Independent review of the teaching of early reading

Independentreview of theteaching of early readingFinal Report, Jim Rose, March 2006

Contents

Letter to the Secretary of State Paragraph

1. Summary

2. The remit for the review 1

3. Evidence gathering 5

4. Background 6

5. Aspect 1: what best practice should be expected 30in the teaching of early reading and synthetic phonics

6. Aspect 2: how this relates to the development 89of the birth to five framework and the development and renewal of the National Literacy Strategy Framework for teaching

7. Aspect 3: what range of provision best supports 131children 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

8. Aspect 4: how leadership and management in schools 163can support the teaching of reading, as well as practitioners’ subject knowledge and skills

9. Aspect 5: the value for money or cost effectiveness of 173the range of approaches the review considers

10. Evidence from practice 204

11. Recommendations 240

Appendix 1:The searchlights model: the case for change

Appendix 2: Glossary of terms

Appendix 3: Sources of evidence

Dear Secretary of State,

This is the final report of the Reading Review,which you invited me to undertake in June2005. It builds on the interim report that waspublished on 1st December 2005.

In fulfilling its remit, the Review has drawnupon three main sources of information: thefindings of research and inspection; wide-ranging consultation, includingpractitioners, teachers, trainers, resourceproviders and policy makers, and visits tosettings, schools and training events.

It is no surprise to find that the mainingredients for success in the teaching ofbeginner readers are: a well trained teachingforce; well designed, systematic programmesof work that are implemented thoroughly;incisive assessment of teaching andlearning, and strong, supportive leadership.

At best, our settings and schools draw uponthese factors and embody the principles ofhigh quality phonic work within a language-rich curriculum that gives rise to highstandards of reading and writing. It followsthat the challenge now is to ensure that, inall settings and schools, the teaching andlearning of early reading and writing ingeneral, and phonic work in particular,measure up to this best practice.

As with the interim report, this reportmarshals findings and comments under theaspects set out in the remit for the Review.Given the nature of the task, it is hardlysurprising that genuinely held viewsdiffered, sometimes widely, about aspects ofthe remit. However, all respondents unitedaround the aim of securing reading as anentitlement for every child. I hope that thefindings and outcomes of the Review willinform the means to that end.

I wish to thank the many respondents,including those who have contributed sohelpfully to visits by the Review. I am alsograteful to the advisory group and Ofsted fortheir valuable contributions and to mysupport team whose application and hardwork throughout the exercise have beenquite outstanding.

Yours sincerely

Jim Rose CBE

2 EDUCATION AND SKILLS I N D E P E N D E N T R E V I E W O F T H E T E A C H I N G O F E A R LY R E A D I N G : F I N A L R E P O R T

Over the first nine years of the NationalCurriculum (1989 to 1998) very little impactwas made on raising standards of reading.Despite the content of phonic work being astatutory component of the NationalCurriculum over that time, reports from HerMajesty’s Inspectors show that it was often aneglected or a weak feature of the teaching.That changed markedly with the advent ofthe National Literacy Strategy in 1998.TheStrategy engaged schools in developing astructured teaching programme of literacythat included not only what phonic contentshould be taught but also how to teach it,with a subsequent rise in standards.

The forthcoming Early Years FoundationStage and the renewal of the PrimaryNational Strategy framework for teachingliteracy provide powerful opportunities toreinvigorate and build upon theseachievements and greatly reduce arbitraryboundaries between the Foundation Stageand Key Stage 1, without compromising thehard won, distinctive merits of the areas oflearning and experience in the early years.

In so doing, the new Early Years FoundationStage and the renewed framework shouldmake sure that best practice for beginnerreaders provides them with a rich curriculumthat fosters all four interdependent strandsof language: speaking, listening, reading andwriting.The indications are that far moreattention needs to be given, right from the

start, to promoting speaking and listeningskills to make sure that children build a goodstock of words, learn to listen attentively andspeak clearly and confidently. Speaking andlistening, together with reading and writing,are prime communication skills that arecentral to children's intellectual, social andemotional development. All these skills aredrawn upon and promoted by high quality,systematic phonic work.

Engaging young children in interesting andworthwhile pre-reading activities paves theway for the great majority to make a goodstart on systematic phonic work by the ageof five. Indeed, for some, an earlier start maybe possible and desirable.This is because itill serves children to hold them back fromstarting systematic phonic work that ismatched to their developing abilities andenables them to benefit from the wealth ofopportunities afforded by reading from anearly age. All that said, the introduction ofphonic work should always be a matter forprincipled, professional judgement based onstructured observations and assessments ofchildren’s capabilities.

The term ‘formal’ in the pejorative sense inwhich phonic work is sometimes perceivedin early education is by no means a fairreflection of the active, multi-sensorypractice seen and advocated by the reviewfor starting young children on the road toreading.

EDUCATION AND SKILLS I N D E P E N D E N T R E V I E W O F T H E T E A C H I N G O F E A R LY R E A D I N G : F I N A L R E P O R T 3

Summary

Despite uncertainties in research findings,the practice seen by the review shows thatthe systematic approach, which is generallyunderstood as 'synthetic' phonics, offers thevast majority of young children the best andmost direct route to becoming skilledreaders and writers.When thinking aboutphonic work, what most people have inmind is the teaching and learning ofreading. However, phonic work is alsoessential for the development of writing,especially spelling.The teaching ofbeginners must lead them to understandhow reading and writing are related.

It is widely agreed that reading involves farmore than decoding words on the page.Nevertheless, words must be decoded ifreaders are to make sense of the text. Phonicwork is therefore a necessary but not sufficientpart of the wider knowledge, skills andunderstanding which children need tobecome skilled readers and writers, capable ofcomprehending and composing text. Forbeginner readers, learning the core principlesof phonic work in discrete daily sessionsreduces the risk, attendant with the so-called‘searchlights' model, of paying too littleattention to securing word recognition skills.In consequence, the review suggests areconstruction of the searchlights model for reading.

Notwithstanding differences in presentationand aspects of content, well designedprogrammes, including those fromcommercial sectors, for teaching andlearning phonics systematically, tend toconverge around a small number of core

principles. It is implementing the principleswhich define high quality phonic work thatshould engage settings and schools, ratherthan debating entrenched views about lessimportant aspects of phonics teaching.

Obviously, developing children’s positiveattitudes to literacy, in the broadest sense,from the earliest stage is very important. Inthe best circumstances, parents and carers,along with settings and schools, do much tofoster these attitudes. For example, theystimulate children’s early interest in literacyby exploiting play, story, songs and rhymesand provide lots of opportunities, and time,to talk with children about their experiencesand feelings. For the youngest children, wellbefore the age of five, sharing and enjoyingfavourite books regularly with trusted adults,be they parents, carers, practitioners orteachers, is at the heart of this activity.Parents and carers should be stronglyencouraged in these pursuits and reassuredthat, in so doing, they are contributingmassively to children's literacy and to theireducation in general.

However, there are significant numbers ofchildren who, for one reason or another, donot start with these advantages. Somechildren also have neuro-developmentaldisorders and other special educational needsthat may present formidable obstacles tolearning to read and write. Providingeffectively for all such children is an ever-present challenge that is being met withdifferent degrees of success by variousintervention programmes.The leading edgeinterventions and associated training


observed in the time available for the reviewwere very good indeed and should continueto be exemplified in guidance to show howthe best provision and practice are matchedto different types of special educational needs.

It is important for schools to offer a coherentreading programme in which ‘quality firstteaching’ as defined by the Primary NationalStrategy and intervention work are closelylinked.While interventions for children withreading difficulties will always be necessary,the need for them is likely to be muchreduced by ‘quality first teaching’. This isbecause such teaching identifies incipientreading difficulties and this enablesappropriate support to be provided quickly,thus minimising the risk of children fallingbehind. It follows that investment in ‘qualityfirst teaching’ not only brings greatestbenefit to children, but is also likely to yieldthe greatest value for money.

It is hardly surprising that training to equipthose who are responsible for beginnerreaders with a good understanding of thecore principles and skills of teaching phonicwork, including those responsible forintervention programmes, has emerged as acritical issue. Not all the training consideredby this review was of a quality that is likely toachieve these ends. In short, the quality oftraining for phonic work is patchy andrequires urgent attention.While theseobservations apply largely to in-servicetraining, reports from newly qualifiedteachers and practitioners suggest thatthere is room for improvement in these

respects in initial training.As with most other aspects of thecurriculum, a distinction needs to be madebetween teaching content and its delivery inthe case of phonic work.While such work,from the standpoint of those who teachbeginner readers, may not be 'rocketscience', it does require practitioners andteachers to have a detailed knowledge andunderstanding of its teaching content sothat they can plan and implement a highquality programme. Imaginative and skilfulteaching that engages and motivateschildren does not happen by chance: it reliesupon well trained adults, who are skilled inobserving and assessing children’s learning,good planning and preparation.The maxim'plan, do, review' from early years educationholds true for phonic work. Headteachersand school governors should ensure thatthis process informs the setting of realisticand ambitious targets for English.

The review, therefore, highlights theimportance of training at all levels. Itprovides a timely opportunity to considerhow to strengthen training to securecompetencies that are of direct benefit tothe learners, their settings and schools.Making sure that the benefits of training areexploited fully and provide value for moneyis an obvious priority for those in positionsof leadership.

Importantly, these findings show that wehave a workforce of practitioners, teachersand support staff who are more thancapable, with appropriate support and


training, of meeting the recommendationsof this review. In addition we have a wellestablished infrastructure for training anddevelopment programmes.The findings alsostrongly suggest that our settings andschools have at least sufficient and oftengood material resources for teachingreading, including phonic work.

The review, therefore, not only suggestsways forward and pinpoints areas wherechange is called for, it also endorses thosewhich are worthwhile and should besustained in existing provision.These includesupport for children learning English as an

additional language, and those with specialeducational needs: areas which alreadybenefit from sound guidance from nationalpolicies and strategies.Within the scope ofthe remit, the review refers to, andcommends, such guidance rather thanseeking to reinvent it.

In consequence, the issues underlying therecommendations of the review are verylargely to do with building quality ratherthan capacity. Improving the quality of whatis already in place rather than introducinglots of new elements is likely to yield thegreatest benefits for beginner readers.


1. In keeping with its remit, the reviewexamines and comments upon:

Aspect 1• what best practice should be

expected in the teaching of earlyreading and synthetic phonics

Aspect 2• how this relates to the development

of the birth to five framework andthe development and renewal of theNational Literacy StrategyFramework for teaching 1

Aspect 3• what range of provision best

supports children with significantliteracy difficulties and enables themto catch up with their peers, and therelationship of such targetedintervention programmes withsynthetic phonics teaching.

2. It also deals with:

Aspect 4• how leadership and management in

schools can support the teaching ofreading, as well as practitioners’subject knowledge and skills

Aspect 5• the value for money or cost

effectiveness of the range ofapproaches the review considers.

3. Virtually all those who have givenevidence to this review agreed thatchildren should have a secure grasp ofphonics which should be sufficient forthem to be fluent readers andconfident writers by the age of sevenat the latest.This review thereforeconcentrates upon provision andpractice up to the end of Key Stage 1.

4. The Secretary of State accepted all therecommendations of the interimreport of the review and, in addition tothe aspects of the remit noted here,asked what the implications of therecommendations might be for initialteacher training.

The remit for the review


1 The birth to five framework is now known as the Early Years Foundation Stage.This is the term used in the rest of the report.

Evidence gathering 5. The review draws upon a wide range

of information from the followingsources:

• research on the teaching of readingand other aspects of literacy

• written evidence and oral accounts ofeffective practice from contributorswith acknowledged expertise and aninterest in one or more aspects of theremit, including the views of parents

• papers submitted by respondents tothe Education and Skills Committeereport, Teaching children to read.Respondents were invited tocomment further on their papers ifthey so wished

• a small scale survey by Her Majesty’sInspectors of Schools (HMI), involvingvisits to an illustrative sample ofschools

• reports and data from Ofsted,particularly on the evaluation of theNLS and the Primary NationalStrategy

• visits by the review team, including tohigh profile, researched projectswhere good achievement in readingis related to a particular phonicprogramme

• early findings from the PrimaryNational Strategy Early ReadingDevelopment Pilot (ERDP)

• responses to the review fromcorrespondence and contributors tothe review’s website (www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/rosereview/).

A list of sources of evidence is atAppendix 3.


Education and Skills Committee report

6. In commissioning this review theGovernment took account of thepublication of Teaching children toread, a report from the House ofCommons Education and SkillsCommittee in April 2005.2 TheCommittee acknowledged that ‘theacquisition of reading is an extremelycomplex subject’ and that a thoroughexamination of the factors whichcontribute to it was not possible in thetime available to them.This review hastherefore taken account of theCommittee’s findings but has widenedconsiderably the evidence base.

7. For example, the review has drawn ondirect observations of work in practice,as well as the views of practitionersand teachers who teach reading toyoung children regularly in settingsand schools.This is because, like all elsein the curriculum, the quality of phonicwork relies on the expertise,understanding and commitment ofthose who teach it.

Development and renewal

8. The Department for Education andSkills (DfES) announced its intentionthat the renewal of the NLS framework

will ensure that this can continue tomeet expectations for supportingschools and settings in the teaching ofliteracy, and to respond to themes inthe ten-year strategy for childcare andthe 2005 Schools White Paper.3 ThePrimary National Strategy isconducting a consultation that willhelp to shape the framework'srenewal; it plans to make the revisedframework, and supporting guidance,available from September 2006. (TheFramework for teachingmathematics is also being renewedon the same timescale.)

9. The renewal of these frameworks istaking place in tandem with thedevelopment of the new Early YearsFoundation Stage, which aims tocreate a single coherent framework forchildren’s care, learning anddevelopment from birth until the endof August following a child’s fifthbirthday. It will also incorporateelements of the national standards forday care and childminding.The newStage will be introduced from 2008,following consultations that began in2005.

10. Ahead of introducing the new Stage, inresponse to developingcommunication skills across the


Background

2 Teaching children to read, House of Commons Education and Skills Committee,The Stationery Office, 2005.3 H M Government, Higher standards, better schools for all (Cm 6677),The Stationery Office, 2005.

curriculum, the DfES commissionedthe project Communicating Matters 4.This is a useful set of training materialsfor practitioners working with youngchildren in early years settings. Othergovernment communication strategiesaimed at boosting language andliteracy include Bookstart and theParental Community Support Project(to be known as Parents, Early Yearsand Learning).

The National Curriculum and theNational Literacy Strategy

11. A distinction needs to be madebetween literacy and English. Literacyskills, that is, reading and writing (andthe skills of speaking and listening onwhich they depend), are essentialcross-curricular skills: they are notsubjects and are not confined toEnglish lessons. However, for thepurpose of securing these skills forbeginner readers and writers, they areset out in the National CurriculumOrders for English from Key Stage 1.

12. All maintained schools with primaryaged pupils are required to teachphonics, the content of which isprescribed as knowledge, skills andunderstanding in the statutoryNational Curriculum programmes ofstudy for English, for pupils from theage of five. 5 All three programmes ofstudy – for speaking and listening,

reading, and writing (including spellingand handwriting) – in some measurerelate to teaching phonics.

13. In the programme of study for KeyStage 1 for speaking and listening,pupils should be taught to:

• identify and respond to soundpatterns in language (for example,alliteration, rhyme, word play).

The programme of study for readingincludes work on ‘phonemic awarenessand phonic knowledge’. Pupils shouldbe taught to:

• hear, identify, segment and blendphonemes in words

• sound and name the letters of thealphabet

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

• identify syllables in words• recognise that the same sounds may

have different spellings and that thesame spellings may relate to differentsounds

and in writing, should be taught to:

• write each letter of the alphabet• use their knowledge of sound-symbol

relationships and phonologicalpatterns (for example, consonantclusters and vowel phonemes)


4 Communicating matters: an introduction to communication and language in early years settings (1771-2005DOC-EN), DfES, 2005.5 The National Curriculum: handbook for primary teachers in England (QCA/99/454), DfEE/QCA, 1999.

as well as to:

• write familiar words and attemptunfamiliar ones.

14. In other words, the NationalCurriculum treats phonic work asessential content for learning, not amethod of teaching. How schoolsshould teach that content is a matterof choice, which may, or may not, beguided by the non-statutoryFramework for teaching and anyother materials that the PrimaryNational Strategy publishes. Manyschools also choose to use commercialprogrammes for phonic work. Someuse them in place of the NLS materials;others, simply to complement the NLS,particularly in teaching letter-soundcorrespondences.

15. The Foundation Stage, as a distinctstage of learning, was introduced inSeptember 2000 and is a statutorypart of the National Curriculum forEngland, alongside Key Stages 1 to 4.The Foundation Stage begins whenchildren reach the age of three and isa stage in its own right. It fosterschildren's developing abilities andprepares them for learning in KeyStage 1.

16. The Curriculum guidance for thefoundation stage sets out theprinciples and aims for this stage of

learning and provides guidance forpractitioners in all early years settingson how they might support children to‘make progress towards, and whereappropriate, beyond’ the early learninggoals.6 These goals are described as‘expectations that are achievable formost children who have followed arelevant curriculum’.They includewithin ‘communication, language andliteracy’:

• hearing and saying initial and finalsounds in words, and short vowelsounds within words

• linking sounds to letters, naming andsounding the letters of the alphabet

• using phonic knowledge to writesimple regular words and makephonetically plausible attempts atmore complex words.

17. The National Literacy Strategy, which isnow part of the Primary NationalStrategy, has been in place for sevenyears.When it was introduced in 1998,only 65% of 11-year-olds reached thetarget level in English, i.e. level 4, at theend of Key Stage 2. By 2005, after sevenyears of the NLS, nearly 80% of themreached that level.These Year 6 pupilswere the first cohort to have been partof the NLS from the beginning, i.e.when they were in the Reception year.

18. It is interesting to note that, over thefirst nine years of the National


6 The curriculum guidance for the foundation stage (QCA/00/587), DfEE/QCA, 2000.

Curriculum (1989 to 1998), very littleimpact was made on raising standardsof reading. Despite the content ofphonic work being a statutorycomponent of the National Curriculumover that time, HMI reports show that itwas often a neglected or weak featureof the teaching. However, that changedmarkedly with the advent of the NLS,which engaged schools not only withwhat phonic content should be taughtbut also how to teach it.

19. From its inception, the NLS focusedstrongly on the teaching of reading. Amemorandum submitted by the DfESto the Education and Skills Committeeset out the context of the NLS and itsachievements, including:

a Framework for teaching whichschools delivered through theLiteracy Hour … subject specifictraining for teachers, intervention inschools that were failing their pupilsand the setting of clear targets atschool, local and national levels.TheNational Year of Reading, and thecontinuing Reading Campaign whichaccompanied the National LiteracyStrategy, had a significant impact onraising the profile of reading not justwith schools but also with familiesand the wider community. 7

20. As part of this focus on teachingreading, the NLS published extensive

guidance on the teaching and learningof phonic work, which began with theword-level elements of the Frameworkfor teaching and the accompanyinginitial training in 1998. Progression inPhonics was introduced in 1999, inresponse to evaluation by HMI of thefirst year of the NLS.

21. Reflecting upon the conditions thathave led to improved standards ofwork in recent years, it is apparent thatincluding phonic content in theNational Curriculum did not, of itself,shift standards of reading and writingsignificantly.The literacy hourintroduced better planned, morestructured and systematic work inmany schools than had previouslyapplied to teaching literacy in general -and to phonics in particular.The boldundertaking of the NLS, despite itsnon-statutory remit, was to matchteaching methodology withcurriculum content, thus appearing to‘tell teachers how to teach'.The factthat so many teachers have come toembed within their own practice theguidance offered by the NLS reflectsthat they welcome the support itprovides.

22. While there is considerable debateabout some aspects of the guidancefrom the NLS, such as the speed ofcoverage of the letter-soundcorrespondences (the alphabetic code)


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

at the earliest stages, and the degree ofemphasis given to blending, there iswide acceptance of the basicdescription of phonics given in theNLS’s guidance, Progression in phonics(PiPs):

Phonics consists of the skills ofsegmentation and blending,knowledge of the alphabetic codeand an understanding of theprinciples which underpin how thecode is used in reading and spelling. 8

23. PiPs set out seven steps for theteaching of phonic knowledge andskills and an extensive programme oftraining for teachers in the Receptionyear and Year 1 was undertaken toembed this in practice in these yeargroups. PiPs was updated further forschools and early years settings in2004 in the publication Playing withsounds. 9

24. As part of its evaluation of theimplementation and development ofthe NLS (and, later, the PrimaryNational Strategy) since its inception,Ofsted has reported on the extent andquality of phonic work. In evaluatingthe first four years of the NLS, itconcluded:

After a very uncertain start, there hasbeen a marked shift in teachers’

understanding of and attitudestowards the place of phonics inteaching reading and spelling. 10

25. That shift is very largely the result ofthe NLS.There is certainly more phonicwork taught in primary schools nowthan in the last decade. However, thequality of that teaching needs toimprove if standards are to continue torise.The visits made by HMI for thisreview provide evidence of whereimprovements are needed and, indeed,are possible.

