Banter Speech & Language

Sydney speech pathologists helping adults and children speak for themselves.

phonics

Free resources to help our preschoolers and primary school-age kids to read

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To help our kids to read, we need good tools to put independent, peer-reviewed research into practice. Decades of evidence-building tells us that kids need phonological awareness, vocabulary, synthetic phonics, comprehension and fluency skills to read well; and that oral language comprehension and morphological awareness are important, too.

Putting theory into action

The key challenge is how to teach these skills to kids with reading difficulties. It’s time-consuming (and often expensive) to find quality, evidence-based reading resources. But, there are researchers out there focused on how to implement evidence-based reading practices.

You just have to know where to look.

One of our favourite organisations is the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR): a multidisciplinary research centre based at Florida State University.

Free reading resources, activities and ideas 

The FCRR houses a goldmine of free pre-reading and reading resources, ideas, and activities.

Most of the resources we use are found in two sections:

So check out the FCRR! We hope you find their marvellous free resources as useful as we do.

Related articles:

Key source: Florida Center for Reading Research, reviewed by Carol Westby, Word of Mouth 28:5 May/June 2017.

Editor’s note: we’ve used US spelling conventions for FCRR’s name; and Australian spelling conventions for everything else.

Image: https://tinyurl.com/y7ufaan8

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Concord West, North Strathfield, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).

Yes to the Phonics Screening Check: my ‘Why’ in 10 points

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A few readers have asked for my views on the proposed Phonics Screening Check for all Year 1 students in Australia.

I’m against testing kids for testing’s sake. I know many overworked, and under-resourced teachers oppose the check for a range of reasons. For experienced teachers who have been trained in evidence-based reading instruction methods, the screener may not tell them much they don’t already know. I know that many parents are worried about yet another “high stakes test”. (Some have even referred to the test as a “mini-NAPLAN”.)

On this website over the years, I’ve reviewed and summarised over 300 peer-reviewed articles on language and literacy. Six days a week, I work with children, teens and adults with reading difficulties.

And, because of this work, I’m all for the Phonics Screening Check.

Here’s why:

  1. Far too many kids and adults in Australia can’t read. Roughly a quarter of Australian Year 4 children are below the expected standard in reading; and 7% performed “extremely poorly” (ACER, 2012). 43.7% of adults lack functional literacy skills (ABS, 2009). Millions of Australians have insufficient language, literacy and numeracy skills to benefit from training or to participate effectively at work (ISCA, 2011).
  2. Unlike spoken language (which is biologically natural), reading is unnatural. Everyone needs to learn how to do it. Kids need to be taught it. Many parents – especially parents from disadvantaged backgrounds who can’t afford tutors, educational psychologists, or speech pathologists – rely on teachers to teach their kids.
  3. For our kids to read English words, they need to crack the alphabetic code. Kids need to link speech sounds to letters (e.g. Byrne, 1998). They need to “decode” words written on a page or screen into spoken words made up of speech sounds.
  4. Teaching phonics to kids means teaching them to link speech sounds to letters and letter combinations. It also means teaching them to apply this knowledge to reading and spelling (Ehri et al., 2001). This includes decoding written words into speech sounds and blending the speech sounds together to read (e.g. “grand” = /g/-/r/-/ae/-/n/-/d/ = spoken word /graend/). It also means segmenting spoken words into separate speech sounds and “encoding” them into letters to spell (e.g. spoken word /graend/ = the letters g-r-a-n-d = the written word “grand”).
  5. So far, the highest level of research evidence published in peer-reviewed, independent, scientific journals tells us – consistently – that teaching kids phonics – specifically synthetic phonics – is the best way to teach kids how to read (e.g. Galuschka et al., 2014, McArthur et al., 2012, Torgerson et al., 2006, National Reading Panel, 2000).
  6. Kids need to understand what they read. That’s the whole point of reading. But phonics/decoding problems can be a bottleneck for the development of reading comprehension skills. Even fairly small gains in decoding skills for poor readers can have big positive effects on reading comprehension (Lervåg et al., 2017).
  7. Despite the research evidence – and for lots of different reasons – many kids have not learned  phonics. In our clinic, every week, I assess kids – including kids in Years 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and even high school – who have yet to crack the alphabet code: kids who can’t tell me what sound(s) are linked to even basic letters and letter combinations like “a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, “u”, “g”, “l”, “sh”, “ch”, “th”, and “qu”, much less more difficult combinations like “ph”, “gn”, “ay”, “oi”, “eigh”, “igh” or “ough”. Instead, many kids seem to have been taught to memorise lists of words – many of which are decodable. Others seem to have been taught to guess words based on the first letter or word shape or “context”. More than a few can’t read without pictures to help them guess at what’s happening. These ‘strategies’ – which are not based on evidence – might get kids through Kindergarten. But they often fail to work when the game changes from learning to read, to reading to learn.
  8. It’s upsetting for parents – and for me! – when I meet kids in Year 3 or older who don’t know how to translate letters into sounds, and to blend sounds together to read words. Why? Because, by Year 3, a kid’s reading performance compared to his or her peers becomes fairly fixed and a good predictor of his/her later academic outcomes (e.g. Spira et al., 2005).
  9. In this context, it’s vital that we pick up kids who can’t decode words using phonics as soon as possible, including those kids who might look like good readers but are actually using guessing strategies (like pictures or word shapes) to mask their difficulties “decoding” written words into speech sounds.
  10. The proposed phonics check is based on the UK phonics screening check. Studies on the UK phonics check have found that it “is a highly valid measure of children’s phonic skills”; and “a valid instrument for measuring word-level reading ability and sensitive in identifying children at risk of a reading difficulty”, although (as the authors’ note) this needs to be followed up with more studies (Duff et al., 2015).

