raise achievement further and faster.

24. There are particularly urgent concerns nationally about the comparatively weak performance of the 15% of children who do not reach the target level in reading by the end of Key Stage 1 (level 2), and the 16% of children who do not reach the target level by the end of Key Stage 2 (level 4).[11] There are concerns, too, about the generally weaker performance of boys compared to that of girls, particularly in writing. These bold statistics mask a considerable range of performance, even within those groups, which calls for a sharp analysis to identify and deal with the obstacles that are preventing those children from making better progress.

Every child matters

25. The review comes at a time when early years settings, schools and local authorities are acting on their responsibilities under the Children Act 2004, the Every child matters agenda. The five outcomes are well known: being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution, and achieving economic well-being. Literacy must be seen as a fundamental part of that agenda and crucial in ‘narrowing the gap in outcomes between those who do well and those who do not’.[12] Without the ability to communicate effectively in speech and through reading and writing, children and young people are seriously disadvantaged for life. This review, therefore, takes full account of and reflects the intentions of the Every child matters agenda.

Aspect 1: What best practice should be expected in the teaching of early reading and synthetic phonics?

The case for systematic phonics

26. Whatever else it is designed to achieve, the teaching of phonic work must teach beginner readers to process all the letters in words and ‘read words in and out of text’.[13] Because our writing system is alphabetic, beginner readers will not become skilled and fluent, comprehending readers and writers if they cannot understand and operate the system. The case for systematic phonic work is therefore overwhelming and much strengthened by the principles underpinning a synthetic phonic approach, the key features of which are to teach beginner readers:

|grapheme/phoneme (letter/sound) correspondences (the alphabetic principle) in a clearly defined, incremental |

|sequence |

|to apply the highly important skill of blending (synthesising) phonemes in order, all through a word, to read|

|it |

|to apply the skills of segmenting words into their constituent phonemes to spell |

|that blending and segmenting are reversible processes.[14] |

27. It is generally accepted that English is harder to learn than many other languages, because the relationship between sounds and letters is more complex than in languages such as Finnish, Greek or German. It is therefore even more crucial to teach phonic work systematically, because children are highly unlikely to work out this relationship for themselves. In other words, it cannot be left to chance, or for children to ferret out, on their own, how the alphabetic code works.

28. The review’s remit requires a consideration of ‘synthetic’ phonics in particular, including both the content and the pace of teaching, and that this should be done ‘through examination of the available evidence and engagement with the teaching profession and education experts’. Having followed those directions, there is much convincing evidence to show that, as generally understood, ‘synthetic’ phonics offers the vast majority of young beginners the best route to becoming skilled readers.

29. Unfortunately, to determine in detail what constitutes best practice in synthetic phonics is by no means clear cut. Perhaps the most telling example of this is that, while its authors and advocates claim that the NLS Framework and related publications on phonics are emphatically 'synthetic', a considerable body of opinion, including the authors of several popular commercial ‘synthetic’ phonic programmes, just as emphatically denies this.[15] Therefore, a prime irritant for practitioners and teachers is what they see as a wrangle in which advocates of phonic work are unable to agree definitions. Furthermore, these disputes often occur within their own camps.

30. Discussion with practitioners and teachers revealed an understandable sense of frustration with this debate. As they engaged in the daily teaching of phonic work in settings and schools, some felt they were 'at the mercy of rows of back seat drivers pointing in different directions'. The call is for consistent guidance that offers them structure, simplicity and some flexibility.

31. Irrespective of the to and fro of the debate, a very important feature of the best practice was that, once begun, good systematic phonic programmes were followed consistently and carefully on a daily basis, reinforcing and building on previous learning to secure children’s progress. The time spent daily on such work was usually short, around twenty minutes. It was well planned to include a variety of related activities that advanced learning incrementally and appealed to children, with praise for effort and achievement at every opportunity. The work was almost always 'multi-sensory', involving, for example, physical movement to model letter shapes and sounds, and manipulate magnetic or other solid letters to build words. This multi-sensory approach captured the interest of boys as well as girls, so that a common feature of the best work was that the progress and achievement of boys did not lag behind that of girls.

