Synthetic Phonics

A Research Project looking at the

implementation of a systematic
synthetic phonics program.

ESTELLE EVANS
Read Write Inc. How will the implementation of a prescriptive

synthetic phonics program impact upon the staff and pupils?

Introduction

This paper discusses the recent implementation of a prescriptive

synthetic phonics program into the school and asks what effect it

will have. My research has been informed by reading, observation,

government legislation and recommendation and the media’s

attention to education policy. [ CITATION Ada08 \l 1033 ] I am

working as a Teaching Assistant (TA) in Year six in a suburban two

form entry primary school with approximately 460 children the roll

including nursery. A recent Ofsted identified that the school needed

to improve the quality of teaching, ensuring that higher attaining

pupils are challenged and lower attaining pupils are given correctly

levelled activities. (Appendix i) In a response to this, the newly-

appointed Head Teacher and Senior Leadership Team (SLT)

decided to implement the Read Write Inc and Fresh Start programs

to improve attainment and achievement of both the failing children

and those who are Gifted & Talented (G&T) in Literacy across the

whole school. I was recruited in November with a view to me

carrying out baseline assessments for every child in accordance

2 Estelle Evans
with the program as I had previous experience with the initiative at

my previous school.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND BACKGROUND

What are phonics?

The definition of phonics according to Torgerson et al:

 Phonics instruction: Literacy teaching approaches which

focus on the relationships between letters and sounds.

 Synthetic Phonics: The defining characteristics of synthetic

phonics for reading are sounding-out and blending.

 Analytic Phonics: The defining characteristics of analytic

phonics are avoiding sounding-out and inferring sound-

symbol relationships from sets of words that share a letter

and sound eg, pet, park, push, pen.

 Systematic Phonics: teaching of letter-sound relationships

in an explicit, organised and sequenced fashion, as opposed

to incidentally or on a ‘when-needed’ basis. May refer to

systematic synthetic or systematic analytic phonics.

[ CITATION Tor061 \l 1033 ]

What is Read Write Inc and Fresh Start?

The Read Write Inc and Fresh Start programs were devised by

Ruth Miskin, an ex head teacher and ‘phonics guru’ [ CITATION

Estelle Evans 3
Eva101 \l 1033 ] who now sits on various Literacy and education

advisory boards. It is a commercially available literacy package

produced by Oxford University Press (OUP) sold to both Primary

and Secondary schools, but also available to buy for the individual.

The program has been rolled out all over the country (to

approximately 1000 schools) in the last 10 years with a high degree

of success, but of course, does have its critics. Many schools took

on the program (including paying the not unsubstantial costs of the

training days1) after the Ofsted report ‘Reading by Six. How the best

schools do it’ revealed that seven out of the twelve schools in its

study were using Read Write Inc and/ or Fresh Start.[ CITATION

Ofs09 \l 1033 ]

The Rose Review, which emphatically encouraged phonics

instruction at primary level was triggered by a seven year study of

the teaching of phonics to 300 children in Clackmannashire in

Scotland. The research put the children up to three years ahead in

reading, but did not show a significant improvement in

comprehension.[ CITATION Joh051 \l 1033 ] This report underpins

the general move in Great Britain in literacy teaching towards daily

synthetic phonics lessons from Reception class onwards.

1
http://www.ruthmiskinliteracy.com/phonics-training.aspx

4 Estelle Evans
Locally, a report by Leicester County Council concluded that ‘the

Fresh Start’ program had been value for money, having an impact

at both individual and school levels.’[ CITATION Lei09 \l 1033 ] The

same report stated that there was added value ‘that data can not

identify, such as increased pupil confidence and self esteem, amore

positive engagement of pupils in all their learning as well as

reported improvements in the behaviour of some pupils.’ Leicester

County Council’s report included some quantitative data which I

have organised into the following charts to show the improvement of

pupils attainment and achievement in both reading and writing in

one school year after the Fresh Start program was introduced.

July (End of Year)

Level 4
December (Interim) Level 3
Level 2
Level 1

Baseline Assessment

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

Figure 1 Writing Assessment Levels

Estelle Evans 5
 July (End of Year)

Level 5
December (Interim) Level 4
Level 3
Level 2
Level 1

Baseline Assessment

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Figure 2 Reading Assessment Levels

METHODS

How was the program implemented?