Clinical bottom line

I support the proposed Year 1 Phonics Screening Check because screening phonics skills:

  • will help pick up kids who have reading difficulties or who are at risk of later reading difficulties; and
  • needs to be done when there is time to help kids at risk – well before Year 3.

As the son of two former teachers, I’m a big supporter of teachers. I understand the challenges teachers face at the coal face. I’ve never met a teacher who doesn’t want the best reading outcomes for their students. I also understand concerns about whether the check is a good use of time and resources.

Although a good start, the screening check is just a check. It won’t make a difference unless the kids picked up by the check get the extra help they need. If we want to change our appalling literacy levels, student teachers and teachers need good quality resources, training and support to learn and implement evidence-based reading assessment and instruction, especially for kids with or at risk for reading difficulties.

Principal source: Duff, F.J., Mengoni, S.E., Bailey, A.M., & Snowling, M.J. (2015). Validity and sensitivity of the phonics screening check: implications for practice. Journal of Research in Reading, 38(2), 109-123.

Read more:

Recommended reading:

Related articles:

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Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Concord West, North Strathfield, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).

My loved one has reading problems. Where can I find evidence-based answers to get help? New free eBook

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Instantly download our new, 188-page, free eBook here:

What is it?

There’s so much information out there about reading difficulties, including dyslexia. It’s hard to sort:

  • the good stuff – based on independent, peer-reviewed evidence; from
  • the nonsense – the fads, the snake oil, patent-protected “systems”, “special lenses”, and expensive products and courses that are not backed up by independent evidence.

We wrote this book for parents, carers and other loved ones who have a family member or loved one with reading difficulties.

This book is fad-free. People with reading difficulties don’t have time to waste on stuff that doesn’t work. This book is designed to help you find the quality information you need to get good help, quickly.

What’s in it?

Evidence-based, plain English summaries answering our 24 most frequently asked reading questions.

How to use it

Read the bit (or bits) that seem most relevant to you, and then go from there. We’ve included hundreds of clickable links between the articles, so you can choose your own adventure through the book, at you own pace.

We hope you find it useful. If you have questions or feedback, please get in touch.

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Concord West, North Strathfield, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the PreLit early literacy preparation program by MultiLit, the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).

Preparing your pre-schooler to learn to read: skills to focus on first

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What can we do to help our pre-schoolers get ready to read without being accused of helicopter-parenting?

A lazy Google search will confirm there are loads of courses and programs marketed to worried parents of pre-schoolers. Many are not supported by evidence. (I shudder when I see glossy marketing for some of the drill-based, flashcard-happy “school readiness bootcamps” currently targeting families of 3-5 year olds.)  And many of the best evidence-based “school readiness programs” run mainly in cities and cost a small fortune.

Too often, the kids most in need of help with pre-literacy skills can’t access it.

Skills that promote later reading outcomes

Four main skills are linked to the later development of word recognition and reading comprehension:

What does “print knowledge” mean?