26. Despite improvements made overall,there are particularly urgent concernsnationally about the comparativelyweak performance of the 15% ofchildren who do not reach the targetlevel for their age in reading by theend of Key Stage 1, and the 16% ofchildren who do not reach it by theend of Key Stage 2 – around 85,000and 95,000 children respectively.Thereare concerns, too, about the generallyweaker performance of boyscompared to that of girls.The figures of15% of seven year olds and 16% of 11year olds who do not reach level 2 andlevel 4 respectively thus mask aconsiderable range of performance,even within those groups.

27. In its annual analyses of the nationaltests over a number of years, the


8 Progression in Phonics (DfEE 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.

Qualifications and CurriculumAuthority (QCA) has also drawnattention to where improvementsmight be made, and has emphasisedthe importance of phonic knowledge.Its analysis of the 2005 Key Stage 1tests showed that teachers could raiseattainment in children’s reading andspelling further at Key Stage 1 if,among other things, they taughtphonic knowledge and skills morethoroughly than at present. Forexample, to move from level 2C to level2B in reading, children should read thetext carefully rather than relying onillustrations11

Every child matters

28. The review comes at a time when earlyyears settings, schools and localauthorities are acting on theirresponsibilities under the Children Act2004, the Every child matters agenda.The five outcomes are well known:being healthy, staying safe, enjoyingand achieving, making a positivecontribution, and achieving economicwell-being. Literacy must be seen as afundamental part of that agenda andcrucial in ‘narrowing the gap inoutcomes between those who do welland those who do not’.12 Without theability to communicate effectively inspeech and through reading andwriting, children and young people areseriously disadvantaged for life.This

review, therefore, fully supports andreflects the intentions of the Everychild matters agenda.

29. As pointed out by a former presidentof the United Kingdom LiteracyAssociation, this will mean establishinga common understanding ofcommunication, language and literacy,particularly reading, among all theagencies involved in implementingthat agenda.This will include non-educational ones such as the healthservice as well as the wide range ofpractitioners with varying levels ofqualifications and experience in theearly years sector.


11 The full text of the QCA’s leaflet for teachers on the implications of the 2005 tests can be found at: http://www.qca.org.uk/downloads/qca-05-1789-ks1-en.pdf12 Every child matters: change for children (DfES-1110-2004), H M Government, 2004.

Defining ‘best practice’

30. The interim report defined bestpractice as that which results in thegreatest benefit to the learner.Threequestions, therefore, that might beasked when seeking to promote bestpractice are:

• Is it replicable across the broad rangeof settings and schools?

• Can it be resourced and sustained atreasonable cost?

• What knowledge, skills andunderstanding are needed bypractitioners, teachers and otherswho are responsible for securing it?

31. Research, inspection and leading edgework of settings and schools mayinform best practice. However, findingsfrom different research programmesare sometimes contradictory orinconclusive, and often call for furtherstudies to test tentative findings. 13

While robust research findings mustnot be ignored, developers of nationalstrategies, much less schools andsettings, cannot always wait for the

results of long-term research studies.They must take decisions, based on asmuch firm evidence as is availablefrom a range of sources at the time,especially from replicable andsustainable best practice.

32. It is important, too, that those workingdirectly in settings and schools do notfeel they are at the mercy of ‘rows ofback seat drivers pointing in differentdirections’. Practitioners and teacherswho have contributed to the reviewwere clearly looking for consistentguidance that offered them structure,simplicity and some flexibility.

33. An important test of best practicemust be how well the teachingmethods secure optimum progressand high achievement for all beginnerreaders and writers. It was clear fromresponses to the interim report thatsome believed its recommendationsran counter to the view that ‘childrenlearn in different ways’.These viewswere often expressed as 'one size doesnot fit all'.

Aspect 1:what best practice should beexpected in the teaching of earlyreading and synthetic phonics


13 Torgerson, C. J., Brooks, G., Hall, J. A systematic review of the research literature on the use of phonics in the teaching of reading and spelling(Research Report RR711), DfES, 2006.

34. However, all beginner readers have tocome to terms with the samealphabetic principles if they are tolearn to read and write. In the dailywork of settings and classrooms thismeans finding the line of best fit forthe great majority of children,underpinned with additional learningsupport for those who need it.Moreover, leading edge practice bearsno resemblance to a 'one size fits all'model of teaching and learning, nordoes it promote boringly dull, rotelearning of phonics.

35. The findings of this review arguestrongly for the inclusion of a vigorous,programme of phonic work to besecurely embedded within a broadand language-rich curriculum: that isto say, a curriculum that generatespurposeful discussion, interest,application, enjoyment and highachievement across all the areas oflearning and experience in the earlyyears and progressively throughoutthe key stages which follow.

36. In practice, this means teachingrelatively short, discrete daily sessions,designed to progress from simpleelements to the more complex aspectsof phonic knowledge, skills andunderstanding.The best teaching seenduring the review was at a brisk pace,fired children's interest, often byengaging them in multi-sensoryactivities, drew upon a mix ofstimulating resources, and made sure

that they received praise for effort andachievement. Children’s response tothese sessions was, overwhelmingly,one in which success was its ownreward. For example, they took pride indemonstrating phonic skills, werebecoming confident communicators,and showed positive attitudes toreading and writing. Such practice fellwell within what the Primary NationalStrategy has described as ‘quality firstteaching’.

37. It is widely agreed that phonic work isan essential part, but not the wholepicture, of what it takes to become afluent reader and skilled writer, wellcapable of comprehending andcomposing text. Although this reviewfocuses upon phonic work, it is veryimportant to understand what the restof the picture looks like and requires.For example, nurturing positiveattitudes to literacy and the skillsassociated with them, across thecurriculum, is crucially important as isdeveloping spoken language, buildingvocabulary, grammar, comprehensionand facility with ICT.

38. A wide range of contributors andinspection evidence variously suggestthat settings and schools need to giveconsiderably more attention todeveloping these skills, especiallyspeaking and listening, across thecurriculum:

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. 14

39. This argues strongly for making surethat young children benefit fully fromall the areas of learning and experienceof the Foundation Stage and allsubjects of the Key Stage 1 curriculumthat follow. It is self-evident that workin music, drama, art, science andmathematics and so forth is valuablenot only in its own right but also rich inopportunities for children to listen,speak, read, write and rapidly increasetheir stock of words.

40. How to raise the profile and quality ofthe kinds of classroom talk 'likely toexert the greatest leverage onchildren's learning and understanding'is an important question that hasconsiderable implications for trainingpractitioners and teachers.This isbeing addressed by the PrimaryNational Strategy in work on the newand revised frameworks, takingaccount of seminal work such as thatat Cambridge University by ProfessorRobin Alexander. 15

The case for systematic phonic work

41. Eminent researchers in this country

have conducted important studies thatare relevant to this review.Theirfindings, together with robust studiesfrom other English-speaking countries,notably the United States of Americaand, more recently, Australia, highlightthe crucial importance of systematicphonic teaching for beginner readers.

42. In a paper presented at a seminar onphonics conducted by the DfES inMarch 2003, Linnea Ehri wrote:

What is Systematic PhonicsInstruction? Phonics is a method ofinstruction that teaches studentscorrespondences betweengraphemes in written language andphonemes in spoken language andhow to use these correspondences toread and spell words. Phonicsinstruction is systematic when all themajor grapheme-phonemecorrespondences are taught and theyare covered in a clearly definedsequence.16

In summarising the findings of theReading Panel in the United States, sheconcluded:

These findings show that systematicphonics instruction producedsuperior performance in reading compared to all types of unsystematic or no


14 English 2000 – 2005: a review of inspection evidence (HMI 2351), Ofsted, 2005.15 Alexander, R. Towards dialogic teaching: rethinking classroom talk, 2nd edition (ISBN 0 9546943 17), Dialogos, 2005.16 Appendix 2 provides a glossary of terms.

phonics instruction. 17

43. The recent Australian report, TeachingReading, came to much the sameconclusion:

In sum, the incontrovertible findingfrom the extensive body of local andinternational evidence-based literacyresearch is that for children duringthe early years of schooling (andsubsequently if needed), to be able tolink their knowledge of spokenlanguage to their knowledge ofwritten language, they must firstmaster the alphabetic code – thesystem of grapheme-phonemecorrespondences that link writtenwords to their pronunciations.Because these are both foundationaland essential skills for thedevelopment of competence inreading, writing and spelling, theymust be taught explicitly,systematically, early and well. 18

44. It will be important in the renewal ofthe NLS Framework for teaching tomake certain that all four strands oflanguage development are fullyrecognised.When thinking aboutphonic work, what most people havein mind is the teaching and learning ofreading. However, as these findingsshow, phonic work is also essential forthe development of writing, especially

spelling.The teaching of beginnerreaders must lead them to understandhow reading and writing are related.The existing NLS framework recognisesthis relationship, but it would bebeneficial to practitioners and teachersto make this more explicit so that theyare clear about how these strandscome together for teaching phonic work.

Synthetic phonics

45. Because our writing system isalphabetic, beginner readers must betaught how the letters of the alphabet,singly or in combination, represent thesounds of spoken language (letter-sound correspondences) and how toblend (synthesise) the sounds to readwords, and break up (segment) thesounds in words to spell.They mustlearn to process all the letters in wordsand ‘read words in and out of text’. 19

Phonic work should teach these skillsand knowledge in a well defined andsystematic sequence.

46. Furthermore, it is generally acceptedthat is harder to learn to read and writein English because the relationshipbetween sounds and letters is morecomplex than in many otheralphabetic languages. It is thereforecrucial to teach phonic worksystematically, regularly and explicitly,


17 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 2003.18 Teaching Reading,the final report of the national inquiry into the teaching of literacy,Rowe,K.,on behalf of the Australian Government,2005.19 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.

because children are highly unlikely towork out this relationship forthemselves. It cannot be left to chance,or for children to ferret out, on theirown, how the alphabetic code works.

47. The review’s remit requires aconsideration of ‘synthetic’phonics inparticular, including both the contentand the pace of teaching, and that thisshould be done ‘through examination ofthe available evidence and engagementwith the teaching profession andeducation experts’. Having followedthose directions, and notwithstandingthe uncertainties of research, there ismuch convincing evidence to showfrom the practice observed that, asgenerally understood,‘synthetic’phonicsis the form of systematic phonic workthat offers the vast majority of beginnersthe best route to becoming skilledreaders. Among other strengths, this isbecause it teaches children directlywhat they need to know, i.e. theprinciples set out below, whereas otherapproaches, such as 'analytic' phonics,expect children to deduce them. 20

48. However, that children learn to read byother approaches to systematic phonicwork was noted by Professor RhonaJohnston, who said that ‘analytic phonicsis good but synthetic phonics is better’. Itis not surprising, moreover, that even thebest systematic programme poorly

taught will not yield the intendedbenefits for beginner readers.

49. Experienced practitioners and teacherspoint out that, in the course of phonicsteaching, as children 'start to get thehang of it', they begin to self-teach and'need to read a lot to consolidate theirskills', that is, to develop effortlessreading and focus more and more oncomprehending the text. At this point,children may appear, some would say,to be 'barking at print' without fullyunderstanding what they are reading.Although this is often levelled as acriticism of phonic work, suchbehaviour is usually transitional aschildren hone their phonic skills. Giventhat even skilled adult readers mayfind themselves 'barking at print' whenthey are faced at times with unfamiliartext, it is hardly surprising that childrenmay do so in the early stages ofreading.

50. Good practice showed that planningand other key elements that supportthe teaching and learning of phonicwork, such as assessment, wereinvariably 'formalised'.That is to say,they were explicit, well defined andmapped the progress expected of thechildren. However, formality, in thissense, should not be confused with theformality some early years educatorssee as a threat to child development,as if planning and delivery were one


20 See definitions of analytic and synthetic phonics in Torgerson, C. J., Brooks, G., Hall, J. A systematic review of the research literature on the useof phonics in the teaching of reading and spelling (Research Report RR711), DfES, 2006.

and the same. In other words,appropriate formal planning does notunderwrite inappropriate formalpractice.The best work was formalisedin design but taught creatively andwith due regard for individualdifferences in, for example, children'srates of learning.

High quality phonic work

51. Having considered a wide range ofevidence, the review has concludedthat the case for systematic phonicwork is overwhelming and muchstrengthened by a synthetic approach,the key features of which are to teachbeginner readers:

• grapheme/phoneme (letter/sound)correspondences (the alphabeticprinciple) in a clearly defined,incremental sequence

• to apply the highly important skill ofblending (synthesising) phonemesin order, all through a word to read it

• to apply the skills of segmentingwords into their constituentphonemes to spell

• that blending and segmenting arereversible processes.

52. All of these elements featuredconsistently in the best work seen,including the visits by HMI undertakenfor the review and discussed below.The sum of these represent 'highquality phonic work' and, for the sake

of clarity and ease of reference, thereport will use this term from now on.

53. High quality phonic work is not a‘strategy’ so much as a body ofknowledge, skills and understandingthat has to be learned. From workconsidered by this review, the balanceof advantage favours teaching itdiscretely as the prime approach toestablishing word recognition. This isbecause successful phonic work forword recognition is a time-limitedactivity that is eventually overtaken bywork that develops comprehension.

Different programmes - similarprinciples

54. A number of contributors to the reviewclaimed to have developed exemplarybut differing approaches to teachingreading in general, and phonic work inparticular.Virtually all of the developersof commercially produced phonicprogrammes provided assessment datathat showed very substantial,sometimes spectacular, gains in theperformance of beginner readers ontheir programme. Since a wide array ofdifferent tests was used to measurethese gains, it was not possible tocompare the value added by eachprogramme with any accuracy. It wasclear, however, that all theseprogrammes were highly systematicand the perceived, sharp differences thatdivided their advocates appeared tomake little difference to the claimed


success rates.This suggests that thecommon elements in each programme -those that really make a difference tohow well beginners are taught and learnto read and write - are few in numberand similar to those set out above.

Fidelity to the programme

55. Once started, what has been called'fidelity to the programme' is alsoimportant for ensuring children’sprogress. Experience shows that evenhigh quality programmes founder ifthey are not applied consistently andregularly. It can be unwise to ‘pick andmix' too many elements from severaldifferent programmes because thisoften breaks up important sequencesof work and disrupts plannedprogression.

56. Another important feature of the bestpractice was that, once begun, highquality phonic programmes werefollowed consistently and carefully,each day, reinforcing and building onprevious learning to secure children’sprogress.The time spent daily on thiswork was well planned. It was usuallyshort, around 20 minutes overall, withthe time distributed as judged best bythe practitioner or teacher. It includeda variety of related activities thatadvanced learning incrementally andappealed to children, with praise foreffort and achievement at everyopportunity.Their interests were fired

often by engaging them in multi-sensory activities which drew upon amix of stimulating resources.

Multi-sensory work

57. Multi-sensory activities featuredstrongly in high quality phonic work andoften encompassed, variously,simultaneous visual, auditory andkinaesthetic activities involving, forexample, physical movement to copyletter shapes and sounds, andmanipulate magnetic or other solidletters to build words. Sometimesmnemonics, such as a picture of a snakeor an apple in the shapes of ‘s’and ‘a’,were used to help children memoriseletters. Handwriting too was often seenas a kinaesthetic activity and wasintroduced early.This multi-sensoryapproach almost always captured theinterest of boys as well as girls. Acommon feature of the best work wasthat boys’progress and achievement didnot lag behind that of girls: an importantoutcome given the generally weakerperformance of boys, especially inwriting.

58. The multi-sensory work showed thatchildren generally bring to bear on thelearning task as many of their senses asthey can, rather than limit themselves toonly one sensory pathway.This calls intoquestion the notion that children can becategorised by a single learning style, beit auditory, visual or kinaesthetic.


Assessment and use of data

59. Good assessment should trackperformance in all four strands oflanguage: speaking, listening, readingand writing, and identify strengths andweaknesses in children’s knowledge,skills and understanding, especiallythose related to mastering wordrecognition skills. Hence assessmentfor learning is vital for planning workthat is matched well to children’sneeds. However, despite thesubstantial amount of valuable workwhich has been done in this area,including an ‘assessment for learning’audit from the Primary NationalStrategy, Ofsted has pointed out that:

The use of assessment for learning isimproving but overall it is still theleast successful element of teaching. 21

60. Across the schools visited by HMI for thisreview, assessment was also seen to beof mixed quality. Plenty of assessmenttook place, but not enough of it wastargeted precisely to provide relevantinformation, for example, on the nextsteps in teaching phonics, either forindividuals or for groups of children.

61. The most effective assessment wassimple, rigorous and purposeful. Atleast three schools, which followed a

high quality phonics programme,assessed:• recognition of letters (and groups of

letters, such as digraphs)• the ability to sound out phonemes • the ability to hear and blend

phonemes• the reading of phonically regular

words• the reading of some irregular words.

The teaching was then adapted to takeaccount of the outcomes of thisassessment. Obviously, to be of valuefor teaching reading or anything else,assessment must provide more thaninert information about children’sperformance - hence the currentemphasis on assessment for learning.

62. The final report of the EffectiveProvision of Pre-school Education(EPPE) project underlines theimportance of assessment in theFoundation Stage:

It remains important not to ignore orminimise the existence of language orpre-reading differences because oftheir potential relationship with laterattainment and progress in school. It iscrucial that school entry assessmentsare used formatively to assist teachersin planning a programme to meetindividual needs.22


21 Primary national strategy: an evaluation of its impact in primary schools 2004/05 (HMI 2396), Ofsted, 2005.22 The effective provision of pre-school education (EPPE) project: final report: a longitudinal study funded by the DfES 1997 – 2004(SSU/FR/2004/01), DfES, 2004.

It follows that assessment during theFoundation Stage should take fullaccount of well informed observationsof children’s early languagedevelopment, including pre-readingdifferences that may be associatedwith language delay for which plannedsupport is needed.

63. The work that is taking place withinthe Primary National Strategy onassessment of, and for, learning willinform both the development of thenew Early Years Foundation Stage andthe renewed literacy framework. As thebenefits of this work become morewidely embedded, many of theobstacles to successful assessment arelikely to be overcome.

English as an additional language

64. The acquisition of two languages, withEnglish as the additional language,must be a valuable attribute andshould certainly not be seen as anobstacle to learning to read.The term‘English as an additional language’(EAL) acknowledges that manylearners of English in our schoolsalready know at least one otherlanguage and are adding English tothat repertoire.The term ‘bilingual’generally refers to children who haveaccess to more than one language athome and at school, even though theymay not be fully fluent in any onelanguage.

65. Ofsted has used the term ‘advancedbilingual learners’ to describe childrenwho have had considerable exposureto, and progressed beyond, the earlystages of learning English. For thesechildren, all the earlier commentsabout best practice apply with equalforce.This is especially important in thecase of developing speaking andlistening and intensifying languagecomprehension in English asprecursors to reading and writing,including phonic work. The indicationsare that the key features of a highquality, systematic programme ofphonic work sit well with, andstrengthen, any additionalarrangements that need to be made.For example, good progress in learningto read was reported by HMI whenobserving phonic work in schools withhigh percentages of children whosefirst language was other than English.

66. Submissions to the review, includingfrom the National Association forLanguage Development in theCurriculum (NALDIC), acknowledgedthe importance of developingspeaking and listening skills and thevalue of existing materials forpromoting them. NALDIC noted that:

At whatever age children begin tolearn English in school, they need tolearn quickly how to conveyknowledge and understanding inEnglish and to engage with new


learning through English. Developingtheir speaking and listening skills inEnglish is a key to their success.This isclearly acknowledged with thedevelopment of materials such as theSure Start/DfES/PNS publication‘Communicating matters.’ 23

67. Obviously, provision for teachingreading must fall within a wellestablished, broader range of supportfor pupils learning English as anadditional language, taking intoaccount not only ‘advanced bilinguallearners’ but also those who are not soadvanced, such as newly arrivedlearners of EAL, those with learningdifficulties and those who may havespecial educational needs. Children’sbackgrounds will obviously shape theirexperiences and should be taken intoaccount, for example, by recognisingcultural events, such as religiousfestivals and traditional stories.Thesecan provide powerful learningopportunities to boost speaking,listening, reading and writing inEnglish.

68. From work seen by the review, theguidance from the Primary NationalStrategy on school-wide approaches toinclusion constitutes a sound basis forproviding for all these learners ofEnglish as an additional language. It isworth underlining, however, theimportance of the effective use of

assessment so that any gaps inachievement can be spotted early andthe progress of these children trackedto ensure they receive appropriate andsustained support.

69. For example, one school visited by HMIfor the review had a predominantlyAsian British population, with over 30%of the pupils eligible for free schoolmeals. Nearly 70% of the pupils did nothave English as their first language.Thedevelopment of speaking and listeningskills, and vocabulary building, werestrong features of the work. InSeptember 2004, the schoolintroduced a commercial phonicsprogramme.

