Memorandum submitted by Professor Rhona
S Johnston, University of Hull and Dr Joyce Watson, University
of St Andrews
Studies of Literacy Skills in Children in England
and Scotland, Comparing the Effectiveness of Synthetic Versus
Analytic Phonics Teaching
SUMMARY OF
FINDINGS
— In our studies we have found that
children in England perform significantly better when taught by
the synthetic phonics method than by the National Literacy Strategy's
Progression in Phonics approach (which is an analytic phonics
approach).
— In our seven year longitudinal study
in Scotland, carried out in 13 classes, we have found the same
advantage for the synthetic phonics method compared with the analytic
phonics method.
— The best results were found when
the synthetic phonics programme started at the beginning of the
first year at school. This led to better spelling at the end of
the second year at school for boys and girls, and better word
reading for girls.
— The synthetic phonics method led
to boys reading words better than girls by the end of the third
year at school. They were still ahead at the end of the seventh
year at school:
The boys read words 3.9 years ahead of
chronological age and were 2.0 years ahead in spelling. The girls
were 3.1 years and 1.4 years ahead in word reading and spelling
respectively.
— At the end of the seventh year at
school, only 5.6% of children were more than two years behind
chronological age in word reading, 10.1% were behind in spelling,
and 14.9% were behind in reading comprehension.
— Children from disadvantaged homes
read and spelt less well than children from advantaged homes with
the analytic phonics approach, but performed as well as these
children with the synthetic phonics approach.
— Writing skills did not differ between
children from advantaged and disadvantaged homes with the synthetic
phonics approach, and both groups performed better than would
be expected on the basis of verbal ability.
WHAT IS
ANALYTIC PHONICS?
In analytic phonics, the predominant method
in the UK, letter sounds are taught after reading has already
begun, children initially learning to read some words by sight,
often in the context of meaningful text. In order to teach the
letter sounds whole words sharing a common initial letter sound
are presented to children, eg "milk", "man",
"mother". Attention is drawn to the /m/ sound heard
at the beginning of the words. When all of the letter sounds have
been taught in this way, attention is then drawn to letters at
the ends of words, then in the middle, in consonant-vowel-consonant
(CVC) words. Therefore children learn about letter sounds in the
context of whole words. At this stage, which is generally at the
end of the first year at school, children may also be taught to
sound and blend CVC words, eg /c/ /a/ /t/ -> cat, but this
is not a feature of all analytic phonics schemes. The method advocated
in Progression in Phonics, in the National Literacy Strategy,
resembles this approach, but also advocates that children learn
early on to hear and manipulate sounds in spoken words without
the help of letters. This is called phonemic awareness training.
WHAT IS
SYNTHETIC PHONICS?
This is a very accelerated form of phonics that
does not begin by establishing an initial sight vocabulary. With
this approach, before children are introduced to books, they are
taught letter sounds. After the first few of these have been taught
they are shown how these sounds can be blended together to build
up words. For example, when taught the letter sounds /t/ /p/ /a/
and /s/ the children can build up the words "tap", "pat",
"pats", "taps", "a tap" etc. The
children are not told the pronunciation of the new word by the
teacher; the children sound each letter in turn and then synthesise
the sounds together in order to generate the pronunciation of
the word. Thus the children construct the pronunciation for themselves.
Most of the letter sound correspondences, including the consonant
and vowel digraphs, can be taught in the space of a few months
at the start of their first year at school. This means that the
children can read many of the unfamiliar words they meet in text
for themselves, without the assistance of the teacher. In our
synthetic phonics programme, on which we present evidence below,
children did not carry out a phonemic awareness programme separated
either from the learning of letter sounds, or from reading and
spelling activities.
ANALYTIC AND
SYNTHETIC PHONICS
CONTRASTED
In analytic phonics, whole words are presented
and pronounced by the teacher, and the children's attention is
only subsequently drawn to the information given by letter sound
correspondences. The National Literacy Strategy's Progression
in Phonics uses an analytic phonics approach, supplemented by
a substantial phonemic awareness training programme. The sounding
and blending element for pronouncing unfamiliar words is only
introduced after children have learnt to read words by sight.