The term “print knowledge” – also called “print awareness” – describes children’s:

  • interest in print (e.g. on signs and labels, in books and, increasingly, on screens);
  • knowledge of the names and distinctive features of various “print units” (e.g. alphabet letters, words, and sentences);
  • knowledge of the ways in which different print units may be combined in written language; and
  • sensitivities to the ways in which print:
    • is used for different purposes; and
    • is organised, e.g. in story books and other print genres or “text types”.

An important part of print knowledge is, of course, alphabet knowledge, which we’ve written about at some length before here.

Why bother with print awareness for pre-schoolers?

At “big school”, children are taught how to read. Evidence-based reading instruction includes phonics instruction. Phonics instruction emphasises the links between letters and sounds.

For children to make the most of phonics instruction in Kindergarten and Year 1, they need to know the letters of the alphabet. The more developed a child’s understanding of the alphabet during pre-school, the more success they tend to have (on average) in learning to read.

For example, one meta-analysis of the early predictors of later reading achievement showed that children’s knowledge of print – both print concepts and alphabet knowledge – was the most important predictor of later reading achievement. The study found that print awareness was more important than oral language and even phonological awareness (Hammill, 2004). There’s also a body of research showing that print awareness and phonological awareness improvements lead to longer term improvements in reading (e.g. Byrne & Fielding Barnsley, 1991; Piasta et al., 2012).

Which pre-school kids are most at risk for later reading problems?

As with reading generally, kids don’t set about acquiring print awareness and other pre-literacy skills on a level playing field. Some children are at a heightened risk of reading problems, including children:

What kinds of evidence-based supports are out there to help pre-schoolers improve their pre-literacy skills?

  • Evidence-based practices anyone can learn, e.g. interactive story book reading (e.g. Mol et al., 2009).
  • Commercial programs, e.g.:
    • Specific courses for pre-literacy skills such as:
      • Let’s Begin with the Letter People (Abrahm & Company, 2000);
      • Doors of Discovery (Wright Group, 2001);
      • Literacy Express Preschool Curriculum (Lonigan et al., 2011); and
      • PreLit by MultiLit.
    • Broader courses with a pre-literacy stream such as:
      • Head Start Research-Based Developmentally Informed Intervention (Bierman et al., 2008); and
      • Evidence-based Program for the Integration of Curricula (Fantuzzo et al., 2011).

Overall, there is some decent evidence showing that literacy programs for pre-schoolers may have significant developmental value (e.g. see Mashburn et al., 2016).

But many of these courses are expensive: both for educators and (as a result) for their students; and require lots of training and materials to administer properly.

Are there any other (less “commercial”) options?

Yes.

Read It Again-PreK! (RIA) is an evidence-based pre-literacy intervention designed by Drs Laura Justice and Anita McGinty and colleagues. RIA is a 60-lesson, “whole class”, story-book based program targeting vocabulary, narrative skills, phonological awareness and print knowledge. Best of all, it was designed to “scale” easily and is available worldwide as a free manualised download – and only requires about $150 of materials (popular children’s books, many of which could be sourced second-hand or from libraries in a pinch). Free online training for providers is available via the researchers’ website.

In 2016, Dr Andrew Mashburn and colleagues (including Drs Justice and McGinty), published the results of a cluster randomised trial on RIA involving 104 pre-K classrooms (506 students) in a rural area of the United States. The researchers found (among other things) that RIA:

  • had a statistically significant positive impact on children’s print concepts; and
  • did not, on its own, lead to significant gains in children’s alphabet knowledge or oral language skills.

The study had some important limitations. For example, it’s not clear whether the program – which was trialled on US kids from a rural background – would yield the same results with city kids or kids from another place (e.g. Australia).

Several outcome statistics were measured and processed in multiple ways, which increases the risk of bias/errors due to so-called “data dredging” or “p-hacking“. And the program was tested by a research group that included members involved in creating the program (rather than an independent group).

Clinical bottom line

To improve later reading outcomes – especially for children at risk for later reading problems – pre-literacy training programs for pre-schoolers should target the development of vocabulary, narrative, print knowledge and phonological awareness skills. Several evidence-based programs exist to improve pre-school print awareness and other pre-literacy skills. But many of them are expensive and inaccessible to the children who need them most.

There is some promising evidence supporting the inexpensive and scalable Read It Again-PreK! program as a “whole of class” pre-literacy skills intervention for pre-schoolers. The program may be an option for children that cannot access another program for economic or logistical reasons.

