Below, in black ink, is Michael Rosen's piece for the new, forthcoming magazine - and, in red, I have written some comments for the purpose of this message forum:
“Reading has to include making meaning”
Of course - this is explained via the official model of understanding reading - The Simple View of Reading - which was originated in 1986 by researchers Gough and Tunmer and adopted officially in England in 2006 following Sir Jim Rose's recommendations. This SVoR model illustrates that to be a reader in the full sense involves two main processes: firstly, being able to lift the words off the page/screen (technical alphabetic code knowledge and decoding skill required leading to automatic 'word recognition') and then, secondly, being able to understand what the decoded words mean which is about '(spoken) language comprehension'.
Teaching phonics 'first, fast and only' is an absurdity and always has been, argues Michael Rosen
The phrase 'first, fast and only' may well be misleading to some - but if anyone wishes to criticise the phrase/notion, then they should make sure they understand the rationale behind it in the first place.
The phrase refers to the technical phonics provision of teaching children the mechanics of decoding and does not in any way make reference to, or imply, that children haven't already had a rich tapestry of language and literature experiences to underpin their understanding and acquisition of reading.
Most importantly, the 'only' refers to not teaching children to get through books by the whole language 'multi-cueing reading strategies' which consist of teaching children to guess words with a variety of clues, or cues, such as looking at the global word shape, picture or initial letter/s to guess the word, or 'reading on' to 'guess what the word might be'. These multi-cueing reading strategies have long since been discredited by the overarching findings of research and, to this day, we do not yet have a shared professional understanding about this. It is very worrying just how many teachers persist with these flawed multi-cueing reading strategies, even in England, which is one of the reasons why the phrase 'first, fast and only' was coined.
The 'fast' part of the phrase is simply referring to the quick pace of introducing the letter/s-sound correspondences so that they can be put to early use for actual reading, spelling and writing purposes.
I do remember learning to read; and being taught, too, which is not exactly the same thing. I was born in 1946, and at school the teachers used something called ’The Beacon Readers’. I’ve been looking back at them recently, and it’s clear that the books I still recall from those days were designed to do two things at the same time:
provide fun texts that had meaning (there were little plays in them for us to act out,and my dad used to do mickey-takes of the characters like Mrs Cuddy the cow and Old Lob the farmer);
and encourage phonics practice along with learning basic word lists. The original edition of the Teachers’ Manual from 1926, which I have also studied, emphasises the importance of doing both:
“The act of reading – getting meaning from the printed page - is dependent upon two factors:
(1) a mastery of the tools or the mechanics of reading; and
(2) the ability of the reader to interpret the thought of what is read.
The success and efficiency with which small children are taught to read depends upon the development of these two factors, and the maintenance of an adequate balance between them...”
Er, doesn't Rosen realise this is pretty much what the Simple View of Reading is all about? I find it extraordinary that he has highlighted this explanation from a 1926 Teachers' Manual which is similar to what is officially 'current'. 'Basic word lists' however, are not taught by global shape (whole words) nowadays, instead tricky common words are drip-fed into a systematic synthetic phonics programme as young beginners trying to learn many words by 'whole shape' is not a successful strategy for many children.
And on the other side, there are phonics enthusiasts who say, ‘No, no; we expose them to a wide variety of texts! Prose, poems... even yours, Michael, ha, ha!’
Precisely - oh my goodness - Rosen's whole piece is full of Double Talk. The 'phonics enthusiasts' are simply stating the case of any SP proponent, such as me, and the Department for Education itself!
I’ve sat on a panel at a conference with such a person. He proudly showed a timetable, which included about an hour a day, right at the start, during which staff and pupils would share a rich range of stories, songs and poetry; but when I pointed out that this, alongside the phonics, was part of his teaching to read, he got quite angry and insisted that it wasn’t.
I think he thought that this hour of ‘literature’ was helping pupils with something quite different, called ‘comprehension’. After all, he might argue, how can you ‘read for meaning’, when you can’t read?