Typically in the areas of England in which we have carried out
studies of the National Literacy Strategy, it would not be until
the third term of the first year at school that the most advanced
children would be made aware of the importance of letter sound
correspondences in all positions of words, which enables sounding
and blending to be taught. An analytic phonics scheme such as
this is usually not completed until the end of the third year
at school. In synthetic phonics programmes sounding and blending
is taught at the start of the year, before books are introduced,
and the basic programme can be completed in a period of two to
four months.
The new supplement to Progression in Phonics
that was issued last May, Playing with Sounds, still emphasises
rhyme and phonemic awareness training as a precursor to learning
to read and spell. Early on it also emphasises sound-to-letter
training for spelling, rather than letter-to-sound training for
reading. In fact 16 letters are taught before children are shown
how to blend letter sounds for reading. In the study of early
synthetic phonics teaching in Scotland described below, sounding
and blending for reading was taught after three letter sounds
had been learnt in the first few weeks at school. However, a further
two groups in Scotland started the synthetic phonics programme
after Easter, and in the English school it was introduced at the
start of the second term at school. As will be seen, a later start
had implications for how well the children did, particularly in
spelling.
1. Study of the performance of Reception
children on the Synthetic Phonics programme versus the National
Literacy Strategy in a school in England
The synthetic-phonics-taught children starting
the programme in January, at the start of their second term at
school. The programme lasted for around 30 minutes a day for 16
weeks, and was taught to the whole class. It can be seen that
this class was six months younger than the other class (mean age
4.7 years compared with 5.2 years), but even so when tested in
July had somewhat better word reading and spelling skills than
the children taught by the National Literacy Strategy. Their reading
was seven months above chronological age, and spelling was four
months ahead. However, the children taught by the National Literacy
Strategy in the same school were nearly three months behind their
age in reading, and nearly one month behind in spelling. When
the difference in age between the two classes was taken into account,
the synthetic phonics taught children were statistically ahead
of the National Literacy Strategy taught children in word reading
and spelling.
2. Study of children in primary schools in
Clackmannanshire
This study has just been completed, and covers
a sample of around 300 children from the first to the seventh
year of primary schooling. Children at the start of their first
year in school were taught either by an analytic phonics method,
by an analytic phonics programme supplemented by phonemic awareness
training, or by the synthetic phonics method. All of the programmes
were carried out for 20 minutes a day for 16 weeks, taught to
the whole class. This sample was of somewhat below average verbal
ability (mean score 92, when the average is 100), and there was
a skew towards the children coming from homes of low socio-economic
status.
(a) Comparison of children in March of the
first year at school in three teaching programmes.
The analytic phonics plus phonemic awareness
programme, which the National Literacy Strategy's Progression
in Phonics programme most closely resembles, did not lead to better
word reading and spelling than the analytic-phonics-only programme.
The synthetic phonics programme was the most effective, the children
reading words around seven months ahead of the children in the
other two groups, and spelling around eight to nine months ahead.
This was statistically significant for both reading and spelling.
After Easter, the children who had initially
learnt by an analytic phonics approach then carried out the synthetic
phonics programme.
(b) Comparison of the children at the end
of the second year at school, when all groups had been taught
the synthetic phonics programme.
It can be seen that word reading and spelling
are nearly a year above chronological age, and that reading comprehension
is around six months above chronological age. However, the question
arises as to whether there is an advantage in learning by a synthetic
phonics approach right at the start of primary schooling.
We found that the children who had learnt by
the early synthetic phonics programme were significantly better
spellers at the end of the second year at school than those who
had started after Easter. At this stage, the boys performed equally
well in word reading, regardless of which method they had started
with. However, the girls (see Figure 4 above) read words significantly
less well if they had started with an analytic phonics only programme.
(c) Comparison of sample at end of seventh
year at school, by sex.
At the end of the third year at school, we found
that the boys were reading words significantly better than the
girls. This was found for all subsequent years. At the end of
the seventh year at school, see Figure 5 above, the synthetic
phonics taught boys were reading words 3.9 years ahead of chronological
age, and spelling 2.0 years ahead. The girls were reading 3.1
years ahead of chronological age, and spelling 1.4 years ahead
of chronological age. The boys were statistically ahead of the
girls in word reading and spelling. Both the boys' and the girls'
reading comprehension was 3.5 months above chronological age.
