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The Multiliteracies Project web platform explores the work of adult & community educators and learners as well as secondary school teachers and students through interviews, pedagogical resources, and original film footage of teaching.

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About the Multiliteracies Project

The Multiliteracies Project, funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight grant, shares educational resources and research on expanded forms of literacy with adolescents and adults. Multiliteracies is a pedagogical approach and theoretical framework originally developed by the New London Group that embraces cultural and linguistic plurality, technology, and multimodalities (combining modes such as visual, audio, gestural, spatial to convey meaning). Find on this web platform original film footage of learning spaces and classrooms, interviews with adult educators, adult learners, teachers, secondary school students as well as policy makers and administrators in Ontario and Nova Scotia. There are also sample lessons and educational resources. We invite you to participate in the ongoing conversations via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

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The Multiliteracies Project, funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight grant, shares educational resources and research on expanded forms of literacy with adolescents and adults. Multiliteracies is a pedagogical approach and theoretical framework originally developed by the New London Group that embraces cultural and linguistic plurality, technology, and multimodalities (combining modes such as visual, audio, gestural, spatial to convey meaning).

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This recent 2020 literature review addresses the question, what is literacy in the early years? Rosamund Stooke was commissioned by the Provincial Centre of Excellence for Early Years and Child Care to update a review conducted in 2010 for the Child and Youth Network.  This review helps educators and others make sense of the various ways that literacy is defined and supported.

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This website comes from a group of Canadian language and literacy researchers and students. LLRC's website contains information for educators interested in Canadian scholarship in language and literacy. Provocative is LLRC's position statement on literacy assessment, both because it has much to say about assessment as well as the nature of the literacies being assessed.

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Language and Literacy Researchers of Canada (LLRC) is a special interest group (SIG) within the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies (CACS), which is in turn a constituent association of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE). LLRC is comprised of individuals who are interested in language and literacy education and research, particularly, but not exclusively, within the Canadian context.

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This link takes you to the website of the journal, Language & Literacy is the official journal of the Language and Literacy Researchers of Canada. Visitors can see at a glance the range of literacies-related scholarship in the country.

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research and conceptual discussions in literacy and language learning

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This article by Jeffrey Wood looks at the connection between play and literacies. It suggests ways educators can support literacies through play.

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The National Reading Campaign publishes children's book reviews every Tuesday. In this example, librarian Linda Ludke, reviews "This is NOT a Valentine" by Carter Higgins. Reviews are for educators, families and children with the goal to inspire joy in reading. To find more reviews like this one, click the "Children's Book Reviews" tab across the top of the page and select "reviews".

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Publish January 31, 2018

Readers will be smitten by This is NOT a Valentine by Carter Higgins. After receiving a heart-sealed card from a friend, a little boy affectionately reciprocates, but without superfluous frills. Instead of proffering a bunch of roses "that smell like grannies fresh out of the garden," he gives his pal a handful of dandelions with some of the wishes blown off. Eschewing mass-produced, generic gifts, he thoughtfully selects unique treasures just for her, like a bubble-gum machine ring that matches her best shoelaces, a lucky rock, and a whispered secret about where the second best hiding spot is located on the playground. The quirky presents are accompanied by honest, unsentimental banter: "I found this at the bottom of my lunchbox. You can have the jelly side, cause I like peanut butter best."

Lucy Ruth Cummins' exuberantly unaffected cartoon illustrations capture a diverse classroom of kids going about their daily routine, from hanging coats in cubbies, to lining up at the water fountain. In art class, the little boy celebrates his friend in a portrait created out of construction paper, foil star stickers and green marker. The blush on the little girl's cheeks shows she is tickled pink by the meaningful, attentive gestures. This is NOT a Valentine is full of sweetness, but not the cavity-inducing kind. Spread the love and share this endearing picture book all throughout the year.

This is NOT a Valentine

Carter Higgins
Illustration EN: Lucy Ruth Cummins
Chronicle books
ISBN 13: 978-1-4521-5374-2

Linda Ludke

Linda Ludke is a librarian at London Public Library. Her reviews have appeared in Quill and Quire, School Library Journal and CM: Canadian Review of Materials. When she's not reading and writing she also loves searching for vintage treasures.

The National Reading Campaign publishes children's book reviews under a Creative Commons License. This review is entirely free to reproduce and republish online and in print. Credit must be given to the reviewer and the National Reading Campaign. Reviews can be edited for brevity only. Contact Us for more information.

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Children's Book Reviews: This is NOT a Valentine - Campagne pour la lecture

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Readers will be smitten by This is NOT a Valentine by Carter Higgins. After receiving a heart-sealed card from a friend, a little boy affectionately reciprocates, but without superfluous frills. Instead of proffering a bunch of roses "that smell like grannies fresh out of the garden," he gives his pal a handful of dandelions with [...]Read More...

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A pedagogical and curricular resource developed for educators and families in conjunction with the Exploring Literacies Initiative led by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (New Brunswick). This link will take you to the handbook Exploring Literacies: Talk, Read, Sing, Create Through Play Every Day.

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Perspectives and Provocations in Early Childhood Education, is a journal of the Early Childhood Education Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English. The journal focuses on early literacies pedagogies within a variety of communities.

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"I feel terrible...": Storying Power Differentials Across Relationships in the Elementary English Language Arts Classroom (Cassie J. Brownell) Nos Pertenecíamos: Finding Community in a Summer...

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This research article by Luigi Iannacci, raises questions about literacies pedagogies that value cultural and linguistic diversity in early years spaces.