I used the assessment pro forma from the handbook which comes

with the program; Read Write Inc is aimed at children from

Reception to Year 4 who are working below level 2 and the Fresh

Start Program is primarily for children from Years 5 and 6 who are

working below level 4. The assessment process, however, only

looks at the child’s ability to read, not write. For this reason, some of

the children’s assessments were wildly differing from previous

teacher assessments – more often than not these anomalies were

producing higher results than expected, especially from boys.

Children were not differentiated by Special Needs; all children,

6 Estelle Evans
whether on the Special Educational Needs register or not can

access the program (including those with dyslexia).

It was advised that only one person administers the assessment for

the whole school to make the test fair; some of the assessment

criteria could be evaluated as vague and so taken to mean different

things to different people. (The words “some” and “most” are used).

(Appendices ii/iii) All assessment results were then recorded in

tracking grids (Appendix iv) and the children grouped according to

ability in homogenous groups (sometimes a ‘best fit’ criteria was

used if a group only had one or two children assigned to it.)

Children who could read, with ease, all the associated material in

the assessments were deemed not to need this program (classed

as a Wave 3 Intervention) and were put on the Read Write Inc or

Fresh Start Comprehension program. These were the children

already working at the correct level for their chronological age.

Once the assessments were finished and collated all teachers and

TAs were trained on 2 inset days by a trainer from Ruth Miskin’s

organisations RML. (Appendix v) The training was mostly focussed

on Read Write Inc, but the teaching of phonics for Year 5 and 6 are

similar and the theory is the same for both programs, starting with

the 44 sounds in the alphabet code. Before the initiative was rolled

out in school a further inset day of training was held; was mainly

Estelle Evans 7
focussed on how a daily Fresh Start lesson would be organised.

(Appendix vi)

The resources needed for each group include phoneme cards,

“speed sounds” chart (Appendix vii) , green words, red words, (see

Fig 3) white boards, module booklets (Appendix viii), a teacher’s

handbook and, wherever it was possible an Interactive White Board

(IWB) with the phonics software installed. (Appendix ix)[ CITATION

Joh06 \l 1033 ] The lessons are divided into different activities each

day starting with a ten minute spelling session followed by

 ten minutes of phonics

 “speed words”

 “hold a sentence”

 “build a sentence”

 learning new vocabulary

 reading a text

 “find it and prove it”

 comprehension

 reading with fluency and expression

 editing sentences (for grammar, punctuation and spelling),

partner work

 deconstruction

 long writing task.

8 Estelle Evans
It is a multisensory approach so that children learn variously from

simultaneous visual, auditory and kinesthetic activities. All learning

styles are therefore taken into consideration. [ CITATION Gar93 \l

1033 ].

Estelle Evans 9
Fig 4 A selection of resources needed for a Fresh Start lesson

The modules are grouped thus:

Introductory, Modules 1 – 5

Modules 6 – 14

Modules 15 – 20

Modules 21 – 34.

Depending on which text the children read with confidence in the

assessment, this decided which Module set they started with.

As I am delivering the Fresh Start element of the program, my

school research has been centred on the homogenous group of

children with whom I work. All teachers and support staff are

delivering the program to small groups of children. My group started

on Module 21 and has been running since the end of February.

Initially I had seven children but now have thirteen as one member

of staff has left.

My group is made up thus:

Year Group Boys Girls

Year 5 2 5 (1-EAL)2
Year 6 6 0
2
English as an additional language

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Estelle Evans
0
There has been an impact on staffing since the program started.

Because every member of the teaching staff is running a session,

absences are difficult to cover. Supply staff rarely know how to

deliver the program, and even though planning is left for them, it will

never be delivered in the same way. Absences from children also

have an impact as they may miss the introduction of a new

phoneme/ grapheme or the long writing task, which is marked and

used for assessment every Friday. Some members of the support

staff only work part time, therefore their group has to be adopted by

another part-time member of staff for part of the week. The change

of practice has been well received by the majority of staff and

children alike. It is now more imperative than ever that children are

in school on time as lessons begin promptly at 9 o’clock and run for

one hour and ten minutes. Figures show that punctuality has

improved since the program began. (Unfortunately I was not able to

gain access to the actual data). I have heard one or two members

of staff use the words “ major upheaval” and “inflexible” while

discussing the pros and cons of the initiative. They have also had

positive things to say about it, for example, there is minimal

planning as all the planning is in the teacher’s handbook and the

children have taken to the vertical streaming well.

