APM keeps pushing phonics, but the UK tried it and it's been a disaster: reading ability craters after a couple years. It's not the solution.
https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.10...
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/jan/19/focus-on-p...
See my other, more detailed, comment on this thread, but the reason for this is that phonics is part of the solution, but it's not what creates fluent readers.
Most phonics programs do not treat automaticity as the goal, so kids with effortful and slow decoding count as "reading". The science is very clear on what causes this lack of automaticity and what exercises best correct it, but most programs ignore it.
So kids with no deficits will develop mostly fine, but those with them will look to be "reading" but will have trouble once the material requires too much of them.
The UK phonics data shows mixed results with plateaus rather than "cratering" - the second link you shared actually indicates the issue is over-focusing on phonics alone rather than combining it with comprehension strategies.
My kids have been taught phonics here in the uk along with comprehension and it’s been great. I can clearly see how each has developed - and materials have things like basic comprehension of just picture stories to teach it without relying on reading for those who are struggling with the words.
Calling it a disaster seems like an exaggeration, the article literally says UK's PISA scores for reading have not changed. In fact, the experts cited in the article don't even seem to suggest moving away from phonics, but to give teachers more leeway adapt to what their students seem to respond to.
Well, it's an old article. Comparable countries Canada and Ireland with more holistic approaches (including phonics) have way better PISA scores.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/656dc3321104c...
Isn't Canada multilingual?
Do you think that makes reading pedagogy harder or easier?
I think it makes learning to read easier because not 100% of their grade is based on how well they learned to read English, which is a terrible language for reading.
Grades have nothing to do with PISA scores.
PISA score is a form of grading, is it not?
I'm sure it doesn't just compare English proficiency between countries because some countries don't speak English at all and still get PISA score.
> PISA score is a form of grading, is it not?
No, it's an independent test. You can completely "fail" the PISA and it'll have no impact on your matriculation.
> I'm sure it doesn't just compare English proficiency between countries because some countries don't speak English at all and still get PISA score.
Correct. Students take the PISA in their native language. Only the most sparsely populated provinces in Canada did worse [0] than the UK [1] in 2018.
[0]: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/what-int...
[1]: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f20293fd3bf7...
> > PISA score is a form of grading, is it not? > No, it's an independent test.
I'm sorry. I'm not a native speaker. Does the word "grading" pertain to only tests that are a part of school curriculum? I thought it could mean assigning a score to any test, even independent, even not related to education at all.
> Correct. Students take the PISA in their native language.
Right. So assuming that scores of the students are averaged out together across all test takers in the country and some of them learned to read French rather than English they might skew the average. So comparing scores of Canada and UK for the purposes of comparing how well English learning goes in those two countries might not be valid approach.
We should be comparing UK with sub-population of Canadian students that took the test in English. Not sure if PISA provides such data.
I probably can't object to comparing UK and Ireland on that grounds. Or do some students take PISA tests in Irish there?
The first link I posted does what you're asking; the only non English province is Quebec.
> give teachers more leeway adapt to what their students seem to respond to.
This always feels like one of those “of course, duh” things when the concept of adapting curriculum to students comes up, because it works so well. It’s a bummer that in the US at least, priority for funding that kind of education across public schools is a non-starter. If teachers are buying their own supplies and cramming 20-30 kids in a class, everyone gets the same educational slop and a masters in rote memorization.
The Department of Education and standardized testing are to thank for a lot of that.
It seems like the idea has gotten more controversial since a certain administration has considered getting rid of it but, since it's inception, it's not like US education has improved.
I have a 5 year old daughter who learnt to read through the phonics system. I was initially fairly skeptical but actually I think it's great. It's just explicitly teaching the pronunciation heuristics that we all learn implicitly.
They have a pretty good way of testing too - they show a list of 40 real words and made up words ("alien words") and the kids have to pronounce them. They only include words that closely follow the normal English pronunciation heuristics and are unambiguous. E.g. "glot" and "bime" would be ok but "sough" and "gow" would not.
> Critics say phonics training only helps children to do well in phonics tests – they learn how to pronounce words presented to them in a list rather than understand what they read – and does nothing to encourage a love of reading.
If this is the best criticism of it then.. that's pretty dumb. The entire point is to learn how to pronounce words. It isn't intended to teach them to understand words - they can already do that. And it isn't meant to instill a love of reading. That's basically innate.
I'm not too surprised it makes no difference to overall reading levels. It's not really that different to the previous method of teaching reading, and a very large component of reading ability is innate... But to say it's been a disaster is absolutely ridiculous.
It's definitely not innate. While phonics test scores are pretty high, PISA and KS 2 reading scores are down. The DfA on reading in 2021 is like, _solely_ about phonics. The 2023 update adds tons more guidance beyond phonics. Comparable countries Canada and Ireland are doing better, they didn't go all in on phonics. So, depends on what you mean by disaster, but IMO in the policy world, this counts.
Education is a system that resists change.
Any time you research an educational innovation, part of the work is to measure to what extent the implementation is faithful to the intent. Education research is not like physics research.
I absolutely apply that understanding when I read research about major changes in the way reading is taught.
I actually think the only way to be confident is to do some kind of primary research yourself. Otherwise, tread lightly and skeptically.