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Curriculum, Diversity, Promising Practices, PERSPECTIVES Teaching PRACTICES THAT FOSTER MULTILINGUAL LITERACY Intake
Responding to Culturally and Linguistically Diverse students' literacy and identity
A multilingual environment
Understanding cultural and Linguistic Diversity (CLD) as an asset has discursively been present within Canadian society, and by extension Canadian schools, for many years. Although generally accepted as one of the grand narratives that Canadians take pleasure in celebrating, what has not been well established is how Canadian society and schools are responding to this increased diversity. Our collective response to diversity within our schools is, however, inarguably vital given the assimilative orientation Canadian schools have historically taken. The need for effective responses to CLD is further demonstrated when we consider our current socioeconomic context. North American educational settings are more culturally and linguistically diverse than they have ever been as a result of international restructuring and a subsequent increase in labour market mobility.[1] A significant number of children in Canadian classrooms located in urban centers now speak a first language (L1) other than English or French. Ontario alone has experienced a 29 percent increase of ESL students within elementary schools since 2000.[2] Several researchers have noted that despite these changing demographics, there is a dearth of research about culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) children in educational contexts and disparity in providing for them.[3]

This article contributes to the more recent and growing body of research that addresses gaps in the provision of responsive education for CLD children in Canadian elementary schools. Drawing on research that explored CLD children's literacy and identity in two Grade 1 and two Kindergarten classrooms over the course of a school year, it identifies, describes and explores culturally responsive multilingual and multicultural pedagogies, and articulates various ways of approaching linguistic and cultural incorporation within diverse classrooms.
Multilingual texts
My research was informed by multiliteracies and critical perspectives. Multiliteracies theory conceptualizes literacy as a social practice and socially mediated. Meaning making is understood as varied and dependent upon different cultural, social or professional contexts. Meaning is also made in increasingly multimodal ways, and as such involves interactions with written, visual, verbal and non-verbal communication and objects.[4]Within this dynamic and generous conceptualization, literacy is understood and positioned as multiple, expansive and contextually specific. A critical perspective as it relates to fostering multilingual literacy, therefore, not only values and develops proficiency in speaking, writing or reading in two or more languages but also fosters the ability to control and choose discourses in various contexts and understands the connections between power and language. During the year-long ethnography I conducted within two Kindergarten and two Grade 1 classrooms, I drew on these perspectives to analyze the literacy practices and events that I observed.

First, it is essential to accurately identify languages spoken by students. Based on my research, official student record information must be understood as fallible. The processes by which schools gather data and the conditions parents encounter during the initial information-gathering meeting with the school secretary can create inaccuracies. It is therefore essential for schools to review the initial intake process and form they currently use with and for CLD students. These preliminary meetings communicate a great deal about what is valued in schools and how languages and cultures are positioned within a school's culture. Whenever possible, a translator who speaks the same language as the parent(s) should be present to assist with the information gathering and aid with the welcoming and transition of the parent(s) and their child to the school community. Further, despite whatever mechanisms are put in place to collect initial information about citizenship and language(s) spoken at home, it would benefit a teacher to ask students, older sisters and brothers (if any) and parents about first languages spoken at home for any CLD child in their classroom.

Once students' first languages have been identified, teachers can create multilingual environmental print consisting of common items (e.g. blackboard, window, shelf) and concepts (e.g. colours, numbers) found in the classroom. Online sources can be used to translate English words into different languages. Whenever possible, involve students in writing and placing multilingual environmental print in the classroom and provide opportunities for them to verbalize the words in their first languages. During this process it is also valuable to make cognates explicit and ask students to do the same. (Cognates are words that are similar in terms of the CLD student's first language and English - e.g. fruit/fruta is an English/Spanish cognate). Multilingual posters, alphabets of the languages spoken by class members, the names of children in their own languages and in English, product packaging in various languages, common phrases in various languages, and work done by students in their first language can also be displayed in the classroom to create a multilingual print environment.

What is key is to immerse students in an environment where various languages are used purposefully and are part of the instructional space. However, multilingual or multicultural window dressing should be avoided. In various schools I have visited, I have noticed posters with the word "Welcome" written in large letters in the middle of the poster, surrounded by the word for "welcome" written in smaller font in various other languages. These posters are almost never at a height where children can read them, but rather placed at adult eye level. Further, their effectiveness in communicating that languages other than English are valued is highly questionable.
Codeswitching
Bilingual books written in both English and first languages are purposeful and effective multilingual texts for use in read-aloud, independent and home reading programs. Bilingual books can be versions of titles that are commonly found in elementary classrooms as well as speciality titles that deal with culturally specific content and/or situations that may be relevant to a variety of cultures and available in a variety of languages (e.g. English with Albanian, English with Arabic etc.). Another Story is a Canadian bookstore that carries a variety of bilingual book titles.

Teachers can purposefully draw on their students' first languages and thus reposition CLD students as knowledgeable communicators.
More strategies
When using bilingual books during read-aloud or shared reading sessions, students who speak the language the book is written in can sit beside the teacher and either read what is written in their first language or translate what the teacher has read in English. If they translate, the teacher can follow the text written in their first language and look for words that resemble what they have said while pointing these words out to the student and the rest of the class. Most of the CLD students in my study were eager to participate in this shared read aloud. In fact, this practice arose as a result of one student's desire to demonstrate her knowledge of Spanish to her classmates. She asked to sit next to me and showed me how to incorporate her into the shared reading I was conducting with a Spanish/English bilingual book. I replicated the practice with other students, who also became my co-teachers. This practice repositioned them within their classrooms from "quiet," "shy" children who "didn't speak English" to classmates who possessed assets that became explicit and instructionally relevant. They were no longer solely reduced to what they were learning (i.e. "ESL") but rather seen as capable communicators who knew another language that other students both valued and were interested in learning. CLD children began to be understood as having something they could share and teach.
CONCLUSION
In making linguistic assets further explicit within a classroom, literacy instruction can be organized in ways that enable students to create their own bilingual books or texts. Although none of my participants had an opportunity to create a complete bilingual narrative, some of them wrote and drew various "identity texts" (texts in which CLD students have invested their identities and reflect who they are).[5] These texts mirrored the structure of the bilingual books they were being exposed to and could have been extended into a complete book. One student, for example, valued the bilingual books I read so much that she asked for her own copy of several titles. She relayed to me that she was reading them to her mom at home and therefore teaching her mom English as well as continuing to develop her ability to read Spanish. Her immersion and interest in bilingual books developed to the point where she created a text that followed the structure of these books. In the identity text she created, she drew a picture of me and underneath wrote "Man" and then her phonetic hypothesis of the word "Hombre." Another student in the study wrote her name in a proud and pronounced way across the page and then made declarative statement about who she was: "I am an artist." On top of the powerful sentence was a self-portrait of her at work at her art.

