Australia: First Steps not the key to reading, says academic
Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2011 3:09 pm
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/br ... -academic/
This is an interesting article in The West Australian news.
It's good that people are able to point to the synthetic phonics guidance of the UK government in the form of the publication 'Letters and Sounds' to compare it with the methodology of programmes in use in their part of the world.
This is not necessarily good, however, if everyone starts using 'Letters and Sounds' without evaluating what it provides compared to other systematic, synthetic phonics programmes.
My position is that for classroom teachers, Letters and Sounds is not a full programme - rather it is detailed guidance.
There are six photocopiable decodable stories in Letters and Sounds - and not much else by way of actual 'resources'.
Teachers have to work very hard indeed to turn 'Letters and Sounds' into a programme - by making resources, creating, or sourcing, a mnemonic system, designing additional resources, scouring the internet for free resources which match the requirements of 'Letters and Sounds'.
It's all a bit hotchpotch - and very demanding on teachers.
This is an interesting article in The West Australian news.
It's good that people are able to point to the synthetic phonics guidance of the UK government in the form of the publication 'Letters and Sounds' to compare it with the methodology of programmes in use in their part of the world.
This is not necessarily good, however, if everyone starts using 'Letters and Sounds' without evaluating what it provides compared to other systematic, synthetic phonics programmes.
My position is that for classroom teachers, Letters and Sounds is not a full programme - rather it is detailed guidance.
There are six photocopiable decodable stories in Letters and Sounds - and not much else by way of actual 'resources'.
Teachers have to work very hard indeed to turn 'Letters and Sounds' into a programme - by making resources, creating, or sourcing, a mnemonic system, designing additional resources, scouring the internet for free resources which match the requirements of 'Letters and Sounds'.
It's all a bit hotchpotch - and very demanding on teachers.