70. Underpinning much of theprogramme’s success was its approachto assessment and intervention.Theheadteacher described it as follows:

In the afternoon, any children whoneed extra help are taught in verysmall groups or one-to-one for shortperiods.The support is provided byteaching assistants, who have beentrained with this specifically in mind.This does not involve new material –it concentrates on blending skills andfollows the programme. Children whoare not coping in their readinggroups will be moved to the onebelow – this is not a problem and isnever referred to as ‘going down’.The


23 Communicating matters: an introduction to communication and language in early years settings (1771-2005DOC-EN), DfES, 2005.

managers of the programme monitorthe progress of every child and arequick to spot problems as they arise.

71. The school’s data show a big increase inthe proportion of children learning toread at Key Stage 1, with far fewer‘working towards’ or achieving onlylevel 1 in reading. Such data add weightto the view that systematic, highquality teaching, detailed assessmentand early intervention are as importantfor learners of English as an additionallanguage as for all other children.

Information and communicationtechnology (ICT)

72. The range of ICT initiatives andprogrammes available to settings andschools has grown apace in recentyears. Discussions with providerssuggest that reading, and especiallyphonic work, is an area for furthergrowth in this area. Users will need tobe sure not only that they have theexpertise to exploit these resourcesbut also that the ICT resourcesthemselves are fit for purpose andvalue for money.

73. One significant improvement noted byOfsted in their latest report on thePrimary National Strategy is teachers’better use of ICT as a result ofincreased guidance and support fromthe Strategy.This was also noted by thereview, for example, in the case ofelectronic whiteboards.The

opportunities afforded by thisinteractive technology were exploitedto good effect, and the benefits wereapparent for both teaching andlearning. At best, electronicwhiteboards extended teachers’repertoire of skills, helped them to planand teach sequences of work thatcaptured children’s interest, intensifiedtheir concentration and sustained theirattention.

74. When used well there is no doubt thatICT was also highly motivating as aform of additional support of benefitto children within interventionprogrammes.

Consistent quality

75. Not all the work observed by HMI wasof a consistently high quality;observations of weak practice inschools that were otherwise generallyeffective in teaching phonic workillustrate the point.Two examples areincluded here because they drawattention to the need for vigilance inensuring consistently high quality.

When sounding out (segmenting)words such as 'cat' and 'bat', theteacher frequently stretched theconsonants, for example, by addingthe sound 'ur'.What the children heardwas 'cur - a - tur' and 'bur - a - tur' thusthey found blending (synthesising) thesounds (phonemes) for 'cat' and 'bat'unnecessarily difficult.


The whole class was seated on thecarpeted area around the teacherwho sat on a chair next to thewhiteboard.The children were askedto sound out, blend and read wordssuch as 'pin' and 'tin' that the teacherwrote on the board.Two difficultiesfor the children were immediatelyapparent. First, the writing was toosmall and indistinct because it waswritten in a yellow marker pen.Secondly, those at the frontconstantly obscured the sight lines ofthe children sitting at the back of thegroup which included two boys lateridentified as 'struggling readers'.

76. The first example is directly related tophonic work. It calls for greatertechnical skill from the teacher inenunciating phonemes, as well as anunderstanding of why this is soimportant.The second is an example ofgeneral weaknesses that woulddepress learning not only of phonicwork but also of any work presented inthat way.

77. At first glance, these may appear to beminor weaknesses. However, allowingthem to continue will have aconsiderable, negative impact onchildren’s learning. In both cases, theschool’s normal monitoring shouldhave identified these weaknesses andthe teachers should have receivedfeedback to correct them.Whileeffective basic training shouldsafeguard against such weaknesses,

the hard message is that the ultimateresponsibility for overcoming them lieswithin the school - hence theimportance of good monitoring if‘quality first teaching’ is to be secured.

Divergent views

78. The interim report identified someaspects of phonic work on whichopinions diverged about how, orwhether, they should be taught.Theseaspects are touched on below.

Teaching letter names

79. The teaching of letter names is oftenleft until after the sounds of lettershave been learned, in the belief that itcan be confusing for children to haveto learn both together. However,research indicates that children oftenlearn letter names earlier than theylearn letter sounds and that five yearolds who know more letter names alsoknow more letter sounds.The reasonsfor this are not fully understood byresearchers.

80. Given that children will meet manyinstances outside, as well as within,their settings and schools where letternames are used, it makes sense toteach them within the programme ofearly phonic work.

81. It appears that the distinction betweena letter name and a letter sound iseasily understood by the majority of


children. Professor Morag Stuart hasobserved that it seems:… sensible to teach both names andsounds of letters. Names may beeasier to learn because, being syllablesrather than phonemes, they are moreperceptible, and also because childrenexpect things to have names and areaccustomed to rapidly acquiring thenames of things. 24

The value of regular texts

82. There is some force in the view that, asthey learn to master the alphabeticcode, children should be given readingmaterial that is well within their reachin the form of 'decodable books', that isto say, early reading books speciallydesigned to incorporate regular text,which children can decode using thephonic skills they have secured.Theview is that this enables them tobenefit from 'quick wins' in practisingphonic skills and gaining confidencefrom reading a whole, albeit short,book. Using such books as part of thephonic programme does not precludeother reading. Indeed it can be shownthat such books help children developconfidence and an appetite for readingmore widely.

83. Much turns on the quality of thedecodable books which are available,

and there is no doubt that this hasimproved greatly in recent years.Established, highly regarded authors ofchildren's literature write some ofthese books, and there is a wideningchoice of attractively designedmaterial.

84. There is no doubt, too, that the simpletext in some recognised favouritechildren's books can fulfil much thesame function as that of decodablebooks.Thus it may be possible to usethese texts in parallel, or in place ofthem. In any event the use ofdecodable books should certainly notdeny children access to favouritebooks and stories at any stage andparticularly at the point when theyneed to read avidly to hone their skills,as the focus shifts from learning toread to reading to learn. Current workbeing undertaken at WarwickUniversity valuably explores thesematters, suggesting, for example, that:

many books written for youngchildren have a high degree ofrepetition anyway, above and beyondhigh frequency words. Furthermore,the vast choice of available books willpotentially contribute to themdeveloping and extending theirvocabularies and general knowledge.25


24 Stuart, M.‘Learning to read: developing processes for recognising, understanding and pronouncing written words’, 2005 [submitted for publication].25 Solity, J. and Vousden, J. I.,‘Reading schemes vs real books: a new perspective from instructional psychology’, 2006. [submitted forpublication]

The sequence of teaching phonicknowledge and skills and pace ofcoverage

85. Reviewing the sequence of teachingphonic knowledge and skills will beundertaken rigorously as part of therenewal of the NLS framework. Ratherthan pre-empt that work, the followingcomments are offered to support it.

86. The sequence should be such thatchildren have every opportunity toacquire rapidly the necessary phonicknowledge and skills to readindependently. As Rhona Johnston andJoyce Watson noted in their research:

Most of the letter-soundcorrespondences, including theconsonant and vowel digraphs, canbe taught in the space of a fewmonths at the start of their first yearat school.This means that thechildren can read many of theunfamiliar words they meet in text forthemselves, without the assistance ofthe teacher. 26

87. It is vital that such direct, systematicteaching does not stop once childrenhave mastered the main letter-soundcorrespondences (such as knowing

one sound for each letter of thealphabet and some common digraphssuch as ‘sh’,‘ch’ and ‘th’). In addition,there should be direct teaching ofwords which are not phonicallyregular, such as ‘the’ and ‘was’, butwhich occur frequently in children’sreading.

88. For example, in one school, whichchose to introduce aspects of phonicwork before the age of five, there was avery short (10 minute) session inFoundation Stage 1, where childrenlearnt to hear the separate sounds inwords and then, mentally, blended thesounds to recognise the words, anexercise which developed theirphonological awareness.This wasfollowed, in Year R, by a daily whole-class session, lasting around 20minutes. In another school, a similarpattern was seen: the work in Year 1consolidated the phonic knowledgeand skills taught in Year R andprovided more opportunities forchildren to apply these in reading andspelling. Both schools had very highproportions of pupils (around 68%)learning English as an additionallanguage who were clearly benefitingfrom this approach.


26 Johnston, R. and Watson, J. The effects of synthetic phonics teaching on reading and spelling attainment: a seven year longitudinal study,TheScottish Executive Central Research Unit, February 2005.

Aspect 2: the development of the EarlyYears Foundation Stage and thedevelopment and renewal of the NLSFramework for teaching

The Early Years Foundation Stage

At what age should phonic work beintroduced?

89. Responses to the interim report showthat early years educators areconcerned about the important issueof when to start teaching phonic work.It would be ridiculous for the review tosuggest that phonics teaching shouldstart at the stroke of midnight on everychild's fifth birthday. However, there isample evidence to support therecommendation of the interim reportthat, for most children, it is highlyworthwhile and appropriate to begin asystematic programme of phonic workby the age of five, if not before forsome children, the way having beenpaved by related activities designed,for example, to build phonologicalawareness.

90. Much good work was evident whereyoung children were actively and fullyengaged in developing this awarenesswithin a broad and language-rich

curriculum.This work exploited thepower of play, story, songs, rhymes anddrama to familiarise children withletters, words and sounds.Time wasalso provided for children to talk withadults and each other about theirexperiences and feelings in wayswhich enlarged their vocabulary andstimulated their interest in reading.

91. Worthwhile pre-reading activitiesensured that children had wideexposure to print, for example, byseeing their names on models andpaintings, noticing labels and words ondisplays, playing freely with solidletters and, importantly, hearing andseeing text simultaneously whenstories and interesting non-fictionmaterial were read to them.Wellbefore they were able to read, childrenwere thereby getting the idea thatprint carried a message that could beread separately, for example, from theattractive pictures in story books.Practitioners pointed to the value, also,of role play in which children oftenpretend to write, learning that print


goes from left to right as their scribble-like writing becomes more linear andthey start to form letter shapes andwords.

92. The important point is thatpractitioners and teachers need to bewilling, and have the wherewithal, totest the boundaries of children'sreadiness for systematic phonic work.Pre-reading activities, such as thosedescribed above, provideopportunities to observe and assesschildren’s capabilities.Thus when tointroduce phonic work systematicallyis, and should be, a matter ofprincipled, professional judgementbased on careful observation androbust assessment.

93. Linnea Ehri, in a paper mentionedearlier, not only pointed out theimportance of systematic phonics, butalso drew attention to introducing itearly:

The impact of phonics instruction onreading was significantlygreater…when phonics was themethod used to start children out…These results show that earlyinstruction in systematic phonics isespecially beneficial for learning toread. 27

94. The many imaginative, active ways ofdoing this already evident in settings

and schools can certainly provide anenjoyable and rewarding start tophonic work for young children.

The Early Reading Development Pilot

95. To take further account of the views ofpractitioners, and issues around theintroduction and implementation ofphonic work, the review drew uponthe Early Reading Development Pilotannounced by the Secretary of State inJuly 2005. Around 180 primary schoolsand linked early years settings in 18local authorities are trialling newapproaches to using Playing withsounds. In part, the pilots focus onincreasing the pace at which phonics istaught, with a view to progressingphonics more effectively in theFoundation Stage.The pilots are alsoconsidering what support and trainingare needed to improve professionalknowledge and skills, as well as ways toengage parents in their children’s earlyreading.

96. The pilots were still running at the timeof publication of this report and thereview has considered feedback fromthe first term only (September toDecember 2005).This, nevertheless, hasprovided some valuable early insights,notably:

• Settings and schools have reviewedand raised their expectations of


27 Ehri, Linnea C., Systematic Phonics Instruction: Findings of the National Reading Panel, Graduate Center of the City University of New York.Paper presented at the DfES seminar on phonics on 17 March 2003.

progress in phonic development,including the impact on children atrisk of underachievement and thosewith special educational needs.

• Practitioners reported that it ispossible to focus on children’s phonicdevelopment without compromisingthe wider principles underpinningthe Foundation Stage curriculum.

• The phonic audit to identify prioritiesfor early reading development, andthe emphasis placed on trackingpupils’ progress to match provision toneed, were welcomed and seen asstrengths in the design of the pilot.

97. These early findings support conclusions drawn from other evidence considered by the review,especially that it is possible to start early phonic work while still giving children access to the full range of learning and development opportunities in the Foundation Stage.The findings also highlight the importance of early identification and continual monitoring of work to strengthen early reading, and for all staff in the setting or school to be engaged in this process.

98. It will clearly be important that thedevelopment of the new Early YearsFoundation Stage and the renewal ofthe literacy framework take account of

these and subsequent findings fromthe pilot, particularly to determine howbest to secure more effectiveprogression in early reading up to andbeyond the age of five.

Developing communication,language and literacy

99. An early start on systematic phonicwork is especially important for thosechildren who do not have theadvantages of strong support forliteracy at home. Despite overall gainsin international tests of reading, suchas the Progress in InternationalReading Literacy Study (PIRLS) in 2001,other data for England show that wedo less well than other countries forparticular groups of children, forexample, boys from families of lowsocio-economic status. 28 Furthermore,an appropriate introduction to phonicwork by the age of five enables ourchildren to cover ground that many oftheir counterparts in other countrieswhose language is much less complexphonetically do not have to cover.

100. Efforts to overcome persistentunderperformance are hardly likely tobenefit from depressing expectationsfor our five year olds when we knowthat, with appropriate teaching, theyare capable of higher achievementthan at present.The indications arethat, when these children do not get a


28 Progress in international reading literacy study (PIRLS), 2001.

really good start, they are likely to needinterventions to enable them to 'catchup' and 'recover' ground that theyshould not have lost in the first place.While it is true that socio-economicdifferences considerably outweighgender differences in reading andwriting performance, we need torespond effectively to both factors inthe interests of all children.

101. The significance of getting a reallygood start that will help to preparechildren embarking upon phonic work(and much else) is underlined furtherby an extension of the EPPE researchwhich studied children at ‘early risk’ ofdeveloping special educational needs(SEN). 29 This study showed thatattendance at high quality, pre-schoolprovision reduced the proportion ofchildren entering school with lowcognitive and language skills which putthem at risk of a poor start to learning.Significantly, more ‘home’ children wereidentified as having SEN at the age ofseven than those who had attendedpre-school, even after taking homebackgrounds into account.The benefitsof early education were still seen atseven, suggesting that pre-schoolexperience can be effective forimproving cognitive and linguisticdevelopment in children ‘at risk’ of SEN.

102. Various contributors to the reviewfrom the early years sector have been

concerned about perceived pressureson practitioners in the FoundationStage to adopt direct teaching which ismore commonly associated with laterkey stages. Because concerns aboutwork that is 'too formal too soon' arelong-standing in early years education,it is no surprise that the teaching ofphonics has raised questions about thebalance between teacher-directed andchild-initiated learning.

103. However, it is indisputable that settingsand schools provide uniqueopportunities for young children tolearn co-operatively in language-richcontexts. If children are to becomesuccessful independent learners, thensettings and schools must exploit theconditions that they provide best.Themost effective work drew upon all sixareas of learning of the FoundationStage curriculum and experience tofire children’s imagination and enrichtheir communication skills, particularlyspeaking and listening.

104. Important, too, is the boost to children'sconfidence, self-belief and attitudes toreading that is apparent when earlyphonic work is taught successfullywithin a language-rich curriculum. Allthis provides a strong foundation forearly phonic work that in no waycompromises the broader early yearscurriculum. Much of this was illustratedin work seen by HMI. For example:


29 Sammons, P. et al. The Early Years Transition and Special Educational Needs (EYTSEN) project (RR 431, ISBN 1 84185 021 X), June 2003.

The teacher read ‘We’re going on abear hunt’, in a big book format, witha group of 17 children.The sessionlasted around twenty minutes.Theemphasis was firmly on developingthe children’s language skills,especially through enlarging theirvocabulary, focusing on the sounds ofwords and enhancing theircomprehension of the narrative.

Excellent questioning engaged theirsocial and communication skills. Forexample, the teacher encouraged thechildren to listen to, repeat and enjoythe language of the book, such as‘swishy, swashy’. She developed theirgrammar and vocabulary bydemonstrating correct responses: achild who said,‘Him likes swimming’,received the encouraging response,‘Yes, dogs do like swimming’. Shehelped them to understand new wordsand to discuss them:‘What does itmean if it’s gloomy – a “gloomy cave”?’Questions such as ‘What do you thinkthe dog is going to do?’ and ‘Why arethey not going on a bear hunt?’ helpedthe children to think about thenarrative, whilst questions such as‘Why is the bear sad?’ required theiremotional engagement, as well as anunderstanding of what had happenedin the story up to that point.Both the teacher and the teachingassistant used some Makaton signing

for children with auditoryimpairments for words such as‘beautiful’,‘under’,‘through’,‘we’,‘over’,‘think’ to support their learning.

All the children concentrated andlistened very well, throughout thesession, which had a very positivefocus on listening and speaking, booklanguage, and the sounds of words.

105. Much has been done recently to shapethe early years curriculum to reflectwhat is known about childdevelopment and how children learn.Making sure that teaching securesoptimum progress for every childapplies with equal force to theFoundation Stage as to other stages ofeducation.The EPPE study helpfullycommented on this issue:

In summary effective pedagogy in theearly years involves both the kind ofinteraction traditionally associatedwith the term ‘teaching’, and also theprovision of instructive learning playenvironments and routines.

The ‘excellent’ settings provided bothteacher-initiated group work andfreely chosen, yet potentiallyinstructive play activities. 30

106. Good early years practice shows, ifproof were needed, that much learning


30 The effective provision of pre-school education (EPPE) project: final report. A longitudinal study funded by the DfES 1997 – 2004(SSU/FR/2004/01), DfES, 2004.

is a social and a socialising activity inwhich many important aspects ofcommunication, language and literacydevelop apace.The evidence fromsuccessful programmes suggests thatteaching the whole group or classtogether, for short amounts of time, isadvantageous for children, save forthose with serious learning difficultiesthat cannot be met within mainstreamprovision. Exploiting the benefits oflearning together also allows adults toidentify quickly those children whoneed various degrees of additionalsupport.

107. As children progress, however, somewill inevitably learn faster than others.Grouping children for phonic teaching,within an early years setting or class, bymatching work to their pace oflearning and developing abilities, isoften done to good effect. In the bestwork, too, children are stronglyencouraged to help each other, forexample, by working in pairs andtalking about the task in hand. Again,practitioners and teachers mustexercise professional judgementsabout organising teaching groups toprovide optimum conditions forlearning. In these respects, goodpractice in phonic work simply reflectsgood practice in general.

Involving parents

108. Obviously, developing children’s

positive attitudes to literacy from the

earliest stage is very important. As the

National Literacy Trust’s recent survey

shows, children’s attitudes to reading

are greatly influenced by parents and

carers.31 They can do much to stimulate

children’s early interest in literacy, for

example, by such well known practices

as reading and telling stories and

making sure that children have lots of

opportunities to listen and talk.

Regular exposure to good books, well

before the age of five, by sharing and

enjoying them with trusted adults, is a

time-honoured benefit for children

that should be strongly encouraged. In

doing this, parents and carers should

be reassured that they are contributing

massively not only to children’s literacy

but also to their education in general.

109. Respondents to the review

commented upon the many initiatives

designed to engage parents in helping

their children to develop their

communication skills in general and

reading in particular.While it was not

possible to look in detail at any

particular initiative, it is clear that those

such as Bookstart, Books for Babies,

Reading Connects and the National

Reading Campaign provide well

regarded, valuable resources for

parents that also do much to forge

links between homes, settings and

schools.


31 Children’s and young people’s reading habits and preferences: The who, what, why, where and when,The National Literacy Trust, December 2005.

110. Agencies such as the Basic SkillsAgency, the National Literacy Trust andcharitable organisations such as theNational Confederation of ParentTeacher Associations, and I CAN, whichworks largely with children withspeech and language disorders, domuch to engage parents.The PeersEarly Education Partnership also hasimaginative and well establishedprogrammes for engaging parents,wider families and the community inthe language development of youngchildren, as do voluntary organisationssuch as Volunteer Reading Help.

111. The review found that settings andschools realised the importance ofinvolving parents in developingchildren’s language and literacy.Thiswas often done well. For example,workshops on the teaching of readingwere held for parents, materials forengaging children in reading werewidely available for use at home, gooduse was made of school libraries andcontacting parents by telephone toinvite them to attend events designedto promote reading.

112. Despite their best efforts, however,some schools reported that it was notalways possible to gain parents’ co-operation and support for literacy.Thus, while they made every effort toinvolve parents, they had to acceptthat the contribution of some parentscould not be guaranteed. In these

circumstances the school was thesingle most important provider ofliteracy support for the child.

The searchlights model

113. As noted under Aspect 1, phonic workis a body of knowledge, skills andunderstanding that quite simply has tobe taught and learned. However, it is anobvious truth that the goal of readingis comprehension and that skilledreading involves understanding as wellas decoding text. In short, learning toread progresses to reading, effortlessly,to learn.The teaching of beginnerreaders requires an understanding ofthe processes that underpin thisprogression.These processes have aconsiderable bearing on thesearchlights model of reading.