In order to further develop classrooms spaces that are responsive to and respectful of the multilingual and multicultural assets students bring with them into the classroom, acceptance of codeswitching (CS) must be made explicit and recognized as a viable pedagogic resource. Classrooms that allow for CS (switching between two languages) set conditions that allow students learning English to renegotiate their "less than" and deficient school identities by showcasing and instructionally drawing on the linguistic resources they possess. When this occurred within the classrooms I observed, children whose first language was English began to understand that their often quiet "ESL" classmates had fully developed thoughts they could express in their first language, but were simply not as proficient in the privileged code. Incidents that required them to use their classmate's first language further reinforced this understanding.
Photo: Christopher Futcher (iStock)First published in Education Canada, January 2014 EN BREF - Cet article faisant référence à une étude ethnographique d'un an réalisée par le chercheur, examine la littératie et l'identité d'enfants d'origines culturelles et linguistiques diverses dans deux classes de maternelle et deux classes de première année. Les constatations sont issues de la pédagogie plurilinguistique et des perspectives critiques. L'article identifie, décrit et explore des littératies et des pédagogies multilingues et multiculturelles démontrant l'enseignement adapté à la culture. Différentes façons d'aborder l'intégration linguistique et culturelle dans des classes diversifiées sont examinées. Les pratiques de littératie favorisant cette adaptation sont ciblées afin de proposer aux éducateurs un répertoire d'approches susceptibles de les aider à tenir compte efficacement d'une diversité culturelle et linguistique croissante dans les milieux scolaires canadiens.
Teachers frequently question their ability to allow for and foster CS when they don't speak the language their students speak. Many of the events I observed during my research confirmed that it is not necessary for the teacher to know the languages of their students (an impossibility) but rather to be open to negotiating what their interactions and literacy curriculum in general looks and sounds like. This meant, for example, that some teachers asked CLD students to use and/or teach specific words and phrases to them that were relevant to the classroom. One teacher asked a student who spoke Albanian to do a head count of students in her first language out loud to verify if everyone was present. During a lesson on the letter "e," the same teacher elicited responses from students in their first language about various illustrations of things featured in a picture dictionary that all began with "e." Teachers can purposefully come in and out of English during their interactions and lessons in order to draw on their students' first languages and thus reposition CLD students as knowledgeable communicators. Improvisation and situated decision-making is key to instructionally engaging and including CLD students while validating and occasionally using their first language to support their English language learning. More importantly, students' identities can become valued and pronounced within the classroom as opposed to being hidden and silenced. Encouraging codeswitching can therefore perhaps improve learning conditions for CLD learners while creating classroom spaces that allow them to be and become who they are.

There are many other practices teachers can develop that access and instructionally draw on CLD students' first languages. One example is inviting students to bring in a word of the day that is meaningful to them, and then having the rest of the class learn the word and talk about its meaning and cultural connotations.[6] One of the mothers I interviewed during my study mentioned similar practices when discussing what might have helped her daughter feel welcomed and accepted in school. Teachers can also generate a list of words that are commonly used and important to classroom life (e.g. bathroom, coats, lunch) and keep the list in an accessible place. One of the Kindergarten teachers in my study had this list of words laminated and at hand in several key places around the classroom so that she could understand and communicate essential words and phrases. Again, the Internet can serve as a translation resource. When CLD parents volunteer to work in classrooms, teachers can make explicit how accepted codeswitching is and encourage them to CS or converse with students who share their first language. Parent volunteers can also be encouraged to share their language and culture with the class, and to help students who share their first language and culture create bilingual books and other identity texts that can also be shared with the class and celebrated.

The approaches and practices offered throughout this article are by no means all-encompassing, definitive, prescriptive or examples of "best practices" (a problematic and dangerous concept). What is offered is meant to provide educators with ideas that can assist them in responding to the increasing cultural and linguistic diversity they are experiencing within their schools and classrooms. How these practices are integrated and used should remain flexible, malleable and ultimately responsive to and respectful of the CLD students we have the good fortune of teaching. Multilingual, multicultural literacy practices should continue to evolve and be recognized as sound pedagogy that extends classroom language barriers, increases the status of students' first languages and ultimately, opens up identity options available to CLD students within schools.

If we are genuinely interested in being able to respond to the rich cultural and linguistic diversity of our ever-changing classrooms, then we need to consider and experiment with a variety of practices that value and cultivate who these students are and what they bring to our schools and classrooms.

[1] Nicholas C. Burbules and Carlos Alberto Torres, Introduction to Globalization and Education: Critical perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2000); Jim Cummins, "Diverse Futures: Rethinking the image of the child in Canadian schools," presented at the Joan Pederson Distinguished Lecture Series, University of Western Ontario (April 2005); Festus E. Obiakor, "Research on Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations," Multicultural Perspectives 3, no. 4 (2001): 5-10.

[2] People for Education, The Annual Report on Ontario's Public Schools, (2007). www.peopleforeducation.com/adx/aspx/adxGetMedia.aspx?DocID=634

[3] R. Falconer and D. A. Byrnes, "When Good Intentions Are not Enough: A response to increasing diversity in an early childhood setting," Journal of Research in Childhood Education 17, no. 2 (2003): 188-200; Carola Suárez-Orozco, "Afterword: Understanding and serving the children of immigrants," Harvard Educational Review 71, no. 3 (2001): 579-589; Kelleen Toohey, Learning English at School: Identity, social relations and classroom practice (Great Britain: Multilingual Matters Ltd., 2000).

[4] Nancy Hornberger, "Multilingual Literacies, Literacy Practices, and the Continuation of Biliteracy," In M. Martin-Jones and K. Jones (Eds.), Multilingual Literacies (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co., 2000), 353-369; James Paul Gee, "The New Literacy Studies: From 'socially situated' to the work of the social," in D. Barton, M. Hamilton and R. Ivanič (Eds.), Situated Literacies: Reading and writing in context (London: Routledge, 2000), 180-196.

[5] Jim Cummins, "Diverse Futures."

[6] Jim Cummins, Negotiating Identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society (CA: California Association for Bilingual Education, 2001).