At this point we tested vocabulary knowledge as this is a good
predictor of educational achievement. Average performance is 100,
so as the sample had a mean score of 92, these children were somewhat
below average in vocabulary knowledge. As comprehension ability
is closely associated with verbal ability, to be performing better
than chronological age in reading comprehension with this level
of vocabulary knowledge is very creditable.
(d) Underachievers.
It can be seen that the percentage of low achievers
is small, especially considering that this is a fairly low ability
sample that comes predominantly from a poor socio-economic background.
Even at the end of the seventh year at primary school (which translates
to the first year of secondary school in England age-wise) only
5.6% of the children were more than two years behind chronological
age in word reading, 10.1% were behind in spelling, and 14.9%
were behind in reading comprehension.
3. Disadvantaged children (a) Comparison
of reading and spelling by social background at end of second
year at school
As stated above, many of the children in the
study came from rather poor socio-economic backgrounds. Most came
from very to moderately deprived homes, with less than half coming
from moderately advantaged areas. We examined whether the synthetic
phonics approach just gave a boost in literacy skills to children
from advantaged backgrounds, or whether those from disadvantaged
backgrounds also showed improved literacy skills.
It can be seen in this comparison of 196 children
that with analytic phonics teaching children from disadvantaged
backgrounds showed word reading and spelling skills at much lower
levels than the more advantaged children. With synthetic phonics
teaching, this deficit no longer existed. The disadvantaged children
were actually somewhat ahead of the advantaged children, but this
may have been due to the fact that they had had the synthetic
phonics programme right at the start of the school year, whereas
the advantaged children had started the programme after Easter
of the first year at school.
(b) Writing skills at the end of the sixth
year at school.
Advanced writing skills were not trained in
the synthetic phonics programme, but we decided to examine whether
the early boost in word reading and spelling skills had implications
for later writing skills. On the basis of the level of vocabulary
knowledge found for this sample, these scores could be expected
to be around 92. In an examination of the children's ability to
write text, it was found that they performed over 5 points above
what would be expected from their levels of vocabulary knowledge.
With mean writing scores of 97 and 98 respectively, the disadvantaged
and moderately advantaged groups were performing close to the
average of 100. Furthermore, the scores for the children from
the poorest homes were only 1 point behind the more advantaged,
which was not statistically significant.
CONCLUSIONS
— It can be seen that the synthetic
phonics programme led to very advanced word reading and spelling
skills, even for children of somewhat below average verbal ability
who came from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. In fact,
there was evidence for six year olds that the programme had eradicated
the deficit in literacy skills normally found for children from
poorer homes.
— There was also evidence that the
earlier the synthetic phonics programme started the better this
was for spelling ability, and that for girls this led to better
word reading skills.
Does policy/guidance have a sound base in research
evidence?
The Progression in Phonics and Playing with
Sounds programmes have a significant rhyme and phonemic awareness
training element, often without reference to letters and printed
words. Our research has shown this teaching to be unnecessary.
We believe it is claimed that these programmes are synthetic phonics
ones, and therefore incorporate current research evidence on effective
phonics programmes. We argue, however, that these are not synthetic
phonics programmes because of the late start in teaching children
to sound and blend.
If they are synthetic phonics programmes, then
children learning by the National Literacy Strategy should do
as well as children in the synthetic phonics programme used in
our studies. We have found this not to be the case with Progression
in Phonics.
The newly introduced Playing with Sounds programme
brings in sounding and blending earlier than Progression in Phonics.
It would be interesting to know if this programme was tested in
schools using standardised tests of reading and spelling before
and after the programme started, and whether comparisons were
made with performance in schools not carrying out the programme.
Our research suggests that although Playing with Sounds makes
a move towards a synthetic phonics approach, it is unlikely to
be as effective for children as an early start synthetic phonics
programme, implemented soon after entering school.
INTRODUCTION OF
EARLY LITERACY
STRATEGIES/RELATIVE
VALUE OF
PRE-LITERACY
EXPERIENCE
We have so far successfully introduced the synthetic
phonics programme to children of average age 4.7 years, and have
had no difficulty in enabling such children to make an excellent
start in learning to read and spell. This programme is very interactive,
with a lot of pupil involvement, but it does not contain the play
element found in the National Literacy Strategy, nor does it seek
to develop phonemic awareness skills prior to learning to read.
February 2005
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