Related articles:

Principal source: Mashburn, A., Justice, L.M., McGinty, A., & Slocum, L. (2016). The Impacts of a Scalable Intervention on the Language and Literacy Development of Rural Pre-Kindergartners, Applied Developmental Science, 20:1, 61-78.

Image: http://tinyurl.com/kyy8de6

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).

“I’m not a child!” How to get help for a teenager or adult you love who can’t read

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Imagine for a moment that you can’t read or write; even at a basic level:

  • How would you apply for, find or hold down work?
  • If you found work, how could you review your employment contract? How would you communicate with workmates?
  • If you couldn’t find work, how could you get help with basic needs like unemployment benefits, or with training or housing?
  • How would you stay in touch with friends who text or use Facebook to converse?
  • How would you travel to places you’ve never been before? What would happen if your voice-guided app or device failed you?
  • Could you find out about stuff that mattered to you as quickly as friends who could read Google search results?
  • How could you educate yourself about your legal rights or obligations, e.g. when renting or buying a place to live, taking out a car loan, getting married or divorced, or managing a loved one’s affairs?
  • How could you resolve disputes or deal with unexpected tasks, like insurance claims or funerals?
  • How could you read articles like this one?

As we’ve noted before in some detail, poor reading skills can have a big negative life-long effect on your academic, social, and work outcomes (e.g. Snowling et al., 2007).

Now imagine you have a loved one – a teenager or adult in your life – who can’t read properly. How can you find evidence-based help?

What’s needed most

For people of all ages who can’t read properly, phonics decoding and word reading accuracy are essential skills for reading accuracy, fluency and reading comprehension (Carroll et al., 2011). “The case for synthetic phonics is overwhelming and much strengthened by a systematic approach” (Rose, 2006). Learning speech-sound-based decoding skills in an intense, focused, multi-sensory and systematic way can improve word reading, even for people with severe reading problems (e.g. Fletcher et al., 2007; Shaywitz, 2003; Singleton et al., 2009).

Overcoming additional barriers for teenagers and adults

Many reading programs are intended for primary school-aged kids (Brooks, 2007). For teenagers and adults, being given a garish, cartoonish phonics book designed for a 5 year old can be demoralising; even humiliating. This is a big problem: many teenagers and adults who can’t read already have low self-esteem and confidence (Jeffes, 2016). It’s essential that the materials are age-appropriate and that literacy workers don’t treat clients like young children.

What can help

In our clinic, we use a range of age-appropriate resources to help teenagers and adults to read, including texts tailored to a client’s personal, school or work interests and needs.

One resource we use for teenagers and adults with significant reading difficulties was first suggested to me by one of my co-mentors, Nel MacBean of Positive Speech. It’s called “Toe By Toe”.

Toe By Toe is a highly structured – at time almost pedantically so! – evidence-based multi-sensory reading program developed by Keda and Harry Cowling in the United Kingdom. The program has a close focus on phonics instruction and letter-sound links, but the program does not look like a kids’ reader and is never condescending. The more I use it, the more I like it for a number of reasons.

Does it work?

In 2016, Ben Jeffes published a study about Toe By Toe*, looking at outcomes of a 60-minute, once a week, 10-week reading program administered to 30 teenagers in Years 7-10, using the Toe By Toe program. He found that the students:

Interestingly, students reported that they liked the program more than the teachers, noting that the program gave them a chance to improve their reading one-to-one without “simply reading books”.

Our view

We like Toe By Toe because it helps students to:

  • learn methodically about letter-sound links;
  • overcome unhelpful and non-evidence-based reading “strategies” like word-guessing based on word shapes or the first letter-sound (so-called analytical phonics);
  • improve their phonological awareness (e.g. of words with consonant clusters and more than one syllable); and
  • improve their ability to identify and pronounce common morphemes,

at their own pace with age-appropriate materials. We also find that the later stages of the program (which no student in the study completed) help students with their decoding speed, word recognition and reading fluency skills, although we are not aware of any peer-reviewed studies to date that support our clinical observations to date.

Bottom line

For more than a decade, we’ve known the key skills needed to learn to read: (1) phonological awareness; (2) phonics; (3) fluency; (4) vocabulary; and (5) comprehension. But there is no single reading program that appeals to every age group.

