2.1 How is reading taught in primary school?

In a moment we will ask you to view a video in which you will see some children reading out loud and being helped by their teacher using a phonics approach to reading.

The phonics approach to reading is important because it is now the approach most favoured by the UK government. The government decided this after an important review of literacy standards (the Rose Review) was published in 2006, which looked at ways to halt falling literacy standards. The Rose Review concluded that the teaching of phonics should be enforced within the National Curriculum and this would lead to a boost in literacy levels. There are now a variety of strategies that have concentrated on a ‘heavy dose of phonics’ delivered by teachers in schools today (Dombey et al., 2010).

There are various approaches to teaching phonics. For example:

• analytic phonics, which looks at whole words and then breaks them down into component parts, e.g. dog as d-og
• synthetic (systematic) phonics, which starts with individual letter sounds and some combined letter sounds to create or build up the word, e.g. s-t-r-ee-t as street.

How does your school teach reading and develop children’s literacy? The next activity will start you thinking about this.

Activity 4

Timing: Allow about 20 minutes

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Transcript

Phonics without tears

Whole class and teacher

Mmm – ooo – nnn. Makes the word? Moon. Moon, good girl. Mmm – aaa – ggg.

Alex Lundie, Headteacher

I think there's been a long standing controversy, and I have to confess to being a sceptic myself until really quite recently in terms of phonics not really being well enough understood. So I think that’s been a big job that we have had to do to persuade people of the value of phonics, help them understand how to teach it.

I've been at this school for just over three years. I was the fourth head in one year so the school had had a real period of instability and consequently standards were very low at school across the board. So in reception we have a very fast, rigorous programme, as recommended by the Rose Report, that we should start teaching phonics early, so that that tool for reading and writing is embedded straight away.

Chrissie Nartey, Literacy Co-ordinator

Our phonic ability and reading and writing ability were really low quite a few years ago and we've now found that as we’ve started the phonic system and the way we teach the phonics in a very systematic way it's now had a knock on effect throughout the years and the reading and writing levels and the creativity has really risen. So it has made a big impact on our school.

At the very beginning of reception year, I keep all the children in the class with me because we learn all the single sounds and we recap all the sounds that they may have learned previously. Some children come into reception knowing quite a few sounds. Some children come into reception knowing no sounds whatsoever. So you have to kind of find out where they are, find out what they know already so for the children that know some of the sounds we are recapping and for some of the children that haven't got a clue about the sounds and are learning them, we are teaching them the sounds.

So it kind of works hand in hand. As the year’s gone on, it's towards the end of the year in the summer term I split the children that still need to consolidate their single sounds, which most of them know.

You are going to go off with Miss… and do your phonics. Ok. Well done, good listening. The rest of you, if you are in the classroom I want you to move forward a little bit more.

The children that went off separately they were the children that needed to consolidate the learning that some of the other children had already achieved. Not every day in the week but some of the days they get some special time really in a small group to practise what they still need to learn rather than get caught up in the class.

I want to see your actions today – ok?

E R makes the sound?

Children

Errr.

Chrissie

Lots of them make the sound e r r r.

T H makes the sound?

Children

The.

Chrissie

N G makes the sound?

Children

Nng.

Chrissie

Well done. Good actions.

U E makes the sound?

Children

You.

Presenter

Chrissie is using a very active phonic scheme.

Chrissie

Each letter, each sound has an action and it also has a story line. If they are doing the sound A they would say Eh – and the story line that goes with it is for somebody that can’t hear very well, so they’re saying ‘Eh?’

O I makes the sound?

Children

Oy, Oy, ship ahoy.

Chrissie

Oy, Oy, ship ahoy. Fantastic.

O O makes the sound?

Children

Ooo – ooh – ooh.

Chrissie

Last one. Show me the actions.

Children

Ee aw – ee aw.

Chrissie

Excellent. Ok.

