TENITTC, 2010/2011 - Assignment 1 - Glenn Billingham.

The East Northamptonshire

Initial Teacher Training College

Assignment One
2010/2011

Submission: 15/10/2010

Glenn Billingham

“Acquiring literacy is an empowering process, enabling

millions to enjoy access to knowledge and information which
broadens horizons, increases opportunities and creates
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alternatives for building a better life”- Kofi Annan

Assignment Title:

Demonstrate an understanding of the teaching of phonics, word recognition and reading

through the primary school in relation to; the Rose Review, the Revised Primary
Framework, the Simple View of Reading, the teaching of phonics in Foundation (i.e Letters
& Sounds), intervention programmes (i.e Reading Recovery, Catch-Up, Early Literacy
Support, Further Literacy Support, Read Write Inc, Big Writing), Guided Reading, Shared
Reading & paired work, and data related to the teaching of reading (i.e reading profiles
and success of intervention programmes).

Assignment:

The ability to understand the relationship between a letter (in it’s written form, a
grapheme) and it’s sound (in it’s audible form, a phoneme), and the process of language
comprehension (words in relation to pictures, emotions, context etc) are the commonly
accepted pre-requisites of reading and becoming literate. Due to extensive research
highlighted by Hall (1988) there have been many different approaches, practices and
theories developed to teach these skills. This assignment aims to demonstrate an
understanding of how this occurs in relation to the UK National Curriculum and it’s
Primary School classrooms. First though, we must clarify some key phrases and
concepts.

The first key question is why literacy teaching is so important? This question and
assumed response may be considered too obvious and simple, but a response is worth
considering because it serves as a reminder of what exactly is at stake here. Wray,

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Bloom & Hall (1989) suggest that achieving literacy gives us ‘the ability to decide for
ourselves what our purposes for reading will be, and the ability to evaluate what we
read and write’. Skills, which via literacy, are essential to almost every facet of life and
human interaction.
Literacy and system of learning to read are a combination of a highly complex set
of processes. “Reading is a skill that requires a combination of skills” (Cohen, 2002). The
good news is that children are developing and practising these skills as soon as they’re
gargling their first noises. Research and studies by Soderbergh (1977) have shown
children as young as two-years-old have been able to master the skills required in order
to read. “Children can learn much younger if they are helped sympathetically”
Soderbergh (1977). The study defines the notion of ‘sympathetic’ help as supporting the
child in his/her own direction of learning and pace of progression. However, at such a
young age this process requires time and attention similar to that of 1:1 support.
Therefore more suited to the supervision of parents rather than teachers.
Knowing now the importance of literacy and what children are capable of, we
need to consider how the learning process is nurtured in the classroom.
The key challenge for educators is to know how children are best supported at
school, and how to build upon the children’s own skills and knowledge, rather than
teaching a whole new set of processes. This is a challenge well supported by Hall (1988),
“Gifted teachers have always known that children are much better at constructing their
own knowledge than we are at teaching them, but it’s only the past fifteen years that
research has focused upon understanding how children develop their own knowledge of
literacy”.
While the extensive research is relatively new, the concept is not. Hall (1988) also
highlights the following quote from an article written in 1898 by Miss Harriet Iredell;
“We never cease to wonder at the extent and amount of knowledge accumulated during
the first three years of life, nor at the rate of development of the little creature. We say
‘let him go on through the first years of school life and say what may not be done’, but
something happens along the way. We are told that ‘he must learn to read and write’. As
if he had not already taken the first steps, and of his volition, his efforts un-recognised
for what they are”.