I really don't get what Rosen is getting at here - what is his point? It's gobbledy-gook to me. Let me clarify as much as I can, however, the position of becoming a reader and teaching children to read. Rich language and literature experience contributes HUGELY to becoming a reader - thus, all the sharing of books, poetry, language experiences, knowledge and understanding of the world is invaluable and contributory. Some children are successful at 'picking up reading' through a language and literature-rich experience. As teachers, however, we have to guarantee that all children can read and write, and the language and literature-rich experience has been shown over and again to fail many children - they need teaching of the alphabetic code and phonics skills systematically and explicitly.
But why wouldn't we teach explicitly the most complex alphabetic code in the world and the skills of blending for reading, oral segmenting for spelling (and allotting letters and letter groups for the identified sounds) - and handwriting? So - we teach the mechanics of phonics - the knowledge and skills required for both reading and spelling. Why wouldn't we? And in any event, the research is very clear that the most effective teaching of all is systematic synthetic phonics - in place of leaving children's reading acquisition 'to chance' according to what 'they pick up' through their wider experiences. And OF COURSE we continue to provide children with a language and literature-rich experience as well? I don't know a single person who would say otherwise.
I really can't see what his problem really is with explicit teaching of alphabetic code knowledge and phonics skills!!!
But the teacher of Systematic Synthetic Phonics teaching should appreciate that we do not ask children to read INDEPENDENTLY a reading book that the children cannot read without having to guess their way through the book, by default even, using guessing tactics. This is damaging to children's reading habits - and can be very demoralising for children. The children are free to browse any type of book at all at any time - but NOT REQUIRED to read that book aloud INDEPENDENTLY to a supervising adult.
But children from the age of one, two and three are sitting with their parents, grandparents, older siblings – hearing texts and seeing squiggles on the page. After they’ve shared ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ a few times, they can’t help but start to realise that the squiggles “and another”, alone on the page, make mum or dad say those sounds, every time they appear.
Of course. We all totally agree with you, Rosen, not a problem with what you have just written.
Just as they begin to notice that there are squiggles on road signs, which tell the driver which way to go, and on packets in the supermarket that say what’s inside.
Yes - that's fine. We refer to this as 'environmental print' and any and all of these experiences contribute to children gaining an awareness of print, and the reading process, and, yes, some children can even become readers through their wider experiences.
To pretend this isn’t going on, and metaphorically slap the wrists of parents and teachers who encourage and talk about this is absurd and has no basis in theory at all.
What Rosen has written here is utter rubbish. Rosen is being absurd to even suggest that anyone is 'metaphorically slap(ping) the wrists of parents and teachers who encourage and talk about this...'. It makes no difference to Rosen's mindset no matter how often and how clearly various people have tried to clarify this for Rosen. This is where I suggest he chooses to deliberately obfuscate the realities of the Simple View of Reading, the findings of research and the Systematic Synthetic Phonics Teaching Principles.
The phonics screening test is sometimes called a ‘reading test’, because it can sound too technical to talk about ‘decoding’. The results come out, and the media report that children are ‘improving their reading’, when actually, the children are just getting better at decoding squiggles, which is not ‘reading’. Reading has to include making meaning.
The Year One Phonics Screening Check is what it is. Here again, Rosen is completely mistaken and, I would suggest, being deliberately misleading. It is not true that the 'phonics screening test is sometimes called a 'reading test', because it can sound too technical to talk about 'decoding'. Phonics has been on the agenda and in the media for years in England and parents commonly understand about 'decoding'. The Department for Education, and Nick Gibb, have always been very careful to clarify that the phonics check is a 'decoding' check and NOT a 'reading test'. Schools are very careful to explain to parents that the Year One Phonics Screening Check is about word-level decoding and not 'reading' in the full sense. OF COURSE reading has to include 'making meaning' - BUT NO-ONE HAS EVER SAID OTHERWISE AT ANY TIME OR IN ANY SHAPE, SIZE OR FORM.