114. The review has provided an importantopportunity to consider how well thesearchlights model continues to servethe needs of beginner readers.Themodel has undoubtedly served toestablish phonic work within a broadrange of strategies.To that extent thishelped to systematise phonic work at atime when many settings and schoolswere giving it far too little attention.

115. The searchlights model was foundedon a view of what constitutes a 'skilledreader' and the processes whichsupport a child moving to such aposition. 32 Obviously, that a child


should become a skilled reader is anindisputable expectation of all thoseinvolved in teaching reading tobeginners. However, the searchlightsmodel does not best reflect how abeginner reader progresses tobecome a skilled reader.

116. This is because skilled readers do notrely upon strategies to read words, asthey have already developed the skillof word recognition.They may useknowledge of context and grammar,which are conceived within thesearchlights model, to assist theirunderstanding of the text but, crucially,they would still be able to decode thewords if all contextual andgrammatical prompts were removed.Therefore, a model of reading whichencourages switching between varioussearchlight strategies, particularlywhen phonic work is regarded as onlyone such strategy, all of equal worth,risks paying insufficient attention tothe critical skills of word recognitionwhich must first be secured bybeginner readers.That is not to saybeginner readers should be deniedaccess, with skilled readers, to literatureand sharing books. Indeed, it isimportant to make sure that, over thecourse of acquiring phonic skills,children are also given everyopportunity to enjoy and benefit fromexcellent literature.

117. However, if beginner readers, for

example, are encouraged to infer frompictures the word they have to decodethis may lead to their not realising thatthey need to focus on the printedword.They may, therefore, not use theirdeveloping phonic knowledge. It mayalso lead to diluting the focusedphonics teaching that is necessary forsecuring accurate word reading.Thus,where beginner readers are taughthabitually to infer the word they needfrom pictures they are far less likely toapply their developing phonicknowledge and skills to print. Duringthe course of the review, severalexamples were seen of beginnersbeing encouraged to infer frompictures the word they did notimmediately recognise from the text.This was often done well before theyhad sufficient time to decode the wordand, if necessary, check, adjust and re-try after their first attempt.

118. These issues were raised by thesummary evaluation of the first fouryears of the NLS when Ofstedconcluded:

The ‘searchlights’ model proposed inthe framework has not been effectiveenough in terms of illustrating wherethe intensity of the ‘searchlights’should fall at the different stages oflearning to read. While the full rangeof strategies is used by fluent readers,beginning readers need to learn how


32 The National Literacy Strategy: Framework for teaching (PP3/31981/298/124), DfEE, 1998.

to decode effortlessly, using theirknowledge of letter-soundcorrespondences and the skills ofblending sounds together.Theimportance of these crucial skills andknowledge has not beencommunicated clearly enough toteachers.The result has been anapproach to word-level work whichdiffuses teaching at the earlieststages, rather than concentrating iton phonics. 33

119. Some contributors to the reviewexpressed concerns about thesearchlights model. In addition,witnesses presenting evidence to theEducation and Skills Committeeargued that that the searchlightsmodel needs to be reconsidered in thelight of a recent synthesis of researchfindings.34 We, therefore, askedProfessors Morag Stuart and RhonaStainthorp to review the relevantresearch and consider its implicationsfor the searchlights model. An outlineof their findings is set out below andthe more detailed research evidenceon which this is based is explored inAppendix 1.

The case for change to thesearchlights model

The contribution of the searchlights model

120. When it was introduced in 1998, thesearchlights model encapsulated what

was considered to be ‘best practice’ inthe teaching of reading.This offeredthe opportunity, which the NLS hasfully exploited, of gradually increasingthe emphasis on the importance ofphonics for young and for strugglingreaders.The searchlights model is anambitious model, which seeks toincorporate the whole complexity ofreading. At the time it was introduced,this holistic approach was in line withcurrent accounts of readingdevelopment that were accepted bypractitioners and teachers.

Research into learning to read

121. Meanwhile, researchers wereinvestigating different aspects of thecognitive processes involved inreading, and the ways in whichchildren developed these processes.Rather than viewing readingdevelopment as involving acontinuous increase in the child’sability to apply and orchestratedifferent ‘cueing systems’(searchlights), researchers looked atthe ways in which children’s wordrecognition skills developed.Theylooked at children’s ability to read andunderstand words in and out ofcontext, and also the ways in whichtheir ability to understand writtendiscourse developed.This newresearch thus involved studying thesetwo essential components of reading


33 The National Literacy Strategy: the first four years, 1998 – 2002 (HMI 555), Ofsted, 2002.34 Teaching children to read, paragraph 47.

separately, in an attempt better tounderstand the development of each.

Incorporating new research insights into

the teaching of reading

122. Sufficient progress in understandingeach component has now been madefor the findings of this research toinform teaching. Some of this research(for example, the research intophonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge as importantprerequisites for successful readingdevelopment) has already informedthe NLS Framework for teaching.Further progress can now be made ifthe searchlights model is restructuredto separate and clarify the twocomponents of reading, wordrecognition skills and languagecomprehension processes, that arepresently confounded within it. In thiscontext, word recognition is theprocess of using phonics to recognisewords. Language comprehension is theprocess by which word information,sentences and discourse areinterpreted: a common process is heldto underlie comprehension of bothoral and written language.

123. This separation, made explicit in ‘Thesimple view of reading’ (see below andAppendix 1) is useful in practicebecause it provides a framework thatenables teachers to understand whatthey need to teach about wordrecognition and comprehension and

why they need to teach it within abroad and rich curriculum.

The simple view of reading

124. There is evidence of the validity of thisconceptual framework in that:

• different factors have been shown topredict word reading from those thatpredict comprehension

• there are children who have wordrecognition difficulties in the absenceof language comprehensiondifficulties

• there are children who havelanguage comprehension difficultiesin the absence of word recognitiondifficulties

• there are differences in contexteffects at word and text levels.

Consequences of adopting this conceptual

framework

125. Each dimension and its developmentmust be understood by practitionersand teachers.They need to be broughtup to date with research into thedevelopment of word recognitionskills.This research acknowledges thecrucial importance of ensuring thatchildren understand the alphabeticprinciple at the start of a systematicapproach to reading.There are threeessential components to suchunderstanding:• ability to segment spoken words into

their constituent phonemes• knowledge of grapheme-phoneme


correspondences (phonicknowledge)

• ability to blend phonemes into words.

126. Teachers also need to be brought up to date with research into reading comprehension. As reading comprehension has now been shown to depend crucially on language comprehension, teachers also need to have good knowledge and understanding of oral language development, and of ways to foster language comprehension.These two dimensions are shown in Figure 1 below.

127. As explained further in Appendix 1, inthe top right-hand quadrant there arechildren who are good readers:children who lift the words off thepage relatively effortlessly andunderstand the texts they read withrelative ease.

128. In the other three quadrants, there arethree predicted patterns of poorreading. At bottom right, there arechildren who read the words in thetext with relatively little difficulty butwhose poor language comprehensionabilities militate against theirunderstanding written texts. At topleft, there are children who havedifficulty reading the words in the textbut have good languagecomprehension: that is, children forwhom poor word recognition skills are

the major barrier to understandingwritten texts. At bottom left, there arechildren who experience difficulty onboth dimensions, with problems bothin reading words and in languagecomprehension.

Summary

129. In sum, distinguishing the key featuresassociated with word recognition andfocusing upon what this means for theteaching of phonic work does notdiminish the equal, and eventuallygreater, importance of developinglanguage comprehension.This isbecause phonic work should be timelimited, whereas work oncomprehension continues throughoutlife. Language comprehension,developed, for example, throughdiscourse and a wide range of goodfiction and non-fiction, discussingcharacters, story content, andinteresting events, is whollycompatible with and dependent uponintroducing a systematic programmeof high quality phonic work at anappropriate time as advocated by thisreview.

130. Apart from teaching phonic worksystematically and discretely for shortperiods of time, the best practice alsotook advantage of opportunities toreinforce aspects of phonic knowledgeand skills throughout the curriculum.The most obvious examples of thiswere when teachers encouraged


children to apply their developingdecoding and encoding skills to thereading and writing of fiction and non-fiction in work across the curriculum.This interplay of phonic work withinthe wider curriculum was a strongfeature of good teaching: it helpedchildren to see the purpose of phonicwork as they reinforced theirdeveloping skills by applying them toworthwhile and interesting curricularcontent.

Figure 1


Languagecomprehension

processes


processes

Wordrecognitionprocesses


Poor word recognition; good

comprehension

Good word recognition; good

comprehension

GOODPOOR

GO

OD

Poor word recognition; poorcomprehension

Good word recognition; poorcomprehension

POO

R

Aspect 3:what range of provision bestsupports children with significantliteracy difficulties and enables themto catch up with their peers,and therelationship of such targetedintervention programmes withsynthetic phonics teachingApproaches to intervention

131. An obvious, sometimes overlooked,first response to concerns about earlyreading difficulties must be to makesure that the child has been reliablyassessed for medical conditions suchas hearing and sight problems that caneasily be corrected.Thereafter,consideration should be given toproviding targeted intervention.

132. For many children incipient readingdifficulties can be prevented, or nippedin the bud, by thorough, earlyassessments of their performance, theinformation from which is then used toadjust and tailor work more closely totheir needs.These adjustments canoften be made effectively so that thechildren continue to be taught in theirregular settings and classes.Where this

is not in their best interests, however,the arrangements for interventionadvocated by the Primary NationalStrategy remain sound advice.That isto say, work should be adapted withinthe classroom, further support in smallgroups should be provided for thosewho need it, and individualprogrammes should be provided forthose with the greatest need, some ofwhom will have special educationalneeds.

133. The Primary National Strategydistinguishes three ‘waves’ of teachingand intervention which adequatelycover the range of provision that bestsupports children with significantliteracy difficulties. It is important torecognise that these ‘waves’ signifytypes of provision and not categoriesof children. High quality phonic work,


as defined by the review, should be akey feature of the provision in each ofthese ‘waves’:

• Wave 1 – the effective inclusion ofall children in daily, 'quality firstteaching'

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

• Wave 3 – additional, highlypersonalised interventions, forexample, specifically targetedapproaches for children identifiedas requiring SEN support (on SchoolAction, School Action Plus or with astatement of special educationalneeds). 35

134. The Basic Skills Agency has publisheduseful recent guidance for schoolsseeking information on choosingeffective intervention schemes. 36

Wave 1:quality first teaching –securing cost effectiveness

135. 'Quality first teaching' is a term coinedby the NLS to emphasise such teachingas a priority entitlement for allchildren.37 It is a useful reminder thatthe need for interventions, variouslydescribed as 'catch-up' or 'recovery'programmes, may be much reduced

when high quality teaching is matchedwell to the different but developingabilities of beginner readers. It followsthat investment in quality firstteaching not only promises to bringthe greatest benefit to children but it isalso likely to offer greatest value formoney. If such an investment is made,the idea that there will inevitably be alarge group of children nationally whorequire Wave 2 intervention and ‘catchup’ can be dispelled.

136. Intervention programmes for childrenwho have fallen behind in reading canbe expensive, costing as much or morethan the average capitation sum for achild in a given year. In order to recoverlost ground and close the gap withtheir peers who are meeting the targetlevels for attainment, the rate ofprogress for these children often has tobe doubled. Moreover, the longer theperiod of failure in reading the moredifficult and costly it becomes toreverse the trend. It follows that themost cost-effective strategy is to do asmuch as possible to prevent readingdifficulties in the first place. An early,systematic, high quality phonicprogramme within Wave 1 (quality firstprovision) almost certainly offers thebest and most cost-effective way toachieve this.


35 In, for example, Learning and teaching for dyslexic children, DfES 1184-2005 CDI, DfES, 2005.36 Enters, I. & Brooks, G. Boosting reading in primary schools (ISBN 1 85990 328 2),The Basic Skills Agency, 2005.37 The term was used, for example, in the NLS conferences for headteachers held in the autumn term 2000 and subsequently in describingthe teaching that should precede any intervention work.

137. The prime purpose of interventionprogrammes, therefore, is not to shoreup weak teaching at Wave 1. As theSpecial Educational Needs Code ofPractice points out:

It should be recognised that somedifficulties in learning may be causedor exacerbated by the school’slearning environment or adult/childrelationships.This means lookingcarefully at such matters asclassroom organisation, teachingmaterials, teaching style anddifferentiation in order to decide howthese can be developed so that thechild is enabled to learn effectively. 38

138. Furthermore, intervention should bean integral part of the school’s totaloffer for meeting the range of needspresented by the children. It isimportant that the gains madethrough intervention work should besustained and built upon after it is nolonger deemed necessary for childrento have the support of an interventionprogramme.

Characteristics of quality firstteaching

139. The provision of Wave 1 teaching hasto come to terms with some long-standing issues about how best tomatch work to children’s different butdeveloping abilities.The teaching of

reading is no exception. Currentinterest in 'personalising' education, forexample, rightly recognises differencesin children's rates of learning and theneed to provide work that is neithertoo easy nor too hard for each child. Acautionary note should be sounded,however, about exaggerating thesedifferences at the expense of whatchildren hold in common and thestrengths of co-operative learning.

140. For beginner readers, the benefits oflearning worthwhile things togetherare all too obvious as they engage withcommon, interesting tasks that involvehelping each other, for example,through partner work, as well aslearning collectively from clearexplanations, focused discussion,skilfully framed questions and plannedactivities provided by the adultsresponsible for teaching them.

141. From the work seen during the review,'quality first teaching' is characterisedby a carefully judged blend of whole-class, group and individual work thatprovides optimum conditions for allsave those children whose needs areclearly unmet because they aredemonstrably not making progressand are falling behind their peersdespite such teaching.

142. Obviously, assessment of the child’sreading should determine whether


38 Special educational needs: code of practice, DfES 581/2001, DfES, 2001.

Wave 1 teaching needs to bestrengthened, before any interventionprogramme is considered. Shouldintervention prove necessary, suchprogrammes should relate closely tohigh quality Wave 1 teaching but betailored to the specific needs of thechildren who are not making progress.The Special Educational Needs Code ofPractice is very clear that:

The way in which a school meets theneeds of all children has a directbearing on the nature of the additionalhelp required by children with specialeducational needs, and on the point atwhich additional help is required.

143. In the best work seen,‘quality firstteaching’, in addition to reducing thenumbers requiring interventionprogrammes, also narrowed the gapwhich otherwise might have existedbetween boys and girls. Data from thenational tests illustrate the importanceof tackling this issue.The 2005 KeyStage 1 assessments show that, overall,85% of seven year olds gained level 2 orabove in reading, the expected level fortheir age. However, only 81% of boysreached this level compared to 89% ofgirls – already a gap of eight percentagepoints. At level 1, there were 14% ofboys compared to 8% of girls and 4% ofboys were still ‘working towards’ level 1compared to 2% of girls.

Intervention programmes

144. In discussing intervention, it is helpfulto distinguish between two maingroups of children:

• those who are falling behind eitherbecause of issues relating to theirpersonal, social and economiccircumstances, or weaknesses in theteaching or teaching programmesthey have received for whom Wave 2provision is likely to be approriate

• those who have specific problemsthat may, for example, be neuro-developmental in origin, for whomWave 3 provision is likely to be mostappropriate, some of whom may beable to make progress but unable to‘catch up’ with their peers.

145. Children can also fall behind or evenregress in reading for other, perhapsless obvious, reasons, for example:

At least in early acquisition, readingability is a bit like foreign languageability: use it or lose it, and the moretenuous the knowledge, the greaterthe loss.Thus, the well-documentedand substantial losses in reading thatare associated with summer vacationare especially marked for youngerand poorer readers. 39

146. Careful consideration must therefore


39 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.

be given as to how all children, andespecially the most vulnerable groups,can be helped to build upon 'tenuous'knowledge rather than risk losing itthrough lack of, or uneven, support attimes, such as long school holidays.

Wave 2:additional interventions toenable children to work at age-related expectations or above

147. Where ‘quality first teaching’ is notmeeting the needs of children, thereare ample data to show that earlyfailure in literacy can be overcome, to avery large extent, by timelyintervention.The importance ofresponding early to such difficultiescannot be overstressed because thereis much convincing evidence whichindicates that, once entrenched,reading failure is not only much harderto reverse but is also detrimental toother areas of learning and self-esteem.

148. Evidence considered by the review,including visits by HMI, showed thatthe most effective Wave 2 interventions:

• are not used as a substitute for‘quality first teaching’, especially theeffective early teaching of phonics

• provided an early accurateassessment of children’s phonicknowledge and skills

• are focused on the right childrenthrough careful assessment, regularupdating and tracking of progress

• use assessment information to shapeappropriate support

• are used early before literacy failurehas become embedded

• aim for children who have fallenbehind to reach the target levels fortheir age rather than just narrow thegap between them and their peers

• are time limited and have clear entryand exit criteria.

Teaching arrangements

149. Schools visited by HMI provided avariety of arrangements at Key Stage 1which included:

• support from teaching assistants forsmall groups within class lessons

• work with a teaching assistant, in asmall group, outside the class

• one-to-one daily reading sessionswith a teaching assistant

• use of the Primary National StrategyEarly Literacy Support programme inYear 1 and, sometimes, AdditionalLiteracy Support in Year 2, taught bytrained teaching assistants

• guidance for parents on how to helptheir children at home

• providing selected children with 10minutes of additional work on letter-sound correspondences with ateaching assistant

• a 20-minute group session with thespecial educational needs co-ordinator, focusing on phonicknowledge and skills, and on applyingthese to reading and writing


• grouping children for phonic work,moving them between groupsdepending on their progress.

150. These examples show, unsurprisingly,that schools exercise professionaljudgement to exploit differentarrangements for intervention work,depending on their circumstances.

151. A prominent feature of muchsuccessful intervention work was thatit was often ably undertaken byteaching assistants who had almostalways benefited from thoroughtraining and who worked not onlyalongside teachers in regular classesbut also very effectively with smallgroups or individual children. Indeed,one specific intervention programmefor the teaching of phonic work wasdesigned and researched jointly by alocal authority and a university.Thisconsisted of training teachingassistants to work with individuals andsmall groups of children, with obvioussuccess.The key features of thetraining were:

• how to use data to track children’sprogress and to match teachingresources to it

• techniques for teaching individualsand groups

• fortnightly tutorials following uptraining.

Enlisting the support of parents was anotable feature of the programme andcontributed to its success.This wasevident from the positive feedbackreceived from parents about theprogress of their children.

152. The headteacher of another schoolwhich was visited strengthened thequality of teaching by arranging forthe whole staff, including teachingassistants, to undertake shared trainingon teaching reading with a focus onphonics.The teachers and teachingassistants were particularly enthusedby this collective arrangement, whichgreatly helped to integrate Wave 2interventions with ‘quality firstteaching’.This reflects the messagefrom the interim report that:

‘…it is nothing short of foolhardy tomake enormous investments inremedial instruction and then returnchildren to classroom instruction thatwill not serve to maintain the gainsthey made in the remedial program.’ 40

153. This cautionary note applies to anyintervention work. It should not bedifficult to heed.This is becauseeffective intervention work shouldfocus on the phonic skills childrenhave already met in their mainstreamclasses but may need more help andtime from skilled adults to strengthen



and secure those aspects they had notfirst understood.The important point isthat all the contributions to a child’sprogramme must be implemented toan agreed plan that coordinatesintervention and mainstream work.

Wave 3:additional,highlypersonalised interventions

154. The aspects of effective interventionfor Wave 2 set out above apply withequal force to Wave 3.This provisionwill usually involve additional, highlypersonalised interventions designedfor those children whose main areas ofneed fall within the SEN Code ofPractice.They are:

• cognition and learning • behaviour, emotional and social

development • communication and interaction• sensory and/or physical needs. 41

155. While children receiving Wave 3provision will undoubtedly makeprogress, it has to be recognised thatsome may not reach the target levelsof their peers. Equally, not all suchchildren will require intervention forreading difficulties. It is also reasonableto expect that many children with SEN,such as those with certain physicalneeds, will make progress to or abovethe expected levels for their age, given

appropriate support within aninclusive approach to intervention.

156. Further, it needs to be recognised thatsome children with special educationalneeds, for example, physically disabled,may not require essentially differentprogrammes of phonic work. Indeed,receiving ‘quality first teaching’ withinregular classes is the priority for thesechildren as it is for some children withsensory impairments. For the latter,some modifications to the phonicprogramme might be beneficial, suchas emphasising particular aspects ofthe multi-sensory work to intensifysupport for speaking and listening.