Estelle Evans 11
 THE READING WARS?

As discussed, the government recommended daily phonics lesson

following the Rose Review[ CITATION Jim09 \l 1033 ] Phonics were

a ‘fashionable’ method of teaching children to read right up to the

1960s but lost favour to the ‘whole word’ approach[ CITATION

NCh86 \l 1033 ]. This has been dubbed ‘The Reading Wars’

[ CITATION Sch08 \l 1033 ]. More recently in primary education

(especially in Key Stage 1) there has been a ‘searchlight’ effect

where either the school or individual teachers taught a mixture of

phonics (mostly Letterland3, Jolly Phonics4 and Letters and

Sounds5) as well as whole word recognition or analytical phonics

but the outcome of this has led to lower level of attainment and

children slipping through the net (leaving primary school at age 11

and not being able to read).

In an interview with The Guardian in 2005, Ruth Kelly advocated the

teaching of synthetic phonics as a “back to basics” approach

[ CITATION Pol05 \l 1033 ]. Then followed Michael Gove’s

recommendation for all five/ six year olds to be assessed on their

ability to read phonics which announced in November 2010, to be

3
www.letterland.com
4
www.jollylearning.com
5
www.letters-and-sounds.com

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Estelle Evans
2
implemented in 2012. However, there has been a backlash from

teaching unions [ CITATION Hel11 \l 1033 ] and Dame Clare Tickell.

The Tickell Review recommends that this initiative should be

scrapped in favour of testing children on how well they read.

[ CITATION War11 \l 1033 ] The review found that in the past three

years although the expected phonics level has risen 5%, the

corresponding rise in reading has been only 2%.[ CITATION

Dam11 \l 1033 ]

88%
86%
84%
82%
80% 2008

78%
2011
76%
74%
72%
70%
Phonics Reading

Fig 4 Findings from the Tickell Review: the rise in phonics attainment levels have
risen from 76% to 81% while the corresponding reading levels have only gained
2% from 85% to 87%.

The current revised conditions for success are set out on the

Department for Education’s website following observations by

Estelle Evans 13
Ofsted and schools’ self-assessment. (SEF). Briefly, these finding

summarise that any phonics program should:

 Present high quality systematic, synthetic phonic work as the

prime approach to decoding print, i.e. a phonics ‘first and

fast’ approach

 Enable children to start learning phonic knowledge and skills

using a systematic, synthetic program by the age of five, with

the expectation that they will be fluent readers having

secured word recognition skills by the end of key stage one

 Be designed for the teaching of discrete, daily sessions

progressing from simple to more complex phonic knowledge

and skills and covering the major grapheme/phoneme

correspondences

 Enable children to progress to be assessed. [ CITATION

DfE11 \l 1033 ]

FINDINGS

Quantatitive findings (Nationally):

Of the seven schools in the Reading by Six report that subscribe to

Ruth Miskin’s Literacy program, three had data for Fresh Start:

Bourne Abbey (Lincolnshire), Old Ford (Tower Hamlets) and

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Estelle Evans
4
Woodberry Down (Hackney). I have collated the data available

which is shown in Figure 5.

100%
90%
Level 4
80%
70% National
Average Level
60% 4
50%
40% Level 5
30%
20% National
Average Level
10% 5
0%
Bourne Abbey Old Ford Woodberry Down

Fig 5 Data from ‘The schools and their approaches’ (Reading by Six. How the
best schools do it.)[ CITATION Ofs09 \l 1033 ]

As you can see, all schools achieved over the National Average at

Level 4, but interestingly two of the schools did not achieve the

National Average at Level 5.

