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Comments on the Rose Interim Report

Reference: www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/rosereview/interimreport.doc

From: John Nissen, director Cloudworld Ltd, College House, Chiswick Mall, W4 2PR

Email: jn@cloudworld.co.uk. Web: www.cloudworld.co.uk. Tel: 020 8742 3170.

Dear Mr Rose,

Congratulations
Thank you for producing a very encouraging interim report. It is good to see that you are not sitting on the fence as regards phonics, and that you have the interests of the children at heart. In particular I welcome the replacement of the searchlights model in a new Framework, because this model is the basis of encouraging children to guess the meaning of words, whereas we should be encouraging them always to try and work out the sound of the words by blending their constituent sounds.

Implementing change and professional development
You appear to be optimistic that practitioners and teachers can be given the leadership and support that they need to adopt synthetic phonics. But this is going to be an uphill struggle, because of the entrenched attitudes from many years of practice and preaching, based on the belief in certain misconceptions:

• that words need to be recognised as a whole for fluent reading (hence the notion of 'sight words');
• that the ability to guess words, from context and other clues, is an essential skill;
• that phonics is not fun, and so one has to mix it with other methods, and certainly can't have it "first and fast";
• that pictures are required to give text meaning and make it fun to read;
• that "look and say" methods, with the searchlight model, work;
• that the learning environment is more important than the teaching method;
• that children have different learning styles, so different mixtures of methods and learning environments are required;
• that children have different ages when they become ready to learn to read;
• that the phonological awareness of sounds in words leads to an automatic skill and ability to blend sounds into words, i.e. that you can teach the awareness without the blending;
• that learning onsets and rimes, as in "analytic phonics", is sufficient to learn how to blend sounds (thus 'street' is treated as /str/ plus /eet/ rather than /s/ /t/ /r/ /ee/ /t/);
• that the mental process of blending inhibits the comprehension process, and therefore synthetic phonics leads to poor comprehension skills.

Therefore there needs to be a process set up for educating the educators, so that they fully understand the "how and why" of synthetic phonics. I believe that you should propose the setting up of such a process in your final report, fast and first, under "professional development".

Testing
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the Clackmannanshire results were outstanding, with 100% of pupils learning to read and write satisfactorily, despite being in a disadvantaged area of Scotland with a full spectrum of at-risk pupils. We therefore need to set up tests on schools that they are achieving the results that should be expected for pupils after one year of synthetic phonics, correctly taught, namely that there are no non-readers and that there is no gender gap. This testing should be a firm recommendation to the Secretary of State for Education in your final report.

Ofsted inspectors should be given clear guidance to expect all pupils to be reading who have had a year or more at school. Parents need to be given the data so that they can choose to select schools where the new teaching methods have been effectively implemented, and where commensurate results have been obtained for reading and writing.

Tests should be designed to determine the ability of the pupils to segment and blend, and to follow spelling and pronunciation rules. Note that existing testing procedures such as miscue analysis have hitherto been based on multi-cueing as a DESIRABLE reading strategy. Multi-cueing is now to be deprecated.

Synthetic phonics versus NLS
Note that the phonics which has been in the NLS is analytic phonics mixed in with other methods. Synthetic phonics has to be "first and fast". Without this, good results will not be achieved. The essence of synthetic phonics is to make it as quick and easy as possible for the child to grasp the alphabetic principle and to begin to segment and decode simple words, starting with two and three letter words made up from half a dozen letters. All advocates of synthetic phonics are agreed on this.

Divergent views
You say you will discuss some divergent views in the final report. May I discuss these briefly:

(1) The building of vocabulary (to recognise the meaning of a word from its sound) can be independent of the teaching of synthetic phonics (to recognise the sound of a word from its spelling). Both are needed to advance comprehension skills. The teaching of grammar may also be helpful, especially for pupils with ESL.

The notion of "sight words" is dangerous, because it suggests that some words should not be decoded. All new words should be decoded by the child when they first appear. Children should not be encouraged into trying to remember the "look" of whole words. Instead they should be given lots of decoding practice, so that the decoding of common words becomes subconscious.

(2) Synthetic phonics should be introduced as early as possible, but certainly by age 5. There is a case for introducing it, or elements of it, pre-school. For example there is no harm to learn the shapes of letters and their associated sounds (with short vowels sounds for 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o' and 'u'). But I would argue that "look and say" methods, and the implicit or explicit teaching of whole word recognition, should be discouraged. The child needs to be given the strategy of phonic decoding from the start of learning to read.

(3) The speed of coverage is important, in order that the concepts of reading, and the rationale for learning to read, are fully grasped by the child as quickly as possible. The child needs a framework into which learning of letter-sound correspondences can fit.

At least half the phonemes, each with a regular mapping to a grapheme, should be learnt in the first term. This allows the child to read specially-written stories employing just those phonemes and mappings. These stories can then form a framework into which the learning can fit, they can provide a raison d'être and motivation for the learning tasks, and they can be used an aide mémoire.

(4) The best sequence is open to debate, but the principle is clear: to get the child reading some simple text as quickly as possible, see (3). Thus one would teach half a dozen letters, each with a single sound, and then get the child to write and read words using those letters. One chooses letters from which a variety of regular CVC words can be made, exhibiting those sounds. Typically one might start the first week with two of the five vowels ('a', 'e', 'i', 'o' and 'u' having short sounds for /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/), and three or four of the six consonants: nasals ('n' and 'm' having sound /n/ and /m/), unvoiced plosives ('p', 't' and 'c' having sound /p/, /t/ and /k/) and an unvoiced fricative ('s' having sound /s/). Then one uses CVC words that are written with those letters having those sounds, i.e. regular words.

