Page 40 - SEN107 SEN Magazine July-August 2020

Sheila Mulvenney lays out the many advantages of teaching phonics at all stages of schooling. It’s never too late for phonics H owever skilled we are as readers, even as adults we will occasionally find we have to rely on our phonic skills and knowledge to decode or encode a particularly unusual or unfamiliar word. In fact, we probably decode a large number of words, scanning the words with our eyes but at such speed we think we are reading the whole word. Thus, phonics remain essential to our literary experience throughout our lives. In many schools phonics are taught, with varying degrees of expertise, fidelity and success, throughout key stage 1. However, as children progress through school the emphasis on phonic skills and knowledge reduces to the detriment of all learners but often with the most severe impact on those with special educational needs and disabilities. When dealing with spelling longer words teachers will often go back to the ‘look cover write check’ approach which encourages learners to rely on memory rather than the phonic skills they have spent previous years practicing. A foolish practice, and one which is unhelpful for many, particularly to those who need frequent rehearsal to embed learning. A myth seems to perpetuate within schools that some children cannot read because they lack the cognitive skills to do so. Research suggests that this is only true in a very small number of cases. I have trained teachers and staff working with students with cognitive impairment. These students have successfully learned to read, although they need a slower pace, a structured systematic programme used by all staff and more opportunities for repetition. Decades of research have shown that explicit phonics instruction benefits early readers, but particularly those who struggle to read. But despite a weight of evidence and government direction (see below) many have been resistant to ensuring teachers actually deliver effective, high quality systematic phonics, and are trained adequately to do this. An review of the primary curriculum by Education England notes that “Primary schools should continue to build on the commendable progress many have made in teaching decoding and encoding skills for It is a myth that some children cannot read because they lack the cognitive skills to do so SEN 107 senmagazine.co.uk 40 Phonics