It’s hard to motivate teenagers and adults to learn to read with materials designed for young children, even if the materials are evidence-based. One option for older readers is the Toe By Toe program, which has been shown to increase phonics decoding, word recognition and phonics decoding fluency. But it should be supplemented with instruction in evidence-based reading comprehension strategies, fluency practice (speed and expression), vocabulary instruction relevant to their school/work interests, needs and goals and, in some cases, morphological awareness training.

If you – or someone you know – needs help with their reading, there are many places to look for help – just make sure they are committed to evidenced-based reading instruction.

Related articles:

Principal source: Jeffes, B. (2016). Raising the reading skills of secondary-age students with severe and persistent reading difficulties: evaluation of the efficacy and implementation of a phonics-based intervention programme. Educational Psychology in Practice, 32(1), 73-84.

Additional resource: The Reading Writing Hotline.

* The Jeffes study was designed as a quasi-experimental, two group, baseline/test controlled study, with both groups receiving the training, at different times to measure outcomes. As the author himself notes, the study had lots of limitations, e.g. there was no real control group, the testers weren’t blinded to the groups or the results, and and the results may have been affected by bias, including as a result of the so-called Hawthorne effect where people improve because they know they are being observed and/or establish a good rapport with the people testing them. Importantly, no student completed the full program in 10 weeks, so the study doesn’t necessarily reflect the degree of reading gains that people who complete the program may make.

Image: http://tinyurl.com/lhm3jrz

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).

Is your child struggling to read? Here’s what works

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On reflection, I’m incredibly lucky.

Both my parents were teachers. Growing up, my house was full of chatter, stories and books. My early state school education in regional Victoria was long on “old school” phonics and short on fads.

I learned to read without much trouble. I discovered many of the things I’m still passionate about in life – dinosaurs, planets, social justice, travel, speech and language, consumer rights, history, current affairs, philosophy, and bad science fiction – because I could read. Reading lets me learn new skills, explore the world, entertain myself and my kids, connect with friends and colleagues, and of course, earn my living as a speech pathologist and lawyer.

Children and adults who struggle to read miss out on many of the opportunities good readers take for granted. Helping people to learn to read is important work – far too important to waste time, energy and money on false ideas and programs that don’t work.

In this article, we summarise some of the key evidence-based principles to help children (and adults) to read. We also include links to peer-reviewed evidence, leading researchers’ websites, and some evidence-based literacy programs and resources.

12 principles I apply

A. Learning to read is a right, not a privilege 

1. Reading is a human right, and affects your health, work opportunities and life-participation.

  • The General Assembly of the United Nations is convinced that: “[L]iteracy is crucial to the acquisition of every child, youth and adult, of essential life skills that enable them to address the challenges they may face in life, and represents an essential step in basic education, which is an indispensable means for effective participation in the societies and economies of the 21st century.” (GA Resolution 56/116.)
  • Low literacy may impair health, affecting the patient-doctor communication dynamics, and leading to substandard medical care. It is associated with poor understanding of written or spoken medical advice, adverse health outcomes, and negative effects on the health of the population (e.g. AHRQ Report, see below).
  • Early reading difficulties are related to children’s ability to develop positive social skills (e.g. Bennett et al., 2003).
  • Academic problems, like poor reading, often foster behavioural problems, which frequently result in disciplinary practices that remove the student from school (Christle et al., 2005).
  • Low levels of literacy affect educational attainment and labour force participation (ABS, 2009).

2. Learning to read opens doors; poor reading ability closes them. Literacy creates opportunities for lifelong learning and training, a good job, housing stability and improved health across your life (Gakidou et al., 2010). (Not being able to read has big negative effects on school achievement, job opportunities, mental health and participation in society.) Arguably, reading is more important than ever, with most jobs in the West now requiring literacy (e.g. Murnane, 2004), and with access to the Internet, social media platforms and even texting friends requiring a degree of literacy to participate socially (e.g. Durkin et al., 2011).

B. Reading instruction should be based on independent, peer-reviewed evidence (not ideology), and should take the client’s socio-economic background and oral language skills into account

3. Reading is “biologically unnatural“. Humans have only been reading since about 3000BC (Fischer, 2001). Unlike speaking, you have to learn to do it (e.g. Gough & Hillinger, 1980). That’s why literacy is still not universal (e.g. Gough, 1996). While it’s true some kids find reading easy to learn, others need a lot of help.

