Is phonics the best way to teach kids to read? Nick Gibb and Michael Rosen debate

[ElenMumsnetBloggers]

Last month all year one children in England had to take a phonics screening check, and phonics is being rolled out across the country as the way to teach children to read. But is this too prescriptive? We asked children's author Michael Rosen and Education Minister Nick Gibb to debate phonics. Read their debate about phonics as a tool for children to learn to read here and have your say. Do you agree with Nick Gibb or Michael Rosen? Is phonics the most effective way to teach children to read? Should we use several ways of teaching reading, or concentrate on phonics? Join the debate.

. -- There is no single magic solution in the shape of one reading programme or another that will tackle the deeply entrenched issues facing the stubborn 20% of children who fail; a successful programme will have as many facets as there are interrelated issues.

Bollocks. But you keep telling yourself that, while the rest of us carry on doing just that.

What is your motivation for insisting that, math? Why aren't you at all interested in success and change? Other than, as usual, having entered a thread in an entrenched position - and it can be an entrenched position on anything at all - and refusing to budge?

My motivation is quite simple -- acknowledgement of reality. Disregarding the correlation between socio economic class (and the sort of domestic issues that go hand in hand with being at the bottom) and reading /school failure is utter lunacy. Worse still is denial of that correlation. That is the reality.

The bottom 1/5 of the socio economic ladder fails to read. Deny that if you want but that is reality. The top 4/5 learns to read.
Moreover, the top 4/5 learns using mixed methods or whatever methods their schools see fit to use, whether phonics, phonics plus sight words, whole language, whole language plus phonics.

Therefore SP for all is the answer? It defies logic.

lol at my 'entrenched position'. Coming from a poster who believes in the magical properties of SP that is quite funny.

Disregarding the correlation between socio economic class (and the sort of domestic issues that go hand in hand with being at the bottom) and reading /school failure is utter lunacy.

Really? Because that is my reality, and the reality of many teachers here.

We're not interested in excuses, we are interested in making sure every single child learns to read. To deny that that is possible, when we can see it actually happening is nuts. From where I am sitting, in a position where I contribute to making that happen every day, instead of sitting there sneering and spouting paper after paper, makes you the lunatic - at best.

math, I know a little bit about research and I agree with you.

My quibble with SP's success stats is that I believe most schools who introduce it (including the 'pilot') obviously have a heavy focus/ commitment to reading. More so than many other schools. I'd like to see the results of schools with an equally strong commitment to reading, but using mixed methods. You can't compare a 'national average' statistic with a pilot study. There should have been 2 pilot studies (maybe there were, I haven't heard talk of it), but that wouldn't have been in the interest of SP proponents.

Perhaps we should try a controlled experiment, where we teach phonics to the "bottom" socio-econcomic 20% of the class, and let the rest carry on with the mixed methods.

My prediction is that the "mixed method" parents would soon be complaining bitterly that their DCs are not maintaining their reading lead through the colour bands.

choccyp1g, I don't believe that would happen!

So, if mixed methods are fine for the 80% not in the bottom socio-economic groups, are they fine for those who ARE in the bottom 20%, mathanxiety? Or is it the case that the bottom 20% will do better with a focus on SP to start out their reading journey, as per the claims of the SP proponents?

mathanxiety - doesn't your argument get close to suggesting that the 20% shouldn't be educated with the 80% at all, because their needs are so completely different?

Rabbitstew -- I guess we are going to find out, and let's hope the gamble pays off.

ChoccyPig, it's very unlikely that the top 80% will fall behind given the fact that they have larger vocabularies, more access to books, parents who can help by hearing reading and who are willing and able to support academic progress.

Rabbitstew, at the moment, the 20% and the 80% tend to be in different catchment areas. A lot of the 80% tend to make decisions as to where to apply for school places and even where to live based on whether the 20% are going to be rubbing shoulders with their children. I think the realisation that the 20% has different needs has already led to a focus on children aged 0-3 and on the really difficult question of how to change the parenting style of people who are sending unprepared children to school. The home has rightly come under scrutiny.

MerryMarigold: do you mean you don't believe the 20% being taught SP would make more progress, or that the 80% parents wouldn't complain if everone else caught up?

Mathanxiety, I don't mean that the 80% would fall behind, just that their relative advantage would reduce.

Yes, falling back wasn't the right phrase.

I don't think anyone is clapping themselves on the back right now when the disparity is large or feeling there is anything innate about their children that makes them succeed.

Hence the anxiety about school placement, and parents choosing private schools. People are realistic about their children's chances of getting adequate teaching time in a classroom where a teacher is dealing with a huge range of abilities and perhaps problems with behaviour, and I think as long as nobody is suggesting forced school integration MC parents will be happy to see their children learn as they always have, because it appears to work for them. There will always be parents sending their children to tutors because they are not happy with the level of challenge the school sets for their children , but most MC parents are happy that their children are getting the best they can get and being stretched as much as they can be.