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Research has suggested that in the classroom, it is the presentation of the

‘purpose’ for learning these skills that is problematic. “The vast majority of adult literacy
and reading is purposeful and this purpose generally falls into one of two categories;
functional or recreational. However, too often in the classroom, the purpose of a child’s
literacy learning resides only in the mind of the teacher, rather than in the mind of the
child. Thus discouraging the child” (Wray et al 1989).
To counter-balance these issues, Primary schools employ a number of strategies
and initiatives. They are mostly centered on making the learning environments at home
and school more aligned, Hayes (2006). Schools will often provide every student with a
home/school reading record to promote 2-way communication between home & school,
and lay the foundation for parents and teachers to be ‘reading from the same page’ by
providing parent education workshops. Many schools will also make provision for
‘parent reading afternoons’ and special ‘book week’ celebrations. Lesson planning is also
crucial to presenting a purpose for literacy learning, long term and ‘bigger picture’
planning particularly.
Traditionally, UK classrooms have used an alphabetic approach. Barratt-Pugh &
Rohl (2000) note such an approach picks up on the systematic correspondences
between the graphemes and phonemes of language. Teaching knowledge of the letters of
the alphabet, referred to as graphemes, paves the way for acquiring the next steps of
understanding of phonemes – the smallest units of spoken language of which there are
forty-four in English (e.g. /k/ in kit & skill). Specific and full knowledge of phonics
(letters and sounds combined) should then follow. Once a child is fully aware of this, the
next step is the understanding of syllables – units of speech that are heard as one sound
(Barratt-Pugh & Rohl, 2000).
This route to literacy, though regarded as the most beneficial and logical, holds
many challenges. Additionally, the genetics of the English language add their set of
curiosities. This complexity is reflected in the history of the language. So it is worth
taking a brief look at where our language has come from.
The English alphabet is derived from the Roman alphabet, which was in turn
derived from Greek alphabet. The Greeks based their own system on the Egyptian
hieroglyphic system, though refined this to use ‘letters’ rather than symbols and to
include vowels and consonants, (Barratt-Pugh & Rohl, 2000). Therefore our language

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can be said to be well travelled and have picked up further idiosyncrasies as a result of
conquests by The British Empire and invasions of Romans, Saxons, Vikings etc. This goes
a long way to explain why many irregularities in spelling; i.e. ‘cat’ & ‘yacht’, ‘met’ &
‘debt’, ‘wait’ & ‘weight’ and ‘there’, ‘their’ and ‘they’re’, and phonetic make-up occur; i.e.
how the ‘o’ sounds in ‘one’, ‘home’ and ‘women’.
Hutchcroft (1981) argues that highlighting these irregularities can be detrimental
to the child’s learning. She suggests that through implementing an ‘open discussion of
phonetic near misses, a wider view of language in the classroom and a ‘non-mechanical’
approach, the child absorbs and internalises many rules without the need to make them
explicit’.
The combination of learning these irregularities within a model for teaching
literacy is something the National Curriculum is responsible for in the UK. Since it’s
introduction, the National Curriculum has experienced many various reviews. However,
few have been so extensive and paved the way for such widespread shifts in thought and
practice as the Rose Review (2006).
After the implementation of the National Literacy Strategy, as part of the National
Curriculum, in 1998, an independent review was commissioned in 2006 and carried out
by Sir Jim Rose. The Rose Review aimed to re-evaluate the National Literacy Strategy
and apply knowledge from new and relevant research.
One of the key aspects of the Rose Review was the application of this new
research leading towards the adoption of the Simple View of Reading, a formula that is
discussed later within this assignment. This research centered on speaking and listening
in the home environment and how that affected the child’s learning. Rose highlighted
this area as a cause for concern. ‘More children were entering school with impoverished
language and poor social development.’ The report continued, ‘terms such as ‘word
poverty’ and ‘language delay’ have been coined to describe the impact on children’s
language development of unfavourable background conditions’ (Rose Review 2006).
Rose summerises these points with the following quote by Professor Maryanne Wolf;
“Unbeknownst to them or their families, children who grow up in environments with
few or no literacy experiences are already playing catch-up when they enter
kindergarten and the primary grades… When words are not heard, concepts are not
learned. When syntactic forms are never encountered, there is less knowledge about the