4. Reading instruction should be based on the “Five Big Ideas” (aka the “Big Five”). Independent, peer-reviewed scientific research evidence reviews (cited below) say that, to learn to read, you need to be taught these “Big Five”:

  • Phonemic awareness (also known as phonological awareness): knowledge about the sound structure of the language and the ability to manipulate the sound making up that structure (Rayner, Foorman, Perfetti, Pesetsky, and Seidenberg, 2001).
  • Phonics: see below.
  • Vocabulary: it’s been estimated that, to cope with the curriculum, a Year 2 child needs to understand 300-400 words; a Year 3-4 child needs to understand 3,000-4,000 words; and a Year 5 student needs 10,000! (Hempenstall, 2005).
  • Comprehension skills.
  • Reading fluency.

5. As one of the Big Five, direct synthetic phonics instruction is essential. In the USA, Australia and the UK, independent evidence reviews affirmed the need for systematic, direct and explicit phonics instruction so that children master the essential alphabetic code-breaking skills required for foundational reading proficiency. (The importance of teaching teachers to do this was recognised by the New South Wales Board of Studies in 2015 – New South Wales Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards. (2015).)

The best phonics to teach children is “synthetic phonics“. Synthetic doesn’t mean “fake”, here; it means “synthesising” (or blending) the sounds (phonemes) together to read words. You can read an excellent explanation of “synthetic phonics” by some of my favourite literacy researchers here.

6. It’s a myth that you can’t use phonics to read English words. In fact, according to Hanna et al., (1996):

  • 50% of English words are directly decodable with synthetic phonics;
  • 36% have only one “breach” of the sound-letter link (usually a vowel);
  • 10% can be spelt properly if morphology and word histories/roots are taken into account; and
  • only 4% are truly irregular.

7. Oral language skills (talking and understanding) and reading skills are linked; oral language and reading skills are mutually beneficial. Improvements in spoken language skills improve reading skills, and vice versa. Oral language and reading skills piggy back on each other during the school years (Snow, 2016). If one is impaired or delayed, the other suffers. For example, children with speech-language language disorders (diagnosed or not) are at a high risk of having reading problems.

Similarly, children with reading problems may have problems learning new words and higher level language skills, which then affect their oral language development. (This, by the way, is why I screen oral language and phonological awareness in addition to decoding and reading comprehension when assessing a school-aged child with reading problems.)

8. Kids learn to read on an uneven playing field. Socio-economically disadvantaged children are at greater risk of language and reading difficulties than children from higher socio-economic backgrounds. Even though oral language development is biologically natural, it’s vulnerable to environmental factors. For example, the foundations of early language development (and the emergence of emotional security) both depend on a high dose of quality carer engagement. By the age of 4 years, on average, children of high income, professional parents may have heard 30 million more words than some children from a socio-economically disadvantaged background (e.g. Hart & Risely, 1995).

Different children have very different levels of exposure to language and books when the turn up for their first day at school. Unsurprisingly, this has knock-on effects for readiness to learn to read (see the discussion about the Matthew Effect below).

C. Evidence-based reading instruction for young struggling school-aged children is urgent: the critical 3-year window to teach children to read well

9. The 3-year learning-to-read “window”. In the first three years at school, the focus is on helping children learn to read. This is when good evidence-based reading instruction is most important. Your child’s access to good reading instruction in this period is important for all children, and vital for children from low-socioeconomic backgrounds and children struggling to read.

10. The “fourth grade slump”. Starting in the fourth year of school, the focus of the curriculum switches away from learning to read. Instead, children are expected to “read to learn”. For good readers, this is no problem. For poor readers, this is where the real trouble begins:

  • By the fourth year of school (year 3), a child’s performance relative to his/her peers becomes fairly fixed (Spira et al., 2005);
  • your child’s reading level by the start of the third grade is a good predictor of:
    • later academic achievement; and
    • later mental and social health; and
  • the “Matthew Effect” kicks into high gear.

11. The Matthew Effect. With reading (as with money), the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. Good readers read more, learn more word meanings and then improve their reading skills. Children who are poor readers read less, and don’t learn new words as quickly, which further slows their growth in reading ability (Stanovich, 1986). As school progresses, the gap between good and poor readers grows and grows and grows.

That’s not to say that older kids and adults can’t learn to read. It’s just that it’s harder. As with language difficulties generally, the earlier you get help, the better. But it’s never too late!