157. It is also the case that the boundariesbetween Waves 2 and 3 provision and,indeed, between some areas ofdifficulty or need are porous such thatprovision will need to be made forchildren with multi-sensoryimpairments. In other words there is:

considerable overlap between area ofneed, teaching approach andteaching strategy…Sound pedagogyincorporates knowledge from bothspecial education and generaleducation traditions. Specialeducation knowledge is an essentialcomponent of pedagogy. 42

158. Much Wave 3 provision, for example,


41 See chapter 7 of Special Educational Needs: Code of Practice, DfES 581/2001, DfES, 2001.42 Research Brief 516, February 2004, www.dfes.gov.uk/research

for children with severe auditory orvisual impairments is of such aspecialist nature that it was notpossible, within the scope of thisreview, to give these important areasthe attention they require.Nevertheless, contributions wereinvited from leading organisations,including the British Association ofTeachers of the Deaf, the South EastSEN Regional Partnership, and I CAN. Itwas clear from these contributions thata wide range of expert support andguidance is available to help settingsand schools match provision to need,including that which relates to theteaching of literacy.The DfES has alsofunded a study to investigate ways inwhich teaching approaches could bedeveloped and implemented, drawingon existing good practice in order toraise the achievement of pupils withspecial educational needs. 43 It shouldalso be noted that there aremandatory qualifications for teachersof children with sensory impairment. 44

Other considerations

159. Some programmes, specially designedfor children with reading difficultieswhose needs are not met by Wave 1 orWave 2 provision, provide intensivetraining not only for the adults whowork with the children but also for

those who train them. The well knownReading Recovery early interventionprogramme is one of these.Teacherleaders undergo intensive training inorder to train Reading Recoveryteachers for what is essentially daily,one-to-one work for children with thegreatest difficulties.The DyslexiaInstitute also has an extensive tieredtraining programme which covers aspectrum of specific learningdifficulties across the primary andsecondary age range.

160. A strength of these specially designedprogrammes is the provision of ateacher who is well trained to dealwith intervention work and provideadvice and support to other adults intheir school with a responsibility forthe teaching of reading.

161. ‘Fidelity to the programme’, as notedunder Aspect 1, is equally, if not more,important in the case of interventionprogrammes because, as Marie Claypoints out in the case of ReadingRecovery:

There is a clear trend for theprogramme to drift away from itsdesigned suitability for an extremeand different population towardwhat typically works with mostchildren in classrooms. Such drift has


43 Teaching strategies and approaches for pupils with special educational needs: a scoping study (RR516), DfES, 2004.44 The Education (School Teachers' Qualifications) (England) Regulations 2003.

to be constantly attended to in theprofessional development of ReadingRecovery. 45

162. In sum, no matter which provisionapplied, the most successfulintervention arrangements wereplanned as part of the totalprogramme for teaching reading andmonitored carefully.The driving andcoordinating force was, more oftenthan not, a well trained, experiencedmember of staff, such as thecoordinator for literacy or SEN; aboveall, the arrangements had the fullbacking of the headteacher.


45 Quoted in Standards and guidelines for the implementation of Reading Recovery: extract for schools, Reading Recovery National Network,Institute of Education, University of London, August 2004.

Aspect 4:how leadership andmanagement in schools can supportthe teaching of reading,as well aspractitioners’subject knowledgeand skills

163. Time and again, successfulimprovement within schools and highstandards of work are shown todepend on the strength and quality ofleadership provided by headteachersand senior staff.The teaching ofreading is no exception. Given thewide range of responsibilities thatheadteachers carry, however, for themto cover everything to the requireddepth and detail is a formidableundertaking.Therefore, it is veryimportant for all settings and schoolsto make sure that at least one seniormember of staff is fully able to take thelead on literacy, especially phonicwork. Among other things, this mustinclude an overview, well informed bymonitoring, of the total provision forliteracy that can be drawn upon totackle inconsistent practice and deployresources to best effect.This overviewshould also inform the process forsetting targets and school self-evaluation.

164. As the vice-chair of the NationalGovernors’ Association has said sosuccinctly,‘The main aim of agoverning body should be toendeavour to raise the school’sstandards’. 46 Governors have a legalduty to set targets for English at KeyStage 2. In setting these targets,schools will take account of children’sperformance in Key Stage 1; henceprovision at this stage will be asignificant influence on expectationsfor achievement at Key Stage 2.

165. Primary schools were givenresponsibility for setting their owntargets three years ago. In the last twoyears schools have set targets whichseem to show they cannot make anyfurther improvement in English.Theaggregate of the school targets forEnglish for 2007, which were set inDecember 2005, indicates that theyexpect to make no progress beyondthe performance achieved in 2005. It is


46 Adamson, S. Start here: what new school governors need to know (ISBN 0 948543 01 9), Adamson Books, revised edition 2005.

essential for headteachers andgoverning bodies to ensure that thetargets they set are achievable but alsoambitious for the progress ofindividual pupils and, above all, do notdepress expectations.

HMI observations of effectiveleadership

166. The visits by HMI illustrated theessential contribution of goodleadership and management to theeffective teaching of phonic work andto the quality of training whichunderpinned it, including deepeningthe subject knowledge of thoseresponsible for beginner readers.Effective headteachers, supported bysenior management teams, ensuredthat programmes of phonic work wereimplemented thoroughly.This wasparticularly noticeable in the schoolsthat had selected a commercial phonicscheme. Because headteachers wereconvinced of the quality of thesecommercial programmes, they madesure that their investment, includingthe time and funding for training,resulted in value for money in terms ofa positive impact on children’sprogress in reading. Above all else,these schools were characterised bytheir consistent approaches and thesense that every single adult wasengaged in making sure that allchildren learnt to read.

167. Headteachers and senior staff

generally built this whole-schoolcommitment by:

• setting high expectations forchildren’s progress throughambitious and realistic targets forEnglish

• establishing a clear and explicitprogramme of work for phonics

• improving the quality andconsistency of teaching, assessmentand intervention by providingrelevant training for all thoseengaged in teaching phonics

• putting strategies in place to ensurethat no child ‘fell through the net’,such as comprehensive assessmentand the allocation of resources (timeand staff ) for catch-up work

• monitoring both the quality andconsistency of teaching reading andits outcomes (as part of the school’snormal monitoring arrangements)

• strengthening awareness of howphonic work could be appliedthroughout the curriculum.

168. The best leadership teams gavereading and the phonic component ahigh priority and ensured thatprogrammes were implemented asplanned.The monitoring of teaching,learning and the impact of trainingwas frequent and thorough, and wascrucial to keeping the programme ontrack:

In one very large primary school, twosenior teachers, without classes of


their own, divided their time betweenobserving the teaching of readingand writing, and giving feedback,modelling teaching throughdemonstration lessons, scrutinisingchildren’s work, and analysingassessment and other performancedata.They were also responsible formanaging the placing andmovement of children in the abilitysets across classes for phonic work.This was a key leadership role thathelped to ensure the programme ransmoothly and that, in the words ofthe headteacher,‘no child slipsthrough the net’.

169. Not all schools, of course, can providethat level of support and sometimesheadteachers had to overcomeresistance to change. For example:

The headteacher of a challenginginner-London primary school soughtto strengthen phonic workconsiderably by introducing a new,systematic phonics programme.Some teachers believed that whatwas proposed would stifle theircreativity and lead to children‘barking at print’, and the school’slearning mentors did not want toteach reading but saw themselvesmore as providers of pastoralsupport. However, with the supportand encouragement of the head,these attitudes were changed,particularly when all the staff wereengaged in teaching the programme

to small groups of children workingat the same level.They saw itseffectiveness first hand and, in thewords of the headteacher, became‘converts’.

170. In practice, decisions involving majorchange, such as whether to groupchildren by ability for teachingreading, have to be taken by the headteacher.This arrangement wasobserved in some schools visited byHMI. For example:

An infant and nursery school in asocially and economically deprivedarea had to meet the needs of adiverse population, including childrenat various stages of learning Englishas an additional language. Factorssuch as poor attendance, which waswell below average, partly due toextended visits to children’s countryof origin, hampered their progress.

The head, therefore, in consultationwith the staff, decided to organiseteaching by ability groups to providebetter adult: pupil ratios for lowerability pupils; shared planningbetween teachers and teachingassistants, and better assessmentarrangements, particularly to takeaccount of pupil mobility. As a resultof these changes, many of thechildren moving from the nurseryinto Year R received a goodfoundation in early phonic work.Theschool was in its third year of this


approach and was beginning to seethe impact on standards of reading inthe national tests in Year 2.Theapproach was particularly effectivefor the less able pupils who weretaught in the smaller groups.

171. In addition to the headteacher, otherstaff acting in a leadership capacitycan play a very important part inensuring that high quality phonic worktakes place. For example, expertteachers contributed significantly tothe quality of provision by:

• demonstrating excellent teaching• providing training and advice,

including for teaching assistants• supporting new teachers, such as

newly qualified teachers andexperienced staff from elsewherewho were unfamiliar with theschool’s approaches, through supportfor planning and resources

• initiating developments, such asspecific approaches to intervention

• developing or enhancing links withparents.

172. In some cases, these expert teacherswere also Advanced Skills Teachers orlead teachers in their authority and soplayed an important leadership rolebeyond, as well as within, their ownschool.


Aspect 5:value for money or costeffectiveness of the range ofapproaches the review considersThe importance of investing intraining

173. The importance of training at all levelshas featured strongly in this review.Toestablish high quality work in settingsand schools requires an investment intraining. As training costs amount to alarge, if not the largest, system-wideinvestment, the review has consideredvalue for money in terms of the scopeand impact of training.

174. Very considerable sums of money havebeen spent, and continue to be spent,on the training of practitioners, teachersand support staff responsible forbeginner readers. For example, for 2004-2006 the DfES has provided around£130 million for local authorities toundertake a range of workforce trainingand development activities for the earlyyears sector. A cornerstone of theNational Strategies’approach to raisingstandards has been a commitment tothe professional development ofteachers. In 2004-05, this amounted to75,000 days of training for teachers inEnglish, including one day’s training inreading and phonics for two teachersfrom every school.

175. Evidence during the review about thequality and impact of training to teachreading has been drawn from:

• the visits by HMI to schools • Ofsted’s inspections of initial teacher

training (ITT) and views from the ITTsector

• observation of a small amount of in-service training led by the PrimaryNational Strategy and commercialproviders

• views from contributors to thereview, including teaching unionsand the Dyslexia Institute,Xtraordinary People and the ReadingRecovery National Network.

176. The predictable picture that emergesfrom this evidence is of a clear linkbetween the quality of training and itsimpact on teaching reading. However,the training is not always as effectiveas it should be. It is not a matter of alack of capability in the teaching forcebut, rather, that initial, in-servicetraining, and other professionaldevelopment should be strengthenedconsiderably to take greater account ofthe teaching of reading and make


explicit how knowledge of phonicwork applies to pedagogy.

177. Given that ‘quality first’, as defined bythe NLS, is the overriding priority forteaching, training at all stages shouldaim to exemplify and amplify what thisentails as an entitlement for all children.Initial teacher training should, therefore,at least equip primary teachers with thekey principles of teaching phonic workand relate this to how children learn toread. As the Education and SkillsCommittee noted in its report on Theteaching of reading:

Improvements to teacher training arenecessary to ensure that all teachersof reading are familiar with thepsychological and developmentalprocesses involved in readingacquisition. 47

178. The imperative is to improveprofessional knowledge and skills, andtheir application, so that the high levelof investment in training continues toraise standards, yield better value formoney and maximise benefits to thelearner.

Initial teacher training and induction

179. Many of these issues about quality arelong-standing. Ofsted’s Primary Follow-Up Survey (PFUS) from 1996-98followed a previous inspection of

primary ITT, known as the PrimarySweep, during which:

Trainees were often found to be veryinsecure about how to teach reading;in particular, they were not wellprepared to teach phonics and wereuncertain of how to structure areading programme for a class ofpupils. 48

180. In order to enable trainees to reachhigh standards in terms of theirsubject knowledge, Ofstedrecommended that providers of initialteacher training should ensure that:

all trainees can plan and implement astructured programme of phonicsteaching in order to develop pupils’skills systematically.

181. Subsequently, ITT has given a goodgeneral overview of teaching reading.This has led to improvements inplanning, teaching and classmanagement but too often does notensure that trainees recognise thepriority that should be given to phonicwork.The new standards for ITT needto reflect this priority so that ITTproviders are clear about the emphasiswhich should be given to phonic work.

182. An ITT provider sought views from itstutors and trainees on the implicationsof the interim report for training.The


47 Page 34, Teaching children to read, House of Commons Education and Skills Committee,The Stationery Office, 2005.48 Primary follow-up survey of the training of trainee teachers to teach number and reading 1996-98 (HMI 193), Ofsted, 1999.

responses it received illustrate thevalue of considering the steps below.For example, a school in the ITTpartnership reported ‘missing the“depth and precision” of the previousITT standards’ where 'you could spellout to trainees the knowledge andskills to be acquired.’ 49 A new ITT tutorexpressed criticism of 'the current ITTventure' which was seen to ignorephonics teaching and ‘gives rathergeneralised advice about effectivepractice and choosing books’.

183. The views of trainees reflected ageneral concern that training shoulddo more to make sure good phonicwork was exemplified in as many waysas possible, for example, by definingthe detail and structure of systematic,high quality programmes, andportraying the effective teaching ofsuch programmes through video/DVDand other means.

184. The TDA is currently conducting aconsultation on the standards forclassroom teachers. It proposes that‘for all career stages, the standards willneed to reflect the importance ofsubject knowledge and progression insubject knowledge’. 50

185. Ofsted’s evidence – from the HMI visitsduring the review, ITT inspections andthe 2004 survey of the teaching of

reading - adds weight to the TDA’sview of the importance of subjectknowledge. In reviewing the standardsit will be important for the TDA tomake sure that the teaching of readingis addressed explicitly in these respectsand receives the priority itsimportance merits. It should alsoensure that the standards reflect theexpectations in the renewedframework for literacy and the newEarly Years Foundation Stage.

In-service training

186. At its best, the in-service training seenduring the review was very goodindeed. It made clear that the purposeof phonic work was to enable childrento learn to read and writeindependently, and that it should focussharply on making sure that theygained the necessary knowledge andskills efficiently and quickly.

187. Such training was characterised by:

• sufficient time given tocommunicating key content

• clear principles which underpinnedthe content, sequence and pace ofphonic work

• straightforward, well structuredpresentation of the phonicknowledge, skills and understandingchildren need to learn, ensuring that


49 The initial teacher training (ITT) National Curriculum for primary English, an Annex to Circular 4/98, specified the essential core ofknowledge, understanding and skills which all trainees on primary and KS2/3 courses of ITT were to be taught.The requirements came intoeffect in September 1998.They were superseded by Qualifying to teach from September 2002.50 Consultation on the review of standards for classroom teachers,Training and Development Agency for schools, September 2005.

each stage of learning is secured• understanding of the relationship

between phonic work andcomprehension

• guidance on how to teach irregularwords

• guidance on regular assessment ofphonic knowledge, skills andunderstanding and using theinformation gained to improveteaching and learning

• attention to children’s speaking andlistening skills, including duringphonic work itself

• multi-sensory approaches, includingan appropriate use of mnemonics.

188. The best training also made clear theimportance of effective classroompractice being supported by:

• school-wide commitment toteaching phonic work systematically

• strong leadership and managementby senior staff, including monitoringteaching to make sure that theintended outcomes of the trainingwere being achieved.

For example:

In one school visited by HMI,following a course of syntheticphonics training, the headteacherundertook a minimum of 10 shortobservations each week. He wasconvinced that this level of personalintervention kept the programme ‘ontrack’ and was effective in ensuring

that pupils made good progress. Hefelt that such monitoring ‘ensuresthat they stick to the agreed, whole-school programme’.The impact was,in his words, a ‘staggering difference’in the pupils’ ability to read.The KeyStage 1 test results improvedmarkedly in 2004 and again in 2005.The school became one of the mosthighly attaining schools in theauthority, yet with one of the mostdiverse populations.

The headteacher’s commitment toconsistent and robust monitoring wasclearly key to bringing about thisimprovement in reading.

Strengthening the quality of training

189. There are three main interdependentaspects of training which need to beconsidered:

• initial training and induction• in-service training and professional

development of all those responsiblefor teaching beginner readers

and the implications for:

• the updating of trainers’ skills andknowledge.

190. The new Early Years Foundation Stage,the renewal of the NLS framework andthe proposals to revise the TDAstandards together form a strongplatform for ensuring that:


• phonic work receives the priority itmerits in initial teacher training

• this priority is maintained throughinduction, in-service training andprofessional development

• those responsible for providingtraining receive the support andtraining that they themselves need tomake sure that these standards areachieved and sustained.

191. The TDA should be invited to considerhow the implications for training anddevelopment prompted by the newEarly Years Foundation Stage andrenewed literacy framework should bereflected in initial teacher training andtraining of the wider workforce.

192. All the following steps should beexplored to make sure that full accountis taken of the expectations for teachingliteracy, especially phonic work:

Step 1: In revising entry standards forall primary teachers (Qualified TeacherStatus), maintain the current prioritygiven to securing an up to dateknowledge and understanding of thePrimary National Strategy and therevised framework for teaching literacy.

Step 2: In developing the proposedrevised standards for early yearsprofessionals, ensure that these takefull account of the new Early YearsFoundation Stage and revised PrimaryNational Strategy framework for

teaching literacy.Step 3: Over a period of two years,develop a programme for ‘training thetrainers’ for initial and in-serviceproviders to ensure that all have athorough grasp of the new Early YearsFoundation Stage and the revisedliteracy framework.

Step 4: Revise standards for induction,threshold and Excellent Teacher andAdvanced Skills Teacher to take fullaccount of the new Early YearsFoundation Stage and revised PrimaryNational Strategy framework.

Step 5: Revise the standards forsupport staff, including Higher LevelTeaching Assistants (HLTAs), to reflectthe higher expectations for literacy,especially for phonic work.

Step 6: Explore new ways in whichHLTAs might specialise in early readingprogrammes, including interventionsfor Waves 2 and 3.

Other considerations

193. Contributors to the review pointed outthat initial training to teach readingmust take account of the contexts inwhich trainees learn, for example, inuniversities, colleges and school-basedcentres. Arguably, universities andcolleges are better placed to providethe training on ‘the psychological anddevelopmental processes involved inreading acquisition’ and the related


research. A good example of this is theneed for trainees to acquire anunderstanding of the researchunderpinning the proposed changesto the searchlights model.Trainees’experience in schools, therefore,should complement centre-basedtraining. It should include: workingalongside skilled teachers, assessingreading (including phonic work), andsupporting pupils with difficulties.Schools should also make sure thattrainees have opportunities to teachhigh quality phonic work.

194. Continuing professional developmentmust build upon successful practiceand, if necessary, cover gaps fromearlier training.The DfES noted inwritten evidence to the SchoolTeachers’ Review Body:

However rigorous the training anddevelopment that generally needs tobe undertaken in order to reach QTSand induction standards, the notionof a teacher ever being ‘fully-trained’is at odds with the culture ofcontinuing professional developmentthroughout teachers’ careers that theGovernment and its partners areseeking to promote. 51

195. There is a strong argument for thecontinuing professional developmentof all teachers to reflect theimportance of supporting reading and

writing across the curriculum, as wellas deepening the expertise of thosedirectly responsible for beginnerreaders.This will be a fundamentalresponsibility of the Primary NationalStrategy in both the design of the newframeworks and the implementationof their aims and objectives.

Training for early years

196. Whatever form it takes, the training ofearly years practitioners would fall farshort of reaching satisfactory, let alonehigh, standards, if it failed to givepriority to the area of communication,language and literacy.

197. Obviously, the value of all six areas oflearning must be acknowledged.However, the area of communication,language and literacy calls for carefullystructured training that makes crystalclear, for example:

• how young children developlanguage

• how their acquisition of languagecan be strengthened and enriched

• how their language development isobserved to make sure that anyobstacles to progress are tackledearly

• how the precursors to reading andwriting can help children make agood start on phonic work by theage of five.


51 Evidence submitted to the School Teachers’ Review Body by the DfES (School Workforce Group), 20 June 2005.

Training for school support staff

198. In recent years, rising numbers ofsupport staff, especially teachingassistants, have played an increasinglyimportant role in the teaching ofreading and wider aspects of languagework.This increase in such a valuablesector of the workforce is undoubtedlyan outcome of the National Literacyand Numeracy Strategies, whichserved to strengthen the purpose anddefinition of their role.

199. The value of support staff wasrecognised further by the advent ofHLTAs, and some excellent work hasbeen seen in 'quality first' (Wave 1) andintervention programmes (Wave 2)where teaching assistants and HLTAshave contributed vitally to the successof these programmes.

200. Support staff often reported that theirtraining was successful. It was usually amix of on-site apprenticeship styletraining, that is, learning from skilledteachers, and off-site training providedby local authorities. Although it wasoften difficult for schools to releasestaff, joint training courses on reading(which brought together teachers andteaching assistants for shared sessions)were highly regarded.The support staffalso valued thorough feedback abouttheir work.

201. These observations suggest that good

quality training for support staff is aninvestment worth making.The statusof this training might be raised furtherby award-bearing courses which assesscompetencies, for example, insupporting language and literacy.