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relationship of events in a story. When story forms are never known, there is less ability
to infer and to predict. When cultural traditions and the feelings of others are never
experienced, there is less understanding of what other people feel”.
However, Rose recognises this need not be the end of the world, ‘many factors
that children bring to the table in the early years cannot be changed. Language
development is not one of them’ (Rose Review, 2006). The report then explains how
these challenges can be overcome by ‘exploiting’ every area of the curriculum to provide
the opportunity for children to express themselves ‘intelligibly through well-formed
speech and to listen attentively so as to understand what is said to them’ (Rose Review,
2006). Rose advises that the needed improvements in literacy could only come into
fruition by teaching an ‘intensive enrichment of all four strands of language’ (i.e.
speaking, listening, reading and writing). Thus providing a foundation for literacy
development and a chance for children who have requirements to ‘catch up’.
Responsibility for practically applying the recommendations of the Rose Review
essentially lay with the Revised Primary Framework. The Revised Primary Framework
provides clear guidance of classroom application for an increased twelve strands of
language development; speaking, listening & responding, group discussion &
responding, drama, word recognition: coding & encoding, word structure & spelling,
understanding & interpreting texts, engaging & responding to texts, text structure &
organisation, sentence structure & punctuation, and presentation. Considering the range
of these twelve strands, it is clear to see how the Revised Primary Strategy is making
headway in implementing the Rose Review’s recommendation of ‘exploiting’ as many
curriculum areas as possible.
The Simple View of Reading (SVR) is a model introduced in the Revised Primary
Framework to replace the Searchlights model. The SVR is a formula that deciphers
reading comprehension level as a product of listening comprehension (language
comprehension) and decoding (word recognition processes).
Adopted by the Rose Review (2006) The SVR was first suggested as an
educational model in the 1980’s. It was seen as an ideal bridge for the two opposing
literacy teaching models at the time; a whole language ‘real books’ approach or a
phonics based focus. Educational researchers and theorists generally accepted the SVR
incorporated the ‘whole language’ approach by defining a large part of literacy as a

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linguistic activity, but also placing an important role on phonics. However, critics of the
SVR have noted that while the whole language and phonics focuses are both highlighted,
the SVR doesn’t do an adequate job of showing the complex relationship between the
two (Dombey, 2008). Regardless of these criticisms, the SVR has been used to frame a
mandatory approach to the teaching of reading in England’s primary schools (DfES,
2006).
So what does the SVR mean to classroom practice? Published a short time after
the Rose Review, ‘Letters & Sounds’ is a government document essentially aimed to
answer exactly that question.
The crucial school stage for the learning of literacy is the Foundation stage, which
consists of a Nursery year and a ‘pre Key Stage 1’ reception year. Although the Early
Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and Primary National Strategy documents highlight
various approaches to the teaching of literacy, the introduction of ‘Letters & Sounds’
aimed to align with the EYFS and Primary National Strategy and specifically help
practitioners teach children how the alphabet works in terms of reading and spelling. It
is one of the few documents to systematically detail how practitioners should apply the
Rose Review recommendations, the SVR and the practical teaching of phonics, word
recognition and reading. At reception level (Foundation 2)
The aspirations of the Letters & Sounds document were to “teach good quality
phonic work beginning before/around the age of 5-years and to equip children with
phonetic knowledge and skills to enable them to become fluent readers by the age of 7-
years” (Letters & Sounds, 2007). As noted, the Letters & Sounds document is heavily
founded on the recommendations of the Rose Review (2006); high quality phonetic
work and a higher importance placed upon speaking and listening skills from birth in
the home environment, as-per the previously highlighted SVR.
In the classroom Letters & Sounds provides a clarity and very specific level of
detail for practitioners. The document is broken down into six phases and it is noted that
pace and progression through these phases will depend upon the children. The elements
of pace and progression are not prescribed.
At Nursery level (Foundation1) the focus consists of the ‘sound’ –
‘comprehension’ relationship. Examples are often drawn from the immediate
environment (i.e. traffic sounds, animal noises, instruments etc) and center on forming

