How can technology help with phonics?

The government now recommends basing early literacy teaching on synthetic phonics. This follows the Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading: Final Report by Jim Rose (March 2006). The dyslexia world has long regarded phonics as being crucial to helping dyslexic children learn to read and write. So at dyslexic.com we have always had products that have a phonic basis and which work with the National Primary Strategy (National Literacy Strategy NLS as it used to be). Here in outline are some of the ways that technology can contribute to your phonic-based early literacy teaching. From time to time we quote from the Rose report which is available in full or as a summary from http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/rosereview/finalreport/

General purpose phonics programs

Rose points out that there is not enough information to judge which is the “best” phonics programme (para 54). Different programmes have different research bases showing substantial improvements when using them. One of our favourite general purpose resources is Nessy Learning, which is a very comprehensive set of resources for the teacher and computer activities for reinforcing them. Another is Lexion, which is so comprehensive that there are remedial exercises for each individual stage in learning phonic relationships, as well as the assessment mentioned below, on which it bases the exercises.

Auditory skills

More specific tools help students make the auditory distinctions which underly understanding phonic relationships. Phonomena, based on research at Oxford University, works on hearing the differences between two similar-sounding phonemes. Phoneme Track provides activities to identify, segment, blend and manipulate phonemes. Earobics provides 6 games and age-specific content to work on auditory discrimination, auditory memory, and so to increase comprehension and improve spelling.

Multi-sensory

Rose (para 57) emphasises the importance of multi-sensory work, which is something that computers can often help with, combining, as they do, kinaesthetic feedback from the keyboard, visual stimulus, audio feedback from the computer and the student’s own speech, all adding to the other multi-sensory stimuli of the classroom:

Multi-sensory activities featured strongly in high quality phonic work and often encompassed, variously, simultaneous visual, auditory and kinaesthetic activities involving, for example, physical movement to copy letter shapes and sounds, and manipulate magnetic or other solid letters to build words. Sometimes mnemonics, such as a picture of a snake or an apple in the shapes of s and a were used to help children memorise letters. Handwriting too was often seen as a kinaesthetic activity and was introduced early. This multi-sensory approach almost always captured the interest of boys as well as girls.

Assessment and remedies

Rose (para 60) identifies the need for assessment to go hand in hand with teaching:

Across the schools visited by HMI for this review, assessment was also seen to be of mixed quality. Plenty of assessment took place, but not enough of it was targeted precisely to provide relevant information, for example, on the next steps in teaching phonics, either for individuals or for groups of children.

Lexion is a set of programs devised originally by Swedish speech and language therapists and new to the UK. It assesses the child’s performance on the specific, detailed processes needed to build up reading and writing skills. For each weakness it suggests a set of exercises to practise the skill and overcome the difficulty. Practically universal in Swedish schools, we expect this toolkit to become equally popular in the UK, when supported with the training that such a sophisticated tool merits.

Information and communication technology (ICT)

In Rose’s words (para 72):

The range of ICT initiatives and programmes available to settings and schools has grown apace in recent years. Discussions with providers suggest that reading, and especially phonic work, is an area for further growth in this area. Users will need to be sure not only that they have the expertise to exploit these resources but also that the ICT resources themselves are fit for purpose and value for money.

As Rose says (para 74):

When used well there is no doubt that ICT was also highly motivating as a form of additional support of benefit to children within intervention programmes.

Three waves

Rose refers (para 133) to the “three waves” of teaching and intervention to support children with significant literacy difficulties:

• Wave 1 the effective inclusion of all children in daily, “quality first teaching”
• Wave 2 additional interventions to enable children to work at age-related expectations or above
• Wave 3 additional, highly personalised interventions, for example, specifically targeted approaches for children identified as requiring SEN support (on School Action, School Action Plus or with a statement of special educational needs).

Wave 2

Rose says (paras 147):

Where quality first teaching is not meeting the needs of children, there are ample data to show that early failure in literacy can be overcome, to a very large extent, by timely intervention. The importance of responding early to such difficulties cannot be overstressed because there is much convincing evidence which indicates that, once entrenched, reading failure is not only much harder to reverse but is also detrimental to other areas of learning and self-esteem.

Evidence considered by the review, including visits by HMI, showed that the most effective Wave 2 interventions:

• are not used as a substitute for quality first teaching, especially the effective early teaching of phonics
• provided an early accurate assessment of childrens’ phonic knowledge and skills
• are focused on the right children through careful assessment, regular updating and tracking of progress
• use assessment information to shape appropriate support
• are used early before literacy failure has become embedded
• aim for children who have fallen behind to reach the target levels for their age rather than just narrow the gap between them and their peers
• are time limited and have clear entry and exit criteria.

Practically any of the resources that we have mentioned could be suitable for Wave 2 work, perhaps by means of one of the teaching arrangements that Rose lists (para 149).

• support from teaching assistants for small groups within class lessons
• work with a teaching assistant, in a small group, outside the class
• one-to-one daily reading sessions with a teaching assistant
• use of the Primary National Strategy Early Literacy Support programme in Year 1 and, sometimes, Additional Literacy Support in Year 2, taught by trained teaching assistants
• guidance for parents on how to help their children at home
• providing selected children with 10 minutes of additional work on letter-sound correspondences with a teaching assistant
• a 20-minute group session with the special educational needs co-ordinator, focusing on phonic knowledge and skills, and on applying these to reading and writing
• grouping children for phonic work, moving them between groups depending on their progress.

Wave 3

Professor Greg Brooks of Sheffield University is one of the Advisory Group
for the Rose Report. In an earlier report for the DfES, What Works for Children with Literacy Difficulties? The Effectiveness of Intervention Schemes, Brooks evaluated a number of effective products for Wave 3. iansyst’s own product AcceleRead AcceleWrite is arguably the simplest and cheapest of those recommended, both in money and in the resources the time and people needed to run the intervention. Our article The Talking Computer Project using Acceleread Accelewrite as an intervention to teach early phonics gives more information and shows the results of some of the research that was done. CatchUp, another of the projects mentioned by Greg Brooks, consists of CDs with a variety of activities to help with literacy learning.

Involving parents

Rose is, of course, emphatic about the role of parents in encouraging literacy. We have a number of products that are suitable for home use, shown in our catalogue and web site by the icon alongside. It is difficult to relate them to the particular phonics approach that your school takes unless it is from the same product range that the school is using. AcceleRead AcceleWrite as mentioned above is sometimes used by parents, in cooperation with the school.

Phonics Research

There is surprisingly little high quality research into the teaching of literacy. Carole J. Torgerson and others attempted to review what Randomized Controlled Trials there were in their 2004 report for the DfES A Systematic Review of the Research Literature on the Use of Phonics in the Teaching of Reading and Spelling.