MESHGuides

Phonics is a way of teaching children how to read and write. It helps children hear, identify and use different sounds that distinguish one word from another in the English language. It is an approach to teaching reading, and some aspects of writing, by developing learners’ phonemic awareness. This involves the skills of hearing, identifying and using phonemes or sound patterns in English. The aim is to systematically teach learners the relationship between these sounds and the written spelling patterns, or graphemes, which represent them.

Is there an optimum way to teach reading in schools? A best approach? Studies of schools and classrooms where children are taught to read most effectively show consistently that high achieving classes are characterized by:

 • a balanced approach in which attention to word recognition skills is matched by attention to comprehension “with the consistent message that understanding and effective communication - not just word recognition - are what literacy is about”  (Taylor & Pearson 2002, p.365)

Reading is a complex skill involving the orchestration of a number of components.  Researchers often talk about a “model of reading” when talking about only one aspect of the reading process (for example, models of word identification are often referred to as “models of reading”). 

Models of Word Identification

On average, children take two to three years to learn to decode English. It is the most difficult alphabetic writing system in the world to master. In Finland, where there are no exceptions, each letter always stands for the same sound and children take only a few months to learn to decode. Like a muscle, the brain grows with practice. Brem (2010) showed that the visual word form area in the human brain begins to appear in the brain scans of non-readers after as little as five hours of training in decoding.  A number of brain regions are involved in reading and comprehension.

Developmental pattern

Oral language plays an important part in learning to read. This has long been recognised (Dougherty, 2014) and the relationship between oral language ability and academic success is well established (Brinkman, et al., 2009; Hoff, 2012).  Research now tells us of the link between disadvantage and low levels of language and communication, whereby there are significant gaps in vocabulary between children from the least disadvantaged and most disadvantaged backgrounds (Save the Children, 2015).

Nutbrown’s research (2006) informs us that parent-child conversations, how children experiment with words and rhythms, listening to and telling stories and pretend play provide important building blocks of family literacy. Literacy is a skill for life. It is the ability to read, write, speak and listen in a way that allows us to communicate effectively and make sense of the world. Lacking vital literacy skills holds a person back at every stage of their life.

This section gives a brief history and overview of the key programmes used in Primary schools to promote reading.

National Literacy Strategy (1997+)

Data from the National Literacy Trust survey in 2019 (Clark & Teravainen-Goff, 2020) reveal a stark picture of young people’s reading habits in the UK and a gradual decline year on year. Only 53% of young people said they enjoyed reading and levels of reading enjoyment were at their lowest recorded level since 2013. Fewer young people said that they read daily in their free time. At the same time, attitudes towards reading have remained relatively unchanged. The link between reading engagement and skill is also clear.

‘He that loves reading has everything within his reach’ —William Godwin