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‘talk’ and speaking & listening skills with reference to the subject. At reception level
(Foundation 2) ‘Letters & Sounds’ concentrates on synthetic phonics before moving on
to ‘chunking’ and ‘sounding out’ small combinations of words.
‘Letters & Sounds’ could be described as an intervention programme provided by
the Department for Education. However, in following a familiar pattern, once a piece of
hastily arranged government legislation comes out (i.e. ‘Letters & Sounds’ released just
months after the Rose Report) outside researchers and organisations realise the
potential for an alternative. These alternative interventions can afford greater freedom
of budget & constraints, and are often published after a period of more extensive
research. These non-government interventions often prove to be more popular and
provide higher up-take and achievement (Woodhead, 2009).
“Interventions have been plentiful and it can be debated whether they assist or
further confuse the teaching of literacy in the primary classroom. However, their
intention is firmly to assist and provide practical and ‘hands on’ guidance for
practitioners” (Arthur, Grainger & Wray, 2006).
‘Read, Write Inc.’ is a popular example of an intervention programme. Picking up
on a key recommendation of the Rose Review, ‘Read, Write, Inc’ is based upon a
synthetic phonics approach and meets the criteria of the SVR via four key strands;
phonics, comprehension, spelling and a fresh start. The latter offers any late developing
children to re-cover the basics if and when needed. Widespread praise of ‘Read, Write
inc.’ has centered on it’s “dynamic approach, practical guides for teachers and it’s all-
inclusive nature” (Oxford University Press, 2010).
For a less comprehensive but equally popular intervention programme, ‘Big
Writing’ puts the focus on developing writing as a means to literacy. “Developed by Ros
Wilson and Andrell Education, ‘Big Writing’ is the product of three years of extensive
research into primary school writing” (Andrell Education, 2010).
Wilson identified four main aspects of writing; vocabulary, connectives, openers
and punctuation, and the programme teaches writing via these four strands. At
foundation stage the focus is on orally developing words for writing. ‘Big Writing’ is a
popular intervention but not without it’s critics. Hayes (2004) observes “although the
framework has helped to concentrate teachers’ minds on the fundamental skills that
children need to be literate, some practitioners have found the highly structured and

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objective-driven nature has not allowed for spontaneity and exploration of

unanticipated areas of learning.” These notions are backed up by Arthur et al (2006)
“Writing activities that allowed pupils more flexibility in their responses were more
beneficial and led to more interesting discussions than those that demanded more
structured responses”. However, practitioners are aware of this and overcome these
shortfalls via a number of strategies. The Creative Curriculum and the ethos behind it
challenged practitioners to base their teaching ‘loosely’ upon curriculum and
interventions, thus encouraging creativity, notions of child enquiry and open-ended
questioning (Lowry, 2008).
As additions to the Primary National Strategy, both the Early Literacy Support
(ELS) and Further Literacy Support (FLS) are tempory interventions aimed at
supporting struggling children. The ELS is a sixteen-week programme aimed at year one
and the FLS is a similar type of programme aimed at year five and the early stages of
year 6. However, both the ELS and FLS have drawn criticism for “lacking depth and any
practical guidelines” (Woodhead, 2009).
Part of the practical content within many of the interventions mentioned above
are particular methods of teaching reading. The most common methods being; guided
reading, shared reading and paired reading. They were also represented within the
original National Literacy Strategy.
Guided reading consists of reading groups of primarily up to six children led and
initiated by the teacher. The aims of a guided reading session are precise and therefore
involve a lot of planning and preparation by the teacher. This is crucial, as each child will
typically have different ability and needs. The responsibility for the teacher is to choose
a ‘just right’ book that will perfectly match the session aims and child ability.
This small focus group work is also crucial to the teacher in terms of medium and
longer term plans. By implementing principles of Assessment for Learning, practitioners
can pick up on findings from these small focus groups to form an excellent knowledge of
their children. This knowledge can then be used for strategic planning, meeting the
needs of individual children. “Assessment for Learning is a wonderful tool for teachers”
Hayes (2006).
An example of reading work that is more child-led is paired reading. This is often
implemented as a means of peer reinforcement once a particular skill/text/genre has