Divergent views

32. Divergent views about how phonic work should be introduced and taught relate mainly to the following issues. These continuing sources of disagreement among advocates of systematic phonic work (including synthetic phonic work) will be explored further in the final report:

• the relationship between word recognition and comprehension skills

• the age at which phonic work should be introduced

• the speed of coverage in teaching phonic knowledge systematically

• the sequence in which phonic knowledge (letter-sound correspondences) is taught

• the teaching of letter names

• the value of phonically regular texts (decodable books)

• the so-called 'searchlights’ model of teaching reading advocated by the NLS.[16]

33. Furthermore, researchers have identified several types of systematic phonics, including ‘synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, embedded phonics, analogy phonics, onset-rime phonics, and phonics through spelling’.[17] As noted above, so-called 'analytic' and 'synthetic’ phonics have not only assumed pre-eminence as teaching methods but have also polarised a debate about which is better. (One example of how these two terms can be defined is at Appendix 2.)

The ‘searchlights’ model

34. In coming to a view about the NLS 'searchlights’ model of reading, it is important to take full account of the needs of beginner readers.[18] This is because there is a deceptively attractive tendency to start from the end of the reading process by identifying what skilled and proficient readers do, and then to assume that all the strategies of skilled reading need to be covered from children's first steps of learning to read. For many beginner readers, this can amount to a daunting and confusing experience.

35. In requiring beginner readers to learn and deploy several strategies ('searchlights'), the model risks reducing the priority that should be given to phonic work. In its summary evaluation of the first four years of the NLS, Ofsted concluded:

The ‘searchlights’ model proposed in the framework has not been effective enough in terms of illustrating where the intensity of the ‘searchlights’ should fall at the different stages of learning to read. While the full range of strategies is used by fluent readers, beginning readers need to learn how to decode effortlessly, using their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and the skills of blending sounds together. The importance of these crucial skills and knowledge has not been communicated clearly enough to teachers. The result has been an approach to word-level work which diffuses teaching at the earliest stages, rather than concentrating it on phonics (para 58).[19]

Further, many witnesses presenting evidence to the Education and Skills Committee argued that the ‘searchlights’ model is not supported by robust research evidence.[20]

36. Given the available evidence from research and inspection, and the danger of diverting teachers’ attention from their key task in teaching early phonic skills and knowledge, it is clear that the multi-strategy ‘searchlights’ model should now be replaced as a model for learning to read.

37. Ensuring that children master the alphabetic code is at the heart of phonic work. However, daily systematic phonics teaching does not mean that children are not exposed to the wealth of good literature and favourite books. The importance of building positive attitudes, so that children find reading and writing rewarding and worthwhile from the earliest stage, must not be overlooked. But it is evident from visits to some schools that these two elements (i.e. systematic teaching of phonic work and the development of positive attitudes) of teaching reading are sometimes seen as incompatible. This is absolutely not the case. What must be clear, however, are the goals for the teaching. It is entirely possible to teach phonics effectively, and to encourage a love of good books and positive attitudes to reading, but unless schools are clear about which activities contribute to which goal there is a strong risk of reaching neither.

Aspect 2: The development of the new Early Years Foundation Stage and the development and renewal of the NLS Framework for teaching

Listening and speaking

38. An important, albeit obvious, early marker needs to be entered here that listening and speaking are the roots of reading and writing. From a wide range of contributors, as well as from inspection evidence, the indications are that settings and schools need to do more to boost listening and speaking skills across the curriculum. For instance, Ofsted noted recently in an overview report on English that:

Too little attention has been given to teaching the full National Curriculum programme of study for speaking and listening and the range of contexts provided for speaking and listening remains too limited. [21]

Obviously, attention to speaking and listening at the earliest stages is especially important for children who enter settings and schools with limited language skills.

39. Learning is very much a social and a socialising activity for young children. Settings and schools provide massive opportunities and unique advantages for developing their speaking and listening skills. Such development depends upon creating conditions for children to interact with others: to engage frequently in worthwhile talk and attentive listening, build a good stock of words, explore how language works, understand what is said to them and respond appropriately - well before reading begins. The best work with young children also draws frequently on the power of story, drama and music to fire their imagination and enrich their language. The importance for young children of learning co-operatively in language-rich contexts cannot be over-stated.

40. Settings and schools should therefore give a high priority to the development of children’s speaking and listening skills, both because they are intrinsically valuable and because they provide the foundations for the systematic teaching and learning of phonics, and higher order reading and writing skills.

