Important: McGuinness comments on the Torgerson review

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debbie
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Important: McGuinness comments on the Torgerson review

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http://www.syntheticphonics.com/article ... rticle.pdf

Introduction:
Some Comments of a Report by C. Torgerson, G. Brooks, and J. Hall titled  A Systematic Review of the Research Literature on the Use of Phonics in the Teaching of Reading and Spelling.

Diane McGuinness

Recently, basic-skills website featured a summary of a review of the reading research by Torgerson et al (Research Report no. 711). The 85 page document is linked to this summary. It is, in effect, purported to be a reworking of the National Reading Panel s report in the US (2000), or more accurately, the reading committee chair s report of the same data (Ehri et al, 2001).

This report was commissioned by the DfES and funded by them. The committee, headed by Professor Greg Brooks, was  supported and advised  at  each stage of the review with helpful comments and suggestions.  This is a dense document, with numerous tables and appendices, arcane discussions of statistical minutiae and issues regarding experimental design, etc., all to the end (it appears) of drawing a vague set of conclusions which lead the reader to believe that synthetic phonics programmes have not been proven to be effective beyond other methods by any margin sufficient to be trustworthy.

The reality is, that every statement under the heading  key findings  is incorrect or seriously compromised by the true facts.


Conclusion:
Later, they state that the studies screened into their database are either those which compare systematic phonics versus unsystematic/or no phonics, or synthetic phonics compared with analytic phonics. The only study reported that fits the latter category is the study by Johnston and Watson.

In conclusion, this paper shares the same major flaws as the NRP and a lot more besides. Mixing remedial and classroom programmes is invalid on a number of grounds. The reduced data set, which tossed out a number of very good studies indeed (i.e. Stuart s dockland study using Jolly Phonics is but one) is scarcely an improvement on the NRP report, or on its thoroughness and detail, which allows others to use the data more effectively.

When the data are assessed appropriately, the reading programmes that best fit the prototype, that fall most clearly within the ideal of the synthetic phonics programme that focus exclusively at the level of the phoneme and no other, larger units, is highly successful for beginning readers. The evidence is clear, robust, and comprehensive enough for this fact to be recognized.

The next stage of research needs to be focused on fine-tuning these outstanding programmes. We certainly do not need more mock research papers designed to prove their ineffectiveness.
Last edited by debbie on Wed Dec 18, 2013 1:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Debbie Hepplewhite
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Post by debbie »

The above paper by Professor Diane McGuinness is a 'must' read for people who are really into understanding research findings - and also the paper shows just how very important it is to research the research - and to appreciate just how much one has to look into the 'detail' and understand the value of the detail.

Since this paper was written, 'Fast Phonics First' has been developed as 'Phonics Bug', Read Write Inc is Ruth Miskin's developed programme.

And also of this ilk, we have Sound Discovery, Sounds-Write, ORT Floppy's Phonics Sounds and Letters, Phonics International, Sounds Together, Jolly Phonics.
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Post by debbie »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtxHi6yreio

So, here is a possibly typical presentation by a number of academics - and authors led by Michael Rosen.

Don't they get it, that whilst they undermine the validity of 'the research', it shows they have a flawed understanding of the research.

But it's this simple:

Don't such people really understand that the better young readers - any readers - can lift the words off the page, the more able they are to 'comprehend' it.

Of course this is at their level of 'spoken' language.

Children will not love books if they really struggle to lift the words off the page.

Children who can 'get through' books with a dependence on guessing from the multiple cues (pictures, context, initial letters) will not be served in the long term when pictures disappear and when the vocabulary within the books is not within their spoken language.

We all want to provide a 'book loving' culture - that's not an issue.

What counts for we synthetic phonics proponents is that we want to make sure every child can lift the words off the page no matter what the book!

How can children understand what they are reading?

Because they will when it is at the level of their spoken language.

What we need is:

Children with a good level of spoken language.

Children who can readily lift the words off the page because they are goo
d decoders.

