Government’s approach to teaching reading is uninformed and failing children

The main approach used to teach young children how to read in England needs urgent reform and does not follow the most robust evidence, say UCL academics who have led work on the most comprehensive paper ever published about teaching phonics and reading. Findings from the paper, which is published today in the Review of Education, include outcomes of an analysis of 55 robust longitudinal experimental trials, and outcomes from a survey of 2,205 teachers in England. The paper highlights that for the first time in modern history, the teaching of phonics and reading in primary schools in England has changed fundamentally. The National Curriculum and other DfE guidance has shifted, over the last decade, from using a more balanced approach to teaching reading to a far narrower focus on synthetic phonics only. England's synthetic phonics approach stipulates first and foremost the teaching of phonemes (sounds), and how to blend sounds together. This teaching is now usually done separately from work on whole texts. Drawing on their new evidence the UCL researchers are among over 250 signatories who have written an open letter to the Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi strongly calling on the UK Government to change their policy on reading.