At what age should phonic work be introduced?

41. From what we have seen of well designed phonic programmes so far, there is no doubt that it is not only possible but also highly worthwhile and appropriate for most children to begin on a systematic programme of phonic work by the age of five, and there is no good reason for delaying it beyond this age. In particular, we have witnessed much good work where young children have been fully and enjoyably engaged in actively developing their phonic knowledge and skills.

42. These sessions were almost always enlivened by the effective use of resources, for example, small white boards, magnetic letters and simple but imaginative techniques, such as mnemonics and physical movement, to support children’s recall of the relationship between letters and sounds. Irrespective of their contexts, some settings and schools showed clearly that such teaching is successful with young children. It is by no means far-fetched to say that these sessions generated, for boys as well as girls, as much enthusiasm and sense of pride in achievement as those more usually associated with these attributes, such as music, 'story time' and physical education.

43. Obviously, beginner readers must be well prepared to start on systematic phonic work. Furthermore, once started, the programme should be followed faithfully. This is because some evidence suggests that even high quality programmes founder if they are not applied consistently and regularly. All else being equal, what has been called 'fidelity to the programme' is important for learning to be successful. Experienced practitioners and teachers, as well as the developers of programmes, have also pointed out that it can be unwise 'to pick and mix' elements from several different programmes because this often breaks up important sequences of work and disrupts planned progression.

44. The evidence from successful programmes suggests that teaching the whole group or class together, right from the start, is advantageous for all the children, save for those with serious learning difficulties that cannot be met within mainstream provision. This maximises the benefits of learning together while allowing the adults to identify quickly those who need various degrees of additional support.

45. As children progress, however, some will inevitably learn faster than others. Grouping children for the teaching of phonics, within a setting or class, by matching work to their pace of learning and developing abilities, is often done to good effect. In the best work, too, children are strongly encouraged to help each other, for example, by working in pairs and talking about the task in hand. In these respects, good practice in phonic work simply reflects good practice in general.

Aspect 3: What range of provision best supports children with significant literacy difficulties and enables them to catch up with their peers, and the relationship of such targeted intervention programmes with synthetic phonics teaching?

46. In its publications and guidance, the Primary National Strategy describes three ‘waves’ of teaching and intervention:

• Wave 1 – quality first teaching for all

• Wave 2 - additional interventions to enable children to work at age-related expectations or above

• Wave 3 – additional highly personalised interventions.[22]

47. In discussing intervention, we need to distinguish between two main groups of children:

• those who are falling behind either because of issues relating to their personal, social and economic circumstances or weaknesses in the teaching or teaching programmes they have received

• those who have, for example, specific neurological problems (for whom Wave 3 provision is likely to be most appropriate), some of whom may be unable to ‘catch up’ with their peers.

For all children, as well as both these groups, high quality teaching of phonic work is a prerequisite. Furthermore, there is much force in the argument that, if this teaching were of sufficiently high quality early on, i.e. at Wave 1, there would be far less need for intervention at Wave 2 for those children who fall behind but who are capable of performing at the level of their peers. In other words, given better phonics teaching, the need for intervention would be reduced.

48. Evidence from our visit to Clackmannanshire and from visits to schools in England that have adopted a similarly ‘synthetic’ phonics programme show that such systematic approaches to teaching phonics help to identify, early on, those children who are not making progress in line with their peers. Teachers are able to intervene promptly because the explicit structure of the programme sets out exactly what needs to be learnt at each point. Additional support can then be arranged, for example with a well-trained teaching assistant, to make sure that those children quickly catch up.

49. This suggests that immediate feedback and support, as an integral part of the regular, daily sessions of phonic work, can do much to reduce the need for interventions that remove children from those sessions for additional help. There will, of course, always be a need for more intensive support for children with complex learning difficulties that is best provided separately.

50. There is evidence, too, of the benefits of high quality phonic work where teaching groups may have to be formed and regrouped to match the different stages of children’s understanding.

51. For example, one school visited by HMI for the review had a predominantly Asian British population, with over 30% of the pupils eligible for free school meals. Nearly 70% of the pupils did not have English as their first language. The development of speaking and listening skills, and vocabulary building, were strong features of the work. In September 2004, the school introduced a commercial phonics programme.