Unless SP has the effect of sending the bottom 20% to the most selective universities in huge numbers and edging out their children, I don't see the 80% getting worried.

How do you explain results such as those from the school where I teach Math? It's in an area of social and economic deprivation as defined by the government yet 98% of our pupils achieved a level 4 or above for reading and that includes a number of children with specific learning difficulties identified by Educational Psychologists. 92% achieved a level 4 or above in writing ... and if you read my colleagues blog you will know the adversity they have overcome to get there.

Unfortunately only hard cash can send children to the top universities which is why some of those attending are less academically able than those who are unable to pay. But that isn't the fault of reading instruction just the harsh reality of the unfairness of the system.

Rabbit and choccyp1g I can give a small example from my own school. In the past what used to happen was all children received daily systematic phonics in reception then when they moved to Y1 only the "bottom" group received daily phonics input and this continued in Y2. What we found was that the "bottom" group were outperforming the other children in reading and spelling in the KS1 tests despite their slow start.

Mathsanxiety

You have built up a set of ?straw men? (mostly by innuendo, rather than outright statements) about what supporters of SP ?believe? SP can do.

Nobody claims that SP can supply the vocabulary and general knowledge that are lacking in many (not all) of the 20%. What it CAN do, however, is teach them to read and spell, and that is an essential first step for everyone. That is the only claim SP people make ? they are in general too pragmatic to think otherwise ? after all, it is that very pragmatism, that keenness to use ?what works? rather than what authority and ideology prescribe ? that led them to SP in the first place.

The idea that the 20% and the 80% are always in different catchment areas is simply not true. While this may be close to being the case in some areas of big cities, there are plenty of mixed socio-economic catchment areas all over the country in smaller cities, towns and villages. Furthermore, the huge demand among the middle classes for remedial reading tuition and dyslexia diagnoses shows that there are plenty of ?20 per cent-ers? in socially advantaged families.

Finally, you have been linking the disadvantaged backgrounds of many of the 20% with things like family abuse, as though the two were identical, in a way that is quite unjustified and rather unpleasant. Sure, a small percentage of that 20% come from ?problem families?. But there are many, many poor families where parents care about their children and look after them well, even if many of them are limited themselves in vocabulary, and the understanding of the importance of talking to their children. (And let?s not forget that most of these parents were taught with whole word / multi-cuing, so many will be illiterate or semi-literate themselves.)

As an adddition to my post above: there's was an article in the Guardian yesterday about the bizzarely wide criteria the government is using to designate "problem families" Quote from article (note the last sentence particularly):

"when governments talk of 120,000 families they are using figures from 2004, in which families were counted who met five of seven criteria. These were: earning a low income; nobody in the family working; poor housing; parents with no qualifications; the mother having a mental health problem; one parent with a longstanding illness or disability; and the family unable to afford basics including food and clothes.

It's an interesting constellation, since once you'd met five, it must be all but impossible to avoid fulfilling all seven. But one thing it doesn't mention, anywhere, is delinquency or sexual abuse or social workers or the police. You can't use a very small sample of criminal or borderline-criminal families as your way into understanding a very large sample of families whose central uniting trait is that they are poor."

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/18/problem-families-poverty?INTCMP=SRCH

So basically,the world educationally divides into the middle classes who breeze through education, and on good universities,and the rest?
This is the type of thinking you find on the Grammar school threads,where many people assume that their own particular child will automatically be grammar school material because of their background...

What actually happens is that some parents are in a better position than others to take extra action to help their child if the child is not progressing as they'd like.Middle class parents like what I am can afford to pay for help.
I don't quite see what that has got to do with teaching all children to read by the method that achieves the best result for all of them.So that whatever else they are dealing with at least they have that foundation to build on.

We are middle class.We read.I have a degree,my husband has a degree level qualification,my sister's children read everything in sight,as I did when I was a child.My Dcs don't,and I strongly believe that without my input at home,and the fact that we could pay for help,DS wouldn't be reading at any respectable level now.And that makes me spitting mad - yes,it is fine for us,we were able to pay for tutoring - not because we weren't happy with the level of challenge,or that our DCs weren't being stretched,but because DS couldn't read.Or write,actually. And he used to hide under desks and meltdown...I never imagined my child would behave like that in school,and I'm not proud of it,but I am convinced it was because he could not master the basics when his classmates did,he knew quite well everyone else could do it,and he couldn't.

"The bottom 1/5 of the socio economic ladder fails to read. Deny that if you want but that is reality. The top 4/5 learns to read.
Moreover, the top 4/5 learns using mixed methods or whatever methods their schools see fit to use, whether phonics, phonics plus sight words, whole language, whole language plus phonics."

Or,alternatively - the top 4/5 learn to read using whatever method their schools use,because those children who are having problems when the method the school uses does not work are in the fortunate position of having parents who can intervene,and other influences in their lives which support reading... The bottom 1/5 are dependant on the schools and if what they get in school doesn't work they doomed. And until we can transform society there is no point trying to improve any small part of it...