Meet the Expert(s)

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This article draws on a year-long ethnography conducted by the researcher that explored Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) children's literacy and identity in two Kindergarten and two Grade 1 classrooms. Insights are informed by multiliteracies pedagogy and critical perspectives. The article identifies, describes and explores multilingual and multicultural literacies and pedagogies which demonstrate culturally responsive instruction.

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Tara-Lynn Scheffel and Lori McKee offer universal and intergenerational-themed picturebook recommendations for early childhood educators to use across contexts.

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Keywords: intergenerational; early childhood classrooms; literacy; children's picturebooks; literacy practices

Abstract

This article offers picturebook recommendations for early childhood educators to use with young children across contexts (e.g., early childhood
classrooms, intergenerational settings) as a starting point to support intergenerational programming.

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Keywords: intergenerational; early childhood classrooms; literacy; children's picturebooks; literacy practices This article offers picturebook recommendations for early childhood educators to use with young children across contexts (e.g., early childhoodclassrooms, intergenerational settings) as a starting point to support intergenerational programming.

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Related to the above handbook, this pamphlet for families contains ideas for promoting literacy in every day.

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Lotje Hives and Tara-Lynn Scheffel offer recommendations for picturebooks to connect with young children and foster literacy enjoyment.

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A preschooler's day is a world of adventure fuelled by an unbridled imagination. Sparked by curiosity, they set out to discover anything and everything new while sharing about their discoveries. Young children's learning develops through making and testing theories continually. It's exhilarating work!

When adults notice children's ideas and theories as well as name and build children's vocabulary through talk, or when they encourage children to make connections to previous experiences as they read together, they help nourish positive attitudes about literacy.

For those slow-down moments when you as a child's caregiver are looking for ways to model and enjoy literacy together, one cost-friendly idea is to create a nook or nest (indoors or out) for reading. Your book nest can be as uncomplicated as gathering a sheet, some clothespins, the couch cushions and a couple of chairs.

Loose parts play

What is the source of all the excitement? When the child, with you alongside, can use these items to design a little tent or cushion nest, they are engineering spaces of their very own. The child is experiencing what early childhood development experts call loose parts play: through manipulating free and loose parts, children delight in becoming architects of spaces they share.

With loose parts play, items can be used in multiple ways for designing, creating and testing prototypes. Every peg point and toppled pillow will offer problem-solving scenarios that call for solutions. And let's not forget that with some pillows and soft blankets inside, the opportunity arises for the caregiver to lay back and relax!

Next, consider having your child fill an old cereal box, basket or cloth tote full of their favourite books to explore in their newly designed space.

Books for your cozy space

These seven titles are packed full of adventure and are worth a look at your local library. You may find your child asks to read favourite books over and over, celebrating the joy of reading!

1. Knuffle Bunny

By Mo Willems (2005, Walker Books Ltd.)

Picture books with human characters offer opportunities to explore pro-social behaviour. In Knuffle Bunny, a family's trip to the laundromat leads to mapping their way through the neighbourhood and exploring how faces and body language express how people feel. In the streetscape depicted, your child may recognize what early childhood educators talk about as environmental print - signs, labels and logos visible in our everyday world. Children's early curiosity about text and signs all around them is part of a first stage of reading awareness. They will begin to read the environmental print as they recognize shapes, colours, numbers and letters.

By Antoinette Portis (2006, HarperCollins)

Children see beauty in the items that adults might otherwise discard. In a time when it is necessary to encourage environmental sustainability and ecological understandings, what's stopping us from slowing down and offering some otherwise recyclable materials like boxes and other found materials to become robots, wands, puppets, tents and playhouses? invites predicting what's next and chiming in with each page as your child imagines "It's not a box, it's a ..."

3. Lost in the Woods

By Carl R. Sams II and Jean Stoick (2005, Carl R. Sams II Photography)

Children can imagine themselves in other places and spaces sparked by rich illustrations in picture books. Lost in the Woods takes you on an imaginary journey into the outdoors and is a perfect story to spark connections and questions about the natural world. You might even imagine you are camping in your reading tent!

4. My Heart Fills With Happiness

By Monique Gray Smith (2018, Orca Book Publishers)

This book, by an author of Cree, Lakota and Scottish ancestry, is also available in a bilingual Plains Cree edition, Ni Sâkaskineh Mîyawâten Niteh Ohcih translated by Mary Cardinal Collins. It offers a wonderful opportunity to talk about emotions as it explores the concept of what makes people happy and how people express joy in different ways. The author narrates moments such as the smell of warm bannock, providing opportunities to discuss distinct aspects of Indigenous cultures or histories, as well as the similarities children and families share.

5. Changes, Changes

By Pat Hutchins (1971, Aladdin)

A timeless, wordless book, Changes, Changes invites children to explore how building blocks and little figures can be used to tell endless stories. Each page invites discussion and creates opportunities for problem solving, language development, creativity, mathematics and more. Add some blocks to your reading nook to retell a story, recreate the illustrations or build new designs!

6. Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

By Eileen Christelow (1989, Clarion Books)

Books that invite children to sing, dance and do actions with favourite childhood songs or chants are always popular. With Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, perhaps the reading tent sets the stage for an impromptu performance entertaining a friendly, appreciative audience.

7. If You Hold a Seed

By Elly MacKay (2013, Running Press Kids)

The journey of a seed through the seasons comes to life in this cyclical story that begins with a young child wishing upon a seed. The text and illustrations in If You Hold a Seed will spark thoughtful discussions about hopes, dreams, wonders and wishes.

A reading nest, some favourite books and a sprinkle of giggles: a recipe sure to cook up a healthy love of reading, with moments of pure joy on the side.

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7 favourite books for connecting with your preschooler

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A preschooler's day is a world of adventure fuelled by an unbridled imagination. Sparked by curiosity, they set out to discover anything and everything new while sharing about their discoveries. Young children's learning develops through making and testing theories continually. It's exhilarating work!

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This webpage from New Zealand researcher Jayne White focuses on dialogic pedagogies with two-year olds. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page to view a video of Jayne providing an overview of the work.

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Lead researcher Jayne White introduces the study, its origins and insights.