52. Underpinning much of the programme’s success was its approach to assessment and intervention. The headteacher described it as follows:

In the afternoon, any children who need extra help are taught in very small groups or one-to-one for short periods. The support is provided by teaching assistants who have been trained with this specifically in mind. This does not involve new material – it concentrates on blending skills and follows the programme. Children who are not coping in their reading groups will be moved to the one below – this is not a problem and is never referred to as ‘going down’. The managers of the programme monitor the progress of every child and are quick to spot problems as they arise.

53. The school’s data show a big increase in the proportion of children learning to read at Key Stage 1, with far fewer ‘working towards’ or achieving only level 1 in reading. Such data add weight to the view that systematic, high quality teaching, detailed assessment and early intervention are at the heart of assuring every child’s progress.

Aspect 4: How leadership and management in schools can support the teaching of reading, as well as practitioners’ subject knowledge and skills

54. The HMI visits illustrate how good leadership and management contributed hugely to the teaching of phonic work. Effective headteachers, supported by senior management teams, took the lead in ensuring that programmes were implemented thoroughly. This was particularly noticeable in those schools where the headteachers were committed to making sure that their investment in a commercial phonic scheme, as well as time and funding for training, resulted in value for money in terms of a positive impact on children’s learning. Not surprisingly, their monitoring of teaching and learning was also frequent and thorough.

55. To draw further on the experience of practitioners, and the issues around implementation, the review will also examine emerging issues from the Early Reading Development Pilots, announced by the Secretary of State in July 2005, and explore matters such as the importance of good leadership and management, the pace of teaching and differing approaches to phonics in settings and schools.

Aspect 5: Value for money or cost effectiveness of the range of approaches covered by the review

56. Another important finding to emerge from the HMI visits to schools was the varying extent of practitioners’, teachers’ and teaching assistants’ understanding of the importance of phonics and the objectives for teaching it. This showed itself, for example, in:

• the clarity of objectives for lessons

• the nature of the activities provided for children to help them meet those objectives

• the organisation and management of teaching groups

• the extent to which children were given opportunities both to blend sounds to read and segment the sounds in words to spell

• the accuracy of adults’ articulation of phonemes to provide a positive model for pupils

• the extent to which the approach to teaching phonics was consistent across the school.

The importance of training

57. The importance of thorough, value-for-money training for adults responsible for teaching beginner readers is all too obvious if unacceptable variations in teaching quality are to be overcome. This issue is encapsulated in a blunt statement from an Australian review of early literacy:

Teachers have to be trained and employed. It costs no more to train teachers to use effective teaching practices than to train them to use ineffective teaching practices. And it costs no more to employ effective teachers than it costs to employ ineffective teachers.[23]

58. How to secure the greatest value from investment in training is a longstanding issue for intervention as well as mainstream reading programmes at home and abroad. This is picked up, for example, in a highly regarded report from the United States of America, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children.[24] In commenting upon 'Reading Recovery', which is perhaps the best known intervention programme worldwide, the report points out that:

Despite the controversies regarding the efficacy of Reading Recovery, a number of intervention programmes owe their design features to it, and it offers two important lessons. First,

the program demonstrates that, in order to approach reading instruction with a deep and principled understanding of the reading process and its implications for instruction, teachers need opportunities for sustained professional development. Second, it is nothing short of foolhardy to make enormous investments in remedial instruction and then return children to classroom instruction that will not serve to maintain the gains they made in the remedial program.

59. The success of a national strategy depends on how well it is designed to provide and link both mainstream and intervention programmes and, equally, secure the professional development of those who will implement them. Despite the progress that has been made since 1998, it is clear that the planned review of the NLS Framework should now look carefully at issues of design, for example, the ‘searchlights’ model, as well as issues of implementation, and make sure that phonic work receives the priority it merits on both counts. This priority must be reflected in the effective training of the teaching force, including practitioners, teachers and teaching assistants: our greatest and most important resource for raising standards of literacy.

60. From what has been seen thus far, it is very obvious that there is plenty of exemplary practice on which to draw. Moreover, the Strategies have developed national structures for the delivery of training that are second to none worldwide, and there are some excellent training programmes in the commercial sector. How these several enormously valuable assets might be brought together to best effect will be considered in the final report.

