Phonics Discussion

English is about acquiring the skills, knowledge and attitudes to become an empowered reader, writer, speaker and listener.

Halliday’s (1978, 1985) ‘Functional Systemic Linguistics’ argues that the level at which we operate in the real world is not at the word/sentence level, but at the level of a whole text. Wray and Medwell (2002, as cited in Medwell, J et al (2007) Achieving QTS: Primary Teaching – Teaching Theory and Practice) argued that an effective teacher makes it explicit that the purpose of teaching literacy is to enable pupils to create meaning using text.

Adults read using cueing systems, which guide automatic word recognition using semantic and syntactic knowledge; children however, rely more heavily on sound-symbol correspondences through which English is encoded and decoded. Phonics teaching aims to help children learn to encode and decode these correspondences automatically in order to facilitate the processes of reading and writing.

The Rose Report (2006) recommends the teaching of phonics discretely in daily sessions as the primary approach to establishing word recognition. This involves children learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences and the skill of blending and segmenting these sounds. The Government have now implemented this synthetic phonics approach to reading as apposed to the more analytic approach that was being used, which encouraged children to look at words in the context of texts in a ‘whole to parts’ study of phonics. The synthetic phonic approach emphasises that successful phonic work for word recognition is a time-limited activity that is eventually overtaken by work that develops comprehension. It is argued that the teaching of phonics needs to be based on children’s experiences of speaking and listening and on rich literacy experiences, which teach children why they need to learn to read and write.

The teaching of phonics is broken down into a flexible six-phase structure so that each child can learn and progress at their own rate. It is argued that high quality phonic teaching can substantially reduce the number of children at risk of falling below age-related expectations for reading (Letters and Sounds: Notes of Guidance for Practitioners and Teachers 2007). Children with hearing difficulties, or those learning English as a second language, may need additional support. Once children have mastered the decoding process and have learnt how to read they will move onto ‘reading to learn’ and will begin to read for information or pleasure. Although it is essential that children are able to read, and understand the technicalities of this process, the idea of reading for pleasure is just as important and should be emphasised to children when they are learning to read.

Teachers must ensure that the teaching of phonics is fun and interactive, so that children do not find it tedious, difficult and meaningless, they need to understand the importance of learning to read. It is essential that mistakes are recognised and sensitively corrected so that errors are not ingrained in memory. The teaching of phonics is prone to errors because of the inconsistencies and illogical rules of the English language; the emphasis on sounds may also be hindered by different accents and dialects as pronunciation may vary. The fact that one phoneme can have a number of correspondent graphemes, and that phonemes can be split, means that the process is complicated and children may find it hard to grasp.

The over emphasis on phonics may mean that something is being taken away from children’s literary experience. It is argued that in order for children to have positive attitudes regarding reading their emotions need to be engaged in the process so that it involves pleasure and desire. There is also the issue of comprehension; children may be able to read but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they understand what they are reading.

Although the importance and usefulness of learning phonics cannot be denied, it is not necessarily the most effective and appropriate method of teaching children to read. Research such as Goswami and Bryant (1990) indicate that in the early stages of reading, phonological awareness of the two parts of a syllable, onset and rime, has a facilitating effect in word recognition. It would appear that a more integrated approach using synthetic and analytic methods might be the most appropriate way of teaching, whilst taking individual needs into consideration.