Five and six-year-olds across England are to be taught to read using the system known as phonics again.
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, says teaching children to read is a "highly complex issue" and phonics is only one element.
"The government is imposing a very narrow and didactic approach to the teaching of reading,", she told the Today programme, and believes it will not improve reading standards but will make them worse.
Greg Wallace, executive principal of the Best Start Federation of primary schools in Hackney, disagrees and told John Humphrys that the "only 100% successful way to learn to read is phonics".
"It's the best approach," he believes. #education #phonics #reading
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, says teaching children to read is a "highly complex issue" and phonics is only one element.
"The government is imposing a very narrow and didactic approach to the teaching of reading,", she told the Today programme, and believes it will not improve reading standards but will make them worse.
Greg Wallace, executive principal of the Best Start Federation of primary schools in Hackney, disagrees and told John Humphrys that the "only 100% successful way to learn to read is phonics".
"It's the best approach," he believes. #education #phonics #reading
11 months ago
This is one of the most painful conversations I've had to endure when considering the teaching of literacy. Phonics is an important element in early childhood when promoting phonemic awareness and a basic understanding of how our writing system works, but as a sole approach to the teaching of reading it is horrendously inadequate.
Reading is a form of written communication, and it should be taken as such. Phonics strategies can be used to decode certain more difficult words, but if that's all students know, then reading becomes extremely cumbersome and difficult. Context, confirmed predictions, picturing the events, and inferencing are all far more effective strategies for teaching students to read in any kind of meaningful way.
I've also taught reading for years, and I've never seen the joy of reading absolutely crushed more rapidly than when Phonics is the only instruction thrust upon kids. If we want our students to become life-long readers, then there must be a joy to it.
MnstrIsleResort 11 months ago