Locally

This leads me to question whether it has been left too late for

children further up the school in Key Stage 2. The report from

Leicester County Council also identified this problem saying that

support is less successful when:

“needs are identified and addressed too late, for example just

before national tests.” [ CITATION Lei09 \l 1033 ]

School

Estelle Evans 15
In my own school five children in Year 6 have been identified that

have, essentially ‘slipped through the net’. None of these pupils can

read at anywhere near their chronological age. Two of the children

(one of whom has Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), the other, who

it is suspected has complex needs including Attention Deficit

Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) ) have their Read Write Inc lessons

with the Reception class as they are currently assessed as being at

level 1c. The other three are grouped together working with a

teacher at a level 2a. At the same time of writing this research

paper, the Year 6 pupils will be about to take their Scholastic

Aptitude Tests (SATs) but these five children will not be able to

access them; they neither have the decoding skills to read the

paper nor the comprehension skills to encode them. For these

children it seems, this program has simply been introduced too late

to have any impact on their attainment. This is not to say, however,

that it will not have any impact on their achievement overall as they

are now being given the basic phonics skills with which to build

upon from now and once they transfer to Secondary school.

It has been difficult to produce figures for my school as the program

is still new. However, I have interim data from my own group of

children. It looks at their reading ages at November 2010, their

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Estelle Evans
6
baseline assessments from the tracking grid and compares them to

today. (May 2011). (Appendix x)

12
310
300
10
290
8
280
270
6
260 Phonics
ReadingScore
Age Nov
Nov 2010
2010
4 Phonics
ReadingScore
Age May
May 2011
2010
250
2
240
230
0

Findings from these figures suggest all children have made

improvements in the past 5 months, both with their phonic

knowledge and reading ages. Not one child has regressed and

some have made remarkable progress with their learning which

goes on to have a positive influence on their ability to access the

rest of the curriculum.

Qualitative Findings

I designed a questionnaire to find out what the children thought of

their new literacy lessons and the findings are in Appendix xi.

All the children agreed that they have made improvements in their

reading and writing, however, from marking the work I have found

Estelle Evans 17
that some children are struggling with the writing, especially boys

and the long writing on a Friday. (Annotated examples are included

in Appendix xii ).

Conclusions

So far there has been little discussion about writing and

comprehension. Dealing with the latter first, Chew (2006)

summarises

“what is clear is that although decoding does not guarantee

comprehension, comprehension is impossible without decoding.”

The ‘balanced approach’ takes the ‘whole word’ movement and the

phonics based pedagogy and tries to find a common way, which

ensures attainment and achievement in both reading and

comprehension. ‘Whole word’ stems from the theorist Noam

Chomsky and his views on language acquisition, while Adams

(1990) penned the term ‘balanced literacy’, but it too has been

criticised as ‘whole language’ methodology with a new name.

The analytic approach underpins the constructionist-based ‘guided

reading’ prevalent in many schools today. In my school guided

reading lessons are still ‘in situ’ but is to be reviewed after the

results of the interim assessments of the children are available.

The emphasis on phonics to date has tended to focus on reading

rather than writing – recognising the phoneme rather than the ability

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8
to write the grapheme. Read Write Inc and Fresh Start incorporates

chances for children to write; practicing spelling, finding and writing

answers from comprehension and a longer writing session that

incorporates the elements learnt previously. The modules from

which the lessons from Fresh Start contain age-related texts in a

variety of genres, ranging from Shakespeare to problem page

letters and everything in between. The lessons are fast-paced and

kept interesting with a variety of objectives for each session (An

example lesson is available on the attached podcast Appendix xiii).

I started this paper asking what impact the implementation of the

prescriptive synthetic phonics program would have on staff and

pupils. The impact has been

1. Financial

2. The way the school day is structured has had to be changed

3. The staffing levels are critical in order for so many groups to

be taught each day

4. Time needs to be managed efficiently

5. Lateness and absenteeism by pupils effects progress but

there are opportunities for 10 minute catch-up sessions

6. Children are responding well to vertical streaming but it may

be too late for some pupils.

Estelle Evans 19
 7. The school is responding to government legislation, Ofsted

and a need to ensure all children can read.

As Ruth Miskin says:

“when children can’t read there is low self-esteem, children are

messing around and get bored. We want them to be reading with

confidence, to be able to read quite sophisticated texts at an early

age.”[ CITATION Sea99 \l 1033 ]

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