D. Too many children and adults can’t read properly

12. Literacy levels are a big problem in Australia:

  • In 2011, a quarter of Australian Year 4 children are below the expected standard in reading; and 7% performed “extremely poorly” (ACER, 2012).
  • In 2009, 43.7% of adults were at or below Level 2 in their reading skills on a 5 point scale (ABS, 2009).
  • In 2011, the Industry Skills Council of Australia  found that millions of Australians have insufficient language, literacy and numeracy (“LLN”) skills to benefit from training or to participate effectively at work (ISCA, 2011).

The human, social and economic costs of low literacy are enormous.

E. So what gets in the way?

A controversial question!  Here are some candidates:

  • Professional divides: An unhelpful divide exists between the knowledge bases and expertise of teachers, speech pathologists and education psychologists. Teachers are educators, whereas psychologists and speech pathologists are health professionals. Reading failure is of course both an education and health problem. But the lack of coordination between different professionals doesn’t help clients with reading problems or their families. When I work with a school-aged child, my first port of call is the parents. My second port of call (with parents’ consent) is to teachers and any health professionals who’ve worked or are working with the child. The more we can coordinate our care and approach, prioritising the client’s interests and goals, the better things tend to go.
  • Ideological squabbling. If you’ve got a day or two to waste surfing the Internet and getting confused at all the navel gazing and self-interest, Google “Reading Wars”. In short, the “war” was fought between supporters of:
    • a phonics- and phonemic awareness-based approach to reading instruction, focused on letter-sound links and blending sounds to read words; and
    • so-called Whole-Language theories, based on post-modern theories of child development, teaching children to read words from “cues”, like context and pictures in predictable texts.

Although it was hoped that the independent reviews in the USA, UK and Australia (cited below) resolved the “reading wars” in favour of phonics and the rest of the Big Five, there are still programs influenced by Whole Language philosophies used today, including the much-maligned “Reading Recovery” program (which you can read about here). In any case, the key casualties of the war were and continue to be children failing to learn to read.

  • Inadequate training in the Big Five (and the “Peter Effect”). You can only give what you have; and you can only teach what you know. If you haven’t been taught properly how to teach reading using evidence-based teaching methods, you will have great difficulty teaching school children to read – especially struggling students. Unfortunately, some teachers, speech pathologists and psychologists haven’t been trained in how to teach reading using the evidence, especially if their University lecturers subscribed to the Whole Language ideology. Any education or health professional engaged in helping people to read should have training in how to teach the Big Five.
  • Commercial programs unsupported by independent evidence, glossy products and fads. Unfortunately, there is a big market for children and adults with poor literacy in Australia and elsewhere. Lots of reading programs seek to “exploit” this market, and some of them have no evidence to support their effectiveness. Of course, it’s hard for parents (and even some teachers) to know which ones are evidence-based. Fortunately, there are independent research groups that publish evidence summaries to assist. In our clinic, for example, we only use evidence-based programs based on the Big Five.

Whatever the reasons, we should all strive to read and apply the best quality, independent evidence to better support school-aged children, young adults, and adults with reading problems.

Related articles:

Principal source: Snow, P.C. (2016). Elizabeth Usher Memorial Lecture: Language is literacy is language – Positioning speech-language pathology in education policy, practice, paradigms and polemics. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18:3, 216-228. (This article should be mandatory reading for any teacher, speech pathologist or education psychologist working in literacy.)

Further reading

Reading as a human right that affects your health:

US AHRQ’s Evidence Report No. 87, Literacy and Health Outcomes (summary) 

Evidence for what works, including evidence supporting the Big Five:

Rose, J. (2006). The [UK] Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading (aka “The Rose Report”)

Evidence that too many children and adults in Australia are poor readers:

Thomson, Sue; Hillman, Kylie; Wernert, Nicole; Schmid, Marina; Buckley, Sarah; Munene, Ann (2012). Monitoring Australian year 4 student achievement internationally: TIMSS and PIRLS 2011. Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2009). Adult Literacy.

Industry Skills Council of Australia (2011). No More Excuses.

The role of speech pathologists in the development of literacy:

Speech Pathology Australia. (2011). Position Statement: Literacy.

On the shoulders of experts: evidence-based literacy researchers, organisations and blogs I follow: 

If you are interested in the science of reading and evidence-based reading programs and resources, here are some of the key experts, organisations and literacy/language blogs I follow closely (in no particular order):

Toe By Toe

Image: http://tinyurl.com/z3rgm3u

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).