202. Tiered courses of the kind offered bythe Dyslexia Institute are an exampleof training which has the advantage ofproviding a pathway for support staffwishing to enhance their existing roleor eventually train to become ateacher.

203. Work by the TDA is already underwayto put the training of support staff on afirmer footing and could bestrengthened further by steps 5 and 6discussed above.


Evidence from practiceClackmannanshire

Research and practice

204. The Education and Skills Committeeplaced considerable weight on thefindings of a seven-year longitudinalstudy in Clackmannanshire in Scotland,noting that ‘the Clackmannanshirestudy is an important addition to theresearch picture, which increasinglypoints to synthetic phonics as a vitalpart of early reading education’. Severalcontributors to the review alsounderlined the importance of thisstudy. Other contributors, however,challenged some aspects of the study,because they did not feel it had beenundertaken rigorously enough.

205. As well as examining the research insome detail, members of the reviewteam visited Clackmannanshire in mid-September 2005 to:

• discuss the background to theClackmannanshire research withmembers of the Scottish Executiveand one of Her Majesty’s Inspectorsof Education in Scotland

• observe examples ofClackmannanshire’s approach toteaching phonics in P1 (the

equivalent of Year R in England)• hold discussions with headteachers,

teachers, members ofClackmannanshire council and DrJoyce Watson (co-author of theresearch).

206. In a nutshell, the Clackmannanshireresearch reports at the end of theseven-year longitudinal study that:

At the end of Primary 7 [Year 6 inEngland], word reading was 3 years 6months ahead of chronological age,spelling was 1 year 8 months ahead,and reading comprehension was 3.5months ahead. However, as meanreceptive vocabulary knowledge (anindex of verbal ability where theaverage is 100) was 93 at the start ofthe study, this is a group of childrenfor whom normal performance mightbe expected to be below average forchronological age on standardisedtests.Therefore this may be anunderestimate of the gains with thismethod. 52

207. Although the research methodologyhad received some criticism byresearchers, the visit provided thereview with first-hand evidence of veryeffective teaching and learning of


52 The effects of synthetic phonics teaching on reading and spelling attainment: a seven year longitudinal study, Johnston, R. and Watson, J.Published on the Scottish Executive website, 11 February 2005.

phonic knowledge and skills of thechildren in the P1 classes, as well asmuch useful contextual information,which was also associated with theirsuccess. Focusing on the practiceobserved in the classroom and itssupportive context, rather thandebating the research, is therefore notwithout significance for this review. Animportant finding is that the workcentred on a high quality phonicsprogramme similar in most respects tothose observed by HMI in the bestwork seen in England.

Context

208. The work in Clackmannanshire, begunin 1997 by Joyce Watson of theUniversity of St Andrews, gainedimpetus from funding from the ScottishExecutive to all councils for work onearly intervention. Councils were free todecide how to allocate this, for example,on work with parents, transition,teaching and learning.Clackmannanshire used some of it todevelop its work on phonics. It thereforebuilt on practice that had emergedfrom findings from earlier researchconducted by the University of StAndrews and, importantly, engaged theteachers in implementing it.

209. Clackmannanshire is a small council,comprising 19 primary schools (10 ofwhich have an attached nursery class),

3 secondary schools, 2 special schoolsand 4 nursery schools.This means thatit was relatively easy for groups ofteachers or headteachers to be drawntogether for training; further, word ofsuccess spread rapidly.The council’sdevelopment officer for the initialstages of the project was able toinvolve herself closely in all aspects ofit.This was effective not only at thelevel of direct management, but also interms of ensuring teachers’commitment to the project througheffective leadership.

210. Traditionally, local authorities (councils)in Scotland have a high degree ofautonomy for the work they do withtheir schools. Scotland has curriculumguidelines for pupils aged 5 – 14 at 6levels, A - F; these are advisory, notstatutory. In practice, there is a highdegree of compliance with theguidelines but schools are free to maketheir own decisions aboutprogrammes and assessment.The pre-five curriculum guidelines are alsoadvisory. 53

Design, implementation and delivery

211. As noted earlier, the phonic approachbuilt on evidence from earlier research.It began with a small number ofschools in the first instance, involvingthe headteachers and seniormanagement teams directly in order to


53 A curriculum framework for children 3 – 5 (1 85955670 1),The Scottish Office, 1999.

ensure their commitment to theproject. Only later, by which time theseeds of success had been sown, wereother schools drawn into the work andinterested to adopt the then promisingmethods which were being piloted.

212. The authority provided timely,differentiated training, for example,meeting the needs of new teachers aswell as extending the trainingprovided to others.The teachers of P1children were trained first; then, later,P2 teachers and so on.Teachers whojoined a school from outside thecouncil either attended externaltraining or, if none was available at theright time, they observed anexperienced teacher teaching a similarage-group to their own until authority-wide training was provided.

213. At the beginning of the programmesome teachers had reservations: they‘thought at first it was too quick and[they] worried about those [pupils]that could not cope’. However, havingseen the impact on children’s learning,the teachers were wholly committedto the approach. One teacher said, 'Ihave never seen results like this in 30years of teaching'. She went on to saythat, as a result of following theprogramme, 'I am seeing Primary 3quality in Primary 1’. In other words, theteacher considered that the childrenshe was teaching in Primary 1 wereworking at the level of children twoyears older.

214. In part the teachers attributed theircommitment and enthusiasm to theway in which they had been involvedby the authority: their opinions weresought, materials were introduced ordeveloped as a result of feedback, andthere was extensive local training.

Teaching and learning

215. At the time of the review team’s visitsto the P1 classrooms, the children hadbeen in school for four weeks, havingstarted school in mid-August. In theone school visited, they had attendedpart-time until the week of the visit; inanother school, they were still part-time.

216. By starting phonic work early in P1teachers were able to identify quickly‘those children who do not haveconcepts of print’ and in so doingreduce ‘the real trailingedge…because their difficulties weretackled much sooner’.

217. Key features of the teaching andlearning were:

• short teaching sessions (15-20minutes), broken up by a move fromthe carpet area to tables part-waythrough

• a consistent structure for eachsession so that the children knewhow the teacher would approacheach part of their learning

• revision of previously learnt letter-


sound knowledge before theintroduction of new work

• a well-judged pace to the teaching• multi-sensory approaches• demonstration of the ‘reversibility’ of

reading and spelling.

218. A typical phonics session began withsinging the ‘alphabet song’ while theteacher (and, later, a child) pointed tothe magnetic letters on thewhiteboard. Sounds already learntwere rehearsed and there wassounding out and blending of simplewords (e.g. in, tip, pin), the wordshaving been written on thewhiteboard before the lesson.Theteacher then pronounced wordsclearly, which the children segmentedinto their separate phonemes, withphysical actions; she questionedchildren about which sounds had beenheard and in what order (‘Which cameat the beginning? Which came in themiddle? Which came at the end?’). Howto write the letter ‘p’ was rehearsed (in‘sky writing’). After that, the childrenlearnt a new sound and how to formthe letter ‘s’, before reading words withthe sound /s/ (is, sat), using theirprevious letter-sound knowledge andblending skills.Then they made up asentence, orally, with the word ‘is’,before segmenting ‘sit’ into its separatephonemes. At their tables, they didfurther similar work with magneticwhiteboards: they segmented CVCwords (and one CCVC word as an extrachallenge), selecting the magnetic

letters and placing them, in the correctorder, to spell the words, followed bysliding the letters together (torepresent blending) to read the words.

219. Multi-sensory approaches wereevident throughout the session.Children sang the ‘alphabet song’;tapped out the number of phonemesin spoken words with their hands ontheir heads, their shoulders, theirknees, saying the relevant phonemeeach time; formed the relevant letter inthe air (‘sky-writing’); listened to thesounds in words, identifying theposition of the sound in the word;selected magnetic letters, lined themup for the correct spelling and pushedthem together, saying the sounds andthen blending them together to saythe whole word.

220. Simple but effective resourcescontributed significantly to the qualityof the teaching: an alphabet frieze,flipchart and coloured pens, magneticletters and small white boards for eachchild. In the work at their tables,following the work done with theteacher in the carpeted area, childrenhad the whole alphabet shown on agrid on their magnetic boards, but onlythe magnetic letters for sounds alreadylearnt were actually on the board.Children selected from these to spellthe words they were given orally.

221. The ‘reversibility’ of decoding letters toread words and choosing letters to


spell (encoding) meant that childrenwere applying their phonic knowledgeand the skills of blending andsegmenting in two contexts: readingand writing. Since they were successfulin this, building on firmly establishedknowledge and skills, they paved theway for further work and developedtheir confidence and self-esteem asreaders and writers.

Lessons learnt

222. Despite the difference in contextbetween Clackmannanshire andauthorities in England, features ofeffective practice were observed inClackmannanshire comparable withprovision in England, such as:

• the training and commitment ofheadteachers and senior staff

• the involvement of practisingteachers in developing the materialsand providing feedback to refine theprogramme

• training provided at the point atwhich teachers and support staffneeded the required knowledge andskills

• access to expert assistance• the efficient dissemination of

information through informal andformal support networks

• prompt ‘catch-up’ training for staffjoining a school in the authority fromelsewhere

• a clear, consistent structure fromwhich to plan

• good quality, simple classroomresources, such as magnetic boardsand letters.

223. Although contextual features differ,and Scotland has a tradition ofteaching phonics which almostcertainly continued over a periodwhen it had fallen out of favour inEngland, there is now firm evidence ofphonic work in England of comparablequality with that seen inClackmannanshire.

HMI visits

224. Observing practice and seeking theviews of teachers and practitionerswas an important part of the review.Visits by HMI focused on gathering upto date evidence from classrooms inorder to identify the features ofconsistently effective teaching thatresulted in high achievement.Thesevisits also evaluated how leadershipand management affected theprovision of work in phonics, includingtraining and the development ofteachers’ subject knowledge to teachit.The findings on these aspects arereported under Aspect 4.

225. A small but significant number ofschools choose to adopt a phonicprogramme other than that proposedby the NLS, rather than justsupplementing the NLS’s approachwith commercially available materials(particularly for teaching letter-sound


correspondences). HMI thereforevisited schools representative of bestpractice in both approaches: 10proposed by the Primary NationalStrategy and 10 proposed byexperienced advocates of otherphonics programmes; almost all ofthese were commercial programmes.Across both categories, 17 of theseschools included nursery-aged pupils(aged 3 – 4).The visits took placeduring late September and earlyOctober 2005; four further visits tookplace during November and December2005 to gain additional evidence onspecific aspects of phonic work.

226. During the visits, HMI:

• discussed approaches to phonic workwith senior staff

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

• listened to 55 pupils in Year 1 readingindividually.

Quality of teaching

227. Across the 24 schools visited, HMIjudged the quality of teaching to be atleast good in 45 of the 64 lessons seen(70%). In six lessons it was inadequate.

228. This good teaching, and the learningwhich resulted from it, reflected thekey principles of high quality work inphonics which are set out underAspect 1 of this report.The lessons

judged by HMI to be at least good(and, occasionally, outstanding) werecharacterised by:• clear objectives which focused

unwaveringly on ensuring thatchildren gained phonic knowledgeand skills, especially asking them toblend sounds together to read andsegment the sounds in words to spell

• consolidation and revision ofpreviously taught phonic knowledgeand skills

• multi-sensory approaches to supportlearning (physical actions, visual andaural mnemonics) and effective,simple resources

• clearly directed questioning, verygood assessment, feedback and praise

• a good, often brisk, pace to theteaching and learning, unhindered byextraneous activities which oftenslow the pace of the lesson andwaste valuable time

• efficient organisation andmanagement, including effectivesupport from teaching assistants inwhole-class lessons

• opportunities for children to work inpairs to support each other’s learning

• adults’ excellent knowledge of thephonic content to be taught andtheir skills in teaching it, includingclear and precise pronunciation ofphonemes which provided a goodmodel for pupils and supported theirblending skills.

229. In the lessons which were judged to bejust satisfactory, HMI noted:


• insufficient revision of previouslytaught letter-sound knowledge

• limited opportunities for pupils toapply their phonic knowledge inblending sounds to read

• low expectations of what pupilscould achieve (typified by a too-leisurely coverage of letter-soundcorrespondences)

• imprecise pronunciation ofphonemes by adults

• inefficient use of resources (includingteaching assistants).

These features slowed children’sprogress in acquiring phonicknowledge and skills and limited theextent to which they could apply whatthey were learning to their ownreading.

230. The most important aspects to bedrawn out from these observationsconcerned: the content and sequencingof the programme of phonic work; theknowledge adults needed to teach (orsupport) phonic work successfully; thepace of teaching; consolidation andassessment; the activities provided, andclassroom management, including themanagement of materials andresources.

231. Two important aspects requiredimprovement. First, not all schoolswere sufficiently clear about exactlywhat phonic knowledge (letter-soundcorrespondences) they expected theirpupils to have learnt at particular

stages. As a result, teachers failed toconsolidate sufficiently the knowledgealready taught before moving on.Insufficient assessment of phonicknowledge and skills also meant thatteachers had not determinedaccurately enough what the next stageof teaching should be to meetchildren’s precise needs.

232. Second, nearly half the schools visiteddid not give enough time to teachingchildren the crucial skill of blending(synthesising) sounds together.Instead, teachers emphasised hearingand identifying the initial, final andthen the middle sounds in words. So,even when children knew sufficientletter-sound correspondences, theirlack of skill in blending sounds meantthat they could not apply theirknowledge to read words they had notseen before. Being able to hear theindividual sounds in words, and knowwhich letter (or letters) representedthem, was necessary for their spelling,but it was not sufficient for them tolearn to read independently.

233. High quality phonic work wasunderpinned by high qualityassessment. Detailed approaches,allied to systematic teaching, helped toidentify, very early on, the children whowere not making progress in line withtheir peers. Because the programmesof phonic work set out exactly whatneeded to be learnt and assessed ateach point, teachers could act


immediately on assessment findings,so that children had plenty ofopportunity to catch up quickly beforethe gap between them and their peerswidened.

234. In contrast, schools where assessmentwas weak were not rigorous or focusedenough in what they did.This meantthat the evidence that they gatheredhad gaps. For instance, in one school,teachers tried to assess, during thecourse of a lesson, which pupils knewwhich letter-sound correspondences;every six weeks, there was a formalassessment of the phonemes whichhad been taught in that block of work(but not of all phonemes taught) to seewhether children could sound themout and blend them; guided readingrecords asked for a comment onphonic knowledge. However, despiteall this, the HMI who visited discoveredthat it was not possible to find out,from records, whether an individualpupil could sound out and blendspecific phonemes, could segment thesounds in words to spell or knew thedifferent ways of writing specificphonemes – the fundamental buildingblocks for learning to read and writeindependently.

Children’s reading

235. As well as observing teaching, HMIjudged how well the teaching fosteredchildren’s confidence in applying theknowledge and skills they had been

taught when they were readingindependently.

236. Children who had been taught, at anearly stage, to blend the sounds inwords were able to apply their phonicknowledge to tackle words they hadnot seen before. In this example, a childin Year 1 with English as an additionallanguage read a book from acommercial scheme. HMI wrote:

She reads at a steady if not entirelyfluent pace. She blends soundsconfidently and is not put off bywords which would be verychallenging for many pupils in thefirst half-term of Year 1. She readswith little hesitation and withoutmiscues: ‘Mum freaked out at first butshe got me one’ and ‘We let the sheepsleep in the kitchen’. She is unafraid oftackling fairly complex words she hasnot seen before. She also has a goodknowledge of phonically irregularwords that she can read on sight.

237. In contrast, in the schools which didnot emphasise sufficiently the skills ofblending sounds, children were notable to apply the phonic knowledgethey had learnt.They knew theindividual letter-soundcorrespondences, but were not able tosound these out in words and thenblend them together to read. In thisexample, an average-attaining boy inYear 1, with English as his firstlanguage, attempted to read his


‘reading book’ from a commercialscheme. HMI wrote:

This pupil knows the letter-soundcorrespondences for most of the 26letters of the alphabet, but he readsby a whole word method.Occasionally he tries to use his phonicknowledge too, but he rushes atwords, using his knowledge of the firstletter only. For example, he reads ‘was’instead of ‘went’. At times he leaveswords out and continues frommemory without self-correcting, tothe extent that at one point he reads‘it’ for ‘everyone’. He does not knowvowel digraphs; when asked whatsound ‘oo’ makes in ‘pool’, he says ‘o’,even though he has just read ‘pool’correctly (presumably by using thepictures or the context).

238. The visits showed clearly that, if phonicwork is to contribute effectively toreading (and spelling), schools need tobe clear about:

• the essential core of phonicknowledge and skills which childrenrequire

• the sequence in which that corecontent should be taught

• the relative weight which needs to begiven to the skills of blending andsegmenting – and the importance ofblending to read

• the fact that these skills are‘reversible’: if children can blend toread, they can also segment to spell.

Leadership and management

239. HMI also gathered evidence on thequality of leadership andmanagement.The findings arereported under Aspects 4 and 5.


Recommendations240. These recommendations build on

those proposed in the interim reportand are set out under the aspects ofthe remit given by the Secretary ofState.

Aspect 1

What best practice should be expected inthe teaching of early reading and syntheticphonics

• The forthcoming Early Years FoundationStage and the renewed Primary NationalStrategy Framework for teaching literacyshould provide, as a priority, clear guidanceon developing children’s speaking andlistening skills.

• High quality, systematic phonic work asdefined by the review should be taughtdiscretely.The knowledge, skills andunderstanding that constitute high qualityphonic work should be taught as theprime approach in learning to decode (toread) and encode (to write/spell) print.

• Phonic work should be set within a broadand rich language curriculum that takesfull account of developing the four inter-dependent strands of language: speaking,listening, reading and writing andenlarging children’s stock of words.

• The Primary National Strategy shouldcontinue to exemplify ‘quality first

teaching’, showing how robust assessmentof children’s learning secures progressionin phonic work and how literacy isdeveloped across the curriculum from theFoundation Stage onwards.

Aspect 2

How this relates to the Early YearsFoundation Stage and the developmentand renewal of the National LiteracyStrategy’s Framework for teaching

• For most children, high quality, systematicphonic work should start by the age of five,taking full account of professionaljudgments of children’s developing abilitiesand the need to embed this work within abroad and rich curriculum.This should bepreceded by pre-reading activities thatpave the way for such work to start.

• Phonic work for young children should bemulti-sensory in order to capture theirinterest, sustain motivation, and reinforcelearning in imaginative and exciting ways.

• The searchlights model should bereconstructed to take full account of wordrecognition and language comprehensionas distinct processes related one to theother.

• The Early Years Foundation Stage and therenewed literacy framework must becompatible with each other and make sure


that expectations about continuity andprogression in phonic work are expressedexplicitly in the new guidance.

Aspect 3

What range of provision best supportschildren with significant literacy difficultiesand enables them to catch up with theirpeers, and the relationship of suchtargeted intervention programmes withsynthetic phonics teaching

• It is not the purpose of intervention workto shore up weak teaching at Wave 1.Settings and schools should establish‘quality first teaching’ to minimise the riskof children falling behind and therebysecure the most cost effective use ofresources. High quality phonic work shouldtherefore be a priority within Wave 1teaching.

• Given that intervention work will benecessary, settings and schools shouldmake sure that additional support iscompatible with mainstream practice.Irrespective of whether intervention workis taught in regular lessons or elsewhere,the gains made by children through suchwork must be sustained and built upon when they return to theirmainstream class.

• Leading edge interventions should

continue to be exemplified in guidanceshowing how the best provision andpractice are matched to the different typesof special educational needs.

Aspect 4

How leadership and management inschools can support the teaching ofreading, as well as practitioners’ subjectknowledge and skills

• Headteachers and managers of settingsshould make sure that phonic work isgiven appropriate priority in the teachingof beginner readers and this is reflected indecisions about training and professionaldevelopment for their staff.

• Settings and schools should make sure thatat least one member of staff is fully able tolead on literacy, especially phonic work.

• Those in leadership and managementpositions should make sure that thenormal monitoring arrangements assurethe quality and consistency of phonic workand that staff receive constructivefeedback about their practice.

• Headteachers and governors shouldensure that high quality teaching ofreading in Key Stage 1 informs realistic and ambitious target-setting for English at Key Stage 2.


Aspect 5

The value for money or cost effectivenessof the range of approaches covered by thereview.

• In order to ensure that initial training andprofessional development provide goodvalue for money in the teaching of reading,including phonic work, the Training andDevelopment Agency for Schools shouldconsider all the steps set out under Aspect5 of the remit.


Appendix 1: the searchlights model –the case for change

The contribution of the searchlights model

1. In making the case for moving on from the searchlights model as the framework forunderstanding how children develop their reading skills, we acknowledge the positiveeffect that the model has had in promoting a better understanding of the importance ofthe direct teaching of literacy.

