• By Success For All
• Posted on Tuesday 27^th October, 2015

Synthetic Phonics- Great but it's only part of the story!

So now it’s official! Sir Michael Wilshaw has proclaimed that synthetic phonics has worked!  

He recently said that “nobody can still convincingly argue that systematic phonics isn’t the most effective method of teaching children to read” and, in my experience, few Primary schools would disagree. Giving children a consistent, systematic approach to decoding has been revolutionary and it really helps every child. This is a real good news story and we should be genuinely thrilled that such a universal initiative has worked so well.

So, what’s the issue? Well there are several actually. 

Firstly, phonics is highly technical. Despite many years of teaching and training phonics, I still find it demanding; without training and support, staff cannot be expected to deliver the high quality, pacy, fun lessons that are needed.  Support staff are often used to teach small groups, which research by The Education Endowment Foundation supports as an effective use of this valuable resource. But impact will only be high if they have the required skills.

The second challenge is that many words can’t be decoded using phonics. They are often presented to children as a long list of ‘key words’ to memorise, but without showing them how to do so.  In SFA we call these ‘red’ words and teach them in a systematic, joined up way using a technique called ‘Say-Spell-Say.

The next issue is that, even if staff teach phonics well. It is only if they explicitly cite phonics skills during reading, writing or across the curriculum that children start to apply them systematically. This explicit link between phonics skills and reading and writing is a key element of SFA and the impact is amazing. In one new school a Year 5 girl tested as P8 for reading in September, but managed to pass a Level 2C test just 8  weeks later (apologies for outdated NC references but they are still a lingua franca). She hadn’t actually learnt to read in 8 weeks. All of the teaching she had previously received suddenly began to make sense and she could access skills she had gained, but not previously known how to use. Just to clarify, I tested her on the second occasion and I am a tough tester- it was an accurate assessment! There is similar impact in all the schools new to SFA.  It is this joined up approach that tackles underachievement head-on and literally saves some children who have ‘missed the boat’ from lifelong illiteracy, transforming them into capable readers.   

Finally, there is so much more to reading than the ability to decode. Yes, that is the vital initial step needed for children to be able to decipher words, but many more skills are required before they are fully literate. Developing a deep ‘inner voice’, being able to constantly interrogate the text, make connections and ask questions is a long process. The skills must be explicitly taught. This is especially important as most children are choosing to spend their leisure time electronically engaged rather than curling up with a good book, the way my generation did.

So Sir Michael may be right, but phonics is only the beginning of literacy.