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been taught and mastered. Shared reading offers something between guided and paired
reading. As highlighted by Parkes (2000), shared reading is only teacher initiated and a
collaborative learning experience that draws on the childs previous experiences of bed
time stories etc. “It is a regrettable trend that the majority of child-led/shared
interventions are cast aside due to time restraints” (Woodhead, 2009).
Despite the existing plethora of frameworks and interventions, the most recent
data related to the teaching of literacy is alarming. Published within the past week, The
UK National Literacy Trust reports one in six children aged 7-11 are falling behind
national standards. 18% of boys and 14% of girls failed to achieve the two levels of
desired progress. Differences between girls and boys attainment is also increasing, with
boys falling behind for the second consecutive year (National Literacy Trust, 2010).
To conclude, the past fifteen years have seen a constant succession of curriculum
changes, interventions and reforms. In a perfect world practitioners could implement all
the frameworks and make sure all individual children were well supported in their
literacy learning by using appropriate intervention programmes. The reality is that time
constraints, teacher:pupil ratio and budget constraints mean this reality isn’t entirely
feasible. Hayes (2006) recognises the benefit of having a plethora of interventions to
choose from, as practitioners are able to match childrens learning styles to the most
suitable interventions. Local Education Authorities (LEA’s) and individual schools are
able to pick out pieces of various intervention programmes to supplement their
frameworks and curriculum. However for this to be a success, it requires a teacher to be
thoroughly supported by their school, have an in-depth knowledge of their children and
to be confident in Assessment for Learning. As Woodhead (2009) highlights, sadly this
isn’t always the case.

Bibliography and References:

Andrell Education Ltd. (2010) Big Writing: raising standards in education (Online)
http://www.andrelleducation.co.uk/home/ [accessed 01/10/2010]

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Arthur, J., Grainger, T. & Wray, D. (2006) Learning to Teach in the Primary School,
London: Routledge Press.

Barratt-Pugh, C. & Rohl, M. (2000) Literacy Learning in the Early Years, Buckingham:
Open University Press.

Cohen, D. (2002) How the Child’s Mind Develops, New York: Routledge.

Department for Education (2010) The National Strategies - Primary (Online)

http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/ [accessed 31/08/2010)

Dombey, H. (2008) The simple view of reading – explained, London: Hodder &
Stoughton.

Hall, N. (1987) The emergence of literacy, London: Hodder & Stoughton.

Hayes, D. (2004) Foundations of Primary Teaching, London: David Fulton Publishers.

Hutchcroft, D.M.R. (1981) Making Language Work, London: McGraw Hill.

Letters & Sounds: Principles of High Quality Phonics, (2007). Primary National Strategy,
DfES.

Lowry, B. (2008) Juicy Writing, Melbourne: Allen & Unwin Publishers.

National Literacy Trust, UK (2010) One in six pupils falling behind in ‘basics’ (Online)
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/news/2585_one_in_six_primary_school_pupils_falling_
behind_in_basics [accessed 08/10/2010]

Oxford University Press (2010) Read, Write, Inc. – a dynamic literacy programme rooted
in phonics! (Online) http://www.oup.com/oxed/primary/rwi/ [accessed 29/09/2010]

Parkes, B (2000) Read It Again! United States: Stenhouse Publishers.

Phonics and early reading: an overview for headteachers, literacy leaders and teachers in
schools, and managers and practitioners in Early Years settings, (2006). Primary National
Strategy.

Soderbergh, R. (1977) Reading in early childhood: A linguistic study of a preschool

Child's gradual acquisition of reading ability. Washington, DC: Georgetown University
Press.

Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, (2008). Primary National
Strategy, DfES.

Woodhead, C. (2009) A Desolation of Learning: is this the education our children

deserve? London: Pencil-Sharp Publishing.

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Wray, D., Bloom,W. & Hall, N. (1989) Literacy in Action: The development of literacy in
the primary years, New York: Falmer Press.

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