2. When it was introduced in 1998, the searchlights model also encapsulated what wascurrently accepted as ‘best practice’ in the teaching of reading.This had the advantage ofmaking it easier to bring teachers on board to accept the NLS framework for teaching. Itis an ambitious model, which seeks to incorporate the whole complexity of reading.Thisholistic approach to reading was in line with the accounts of reading development thatwere current and informed what was considered to be ‘best practice’ in the teaching ofreading.

Figure 1: The NLS searchlights model of reading


Phonics(sounds and

spelling)

Word recognitionand graphicknowledge

Knowledgeof context

GrammaticalKnowledgetext

3. The searchlights model (Figure 1) characterises the reading process as involving fourstrategies – called ‘searchlights’.The suggestion is that, when addressing a text, readersuse four sources of knowledge to ‘illuminate’ their processing.These four sources are:phonic (sounds and spelling) knowledge; grammatical knowledge; word recognition andgraphic knowledge; and knowledge of context.The original implication, later modified,was that these different knowledge strands were potentially of equal usefulness to thereader and that in some way higher levels of facility in one area of knowledge mightcompensate for lower levels in another.The searchlights model implicitly acknowledgesthat both accurate word recognition and good language comprehension are necessary ifreaders are to understand the texts with which they engage, but does not delineateaccurately which aspects of the complex process of reading texts with understandingare attributable to each of these components.The case for change that we discuss belowrests on the value of explicitly distinguishing between word recognition processes andlanguage comprehension processes.

4. Best teaching practice in the years immediately preceding the introduction of the NLSdrew heavily on Clay’s work (Clay, 1972,1979,1985). Like the searchlights model, Clayproposed that readers have to use four sources of information, which she describes ascueing systems, in order to read texts.These she labelled as: phonological (the sounds oforal language); syntactic (sentence order); visual (graphemes, orthography, format andlayout); and semantic (text meaning) (Clay, 1985; Clay and Cazden, 1990). According toClay, children have to use all four cueing systems to develop multiple strategies forprocessing texts. Good readers are said to focus on meaning and use output informationfrom applying all the strategies to enable comprehension of the text. In contrast poorreaders are said to have a more limited range of strategies and those they use tend to belower level and to lack integration.

Research into learning to read

5. Over the past 30 years, there has been a considerable research effort undertaken largely,but not solely, by cognitive psychologists, devoted to investigation of different aspects ofthe cognitive processes involved in reading, and the ways in which children developthese processes.

6. Rather than viewing reading development as involving a continuous increase in thechild’s ability to apply, and to orchestrate the application of, different ‘cueing systems’(searchlights), this research has been concerned with investigating (a) the ways in whichchildren’s word recognition skills (i.e. their ability to read and understand words, in and


out of context) develop; and (b) the ways in which children’s ability to understandwritten texts develops.

7. Psychological research thus involves separation of these two essential components ofreading, in an attempt better to understand the development of each.

Incorporating new research insights into education

8. Sufficient progress has now been made in understanding each component for thefindings from this research to be useful to informing teaching practice. Some of thisresearch has already informed the NLS framework for teaching (e.g. the research intophonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge as important prerequisites forsuccessful reading development has led to increased emphasis on the importance ofteaching phonics to young and to struggling older readers, and on the prime importanceof establishing use of the ‘phonics – sounds and spelling’ searchlight).

9. We have been impressed with the readiness of the NLS to modify the guidance given toteachers in the light of new evidence from research.We think that further progresstowards the goal of using evidence derived from psychological research to informteaching practice will be better achieved if the searchlights model is now reconstructedinto the two components of reading (word recognition, language comprehension) thatare present but confounded within it.

The simple view of reading

10. There is wide acknowledgement that reading is a complex activity but in the followingparagraphs we show that reading has two, essential components which can berepresented in a relatively simple way.

11. In recent years there has been a convergence of opinion among psychologistsinvestigating reading that little progress towards understanding how reading happensin the human mind is likely to be made

If we start off by investigating ‘real reading’, seeking for example to discover howreaders develop an understanding of what life might have been like in Imperial Russiaas they read The Brothers Karamazov. No one has any idea about how to carry outsuch an investigation; so more tractable reading situations have to be studied first.This is done by breaking up ‘real reading’ into simpler component parts that are more


immediately amenable to investigation, with the hope that as more and more ofthese component parts come to be understood we will get closer and closer to a fullunderstanding of ‘real reading’.

(Coltheart, 2006).

12. Two components of reading identified in the simple view of reading first put forward byGough and Tunmer (1986) are ‘decoding’and ‘comprehension’: according to these authors,‘Reading is the product of decoding and comprehension’. We would not want to suggestaccepting this statement as a complete description or explanation of reading; rather, wewant to advocate the good sense of considering reading in terms of these two components.

13. However, it is important to be clear as to the meanings the authors ascribe to the termsused in the statement, so that we can understand what each component comprises.Gough and Tunmer make clear that by ‘decoding’ they mean the ability to recognisewords presented singly out of context, with the ability to apply phonic rules a crucialcontributory factor to the development of this context-free word recognition ability.

14. They also make clear that by ‘comprehension’ they mean not reading comprehension butlinguistic comprehension, which they define as ‘the process by which, given lexical (i.e.word) information, sentences and discourse are interpreted’. A common set of linguisticprocesses is held to underlie comprehension of both oral and written language.

15. Gough and Tunmer further make clear that word recognition is necessary but notsufficient for reading because ability to pronounce printed words does not guaranteeunderstanding of the text so represented. Furthermore, linguistic comprehension islikewise necessary, but not sufficient, for reading: if you cannot recognise the words thatcomprise the written text, you cannot recover the lexical information necessary for theapplication of linguistic processes that lead to comprehension.

16. A useful illustration of the necessity for reading of both components and the insufficiencyfor reading of each component on its own is the story of Milton in his blindness.Wishingto read ancient Greek texts, but unable to do so because he could no longer see thewords, Milton encouraged his daughters to learn to pronounce each alphabetic symbol ofthe ancient Greek alphabet. His daughters then used these phonic skills to read aloud thetexts to their father.Their father could understand what they uncomprehendingly readaloud to him.The daughters possessed word recognition skills, which did not enable themto understand the text; Milton, despite his ability to understand the Greek language, wasno longer able to use his word recognition skills and so was no longer able to understandGreek text without harnessing his daughters’ skills.


17. Gough and Tunmer’s simple view of reading has increasingly been adopted bypsychologists researching reading development since it was first proposed in 1986. It issometimes presented in diagrammatic form as illustrated in Figure 2 below.The twodimensions are presented in the form of a cross to emphasise that both wordrecognition processes and language comprehension processes are essential at all pointsduring reading development and in skilled reading.

Figure 2: The simple view of reading

18. We believe that the simple view of reading provides a valid conceptual framework that isuseful to practitioners and researchers alike. Clear differentiation between the twodimensions provides a conceptual framework that:

(a) encourages teachers not necessarily to expect that the children they teach will showequal performance or progress in each dimension;

(b) offers the possibility of separately assessing performance and progress in eachdimension, to identify learning needs and guide further teaching;

(c) makes explicit to teachers that different kinds of teaching are needed to developword recognition skills from those that are needed to foster the comprehension ofwritten and spoken language; and



processes


processes



GOODPOOR

GO

OD

POO

R

(d) emphasises the need for teachers to be taught about and to understand thecognitive processes involved in the development of both accurate word recognitionskills and of language comprehension.

19. Throughout this section we urge that the reader keep in mind that although we seegood reason to consider each of the two dimensions separately, we would alsoconsistently maintain that both dimensions are essential to reading. However, it isevident from the research literature that the balance of learning needs across the twodimensions changes as children become more fluent and automatic readers of words:that is, establishing the cognitive processes that underlie fluent automatic word readingis a time limited task, and involves acquiring and practising certain skills, whereasdeveloping the abilities necessary to understanding and appreciating written texts indifferent content areas and literary genres continues throughout the lifespan.

20. In addition, it must be remembered that, when children begin to learn to read, they havealready made considerable progress in their language development.They alreadyunderstand much of what is said to them and can express their ideas so that others canunderstand them.They have not been ‘taught’ language. However, the time limited taskthat is word reading is generally achieved as a result of direct instruction.

21. Evidence suggests that word recognition processes and language comprehensionprocesses are separable dimensions of reading. If the two are indeed separabledimensions, then the following four predictions can be made:

(a) Different underlying skills and abilities should contribute to successful developmentof each dimension.

(b) Factor analysis of data sets on different measures of reading should reveal more thanone underlying factor. 54

(c) Four different patterns of performance should be observable across the two dimensions.

(d) Context effects might be shown to operate differently at word and text level.We examine evidence relevant to each of these four predictions below.


54 Factor analysis is a statistical method of identifying a small set of variables that account for the differences between people on a largenumber of tests.

Different underlying skills and abilities should contribute to successful development ofeach dimension.

22. Oakhill, Cain and Bryant (2003) assessed the extent to which oral vocabulary, single wordreading accuracy, phonological awareness, working memory, syntax, ability to drawinferences, understanding of story structure, and comprehension monitoring abilitycontributed to reading accuracy and reading comprehension scores. All measures wereadministered twice, once when children were seven, and again a year later.

23. Results were quite similar at both time points. Ability to draw inferences, understandingof story structure, and comprehension monitoring ability significantly predicted readingcomprehension. Single word reading accuracy and phoneme deletion significantlypredicted word recognition.There was a clear dissociation between predictors ofcomprehension and predictors of word recognition.This study therefore provides someevidence in support of the view that different skills and knowledge underlie wordrecognition and reading comprehension.

24. Muter, Hulme, Snowling and Stevenson (2004) studied 90 children for two years fromtheir entry to school as ‘rising fives’.They showed that later word recognition skills werepredictable from earlier measures of letter knowledge and phoneme sensitivity, but notfrom earlier measures of oral vocabulary, rhyme skills or grammatical skills. In contrast,later reading comprehension was predictable from earlier word recognition skills,vocabulary knowledge, and grammatical skills. Again, different skills and knowledgewere shown to underlie performance on each of the two dimensions of reading.

Factor analysis of data sets on different measures of reading should reveal more thanone underlying factor.

25. Pazzaglia, Cornoldi and Tressoldi (1993) present some evidence that this is the case in areview of findings from their 15-year research programme of reading development inItalian children. Factor analysis of data from 1st and 2nd grade children (Cornoldi, Colpoand MT group, 1981) found measures of reading accuracy and reading speed loadedheavily on one factor, whilst measures of reading comprehension loaded heavily on asecond factor.


26. Factor analysis of data from 186 1st and 2nd grade children (Cornoldi and Fattori, 1979)also found that, at each grade level, measures of reading accuracy and reading speedloaded heavily on to one factor. First grade reading comprehension loaded on to asecond factor, and 2nd grade reading comprehension on to a third factor, on to whichlinguistic competence also loaded heavily – consistent with the view that oral andwritten language comprehension depend on the same underlying languagecomprehension system. 55

27. The only factor analytic study we have found of children learning to read in English isthat carried out by Nation and Snowling (1997).They assessed Key Stage 2 children’sword reading accuracy (with and without context), nonword reading, narrative listeningcomprehension, and reading comprehension at text and sentence level. Factor analysisagain revealed two factors.The three word recognition measures (word reading accuracywith and without context, nonword reading) loaded heavily on one factor, whilst the twotext comprehension measures (narrative listening, text reading) loaded heavily on to asecond factor.

28. Importantly in this study, listening and reading comprehension loaded onto the samefactor, again consistent with the view that oral and written language comprehensiondepend on the same underlying language comprehension system.

Four different patterns of performance should be observable across the twodimensions.

29. These patterns of performance are illustrated in Figure 3.

30. It is important to note that these four patterns of performance reflect relativedifferences in the balance of word recognition and language comprehension abilities: asboth dimensions are continuous, children can vary continuously on each.

31. In the top right hand quadrant we have the children who are good readers: children wholift the words off the page relatively effortlessly and understand the texts they read withrelative ease.


55 The authors ascribe the different underlying factor loadings of the two reading comprehension tests to differences in the tests used, withthe first grade test including pictures – therefore the first grade children were not solely relying on linguistic processing to comprehendthe text.

Figure 3. Different patterns of performance

32. In the other three quadrants, we have three predicted patterns of poor reading. Atbottom right, we have the children who read the words in the text with relatively littledifficulty but whose poor language comprehension abilities militate against theirunderstanding written texts. At top left, we have the children who have difficulty readingthe words in the text but good language comprehension: i.e. children for whom poorword recognition skills are the major barrier to understanding written texts. At bottomleft, we have the children who experience difficulty on both dimensions, with problemsboth in reading words and in language comprehension.

33. We will concentrate here on the two patterns where performance diverges across thetwo dimensions. Are there children who read words relatively well despite poorlanguage comprehension? And are there children who read words relatively poorlydespite good language comprehension?



processes


processes



Poor word recognition; good

comprehension

Good word recognition; good

comprehension

GOODPOOR

GO

OD

Poor word recognition; poorcomprehension

Good word recognition; poorcomprehension

POO

R

Good word recognition abilities with poor language comprehension34. There are studies in the literature that provide unequivocal evidence for the existence of

readers whose word reading skills are in advance (and sometimes, far in advance) of theiroral and written language comprehension abilities (for a recent review, see Grigorenko,Klin & Volmar, 2003).

35. This pattern of performance is sometimes observed in children with developmentaldisorders such as specific language impairment (e.g. Bishop & Adams, 1990) or autisticspectrum disorders (e.g. Snowling & Frith, 1986), where language comprehension isimpaired.

36. However, it is a pattern also found in some typically developing children who areprecocious readers (e.g. Pennington, Johnson & Welch, 1987; Jackson, Donaldson &Cleland, 1988) and is increasingly being identified in children from mainstreamclassrooms by psychologists researching reading comprehension (e.g. Stothard & Hulme,1992; and, for a recent review, see Nation, 2005).

Poor word recognition abilities with good language comprehension.37. Spooner, Baddeley and Gathercole (2004) provide evidence for this pattern. Spooner et

al. worked with 80 7- to 8-year-old children.They divided the children into two groups.Children in both groups had equally good listening comprehension scores, but differedin their word recognition skills.The group with poor word recognition skills didsignificantly worse on a reading comprehension test.This is good evidence that there arechildren whose word reading skills (poor) are discrepant with their languagecomprehension ability (good), and that in such children, poor word reading skills doindeed impact on reading comprehension.

38. Catts, Adlof and Weismer (in press) present data from a longitudinal study which alsosuggests that reading comprehension in the early grades (when children are stilldeveloping their word recognition skills) is more heavily dependent on word recognitionskills than on language comprehension ability.

39. Catts et al. showed that in 2nd and 4th grade, children with poor word recognition skillsand children with poor language comprehension both had reading comprehensionscores significantly lower than those of typically developing readers.That is, at theseearlier grade levels, poor word recognition skills impaired reading comprehension inchildren even when they possessed language comprehension abilities similar to those oftypically developing readers. By 8th grade, reading comprehension in the group withpoor word recognition skills was no longer significantly impaired relative to that of the


typically developing readers. Presumably by 8th grade, although they were still lessskilled in terms of word recognition than the typically developing 8th grade readers, theyhad reached a minimal level of competence in word recognition that allowed their goodlanguage comprehension ability to have an effect on reading comprehension.

40. Catts et al. conclude that identification of these two reader groups (children with poorword recognition but good language comprehension; children with good wordrecognition but poor language comprehension) provides evidence of the doubledissociation predicted by the simple view of reading.

Context effects might be shown to operate differently at word and text level.41. There is a widely held view in education that context facilitates both word recognition

and reading comprehension.The evidence supports this view. However, as Share andStanovich (1995) argue, the assumption that context effects that are found to facilitatecomprehension of texts operate in the same way as context effects at the level of wordrecognition is not supported by the evidence.

42. Empirical studies show that there are important differences in the use of context byskilled and less skilled readers: differences that relate to the different processes involvedin word recognition and comprehension. Children with poorer word recognition skillsshow larger facilitatory effects of context on word recognition than children with goodword recognition skills (Briggs & Underwood, 1986; Perfetti, 1985; Pring & Snowling, 1986;Schwantes, 1985, 1991; Stanovich, West & Feeman, 1981).

43. These findings refute the hypothesis that poor reading results from failure to usecontext. 56 They also strongly suggest that it is not a good idea to teach children to usecontext to read the words on the page: children who read well do not need to usecontext as an aid to word recognition.

44. At the word recognition level, skilled readers do not use context: they are simply subjectto it.To illustrate this, let us imagine that you have been invited to take part in a readingexperiment. In this experiment, you are shown words one at a time on a computerscreen, and asked to read them aloud.The experimenter measures the time it takes foryou to respond to each word – a matter of thousandths of a second (milliseconds). Butthe experimenter is also tricking you. She has arranged for some words to be flashed upso rapidly that you are completely unaware that anything has appeared on screen.Theseunseen words affect your response time to read the words you do see. If you see and


56 This hypothesis was advanced, but never to our knowledge tested empirically, by proponents of the account of reading that was current inthe educational world prior to implementation of the NLS.

read ‘DOCTOR’ after the experimenter has sneakily flashed an unseen ‘NURSE’ on thescreen, you respond to ‘DOCTOR’ faster. Although you were not aware of seeing ‘NURSE’,your quick and clever word recognition system had fully processed it.The meaning of‘NURSE’ provided contextual facilitation for the word ‘DOCTOR’ that you saw, and read,and were aware of reading. But you did not knowingly use the context.You were notaware that there was a context and therefore could not strategically use it to identifyDOCTOR.You were simply subject to its effects.

45. At text level, it is skilled rather than unskilled readers who make the most use of contextto help generate a faithful mental representation of the text (Baker & Brown, 1984;Stanovich & Cunningham, 1991). Recent empirical studies comparing goodcomprehenders matched for word reading skills with poor comprehenders have shownthat good comprehenders are better able to infer the meanings of novel words fromcontext (Cain, Oakhill & Elbro, 2003); better able to work out the meanings of opaqueidioms (i.e. idioms whose meaning cannot easily be inferred from the words in theidiomatic phrase, but which require use of the context within which they appear) (Cain,Oakhill & Lemmon, 2005); better able to integrate information between sentences in atext (Cain & Oakhill, 1999); better able to generate a coherent representation andelaborative inferences (Cain, Oakhill, Barnes & Bryant, 2001), and better able to monitortheir own understanding (Oakhill, Hartt & Samols, 2004).

46. To summarise: less skilled and poorer readers have been shown to rely more on contextto recognise words. Skilled and good readers have been shown to rely more on contextto construct an accurate representation of the meanings of the text.These opposite usesof context by skilled and less skilled readers make a strong case for the need explicitly toacknowledge that there are indeed two separable dimensions of reading, wordrecognition skills and language comprehension. Each dimension is necessary. Neitherdimension is sufficient on its own.

Consequences of adopting this conceptual framework

47. If the scientific evidence supports the good sense of adopting this alternative two-dimensional conceptual framework to guide teaching practice (and, clearly, we think itdoes) then it is crucially important that teachers should understand the ways in whichthis alternative framework relates to the searchlights model.We think that clarification ofthe different nature of the two dimensions of reading, that are confounded in thesearchlights model, has the power further to improve teaching, particularly of thosechildren who most need it: the children who experience difficulty in establishing wordrecognition processes, the children who experience difficulty in learning to understand


what they read, and, most importantly, the children who have difficulty on bothdimensions.

48. But a better conceptual framework is only the starting point. Each dimension and itsdevelopment must be understood by practitioners.We present below diagrams toillustrate the processes involved in (a) developing word recognition skills and (b)developing comprehension.The diagrams and the accompanying commentaries arebased on research evidence, and represented in a way that helps to aid the reader inunderstanding them.

The development of word recognition skills

49. Figure 4 below presents a diagrammatic representation of the word recognition system.The shaded parts of this diagram (vocabulary stores containing meanings and sounds ofwords, and links between items in these stores) are involved in processing both spokenand written language. Children have started to develop these stores and links longbefore they are taught to read, because they are necessary to understanding spokenlanguage, language the children hear.

50. In order to become readers as well as listeners, children need to develop processes thatlead into their store of word meanings and their store of word sounds from languagethey see.The stores and processes that children need to set up to accomplish this areshown in the unshaded parts of the diagram.The dotted lines leading to ‘pronounceword aloud’ indicate that reading aloud is optional, since probably most reading is silent.


Figure 4: Diagrammatic representation of the word recognition system.

51. Beginner readers need to set up processes for identifying letters, because (a) written(printed) words are composed of letters, and (b) contrary to some earlier proposals,skilled readers have been shown to process all the letters in words (see, for example,Rayner, Foorman, Perfetti, Pesetsky & Seidenberg, 2001).

52. Children need to develop a store of phonic rules: processes to link graphemes tophonemes, and to blend phonemes into words.These processes are essential toreading unfamiliar words, and therefore form an essential part of the word recognitionsystem (Ehri, 1998; Frith, 1985; Marsh, Friedman, Welch & Desberg, 1981; Seymour,1997). 57 Working out pronunciations of unfamiliar words allows these to be identifiedin the pre-existing store of word sounds. Items identified in this store are alreadylinked to their corresponding entries in the pre-existing store of word meanings.Thus,unfamiliar words that are successfully ‘sounded out’ can not only be pronounced butalso understood. None of this entails the necessary or strategic use of ‘context’, or ofany linguistic processes beyond the level of the single word.