Visits by HMI to schools

61. During late September and early October 2005, HMI visited 10 schools which were proposed by the Primary National Strategy as representative of best practice in the teaching of phonic work, and 10 schools proposed by experienced advocates of synthetic, invariably commercial, phonics programmes. Across both categories, 15 of these schools included nursery-aged pupils (aged 3 to 4).

62. During the visits, HMI:

• discussed approaches to teaching phonics with senior staff

• observed the teaching of phonics, mainly in the Foundation Stage and Year 1

• listened to 48 pupils in Year 1 reading individually.

63. The interim findings show that, given a well structured systematic programme, the great majority of children, including five-year-olds, enjoyed learning phonics, had positive attitudes and made very good, often rapid, progress. The learning was active and multi-sensory and the teaching was generally very well matched to the needs of young children. The detailed findings of the HMI visits will be included in the final report.

64. One interesting finding from these visits was that virtually all of the developers of commercially produced programmes provided assessment data that claimed very substantial, sometimes spectacular, gains in the performance of beginner readers on their programme. Since a wide array of different tests was used to measure these gains, it is not possible to compare the value added by each programme with any accuracy. What is clear, however, is that some of the seemingly deep differences that divide advocates of such programmes, for example, the teaching of letter names or the use of 'decodable' books, appeared to make little difference to the claimed success rates. This suggests that the common elements in each programme that really make a difference are probably few in number, thus reinforcing the importance of making sure that phonic work is systematic and teaches children how to apply the alphabetic principles (letter-sound correspondences) through the key skills of blending and segmenting.

The Clackmannanshire study

65. The Education and Skills Committee placed considerable weight on the findings of a seven-year longitudinal study from Clackmannanshire council in Scotland, noting that ‘the Clackmannanshire study is an important addition to the research picture, which increasingly points to synthetic phonics as a vital part of early reading education’. Several contributors to the review also underlined the importance of this study.

66. Taken with other evidence the review has gathered, our visit to Clackmannanshire provided important insights into the effects of teaching phonic work systematically to a well defined 'synthetic' model. The study also provided valuable contextual information about how local circumstances contributed to the overall success of the programme. Furthermore, the research allowed a comparison to be made between the two prominent types of systematic phonic work - analytic and synthetic. Professor Rhona Johnston, one of the two researchers leading the study, observed in her comments to the review that: ‘Analytic phonics is good but synthetic phonics is better’.

67. Despite some criticisms of its research methodology, very substantial gains in pupils’ learning are evident in this study. Fewer children were failing to make progress – an important finding in the light of the review’s remit to consider the relationship between synthetic phonics and approaches to intervention.

68. In terms of teaching and learning, the good news is that there is firm evidence of work in England of comparable quality with that seen in Clackmannanshire.

Interim recommendations

69. These indicative interim recommendations reflect the stage the review has reached so far. They will be informed by further visits and consultations in the time remaining for the completion of the final report.

Best practice

|What best practice should be expected in the teaching of early reading and synthetic phonics? |

70. Greater attention should be given to the development of children’s speaking and listening skills because they are intrinsically valuable and because they provide the foundations for high quality phonic work.

71. The teaching of phonics should be taught discretely but set within a broad and rich language curriculum that takes full account of developing all four interdependent strands of language: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

72. Pupils should be taught to use the knowledge and skills that define synthetic phonic work as their first strategy in decoding and encoding print. This is because, on present evidence, synthetic phonic work is the most effective systematic approach to teaching reading and spelling and reflects what is known about how children learn to read.

73. The teaching of phonic work should be multi-sensory, so that children’s learning is reinforced in different ways.

The Early Years Foundation Stage

|How do the recommendations on early reading and synthetic phonics relate to the Early Years Foundation Stage |

|and the development and renewal of the National Literacy Strategy’s Framework for teaching? |

74. Systematic, direct teaching of phonics should be introduced by the age of five.

75. Work throughout the Foundation Stage should provide a rich, language environment that develops children’s speaking and listening skills, helps them to understand what is said to them, and builds their confidence in speaking to others.

76. The renewal of the NLS Framework for teaching should make sure that early phonic work gives sufficient attention to spelling; children should be taught that segmenting sounds to spell words is the reverse of blending sounds to read.