Press the blue button to meet the Avenues Kindergarten teaching team:

Key Features

Number of Children: 7 x 2 year-olds; 11 x 3 year-olds; 17 x 4 year-olds; 1 x 5 year-old

Teacher Qualifications: 100% Qualified

Access to Avenues Kindergarten here

Click the following button to meet the Gate Pa teaching team:

Age composition of children: 1 x 1 year-old, 7 x 2 year-olds, 6 x 3 year-olds, 9 x 4 year-olds

Ratios: 1:1 for infant, 5:5 for other age groups

Group size: 23 children in total on the day of recording

Teacher Qualifications: 85% Qualified

Key Features:

Teachers used to see two year-olds as a problem. Now they see their presence and participation as an invitation to learning dialogues

Annette Rogers

Meet Annette Rogers:

Combined with a strong push to gain status within the wider educational sector, narrow interpretations of pedagogy perpetuated a discourse that positioned the 'preschool' as a learning environment that was not suitable for two year-olds. As there can now be no denying the marked increase of numbers of two year-olds in 'preschools' ( White, Peter & Ranger, 2016; White, Peter, Rockel, Sims & Kumeroa, 2017), this discourse illuminates the impact of extant policy and attitudes on teachers in their pedagogical practice and poses a challenge to the education of those two year-olds now located within settings traditionally oriented to older children.

Two year-olds have been overlooked in policy

Annette Rogers

Dialogic methodology underpinned our research. This approach emphasises all forms of communication as potential dialogues of meaning-making.

Click the Methodology button to listen to Jayne explain our approach:

Methodology

We used a combination of different cameras to capture our dialogues with two year-olds, their peers, and their teachers.

Video handheld/Swivl tracking camera (following a two year-old)

Video glasses (worn by a teacher)

360 degree camera (filming the wider 'preschool' environment)

We videoed three different ways:

At every phase of the research we engaged in critical reflective dialogues as we began to see more and more.

We entered our video footage into V-note and coded the different types of language used as well as our understandings of their significance for learning.

As we have watched the coding we have had many, many conversations about our different interpretations. Every time we sat down we ended up having a professional conversation about something we had seen on the video and how we came to a shared understanding of meaning out of this. It has greatly increased our relationships as a team, and now with children as we work together to understand and engage effectively with children
Participating teacher

Sometimes in this resource you will see more than one visual image used at a time. The purpose of this polyphonic approach is to broaden the visual field so you, like the teachers in this study, can 'see' more.

Click to enlarge a summary of our research design below:

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Lead researcher Jayne White introduces the study, its origins and insights.

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This special issue takes as its starting point a six-year action research project (headed by Shelley Stagg Peterson of OISE) involving literacies,  pedagogies, and children living in rural and Indigenous communities.

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Vol. 19 No. 2 (2017): Exploring Language, Literacy, and Identity Connections through Play-Based Education in Rural, Remote, and Indigenous Communities

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research and conceptual discussions in literacy and language learning

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This research article by Tara-Lynn Scheffel, with colleague Lotje Hives, highlights a Kindergarten case study in Northern Ontario with a focus on nurturing curiosity in the outdoors. Literacy invitations support the learning shared.

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Oh, to be a child again! To find joy in the newness of each day and be in awe of what lies waiting to be discovered.

As researchers, through a case study, we wanted to learn more about the ways one kindergarten class in northern Ontario nurtured curiosity in the outdoors. We invited the kindergarten community including educators, families and teacher candidates to share their experiences with us.

The kindergarten team moved alongside the children to look for evidence or traces of their curiosity and to document this with photos, quotes and video.

The power of documentation is that it invites reflection on moments of learning, and on the theories that children are developing about the world they live in.

It is tremendously validating for children to feel "heard," to know that what they are curious about is interesting and important.

A snow and water investigation

Through investigating water and snow, this kindergarten community experienced the benefits of learning in the outdoors.

For this group of kindergarten learners, the transformation from winter to spring sparked a noticeable curiosity about water and the children expressed this in different ways.

The children were invigorated by the ever-changing conditions of the outdoors. With all of their senses awakened, they marvelled and made connections to understand themselves in their world.

Tools and loose parts invited the children to explore, problem solve and innovate in social ways.

The children demonstrated a desire to move snow with reused containers, spoons, shovels and donated toboggans. The kindergarten team invited families to contribute to the collection of items.

One child took the lead to shovel the doorways of the school in winter, and to co-ordinate the piling and moving of snow and ice on toboggans to transform their schoolyard playscape.

Over the days and weeks that followed, sparked by making pathways for water outside, groups of children experimented with tubes and marbles, designing like architects and engineers.

Throughout the water investigation, the kindergarten team heard children wonder, question and share their working theories:

"Where is the water coming from?"

"Look how it's following the pathways! It's getting stuck over here."

"Come follow my tracks!"

"I'm using the shovel to make a path in the mud."

"I can see through the ice...It's like a window!"

The children expressed curiosity in multiple ways. Some chose to study the water closely with puzzled expressions, some shared a flurry of questions about water while others stomped and splashed with wild abandon.

One child with rubber boots, teetering on the edge of fascination, dipped a toe at the edge of a puddle, crunching the frozen edge delightedly.

The kindergarten team observed the children investigating with persistent fascination about how they live and interact with water, how it changes state and how it flows.

Educators help children make connections

Energized by their pervasive curiosity with melting snow, water, pipes and flooding (indoors and out!), the children were guided by their interests, and the educators named the learning that revealed itself through this journey.

"I noticed that the students were more engaged because the learning was connected to something in the real world." (teacher candidate)

The kindergarten team selected books that honoured the children's interests and challenged their thinking. One example, Water's Children, invited them to think about themselves in relationship with water and the world.

The learners' experiences within the outdoor environment also provided opportunity to explore global understandings such as how water moves, and how our lives are connected by water.

Such learning develops empathy and understanding towards each other and the natural world.

The kindergarten children paired up with older learners to design posters with powerful messages about caring for and protecting water. These were then posted throughout the school in an effort to impact the thinking and actions of others in the school community.

While investigating outdoors, children demonstrated reasoning and proving, reflecting, selecting tools and strategies, connecting, representing and communicating.

The kindergarten educator team valued how the natural environment offers something unique, something different and something challenging every day.