A good decoder is someone who does not need a plethora of 'cues' to help them guess the word.
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Post by debbie »

And, of course, lots of book experience within the home will improve a child's level of spoken language.

So, lots of books, lots of chatter, lots of phonics for the technical skills.
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Post by debbie »

More links and conversation about this topic here on the UK Reading Reform Foundation website:

http://rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopi ... 192#p47192
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Post by debbie »

TIME ON TASK!

Look at what Diane McGuinness shows from a very close scrutiny of the studies - the correlation of 'time on task' doing certain activities linked to results:

In my recent book, Early Reading Instruction (2004), I attempted to get beyond the global and semantically confusing labels by supplying some missing operational definitions derived from the basic reading research, as opposed to the applied reading research.

The key to this analysis was a series of time on task studies in which individual children were observed for many hours over a period of months. There are several studies of this type in the literature and every one of them reported identical results.


Success on standardized reading tests (both decoding accuracy and reading comprehension) at the end of the school year are directly correlated to the time spent on the following tasks:


*learning the phoneme-symbol relationships of our alphabet code

*time spent learning to sound out words phonemically and blending
these sounds into words

*time spent writing letters, words, sentences, and stories

*time spent reading text which can be sounded out and blended
This is exactly what the Phonics International programme provides.

Focused practice with the following three core skills and their sub-skills as illustrated in this document:

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/Tri ... skills.pdf
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Post by debbie »

http://www.rrf.org.uk/archive.php?n_ID= ... eNumber=46

I recalled this article from 2001 by Dr Bonnie Macmillan that also referred to the significance of 'time on task' approach.
Classroom Research Findings and the Nutshell Programme

Dr. Bonnie Macmillan

Since I wrote my book Why Schoolchildren Can’t Read (Macmillan, 1992), the results of three important large scale classroom studies – one conducted in Canada, one in England, and one in Scotland – have become available. While these three studies confirm earlier findings as to the efficacy of phonics teaching for beginning reading instruction, each study also provides useful new evidence about exactly which elements of instruction are effective, and which of those are not, when attempting to teach children to read. In light of this research, it is perhaps not surprising that use of the Nutshell reading and spelling programme produces truly impressive results (reported in March issue of LIFE [Australian] newsletter, 1999) since this particular programme actually includes every one of the instructional elements found to work. [Note: The Nutshell Programme is Australian – Ed]

The study in Canada was important in helping to overcome one of the main problems inherent in studies which compare different instructional methods. Most of these studies compare the effects of method A with method B or C, but they provide no way of determining exactly what it is about a particular method that produces superior progress. However, the study in Canada which compared the effects of synthetic phonics teaching with the effect of whole language/phonics eclectic method in 20 first grade classrooms, was different. This study was the first of its kind to adopt a time sampling technique in which observers closely monitored, over a period of six months, the amount of time individual pupils spent on ten different activities (Sumbler & Willows. 1996). Interestingly, it was found that out of these ten activities, only two were highly correlated with success in reading and spelling. These two were: ‘phonics’ (which included all phonics activities involving print, letter-sound correspondences, blending, segmenting, detecting sounds in words all with printed form of the word), and ‘letter formation’ (which involved talking about the shapes of letters, writing letters and words in context of learning letter-sound relationships). These were the only activities that mattered in terms of subsequent reading and spelling performance.
It is very sad that Australia is still battling between those promoting the need for high-quality and systematic phonics teaching and those who still advocate whole language teaching and yet this article already described effective practice achieved through the Australian 'Nutshell' programme around 15 years ago.
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Post by debbie »

Think of this - how many children have slipped through the net for the failure of those in authority everywhere not to have grasped the nettle of the need for explicit and high quality phonics teaching by now?

How many more generations of teachers have to continue with this battle to ensure phonics teaching - until science and common sense prevails?
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Post by debbie »

http://www.syntheticphonics.com/article ... 0Hulme.pdf

For those readers who are admirers of Diane McGuinness, you might find her response to Charles Hulme's review of her work very interesting! :wink:
Debbie Hepplewhite
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