why every teacher should understand the importance of phonics dr wendy jolliffe 19 november 2012
TRANSCRIPT
Why every teacher should understand the importance of phonics
Dr Wendy Jolliffe
19 November 2012
Session outcomes
• the impact of poor reading skills on accessing the curriculum
• the role of phonics in the teaching of reading• the features of systematic synthetic phonics• the alphabetic code• methods of support for struggling readers
To gain an understanding of:
The impact of limited reading skillsTom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
Chronological age10 -11 years Reading age 10 -11 years
Chronological age10 -11 years Reading age 9 - 10 years 1 year adrift Percentage of words unknown 8.3%
Chronological age10 -11 years Reading age 8 - 9 years 2 years adrift Percentage of words unknown 17.4%
Chronological age10 -11 years Reading age 6 - 7 years 4 years adrift Percentage of words unknown 44%
Understanding the role of systematic synthetic phonics in reading and writing
Reading has two essential key components
Decoding (word recognition)
Comprehension (language comprehension)
Can you read this?
bj bj blac xkp
hav yu eni wol
yes sm yes sm
trk bagz fol
+
+
-
-
Wo
rd R
eco
gn
itio
nGood language
comprehension, poor word recognition
Good word recognition, good language comprehension
Poor word recognition, poor language
comprehension
Good word recognition, poor
language comprehension
Language comprehension
The research evidenceExplicit teaching of phonics within meaningful context of texts (Adams, 1990)
Importance of developing phonological awareness (Bryant, 1993, Goswami, 1995)
Three major international reviews:
• National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000)• Independent Review of the Reaching of Early Reading ‘Rose Review’
(DfES, 2006)• Australian government review (DoEST, 2005)
Educational neuroscience (Dehaene, 2009, McCandliss, 2003) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxcyt5UqiCA
1 2 3
c a t
b ir d
f i sh
kn igh t
These words each have three phonemes (separate sounds). Each of these phonemes is represented by a grapheme.
Phonics and the alphabetic code
The complexities of the English language
24 consonant phonemes
44 phoneme
s 26 letters
20 vowel phonemes
The same phoneme
can be spelt in
more than one way
A phoneme can be
represented by one or
more letters
The same grapheme
may represent more than
one phoneme
Segmenting words - Sound buttons
fin bridge
catch daughter
Teaching systematic synthetic phonics
In primary school, pupils are taught phonic knowledge in a systematic way:
1. to blend CVC (consonant–vowel–consonant) words, for example ‘b/i/g, ’‘ch/i/p’
2. to recognise all 44 phonemes
3. to blend adjacent consonants (e.g. bl, br, dr, sp, tr)
4. to know all long vowel phonemes
Struggling readers at KS3 should be assessed against these 4 aspects
Strengths/weaknesses need to be identified and teaching strategies developed across all subjects
Supporting struggling readers
Supporting struggling readers
Consider the following aspects:
Phonics - decoding complex words
Orthography – knowledge of common spelling patterns
Semantic knowledge – vocabulary
Syntactic knowledge – structures of sentences
Morphological development – knowledge of meaningful roots of words
Supporting struggling readers
• Examine the specific subject and context of what is to be read and make links to pupils’ own experiences
• Provide opportunities for brainstorming, group discussion, displays, diagrams, charts and summaries
• Provide glossaries of key words• Provide opportunities for collaborative work
What can secondary teachers do?
Plenary
What is the role of phonics in the
teaching of reading and writing?
Consider how it can be used to support
older struggling readers
In seminar groups – revisit your
understanding and consider how you can
support in your subject area
Further reading
Dehaene, S. (2009) Reading in the Brain: the new science of how we read. New York: Penguin.
DCSF (2010) Teaching Struggling Readers. National Strategies/ DCSF Publications.
DfES (2006a) Rose, J. Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading, Final Report, March 2006.
Jolliffe, W. and Waugh D. (2012) Teaching Systematic synthetic phonics in primary schools. London: Sage/Learning Matters.