What did our families and educators notice?

In speaking to how children benefit from learning actively in the outdoors, families, in surveys, said:

"They run, jump, hop, skip, dodge all on their own. They look at their learning area differently and appreciate the freedom and take in all this learning with wide open eyes."

"We love experiencing the world through nature. We all share the planet and have a special role to play."

"They benefit from fresh air as well as a change of scenery..."

"We love sunshine and vitamin D!"

"...children who play outdoors are healthier, happier, less stressed and more creative."

Together, educators and families noted many benefits including how the children were filled with wonderings and curiosity and became scientists, explorers, mathematicians, artists and storytellers of their world.

Educators noticed that in the outdoor setting, the integration of curriculum areas and teamwork emerged:

"How amazing it was to connect math, geography, and science to one experience...outside." (Anne, teacher candidate)

"...it opened up so many possibilities for learning... the awareness of conservation of water, the teamwork that had to go into achieving the goal." (Laura, teacher)

"Each interaction between child and nature is unique and offers a fresh, new perspective." (Lotje, kindergarten teacher)

Learning through inquiry was central to these experiences.

Noticing, naming and nudging at barriers

When we asked parents if they perceived any barriers to outdoor play, parents identified concerns such as "sun exposure without protection" and "bug bites that are potentially dangerous."

Educators identified barriers related to weather preparedness, safety and risks as well as the unpredictability of inquiry-based learning.

Of particular note, our case study revealed the many ways participants nudged at these potential barriers in support of the above benefits, with safety at the forefront.

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Learning in the snow: How children develop through all-weather outdoor play

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Oh, to be a child again! To find joy in the newness of each day and be in awe of what lies waiting to be discovered. As researchers, through a case study, we wanted to learn more about the ways one kindergarten class in northern Ontario nurtured curiosity in the outdoors.

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The Canadian Children's Book Centre offers suggested book lists, book news and tips for book selection all with a focus on Canadian authors and illustrators. The site further contains a section on books with social justice and diversity themes.

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The Canadian Children's Book Centre (CCBC) is a national, not-for-profit organization dedicated to encouraging, promoting and supporting the reading, writing, illustrating and publishing of Canadian books for young readers.

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Supporting New Zealand's early childhood curriculum the "useful resources" tab at the bottom of this webpage contains tools for thinking with language and literacies in ways that are multilingual, multimodal, and apt for Ontario educators.

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Dialogues about two year-old dialogues in 'Preschool'
This website, which includes a number of videos, represents a study that looked at how 2-year-olds operate in early childhood spaces and how kaiako might alter their practices to support learning for this age group. This research was led by Professor Jayne White, Waikato University.
Building oral language through storytelling
Christine Alford is an ECE teacher and 2016 CORE Education Efellow. Christine's research looked at ways in which materials and the arts can be used to promote storytelling for young children.
COMET - Talking Matters
Talking Matters is a community-wide initiative, run by the Auckland City Council , bringing together education, health, and social services with whānau to promote the importance of talking more and talking differently with children to maximise their potential.
Extending their language - expanding their world: Children's oral language (birth - 8 years)
Extending their language - expanding their world is a resource developed by the Education Review Office that explores effective pedagogical and leadership practices that promote children's oral language development. Leaders and kaiako need to know how children's oral language develops and recognise the ways both the curriculum design, and kaiako practice, can promote rich oral language learning. Examples of effective practice are provided to provoke early learning services to reflect on, and strengthen oral language practices in their setting.
Literacy practices - Education Review Office
These two literacy reports developed by ERO "highlight the variety of factors, activities and experiences that go into the development of children's early literacy skills". The two reports outline strategies for teaching, as well as examples of what literacy learning can look like across a range of early childhood services.
Much More than Words
Much More than Words is a resource developed by the Ministry of Education that provides information and ideas to support kaiako and parents to facilitate children's oral literacy development through the child's skills and interests.

"Children need the adults around them to actively support and encourage their communication development. The more we know about how to support and encourage, the more we can help children develop their communication skills through play and social conversations in real-life situations" (p. 4).
New Zealand Sign Language
Learn NZSL is a free learning portal on New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL). Download the NZSL dictionary onto your mobile device and get a word of the day in NZSL and te reo Māori.
On the path to literacy through a pair of shoes and smelly socks
An account of a teacher very effectively using a every day event - putting on socks and shoes - to have a playful conversation with a 2-year-old.
Oral language awareness
The Ministry has developed resources to support Oral Language Awareness and learning for parents, schools, and Early Childhood Centres. The resources include posters for schools and Early Childhood Centres and a pamphlet for parents. These resources form part of the Ministry's response to the recent ERO report titled Extending their language - Expanding their world: Children's oral language (birth - 8 years).

Hard copies can be ordered from the Ministry of Education warehouse at http://www.thechair.co.nz/.
Oral, visual, and written literacy - Kei Tua o Te Pae
Kei Tua o Te Pae provides excellent resources to support literacy teaching and learning.

"Children who have enjoyed the opportunity to talk, describe, argue, reason, justify, question, and explain will have developed language skills that predispose them to literacy with purpose, understanding and pleasure" (Book 17, Oral, visual, and written literacy). Two particular resources are:
Picking up the Pace
This research project delivered concentrated professional development in literacy instruction to groups of early childhood and new entrant teachers in decile one schools in Mangere and Otara. The outcome was a substantial lift in the reading and writing achievement of new entrants. Picking up the Pace was a component of the Early Childhood Primary Links via Literacy (ECPL) Project, which was part of a much broader project, Strengthening Education in Mangere and Otara (SEMO). This project aimed to raise achievement significantly among students in these two communities.

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Dialogues about two year-old dialogues in 'Preschool' This website, which includes a number of videos, represents a study that looked at how 2-year-olds operate in early childhood spaces and how kaiako might alter their practices to support learning for this age group. This research was led by Professor Jayne White, Waikato University.

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This website of the United Kingdom Literacy Association provides information on the group's literacy education activities, including a resources page. Be sure to check out UKLA's journal, Literacy.

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UKLA is a registered charity, which has as its sole object the advancement of education in literacy.