I can phonically decode Italian – I was taught by my Latin teacher in the 50s, for fun. I can’t understand it, though.
Which takes us back to the helpfulness of England's official model, the Simple View of Reading, for understanding the two main processes for 'being' a reader - which is to be able to decode the words - and understand them. Rosen has the technical skills to decode Italian - but not the spoken language to understand what he has decoded. His point is pointless.
Reducing ‘reading’ to decoding lists of words changes what we know language is; you don’t create important, powerful meanings out of single words, you do it through sequences – poets, authors and speech-writers all know this, and children instinctively understand it, too.
Actually, single words can be extremely powerful so I don't even agree with his overarching statement. Nevertheless...
...Phonics teaching and word level decoding practice is not 'reducing reading to decoding lists of words', it is simply teaching the complex English alphabetic code (the letter/s-sound correspondences) and applying that knowledge to decoding words as part of the full reading process. Children who can efficiently and automatically decode any new or unknown words are very well-served by the technical knowledge and skills - then they can focus on meaning-making and authorial intent and all the higher-order nuances of reading.
As the teaching profession diminished and even abandoned phonics instruction at various times, it is essential that we now have a teaching profession which is fully aware of the findings of research on reading and that teachers' practices are as good as they can be. We may well have some way to go - but Rosen does our teaching profession and the general public a disservice by his articles and relentless protestations. What damage could he be doing, therefore, to real children whose teachers and parents may turn away from truly rigorous Systematic Synthetic Phonics practice?
There is no ‘wrong’ way to teach a child to read, as such; but, like nearly everything we learn as human beings, it is best approached in lots of ways at once if we want to create the ‘reading writer and the writing reader’ – which we want all our children to be.
Rosen's statement is not in line with research findings here. For some children there really is a 'wrong' and misleading way to teach reading - and it's where children's reading skills are left to chance - and/or underpinned by the multi-cueing reading strategies that give children and their teachers and parents misguided ideas of how best to teach reading, or bring about reading. Such strategies can lead to dangerously bad reading habits. When pictures disappear and books are full of new words beyond readers' spoken vocabulary, it is essential that readers can apply phonics knowledge and skills to lift the words off the page and come up with a pronunciation for the new words. The reader may well deduce the meaning of the new words in their context, but without a pronunciation for the new words, they cannot realistically add to the readers' spoken vocabulary. Only the ability to come up with a pronunciation will do this.
But no-one denies the importance of the rich tapestry of language, literature and experience that enables our learners to be readers and writers.
Teachers shouldn’t be afraid to share the ‘wordiness’ of everything they talk about in the classroom with pre-readers– recipes, place names, famous
footballers, book titles, characters’ names... even if they aren’t phonically regular.
It’s all part of literacy.
OF COURSE. Dearie me - what is Rosen's problem? Isn't it enough for him that he gains media attention from his skills as a writer?
A large font side-heading to the article:
We’ve actually had quite contradictory messages about the teaching of literacy over the years. On the one hand, you have those who – like the ex-Schools Minister, Nick Gibb – insist that you need to teach phonics ‘first, fast and only’; clearing out your Reception and Year 1 classrooms of anything other than phonically regular texts, or the children will ‘be confused’.
Nick Gibb has never, ever said this - not at all. He, rightly, promotes the use of cumulative, decodable reading books for children to read INDEPENDENTLY which match the alphabetic code knowledge that children have already been taught. Nick Gibb is also very careful to promote, constantly, all the rich-literature experiences as listed by Rosen above. Once again, does Rosen not know his facts, or is he merely on a personal campaign to undermine phonics teaching - or to draw attention to himself and his own work? He certainly gets additional publicity through his anti-phonics campaigning and no doubt increases his opportunities to speak publicly and to write magazine articles.