With the sounds they learn the way they learn them straight away they can start blending them and segmenting them together for reading and writing and practising and applying what they’ve learned. So again it gives them that real satisfaction of yes, I can do it. And I can read.

We are going to make the word ‘weep’. Weep. So let's do the sounds together. W E E P. Have a try. W E E P. Check your word by pointing at the letters. Going to change one of the letters and we are going to do the word ‘week’. W E E K. Well done, Thomas. We are going to make the word ‘spoon’. Tell me the sounds first. That's tricky. S P O O N. Well done. Have a try. S P O O N. Tricky sound to hear in there.

Child

If you did it and put A in Spain.

Chrissie

What sound would you need if you were going to make Spain?

Child

A I N.

Chrissie

A I N – good girl Tatiana. We can make lots of words with the sounds and letters that we've got today. Well done.

Chrissie

We've then did another game called swap shop. They had a particular word they had to keep a secret and there was another child who had exactly the same word as them and they had to read their word and then when I said that particular word they had to read it, stand up and swap places.

If you have the word E C – swap shop. Very good. Looking at your words – if you have the word R A I N, R A I N, – well done, Marilyn – swap shop.

Children don’t really enjoy sitting for a long period of time so if you can have the focus, have their focus teaching and then give them an activity, a very short game where they can just be as active as possible but still learning.

If you have the word B U G – bug – swap shop. Fantastic and finished. Willow Class, you did that very quickly today. Good reading of your words. Fantastic.

At the end of every phonic session we give them a chance to again apply what they’ve learnt but by putting it into more of a context.

Ok. The last thing we are going to do is we are going to practise writing a question.

Are and you.

Particularly today was the words are and you that we had been learning so we put that into a question.

Sound that one out for me. I R makes the sound err.

What does the question say?

Child

Are you a girl?

Chrissie

Are you a girl?

If you are a girl, put your thumb in the air.

There are lots of different phonic schemes but they all do the same job. They all work with children still learn their phonics in a very fun way.

Now we are all going to do the sounds together. Marilyn, are you ready?

Children

F R O G.

Chrissie

It's a question – look at the question mark. Who can tell me what this sound is? Marilyn, could you tell us?

Child

Are you a frog?

Chrissie

If you are a frog, which is a silly question, would you like to put your thumb up? What a surprise. You're not a frog.

Presenter

But phonics was just the start. It needs context.

Alex

What we felt was that to raise standards what we needed to do was give children a reason to read and a reason to write and the skills to be able to do that. So making sure that they had context which really engaged them but also looking in a very rigorous way at the skills that children needed to develop and make sure that they made progress.

Teacher

And we’re going to think about how the characters are feeling in different parts of the story. Let’s all look at the fox. Look at the fox. What has the fox seen?

Child

The mouse.

Teacher

The mouse. He has seen the mouse. And what’s he thinking?

Child

I want to eat the mouse.

Teacher

I want to eat that mouse. And he’s just seen a really tasty mouse.

Presenter

Outside the prescribed 15-minute phonic session, working with real books helps children relate their decoding skills to meaning and enjoyment.

Teacher

How’s the snake feeling? Scared! Show him your scared faces. Lovely, Hannah. It’s scared. The snake is scared.

Amanda Wilburn, Reception Teacher

We’re using different actions. We’re using the sounds. Everything just builds in and just all feeds in together and the children really enjoy it and so it works really well and I think – you know I like teaching it you know. It’s not oh it's time for phonics! I enjoy teaching the phonics. I enjoy the sort of actions are very pacey – they're very active learning style that we can use when we teach phonics.

Let's sound out N U T – N N N U U T T T. Well done.

When we are using a real book, when we’re in small groups, we can look at different words, tricky words that we are learning. We can look at different sounds. What does the Gruffalo begin with? So we can use – it does all feed in.

Ardra, can you show us the sound of G G G G? Well done. And what's the next sound in G O O D – U U U. And what sound do we need for D? Show me the sound – the action – D D D. Brilliant.