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Ideas for inspiring children with Steve Light's picturebooks are highlighted here in the Teaching Young Children magazine from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The magazine requires a subscription but some ideas are shared on the NAEYC website.

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Steve Light's books are inspired by the interests and questions of the children in his preschool class. Read on for some more great ideas from Steve's books that will inspire the children in your classroom.

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Written for families, this two page early writing resource by Penny Tassoni provides ideas for engaging children's mark-making at home.

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This research brief identifies ways to think about literacies pedagogies with FNMI children and communities.

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The International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY Canada) has created a resource of 100 picture books by FNMI authors and illustrators. The recommendations range from board books to picture books and texts for older readers.

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IBBY Canada is pleased to present From Sea to Sea to Sea: Celebrating Indigenous Picture Books, a digital catalogue of 100 picture books by First Nations, Métis and Inuit authors and illustrators. The catalogue is available for download here.

Includes 100 recommended picture books by Indigenous authors, many illustrated by Indigenous artists, published in Canada over the last 25 years and currently in print.

Reflects the diverse cultures, perspectives, and experiences of Inuit, Métis and 29 First Nations.

Gives attention to picture books that promote Indigenous languages, with 15 different languages/dialects represented.

Features books for children of every age, ranging from board books to picture books for older readers.

It is our hope that teachers, librarians, readers and booksellers will use and share this list widely - across Canada and around the world - while continuing to read and update their collections of Indigenous picture books. Please join us in celebrating Indigenous picture books as widely as possible, using the hashtags #ReadIndigenous and #IndigiPictureBooks, and tagging @IBBYCanada!

Booksellers, for a list of the books in the catalogue, including ISBNs and prices, click here.

Read the IBBY Canada special edition newsletter all about the Indigenous Picture Books Collection here.

And please read about two friends of the Indigenous Picture Book Collection: Colette Poitras, Manager of Indigenous Public Library Outreach, Municipal Affairs, Government of Alberta - and the Edmonton Public Library.

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IBBY Canada is pleased to present From Sea to Sea to Sea: Celebrating Indigenous Picture Books, a digital catalogue of 100 picture books by First Nations, Métis and Inuit authors and illustrators. The catalogue is available for download here.

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With a focus on fantasy play, this commentary from Vivian Paley discusses the 3 F's (friendship, fantasy, and fairness) as constituents of early literacy.

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View of Commentary: On the Road to Literacy: Before the Three R's Come the Three F's

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Return to Article Details Commentary: On the Road to Literacy: Before the Three R's Come the Three F's

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Visit this site to stream videos of actors from the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) reading children's picture books. No fee or membership needed. You can choose to view the videos on SchoolTube, YouTube or Vimeo.

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A video discussing ways to support oral storytelling with young children. One strategy called "Doing Stories" involves listening for stories during play. Interviews with Judith Schickedanz, Vivian Paley and Theresa Bouley are included.

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CECE Early Childhood Videos at Eastern CT State U.

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Engaging Children in Oral Storytelling to Support Oral Language Development

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This article is based in observations from an intergenerational program to explore some of what can happen when children and elders come together to sing and make/view art together. The article provides a glimpse at thinking with multimodality and beyond monogenerational curriculum and pedagogies.

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A resource from Oxfordshire County Council's Early Years Advisory Team in the UK that includes resources for engaging children's writing in the early years.

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This article by Stacey Crooks, a settler observing a Traditional Aboriginal Parenting Program on Treaty 4 land in Canada, considers what an ethic of “robust respect” offers in countering dominant deficit thinking in family literacy programs.

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research and conceptual discussions in literacy and language learning

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This webpage from NAEYC  includes strategies for engaging children's early writing experiences.

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Emergent writing is young children's first attempts at the writing process. Children as young as 2 years old begin to imitate the act of writing by creating drawings and symbolic markings that represent their thoughts and ideas (Rowe & Neitzel 2010; Dennis & Votteler 2013). This is the beginning of a series of stages that children progress through as they learn to write (see "Stages of Emergent Writing"). Emergent writing skills, such as the development of namewriting proficiency, are important predictors of children's future reading and writing skills (National Center for Family & Literacy 2008; Puranik & Lonigan 2012).

Teachers play an important role in the development of 3- to 5-year-olds' emergent writing by encouraging children to communicate their thoughts and record their ideas (Hall et al. 2015). In some early childhood classrooms, however, emergent writing experiences are almost nonexistent. One recent study, which is in accord with earlier research, found that 4- and 5-year-olds (spread across 81 classrooms) averaged just two minutes a day either writing or being taught writing (Pelatti et al. 2014). This article shares a framework for understanding emergent writing and ties the framework to differentiating young children's emergent writing experiences.

Understanding emergent writing

Researchers and educators often use the term emergent literacy to define a broad set of language and literacy skills focused primarily on the development and significance of emergent reading skills. To better understand writing development-and to support teachers' work with young children-researchers have proposed a framework to explain emergent writing practices (Puranik & Lonigan 2014). The framework is composed of three domains: conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and generative knowledge.

Conceptual knowledge includes learning the function of writing. In this domain, young children learn that writing has a purpose and that print is meaningful (i.e., it communicates ideas, stories, and facts). For example, young children become aware that the red street sign says Stop and the letters under the yellow arch spell McDonald's. They recognize that certain symbols, logos, and markings have specific meanings (Wu 2009).

Procedural knowledge is the mechanics of letter and word writing (e.g., name writing) and includes spelling and gaining alphabet knowledge. Learning the alphabetic code (including how to form letters and the sounds associated with each letter) is an essential component of gaining procedural knowledge. Children benefit from having multiple opportunities throughout the day to develop fine motor skills and finger dexterity using a variety of manipulatives (e.g., magnetic letters, pegboards) and writing implements.

Generative knowledge describes children's abilities to write phrases and sentences that convey meaning. It is the ability to translate thoughts into writing that goes beyond the word level (Puranik & Lonigan 2014). During early childhood, teachers are laying the foundation for generative knowledge as children learn to express themselves orally and experiment with different forms of written communication, such as composing a story, writing notes, creating lists, and taking messages. Children can dictate words, phrases, or sentences that an adult can record on paper, or they can share ideas for group writing.