(5) It is better not to teach letter names at first. It can easily confuse the learner. When a child is sounding out the letters, they must produce the phoneme sounds. But if they have been taught the letter names, experience shows that they are liable to produce the letter names instead of the phoneme sounds. Therefore major synthetic phonics programmes, such as Jolly Phonics, Ruth Miskin Literacy, Sound Discovery, Sounds-Write and the Sound Reading System, all teach letter sounds in the first instance and not letter names.

(6) It is vital to start as early as possible with regular words, as described in (3). However these words do not have to be read from books. Books can be introduced later. When the books are introduced it is helpful to the learner if every word can be decoded using the rules which have already been learnt. Books such as "The Cat in the Hat" might be introduced during the second term, see www.cloudworld.co.uk/synthetic-phonics-with-Dr-Seuss.htm.

(7) Your interim report has already correctly rejected the "searchlights" model or metaphor, which encourages the child to guess from "cues" rather than decode words. The importance of this cannot be overstressed. It needs to be clearly stated in the final report that any programme which is to be used for initial teaching, remedial/recovery teaching or special needs teaching must be judged by its ability to focus the child on the decoding process whilst reading, and to develop the part of the child's brain which deals with the decoding task. This must be stressed to teachers in their training programmes and for Early Literacy Support. And tests of reading ability should not judge the child on the quality of their guesswork (e.g. miscue analysis), but on the correctness of their grapheme to phoneme mapping.

Remediation and special needs
An important observation on Clackmannanshire was that a group of "at risk" pupils was identified. These were given intensive tuition to ensure that they did not fall behind the other pupils at any stage, and that teaching remained inclusive. However, in our schools today we are faced with children who have been failed by the system. Fortunately synthetic phonics is applicable not only for children learning to read, but for struggling readers of any age and ability, including children with special needs (with only the exception of children who are severely disabled by a neurological or cognitive impairment, and for whom mainstream schooling is impractical). Struggling readers struggle for a variety of reasons, but most often because they are relying on guesswork. Once they have grasped the alphabetic principle, learnt the sounds of all the graphemes, and learnt to segment and blend simple words, they are well on their way to recovery. Therefore the use of synthetic phonics for remediation should be recommended in your final report.

Resources and technology
Your report mentions multi-sensory resources but not computers, software and other technology such as interactive whiteboards. Such technology can be a great help in reinforcing the basic teaching of synthetic phonics. Here are some examples.

• A computer monitor, television screen or electronic whiteboard can be used to display letters and words in large characters so that they can be seen by pupils in a group. For teaching the sounds of a set of letters, it is helpful to display the letters in a random sequence while pupils make the corresponding sounds. For teaching the blending, groups of letters can be displayed. This saves having to produce flash cards for words or parts of words, and allows the teacher to introduce new letters, new blends and new words in a gradual and systematic manner, using material which can be pre-prepared on the computer. This material can be expanded and refined for future lessons.
• A computer can produce synthetic or digitised speech, in response to letters or words typed in or selected by pointer on a touch sensitive screen or interactive whiteboard. Thus a pupil can get feedback from the computer as to whether the correct letter or word has been selected.
• A computer can display the text of a story, a word at a time. When the pupil finds a word they cannot read, they can click on the word and hear it spoken (by a synthesiser or in pre-recorded speech). Thus the pupil can practice reading by themselves, at their own pace without stress. Furthermore, the clicked-on words can be automatically added to a list, so the teacher (or parent) can see which words proved difficult.
• A computer can display pictures to reinforce the memorising of letter shapes and sounds. Pictures can also be used for putting text in context and making the stories more fun. However note that there is a danger to use the pictures to encourage guesswork, rather than phonic decoding of words. For example a picture of a dog alongside the word 'dog' is not going to help a child to obtain the sounds /d/ /o/ /g/ from the letters! It is likely that the child's attention will be drawn away from the text, whereas, in reading, all the concentration should be on the words.
• A computer with touch-sensitive screen or interactive whiteboard can be used for handwriting recognition, which is useful in the learning of letter shapes and in writing practice. This input can be coupled with speech output to reinforce the learning.
• Computer software can be used to support word games, such as putting syllables together to make words.

Thus computer technology can be extremely helpful to teachers in the process of teaching synthetic phonics. Moreover, the same technology can be used to help in teaching synthetic phonics to children with special needs:

• Computers can provide alternative, enhanced or adapted modalities of input and output to cater for children with physical, hearing and/or sight impairments.
• Computers can provide motivation for children with autism or attention deficit disorders.
• Computers can provide a paced delivery, and allow personal practice of reading skills in a non-judgemental way.

Thus computers offer the possibility of a more inclusive education for children with special needs and for disadvantaged children in general.

Conclusion
There is a big challenge to get the educational establishment pointing in a new direction. There has to be a general understanding not only how to teach by the synthetic phonics method, but why it works, and what was wrong with the "old" methods, particularly as regards encouraging the guessing of words and learning of whole words as sight words. Misconceptions have to be removed. We have to win over the hearts and minds of the teaching profession and inspectorate with the hard evidence from Clackmannanshire and elsewhere.

The focus for the teaching of reading and for reading intervention has to be on letter-sound correspondence and blending skills. The teaching of segmentation skills and writing (with good handwriting and proper spelling) should be complementary to this. The incentive for the teacher must be the possibility of getting EVERY child reading and writing, knowing that the inspectors will now expect this. As you say, literacy should be part of the "Every child matters" agenda.

Yours sincerely,

John Nissen