Hear word

Languageprocesses

See word

Identify Letters

Pronounce word aloud

Store offamiliar words

ApplyPhonic rules

(GPCs)Understandword

meanings Store of wordmeanings

Store of wordsounds

57 Although implementation of these processes is achieved differently in different models of skilled word recognition, all such models alsoagree that such processes must exist.

53. In the first instance, the store of phonic rules will contain the single letter-soundcorrespondences that are typically the first rules children are taught. Developmentinvolves expanding the number of stored rules and incorporating increasinglycomplex and conditional rules.

54. Children also need to establish a store of familiar words that are recognisedimmediately on sight, and linked to their meanings. 58 Children’s first entries into thisstore are partial (some but not all letters of a word are stored), (Ehri, 1995; Stuart &Coltheart, 1988). Development involves expanding the number of words entered, andcompleting their representations (storing all letters of the word in correct sequence).The term ‘sight vocabulary’ will be used in what follows as a shorthand label for thisstore.

The ‘self-teaching’hypothesis

55. Recent psychological research into the development of word recognition skillsacknowledges the crucial importance of ensuring that children understand thealphabetic principle – that the letters on the page represent the sounds in the words -at least as soon as they are formally taught to read in school.

56. This is because understanding and application of the alphabetic principle is seen asthe primary driver of development of all aspects of printed word recognition: ofphonic rules and of ‘sight vocabulary’. For example, Share (1995) proposed that, oncechildren have sufficient phonic knowledge to work out the pronunciations ofunfamiliar printed words they encounter in their reading, they have to hand a self-teaching device which allows these newly analysed and decoded words to be enteredinto their ‘sight vocabulary’ for future fast recognition. It has also been suggested (Ehri,1992; Rack, Hulme, Snowling & Wightman, 1994; Stuart, Masterson & Dixon, 2000) thatchildren’s ability to analyse the phonemic structure of words and to link phonemes tographemes directly facilitates acquisition of ‘sight vocabulary’.

57. One final proposal from recent research is that as ‘sight vocabulary’ expands and asrepresentations of words in it become complete,‘sight vocabulary’ becomes adatabase from which children can infer more sophisticated, complex and conditionalphonic rules (Stuart, Masterson, Dixon & Quinlan, 1999; Savage & Stuart, 2001).


58 With respect to skilled readers, the precise details as to how items are represented in this store differ across different theories. Mosttheories of how reading develops assume, as we do here, that words are represented as entities in the word recognition system.

58. This account of the development of word recognition skills has the power to explainhow it is possible for some children to develop these skills with amazing rapidity andease. It might also be taken to imply that not all phonic correspondences need to betaught, but we would urge caution with this interpretation.We simply do not knowwhether all children, given the right start, will go on to develop a self-teaching system,or whether there will always be children who require longer term systematic teachingand multiple opportunities to practise their skills.

Reading comprehension is language comprehension – with access from eyerather than ear

59. In this section we explain that comprehension means understanding of languagewhether it is spoken or written. In the past in primary schools children might havebeen asked to do ‘comprehension’ exercises.This meant that the term comprehensioncame to be equated with the ability to answer questions posed about written texts.However, answers given to questions about texts are simply an index of the quality ofthe understanding, which is generated from an interaction between comprehensionprocesses, language processes and general knowledge.

60. By the time children enter school their language skills are typically considerablyadvanced.They understand much of what is said to them and they can express theirideas, feelings and needs in ways that others can comprehend.Their languageprocesses are established and though there is much still to develop, particularly in theareas of vocabulary and syntax (grammar), they can be considered to be proficientlanguage users.There will, of course, be considerable individual differences.

61. Comprehension occurs as the listener builds a mental representation of theinformation contained within the language that a speaker is using.Thecomprehension processes that enable the mental representation to be built up occurat the word, sentence and utterance (text) level. Individual word meanings areidentified from phonological input. Parsing of the language occurs.This ensures thatmeaning is mediated through grammatical structure. A number of inferentialprocesses are also used.These all happen simultaneously and the resultinginformation interacts with the listener’s general knowledge to enable as accurate amental representation of the spoken message as the listener is capable of at anyparticular stage of development. It is important to bear in mind that the extent of thelistener’s general knowledge and level of cognitive development will have a bearingon the comprehension of the message.To generate an accurate mental representationof this the listener has to process the language and the concepts.


62. When children learn to read, the comprehension processes they use to understandwritten texts are the same as those they already use to understand spoken messages.The major difference is that the language of written texts is accessed via the eyesrather than via the ears.

63. Figure 5 below, which has been adapted and simplified from Perfetti (1999), illustratesthe components of comprehension.The shaded boxes are the components requiredfor comprehending spoken language.The knowledge sources of general knowledge,language and vocabulary are used to support the comprehension processes togenerate a mental representation of the spoken message.When texts are read thereare further processes involved in order that the words can be identified.This isrepresented by the clear boxes in the diagram.The visual word identification processeshave to be incorporated into the system. However, the comprehension processesthemselves remain the same.

Figure 5: The components of the comprehension system.


Vocabulary

Languagesystem

Generalknowledge

Comprehensionprocesses

Written wordidentification

Visual input

64. The figure illustrates the point that in order to generate a mental representation of aspoken message the comprehension processes use information from the languagesystem, vocabulary and the level of general knowledge of the listener. Improvements inall these areas underlie developmental improvements in language comprehension.Thisimproves whether or not the listener becomes literate. However, becoming literate hasthe potential to extend both vocabulary and general knowledge and thus to accelerateimprovements in language comprehension.

65. When the ‘listener’ becomes a reader, the unique development that takes place is thatthe’ reader’ is able to identify the written words and encode their meanings so that themental representation is constructed using additional output from the written wordidentification system. As long as this system is operating optimally this does not impedecomprehension of the text. However, when word recognition skills are only just beingdeveloped children should be given opportunities to read texts that make fewerdemands on the system.

Appendix 1 references

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Briggs, P. & Underwood, G. (1982). Phonological coding in good and poor readers. Journal ofExperimental Child Psychology, 35, 93-112

Cain, K. & Oakhill, J.V. (1999). Inference making and its relation to reading comprehensionfailure. Reading and Writing, 11, 489-504.

Cain, K., Oakhill, J.V., Barnes, M. & Bryant, P.E. (2001).Comprehension skill, inference makingability, and their relation to knowledge. Memory & Cognition, 29, 850-859.

Cain, K., Oakhill, J.V. & Elbro, C (2003).The ability to learn new word meanings from context byschool-age children with and without language comprehension difficulties. Journal of ChildLanguage, 30, 681-694.

Cain, K., Oakhill, J.V. & Lemmon, K. (2005).The relation between children’s readingcomprehension level and their comprehension of idioms. Journal of Experimental ChildPsychology, 90, 65-87.

Catts, H.W., Adlof, S.M. & Weismer, S.E. (in press). Language deficits in poor readers: A case forthe simple view of reading. Journal of Speech, Hearing and Language Disorders (in press).


Clay, M.M. (1972). Reading: The patterning of complex behaviour. London: HeinemannEducational Books.

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Clay, M.M. (1985). The early detection of reading difficulties. Auckland: Heinemann.

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Dixon, M., Stuart, M. & Masterson, J. (2002).The role of phonological awareness and thedevelopment of orthographic representations. Reading and Writing, 15, 295-316.

Ehri, L.C. (1992). Reconceptualizing the development of sight word reading and itsrelationship to recoding. In P. Gough, L. Ehri & R.Treiman (Eds.). Reading acquisition. (pp.107-143). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Ehri, L.C. (1995). Phases of development in learning to read by sight. Journal of Research inReading, 18, 116-125.

Ehri, L.C. (1998). Grapheme-phoneme knowledge is essential for learning to read words inEnglish. In J.L. Metsala & L.C. Ehri (Eds.). Word recognition in beginning literacy. (pp. 3-40)Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Frith, U. (1985). Beneath the surface of developmental dyslexia. In Patterson, K.E., Marshall,J.C. & Coltheart, M. Surface dyslexia (pp. 301-330). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence ErlbaumAssociates.

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Jackson, N.E., Donaldson, G.W. & Cleland, L.N. (1988).The structure of precocious readingability. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 234-243.


Marsh, G., Friedman, M., Welch, V. & Desberg, P. (1981). A cognitive-developmental theory ofreading acquisition. In G.E. MacKinnon & T.G.Waller (Eds.). Reading research: Advances intheory and practice, Vol 3. NY: Acad. Press.

Muter, V, Hulme, C, Snowling, M.J., & Stevenson J. (2004). Phonemes, rimes, vocabulary, andgrammatical skills as foundations of early reading development: Evidence from alongitudinal study. Developmental Psychology 40 (5): 665-681

Nation, K. (2005). Children’s reading comprehension difficulties. In M. Snowling & C. Hulme(Eds.). The Science of Reading: A Handbook. Oxford: Blackwell.

Nation, K. & Snowling, M. (1997). Individual differences in contextual facilitation: Evidencefrom dyslexia and poor reading comprehension. Child Development, 69, 996-1011.

Oakhill, J., Cain, K. & Bryant, P.E. (2003).The dissociation of word reading and text comprehension:Evidence from component skills. Language and Cognitive Processes, 18, 443-468.

Oakhill, J.V., Hartt, J. & Samols, D. (2004). Levels of comprehension monitoring and workingmemory in good and poor comprehenders. Unpublished manuscript.

Pazzaglia, F., Cornoldi, C. & Tessoldi, P.E. (1993). Learning to read: evidence on the distinctionbetween decoding and comprehension skills. European Journal of Psychology inEducation, 8, 247-258.

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Perfetti, C.A. (1985). Reading ability. NY: OUP.

Perfetti, C. A. (1999) Comprehending written language: A blueprint of the Reader. In P.Hagoort & C. Brown (Eds.) Neurocognition of language processing (pp. 1967- 208). Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Pring, L. & Snowling, M. (1986). Developmental changes in word recognition: An informationprocessing account. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38A, 395-418.

Rack, J., Hulme, C., Snowling, M. & Wightman, J. (1994).The role of phonology in youngchildren learning to read words: the direct mapping hypothesis. Journal of ExperimentalChild Psychology, 57, 42-71.

Rayner, K., Foorman, B.R., Perfetti, C.A., Pesetsky, D. & Seidenberg, M.S. (2001). Howpsychological science informs the teaching of reading. Psychological Science in the PublicInterest, 2, 31 – 73.

Savage, R. & Stuart, M. (2001). Boundary consonants provide a base for vowel inferences inearly reading: evidence from two orthographic inference tasks. Reading and Writing, 14,571-598.


Schwantes, F. M. (1985). Expectancy, integration, and interactional processes. Age differencesin the nature of words affected by sentence context. Journal of Experimental ChildPsychology, 39, 212-229.

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Appendix 2:glossary of termsThis glossary provides, for generalist readers, a set of simple working definitions which havebeen accepted by the review. It is acknowledged that there are other ways of defining someof the terms listed here.

The definitions of the four terms marked with an asterisk have been quoted from the report,Preventing reading difficulties in young children.59

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 threeletters of ‘straight’ are a consonant cluster

digraph two letters which together make one sound, e.g. sh, ch, th, ph, ee, oa

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 whichcorrespondences represent those sounds(GPC)

mnemonic a device for memorising and recalling something, such as a snakeshaped like the letter 'S'

phonemes* the phonological units of speech that make a difference to meaning.Thus, the spoken word rope is comprised of three phonemes: /r/, /o/,and /p/. It differs by only one phoneme from each of the spokenwords, soap, rode and rip

phonemic awareness* the insight that every spoken word can be conceived as a sequenceof phonemes. Because phonemes are the units of sound that arerepresented by the letters of an alphabet, an awareness of phonemesis key to understanding the logic of the alphabetic principle and thusto the learnability of phonics and spelling

phonics* instructional practices that emphasise how spellings are related tospeech sounds in systematic ways



phonological a more inclusive term than phonemic awareness and refers to the awareness* general ability to attend to the sounds of language as distinct from

its meaning. Phonemic awareness generally develops through other,less subtle levels of phonological awareness. Noticing similaritiesbetween words in their sounds, enjoying rhymes, counting syllables,and so forth are indications of such ‘metaphonological’ skill.

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/

split digraph two letters, which work as a pair, split, to represent one sound, e.g. a-eas in make or i-e as in site

VC, CVC, CCVC the abbreviations for vowel-consonant, consonant-vowel-consonant,consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant, and are used to describe theorder of letters in words, e.g. am, Sam, slam


Appendix 3:sources of evidence The review took evidence from a range of sources, as noted in paragraph 5.The mainsources were:

• oral evidence, from individuals and associations • visits• written evidence.

Oral evidence - individuals

Professor Lesley Abbot, Institute of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University Professor Robin Alexander, University of CambridgeBev Atkinson, Medway LASir Michael Barber Ian Barren, Institute of Education, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityAlix Beleschenko, Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA)Professor Greg Brooks, University of SheffieldTom Burkard, Promethean TrustProfessor Brian Byrne, University of New EnglandMary Charlton,Tracks Literacy Professor Margaret Clark, University of BirminghamIan Coates, former Head of SEN and disability division, DfESKevan Collins, former Director, Primary National StrategyFelicity CraigShirley Cramer, Chief Executive, Dyslexia InstituteKate Daly, adviser, Minority Ethnic Achievement Unit, DfESEdward Davey MPAlan Davies,THRASSProfessor Henrietta Dombey, University of BrightonMarion DowlingNick Gibb MPProfessor Usha Goswami, University of CambridgeMarlynne Grant, Educational psychologist, South Gloucestershire LAJean Gross, Every Child A ReaderKate Gooding, Early Childhood Forum (ECF)


Sue Hackman, chief adviser to ministers on school standards, DfESProfessor Kathy Hall, Open UniversityDiana Hatchett, Primary National StrategyDebbie Hepplewhite, Reading Reform FoundationSue Horner, QCAJane Hurry, University of London, Institute of EducationLaura HuxfordJulie Jennings, ECFProfessor Rhona Johnston, University of HullLesley Kelly, Cambridgeshire LAPenny Kenway, Islington LAJulie Lawes, Catch Up Sue Lloyd and Chris Jolly, Jolly PhonicsRuth Miskin, ReadWriteIncSue Nally, Warwickshire LAAngie Nicholas, Dyslexia InstituteJoan Norris, ECFWendy Pemberton, Primary National StrategySue Pidgeon, Primary National StrategyDee Reid, Catch UpEva RetkinDilwen Roberts, Merton LARosie RobertsCheryl Robinson, Bedfordshire LALindsey Rousseau, South East Region Special Educational Needs PartnershipConor RyanProfessor Pam Sammons, University of NottinghamPeter Saugman and Bruce Robinson, MindweaversProfessor Margaret Snowling, University of YorkProfessor Jonathan Solity, University of WarwickLesley Staggs, Primary National StrategyProfessor Rhona Stainthorp, University of London, Institute of EducationJohn StannardArthur Staples, LexiaUKProfessor Morag Stuart, University of London, Institute of EducationProfessor Kathy Sylva, University of OxfordRalph Tabberer,Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA)Jude Thompson, Headteacher, Dorton House School


Janet Townend, Dyslexia InstituteGail Treml, SEN professional adviser, DfESPaul Wagstaff, Primary National StrategyTrudy Wainwright, St Michael’s Primary School, South Gloucestershire LATina Wakefield, British Association of Teachers of the DeafMick Waters, QCAJoyce Watson, University of St. Andrew’sLyn and Mark Wendon, LetterlandCaroline Webber, Medway LARose Woods, Helen Arkell Dyslexia Centre

Oral evidence – associations

Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL)Basic Skills AgencyBritish Association for Early Childhood EducationDyslexia InstituteEarly Education Advisory GroupEducational Publishers CouncilGMBI CANNational Association for Language Development in the Curriculum (NALDIC)National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE) National Association of Education Inspectors, Advisers and ConsultantsNational Association of Head Teachers (NAHT)National Association of Primary Education (NAPE)National Governors’ AssociationNational Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT)National Childminding Association (NCMA)National Children’s BureauNational Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations (NCPT)National Family and Parenting Institute (NFPI)National Literacy TrustNational Union of Teachers (NUT)Parent Education and Support Forum (PESF)Peers Early Education Partnership (PEEP)Pre-School Learning Alliance (PLA)


Primary Umbrella GroupReading Recovery National NetworkRenaissance LearningUNISONUnited Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA)Volunteer Reading HelpXtraordinary People

Oral evidence – Education and Skills Committee

In addition, oral representations were taken from members of the Education and SkillsCommittee on 30 January, 2006.

Visits

In Scotland, members of the review took evidence from the Scottish Executive EducationDepartment, members of Clackmannanshire council, headteachers and teachers ofClackmannanshire primary schools.

In England, in addition to the oral evidence listed, evidence was drawn from visits to schoolsand training events, as well as discussions with practitioners during those events. Of theschools visited by HMI, 17 of them included nursery-aged pupils (aged 3 – 4).

Schools visited by Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI)

Andrews’ Endowed Church of England Primary, Hampshire LABarlows Primary, Liverpool, Liverpool LABlue Coat C of E Aided Infants, Walsall, Walsall LABonner Primary, London,Tower Hamlets LABrooklands Primary, London, Greenwich LAByron Primary, Bradford, Bradford LAChrist the King RC Primary, London, Islington LACobholm First School, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk LACoppice Infant and Nursery School, Oldham, Oldham LAElmhurst Primary, London, Newham LA


Heaton Primary, Bradford, Bradford LAHoly Family Catholic Primary, Coventry, Coventry LAKings Hedges Primary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire LALostwithiel Primary, Lostwithiel, Cornwall LASt Michael’s C of E Primary, Bristol, South Gloucestershire LASt Sebastian’s Catholic Primary School and Nursery, Liverpool, Liverpool LAStoughton Infants, Guildford, Surrey LASwaythling Primary, Southampton, Southampton LAThelwall Community Infant School, Warrington, Warrington LATyldesley Primary, Manchester, Wigan LAVictoria Infants, Workington, Cumbria LAVictoria Road Primary, Plymouth, Plymouth LAWilliam Lilley Infant and Nursery, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire LAWoodberry Down Primary, London, Hackney LA

Other schools visited by members of the review team

Greatwood Community Primary, Skipton, North Yorkshire LA Ings Community Primary and Nursery, Skipton, North Yorkshire LALyndhurst Primary, London, Southwark LAMillfield Preparatory School, GlastonburyOliver Goldsmith Primary, London, Brent LASnowsfields Primary School incorporating the Tim Jewell Unit for Children with Autism,

London, Southwark LAWalnut Tree Walk School, London, Lambeth LA

Training observed and conferences attended

‘ReadWriteInc’ – training: 5 and 6 September 2005Amy Johnson Primary School, Sutton LA

‘ReadWriteInc’ – training: 16 September 2005Vermont School, Southampton, Hampshire LA

‘The Death of Dyslexia?’ - conference: 21 October 2005The Friends House, London


‘Playing with sounds’ – training: 8 November 2005Cambridge Professional Development Centre, Cambridgeshire LA

Early Reading Development Pilot – feedback conference for pilot LAs: 15 December 2005Marlborough Hotel, London

Reading Recovery – training: 24 January 2006Woodlane High School, London, Hammersmith and Fulham LA

Written evidence

Evidence was also drawn from sources of published information, notably:

• the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee, particularly the report Teachingchildren to read

• reports and data from Ofsted, in particular from evaluations of the National LiteracyStrategy, the Primary National Strategy, the teaching of English and initial teacher training

• reports and papers from the other bodies, including the Qualifications and CurriculumAuthority, the Teacher Development and Training Agency for Schools and the Basic Skills Agency

• reports and papers from researchers from academic establishments, professionalassociations, and professionals working in the field of early reading and other aspects ofliteracy from both the United Kingdom and internationally

• materials and guidance for practitioners and teachers on supporting literacy and readingdevelopment for 0-3, the Foundation Stage, and Key Stages 1 and 2 produced by the DfESand the Primary National Strategy

• teaching materials and guidance produced by providers of commercial and voluntaryreading schemes.

• analysis by the DfES of national test results for reading and writing at Key Stage 1 and forEnglish at Key Stage 2.

Further evidence was drawn from over 300 letters and submissions to the review, includingsome from those who also provided oral evidence.


Advisory group

The review was supported by an advisory group, chaired by Jim Rose, comprising:

Janet Brennan HMIProfessor Greg BrooksProfessor Pam SammonsProfessor Morag StuartProfessor Kathy Sylva

In addition,Tim Key HMI, divisional manager of Ofsted’s research, analysis and internationaldivision, provided data from Ofsted’s evidence base.

Review support team

The review’s support team consisted of:

Julia Ashford Roslyn Bagot-Sealey Mary CaptusPhilip CollinsBev GrantLucillia Samuel



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