Intervention programmes

|What range of provision best supports children with significant literacy difficulties and enables them to |

|catch up with their peers, and the relationship of such targeted intervention programmes with synthetic |

|phonics teaching? |

77. No matter how good mainstream practice is, there will always be a requirement for interventions (e.g. Wave 2 and 3 interventions) to meet the various needs of children for additional support. Settings and schools should make sure that additional support is compatible with mainstream practice, irrespective of whether it is taught in regular class settings or elsewhere. Where intervention work is successfully taught separately as a 'catch-up' or 'recovery' programme, every effort must be made to make sure the gains made by the children are sustained once they return to mainstream work.

Leadership and management

|How leadership and management in schools can support the teaching of reading, as well as practitioners’ |

|subject knowledge and skills. |

78. As with much else in settings and schools, establishing the capacity for, and securing the quality of, phonic work depends on the commitment and leadership of headteachers and senior staff. Those in these key positions should make sure that all those responsible for teaching beginner readers give due priority to phonic work.

79. The effective monitoring of the teaching and learning of phonic work by those in positions of leadership is a common feature of best practice that provides valuable feedback for children, practitioners and teachers. This helps to establish school-wide, high quality teaching that prevents reading difficulties and reduces the need for intervention programmes. Settings and schools should consider how well such monitoring of teaching is taking place and informs practice.

Value for money

|Value for money or cost effectiveness of the range of approaches covered by the review. |

80. As settings and schools know full well, good training and investment in professional development are vital to the success of phonic work and, therefore, an absolute priority. Obviously, such training makes high demands on time and resources. It is, therefore, crucial for training for phonic work to be carefully evaluated to make sure that it is good value for money from the standpoint of the benefits to beginner readers in both mainstream and intervention work.

Next steps and timetable

81. We hope and expect that the publication of this interim report will generate discussion and further evidence. The review team is interested to hear views on any aspect of this interim report. Responses should be addressed to:

The Rose Review Support Team

2E

Caxton House

Tothill Street

London

SW1H 9NA

or sent via the Rose Review website:

The final report will be published early in 2006.

Appendix 1: glossary of terms

|Word |Definition |

|blend (vb.) |to draw individual sounds together to pronounce a word, e.g. s-n-a-p, blended together, |

| |reads snap |

|cluster |two (or three) letters making two (or three) sounds, e.g. the first three letters of |

| |‘straight’ are a consonant cluster |

|(vowel) digraph, |two letters making one sound, e.g. sh, ch, th, ph. Vowel digraphs comprise two vowels |

| |which, together, make one sound, e.g. ai, oo, ow |

|split digraph |two letters, split, making one sound, e.g. a-e as in make or i-e as in site |

|grapheme |a letter or a group of letters representing one sound, e.g. sh, ch, igh, ough (as in |

| |‘though’) |

|grapheme-phoneme |the relationship between sounds and the letters which represent those sounds; also known |

|correspondences |as ‘letter-sound correspondences’ |

|(GPC) | |

|mnemonic |a device for memorising and recalling something, such as a snake shaped like the letter |

| |'S' |

|phoneme |the smallest single identifiable sound, e.g. the letters ‘sh’ represent just one sound, |

| |but ‘sp’ represents two (/s/ and /p/) |

|segment (vb.) |to split up a word into its individual phonemes in order to spell it, e.g. the word ‘cat’ |

| |has three phonemes: /c/, /a/, /t/ |

|VC, CVC, CCVC |the abbreviations for vowel-consonant, consonant-vowel-consonant, |

| |consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant, and are used to describe the order of letters in |

| |words, e.g. am, Sam, slam |

Appendix 2: definitions of analytic and synthetic phonics

On 17 March 2003, the former Standards and Effectiveness Unit of the DfES convened a seminar on the teaching of phonics. The report, Sound sense, was written by Greg Brooks to sum up the seminar’s findings.[25]

These are the definitions of ‘analytic’ and ‘synthetic’ phonics from that report.

Synthetic phonics refers to an approach to the teaching of reading in which the phonemes [sounds] associated with particular graphemes [letters] are pronounced in isolation and blended together (synthesised). For example, children are taught to take a single-syllable word such as cat apart into its three letters, pronounce a phoneme for each letter in turn /k, æ, t/, and blend the phonemes together to form a word. Synthetic phonics for writing reverses the sequence: children are taught to say the word they wish to write, segment it into its phonemes and say them in turn, for example /d, ɔ, g/, and write a grapheme for each phoneme in turn to produce the written word, dog.