Presenter

Success in reception encouraged phonics planning across the school. But it's not all plain sailing when they get to year 1.

Keira Pattenden, Year 1 Teacher

We are pushing children. There are always some children who come up from reception and most of them know their sound and there are always some who come back after summer holidays and they’ve forgotten the whole thing. And they're the kind of – they're the ones who are working with the teaching assistant and they're kind of every day kind of building it up, trying to get them to a level where they need to be. So it's just kind of lots of practise, lots of support for them.

Teacher

What about this sound?

Presenter

The three year 1 classes pool all their children and then regroup them by ability for their phonic sessions.

Keira

Year 1 is split into six different ability groups based on which kind of sounds they know, whether they can write them down, whether they can write sentences, whether they can read certain words, we put them into these different groups.

Teacher

Good girl. Keep the card with you. That’s good.

Child

Snap.

Teacher

Wow. Fantastic.

The next word I am thinking about is the word ‘goat’ – the goat you’d see at the farm. Goat. Fantastic. S O A P.

Keira

My group is not the top group, the one kind of below, so I'm kind of working on kind of really pushing them. I’m currently working on phase five, which is teaching them different double sounds.

Sugar. Sugar. Have a look at your board. Well done, Carell, that was a hard one.

Child

Bingo.

Keira

You can't say Bingo when you haven't got all of them.

You have to make it lively. You have to make it exciting for them to understand and want to learn. But if you work through the phases and you are teaching new things and when they’ve grasped it it's fantastic. When they can apply it on their own then you’ve got it.

Venue.

Today we were playing bingo using some key words and some words that I think they would be able to work out. I mean I had words that had silent letters in. I think you need to kind of push the children because if they're just sitting there just rehearsing words over and over again it does become boring and they're not interested.

Let's have a look. Let's check what you have. So, fantastic, Jessica. We need to say a big well done to Jessica.

Children

Well done, Jessica!

Keira

Oh dear me. Such sore losers. Right. Rub out your boards for me.

Phonics is essential because it encourages children to be independent when they're working out their own reading and writing skills so you're teaching them if they know this sound then they can try and attempt to work out the word on their own. If you are just learning words by rote then when you come to a word you don’t know the children don’t have the strategies to be able to work it out. So it's encouraging them to be independent when they're trying to tackle the literacy side of things.

Presenter

So is there any conflict between systematic phonics and reading for enjoyment?

Chrissie

I don’t think any of the Jolly Phonics systems or the systematic phonic systems that we use or letters and sounds or the CLP learning through books and through stories – I don’t think any of it contradicts itself. I think if anything it all works together quite well.

Alex

I think the thing that makes people sceptical about phonics is when phonics is seen as the be all and end all. If you see it as the end point I think what you end up with are children who can bark at print rather than really engaging with language.

And what phonics has to be seen as is as a tool that enables you to do the real work, I think, which is helping children become readers and writers, to love books and to love writing. And again not becoming just a decoder of print but somebody who can infer meaning and engage with books in a critical sense.

End transcript

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In the video you will see some children reading out loud and being helped by their teacher using a phonics approach to reading.

• What does the video clip tell you about the phonic scheme being used in this school?
• Is this your school’s approach to reading? If yes, how effective is it?
• If you are not in a school, find out how a child close to you is learning to read.

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Comment

In the video the school is using a systematic phonics scheme that involves actions and sounds. Phonics is essential in that it encourages children to be independent when working out their own reading and writing skills. If they know a particular sound, the children can attempt to work out another word on their own.

If they are learning words by rote the children don’t have the strategies to be able to work out new words. Phonics is a tool that enables the children to do the real work. It is helping children, not only to become decoders of print, but also to become someone who can infer meaning and engage with books in a critical sense.

Possible response to ‘own experience’ question

• My school uses the Jolly Phonic approach to reading. It is proving to be more effective than the previous ‘look and say’ method.