[senco-forum] Re Literacy

I really was not aware that there are still people who do not accept that our national literacy figure is around 80% and I would like to hear of any serious research which suggests otherwise.   All government stats from the Key Stage results show that we achieve about 81% literacy in the UK. I know of no reputable organisation that challenges that statistic or does not regard it as factually accurate .Even the DfES will concede that a figure of approximately 81% of school leavers achieving literacy has been fairly constant over the past four or five decades. There have also been independent EU sponsored, highly reputable research projects which demonstrate the same data. You can Google these up for yourself.  If you consider these data to be bizarre or inaccurate then you should address yourself to the government depts which produce the stats in the first place.  Most people, and especially employers, have no difficulty in accepting this figure. A friend who lectures in a Technical College insists that the real figure is actually higher. Over this period, we have used a mix of methods to teach children to read and many of these focused on now discredited 'whole word' approaches but in spite of these DfES approved, 'mixed methods' about 80% of children manage to become competent readers without the advantage of having been taught synthetic phonics.  As a practising teacher/head teacher at at time when Peter and Jane books outsold all other books for teaching reading, I was closely involved in these practices. As a researcher and publisher since retiring, I continue to be involved with them in a very practical way. The 80% is not therefore a 'supposed' figure. It is a very real figure and I suspect that you are one of the few people in the country which does not accept it.  As to what teaching method I would use for these  'supposed'  80% of children - I would not express any preference - I am happy to leave that to the discretion of head teachers since the facts suggest that it doesn't really matter which method they are taught by - they seem to learn to read, whatever method is used and I can't argue with that. This is not the case for about 20% of children and I would insist on an SP approach for them in the same way that I would insist on Braille or Moon for a sight-impaired child - but not for all children on the grounds that it would do them no harm.

I strongly support the use of synthetic phonics but I am not a fundamentalist. I would use it where necessary and not where it is not necessary and I do not consider it to be appropriate for children who have no need of it.  I was not taught by synthetic phonics nor were any of my five children. One of my grandchildren did have problems in learning to read in a school which does not use synthetic phonics and I produced a course of computerised lessons for him and this has resolved his problem in just over one term. These were based on synthetic phonics principles. His brother was not taught by synthetic phonics but had no difficulty in learning to read so I did not become involved in his learning. At the tender age of 6, he had read all the Horrid Henry books and is now reading Harry Potter.    I doubt that he will be disadvanted by not having been taught to read by synthetic phonics.

Eddie C.