Analytic phonics refers to an approach to the teaching of reading in which the phonemes associated with particular graphemes are not pronounced in isolation. Children identify (analyse) the common phoneme in a set of words in which each word contains the phoneme under study. For example, teacher and pupils discuss how the following words are alike: pat, park, push, and pen. Analytic phonics for writing similarly relies on inferential learning: realising that the initial phoneme in /p i g/ is the same as that in /p æ t, p a:k, pu∫/ and /pen/, children deduce that they must write that phoneme with grapheme .[26]

-----------------------

[1] The term Early Years Foundation Stage is used throughout the rest of this report.

[2] Teaching children to read, House of Commons Education and Skills Comm瑩整ⱥ吠敨匠慴楴湯牥⁹晏楦散‬〲㔰മ ⁈⁍潇敶湲敭瑮‬楈桧牥猠慴摮牡獤‬敢瑴牥猠档潯獬映牯愠汬‬浃㘠㜶ⰷ吠敨匠慴楴湯牥⁹晏楦散‬〲㔰‮ȍ䈠物桴琠桴敲⁥慭瑴牥㩳愠映慲敭潷歲琠畳灰牯⁴档汩牤湥椠桴楥⁲ittee, The Stationery Office, 2005.

[3] H M Government, Higher standards, better schools for all, Cm 6677, The Stationery Office, 2005.

[4] Birth to three matters: a framework to support children in their earliest years, Sure Start, 2002.

[5] The National Curriculum: handbook for primary teachers in England, Ref. QCA/99/454, DfEE/QCA, 1999.

[6] The curriculum guidance for the foundation stage, Ref. QCA/00/587, DfEE/QCA, 2000.

[7] Quoted in Education and Skills Committee, Teaching children to read, Ev 33.

[8] Progression in phonics, DfEE, ISBN 0 19 312237 5, DfEE, 1999.

[9] Playing with sounds: a supplement to Progression in Phonics, DfES 0280-2004, DfES, 2004.

[10] The national literacy strategy: the first four years 1998 – 2002, HMI 555, Ofsted, 2002.

[11] These figures are based on provisional data from the 2005 National Curriculum tests published in Statistical First Releases 30/2005 and 31/2005 on 23 August 2005.

.

[12] Every child matters: change for children, DfES-1110-2004, H M Government, 2004.

[13] Ehri, Linnea C., ‘Systematic phonics instruction: findings of the National Reading Panel’. Paper presented at the seminar on phonics convened by the DfES in March 2003.

[14] Appendix 1 provides a glossary of terms.

[15] Written evidence (Ev. 35, para. 24) from the DfES to the Education and Skills Committee, included in Teaching children to read.

[16] In written evidence submitted to the Education and Skills Committee (Ev. 35, para. 13), the DfES referred to the searchlights ‘model’ as a ‘metaphor’.

[17] Ehri, Linnea C. op cit

[18] For a definition of the ‘searchlights’ model, see The National Literacy Strategy Framework for teaching.

[19] The National Literacy Strategy: the first four years, 1998 – 2002, HMI 555, Ofsted, 2002.

[20] Teaching children to read, paragraph 47.

[21] English 2000 – 2005: a review of inspection evidence, HMI 2351, Ofsted, 2005.

[22] In, for example, Learning and teaching for dyslexic children, DfES 1184-2005 CDI, DfES, 2005.

[23] Closing the gap between research and practice: foundations for the acquisition of literacy, Marion de Lemos, Australian Council for Educational Research, 2002.

[24] Preventing reading difficulties in young children: report of the Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children, eds. Snow, C. E., Burns, M. S., Griffin, P. National Academy of Sciences, 1998.

[25] Sound sense: the phonics element of the National Literacy Strategy – a report to the Department for Education and Skills, Brooks, G., University of Sheffield, July 2003.

[26] These definitions include symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The International Phonetic Association produces the IPA as a standard way of representing the sounds of all languages (not just English). The latest IPA was produced in 1993 (updated in 1996). Further details are available at

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