Right,rant over,going away again...

I agree, PrideofChanur - all mathanxiety's statistics do is show that a poor educational experience doesn't affect 80% of people as much as it does the remaining 20%. 20% of people actually need an incredibly good education in order to stand any chance at all. To look at them and say, "I wouldn't start from here," once they get to school is a complete waste of their time.

And as for mathanxiety's "Statistics do not lie" comment - that just beggars belief. Since when was the saying, "There are lies, damned lies and statistics" considered to be the lie? Every stage in the creation of statistics is open to serious abuse by people with a pre-ordained conclusion in mind. People argue over the meaning of statistics on a daily basis. Statistics are numbers which have to be created and interpreted - hence the colossal lies in which statistics are involved.

The problem with statistics is that they allow officials to treat human beings as representatives of defined groups, not as individuals, even if in reality the individual concerned is one of the exceptions to the rule. And what's more, the defined groups are often unfairly defined.

All mathanxiety seems to be trying to prove is that parents who don't look after their children's emotional, social and physical needs are disadvantaging them hugely and that you are more likely to fail to look after these needs if you yourself have huge unmet needs and disabilities. Well, hey, we don't need statistics to understand that.

Oh, and the current system of education is not all about the 80% trying to avoid the 20% - that would imply there is any sense of unity whatsoever amongst the 80%, whereas in fact, a lot of the 80% are trying to avoid each other, too. Parents go to FAR greater effort than necessary to avoid 20% of the population - they are avoiding a far, far greater proportion of people than that when they move house to get their child into the "right" school and if they were only bothered about the 20%, the situation wouldn't have become half as ludicrous as it is, now.

Perhaps Math should remember that correlation does not equal causation. You could equally well say that 20% of people who are 5'10" tall have brown hair but having brown hair doesn't make them 5' 10" tall.

In the case of learning to read this is demonstrated by the fact that teachers like mrz and feenie can teach all of their pupils to read, whatever their background; likewise Ruth Miskinand her successor at Kobi Nazrul school and the teachers of the children in this study:

www.rrf.org.uk/pdf/Matched%20Funding%20Article-august%2011a%20_MG_.pdf

And many others.

I'm not sure where this figure of 20% of the population being disadvantaged comes from, either. It agrees too neatly with the 20% of children who leave KS2 with a L3 or below in English.

While poor reading skills will have an adverse effect on eductional attainment there are many other factors involved.

PrideOfChanur - Just wanted to say that I very much agree with your 'rant'.

MaizieD, take a look at the All Party Parliamentary Report on Social Mobility.

Your individual examples of success are a drop in the ocean. The overall correlation between social disadvantage and failure in school stands. The factors involved in school failure are far more complex than simply using the 'wrong' methods to teach reading.

The factors involved in school success are also far more complex than whatever method of teaching reading is used.

If you don't believe that the (statistically proven) link between socio-economic class and failure in school is axiomatic all I can say is 'Good luck, Don Quixote'.

Here is is again, from another paper, incidentally one in which SP is touted as a good method of improving the outcome for disadvantaged children if it is part of a holistic approach by the school that seeks to tackle the root of the problem, i.e. the family:
'One in four children in the UK grows up in poverty, and for these children the impact on their chances of education and life success is profound.
? The attainment gap between children from rich and poor backgrounds is detectable at an early age (22 months) and widens throughout the education system, for example children from the lowest-income homes are half as likely to get five good GCSEs (General Certificates in Secondary Education) and go on to higher education.
? White working-class pupils (particularly boys) are among the lowest performers in academic achievement.
? Nevertheless, the link between poverty and attainment is a multi-racial phenomenon, with socio-economic gaps much greater than ethnic group differences.'
...
'What evidence is available?
? There is an extensive amount of research in the UK analysing the link between poverty and attainment, and in relation to other factors (gender, ethnicity, schools etc) . However, there is much less quantitative evidence available in terms of ?what works? for specific interventions and strategies.'

PrideofChanur -- your anecdote is about one child and one family hiring a tutor. You cannot extrapolate from your DS's experience that every child has problems like his, or that 4 out of 5 children have parents hiring tutors because mixed methods or methods besides SP are not in fact teaching their children to read. As you said yourself, your DS's classmates did learn to master the basics.

One swallow doth not a summer make.

And yes as your post underlines, support and help from parents is crucial. It is crucial in every aspect of a child's life in school, especially in reinforcing the academic lessons in the early years and in backing up the school's behaviour expectations.

The bottom 1/5 of society does not give its children that help. The challenge is to figure out why and to elicit their co-operation.

The children of that group arrive at school not prepared socially and emotionally or in terms of exposure to what happens in school academically. They are behind before they enter the school gates.

I'd rather tilt at windmills than write off a 5th of pupils