Developing conceptual, procedural, and generative knowledge of writing

Children gain knowledge of and interest in writing as they are continually exposed to print and writing in their environment. There are multiple strategies teachers can use to scaffold children's writing, such as verbally reminding children to use writing in their classroom activities and providing appropriate writing instructions (Gerde, Bingham, & Wasik 2012). By being aware of children's current fine motor abilities and their progress in emergent writing, teachers can use a mix of strategies to foster growth in each child's zone of proximal development (Vygotsky 1978).

Practicing name writing

One of the first words children usually learn to write is their first name (Both-de Vries & Bus 2008). Name writing increases children's conceptual and procedural knowledge. Names are meaningful to children, and preschoolers typically are interested in learning to write the letters in their name, especially the first letter (Both-de Vries & Bus 2008). Namewriting proficiency provides a foundation for other literacy knowledge and skills; it is associated with alphabet knowledge, letter writing, print concepts, and spelling (Cabell et al. 2009; Drouin & Harmon 2009; Puranik & Lonigan 2012).

Preschoolers benefit from daily writing experiences, so it is helpful to embed writing in the daily routine, such as having children write (or attempt to write) their names at sign-in and during choice times. Be sensitive to preschoolers' varying levels of fine motor skills and promote the joy of experimenting with the art of writing, regardless of a child's current skill level. Encourage invented spelling (Ouellette & Sénéchal 2017) and attempts at writing letters or letter-like symbols.

As Ms. Han's preschoolers enter the classroom, they sign in, with parental support, by writing their names on a whiteboard at the classroom entrance. Children in Ms. Noel's classroom go to a special table and sign in as they enter the room. Ms. Patel instructs her preschoolers to answer the question of the day by writing their names under their chosen answers. Today, the children write their names to answer the question "What are your favorite small animals-piglets, ducklings, or kittens?" Juan and Maria help their friends read the question and write their names under the appropriate headings. Pedro writes Pdr under the piglets heading, Anthony writes his complete name under ducklings, and Tess writes the letter T under kittens. In Mr. Ryan's class, children write their names during different activities. Today, children sign in as they pretend to visit the doctor in one learning center and sign for a package delivery in another. Meanwhile, Tommy walks around the room asking other preschoolers to sign their names in the autograph book he created in the writing center.

Tips for teachers

Develop a sign-in or sign-out routine that allows children to write, or attempt to write, their names each day. In some classrooms, or for some children, the routine may begin with writing the first letter instead of the whole name or with scribbling letterlike symbols.

Use peer helpers to aid children with the name-writing process.

Model writing your name and promote name-writing activities in several centers through the day, such as having children sign their name as they write a prescription or when they complete a painting.

Learning from teacher modeling

Children benefit from teachers modeling writing and from opportunities to interact with others on writing projects. Teachers can connect writing to topics of interest, think aloud about the process of composing a message (Dennis & Votteler 2013), and explain how to plan what to write (e.g., choosing words and topics, along with the mechanics of writing, such as punctuation). Children struggling to attain early writing skills benefit from explicit teaching (Hall et al. 2015). Teach children that letters create words and words create sentences. Use environmental print (e.g., labels, charts, signs, toy packaging, clothing, and billboards) to help children realize that print is meaningful and functional (Neumann, Hood, & Ford 2013). These types of activities build both conceptual and procedural knowledge.

When Ms. Noel sits with the children during snack, she talks with them about the different foods they like to eat. Ben tells her he likes chicken. She writes on a small whiteboard, "Ben likes chicken." She asks Ben to read the phrase to a friend. Later, Ben writes the phrase himself.

Mr. Ryan conducts a sticky note poll. He creates a giant spiderweb and writes the question, "Are you afraid of spiders? Yes or no." He gives the children sticky notes so each can write either yes or no and then place it on the giant web. This activity is followed by a discussion of spiders.

Tips for teachers

Explicitly model writing by showing the writing process to children and thinking aloud while writing. Instead of writing the question of the day or the morning message before the children arrive, write it in front of them.

​Label specific items in the room, and draw children's attention to the written words. Write out functional phrases on signs related to routines, such as "Take three crackers" or "Wash hands before eating," then read and display the signs.

​Have the children paint large classroom signs related to themes being explored, such as the National Weather Station, Snack Bar, Public Library, or Entomology Center.

Writing throughout the day

Preschoolers enjoy experimenting with the writing process. Emergent writing experiences can include spontaneous writing during center time and teacherguided writing activities. Writing can become an important component of every learning center in the preschool classroom (Pool & Carter 2011), especially if teachers strategically place a variety of writing materials throughout the classroom and offer specific guidance on using the materials (Mayer 2007). (See "Learning Centers: Adding Meaningful Writing Materials and Literacy Props.")

Teachers can intentionally promote peer-to-peer scaffolding by having children participate in collaborative writing experiences. Read-alouds are also a wonderful means of promoting writing; there are a number of stories that feature characters in books writing letters, stories, messages, and lists (see "Books That Promote Writing"). Model writing stories, making lists, or labeling objects, and then encourage your preschoolers to write a response letter to a character in a story, create their own storybook, or write a wish list or a shopping list. Such a variety of writing experiences will also build their generative knowledge of writing.

Ms. Han has strategically placed a variety of writing materials throughout the classroom-a scientific journal in the discovery area so children can record their observations and ideas; a graph paper notebook in the block area for drafting blueprints with designs and words; and a receipt book, paper, and markers in the dramatic play area. Savannah sits at the discovery center looking at a classroom experiment. Ms. Han asks, "Savannah, could you write about your observations in our science journal?" Savannah begins writing in the journal.

Three boys are playing in the block area. Ms. Han asks, "What are you building?" Marcus replies, "We are going to build a rocket ship." Ms. Han says, "Could you create a blueprint of your rocket and then build it?" The boys eagerly begin drawing a plan. Several children in the dramatic play center are drawing different types of flowers for a flower market. Ms. Han says, "In a flower market, signs tell customers what is for sale and how much it costs. Would you like to create some signs?" The children readily agree and start to create signs.

Tips for teachers

Strategically place writing materials, such as sticky notes, small chalkboards, whiteboards, envelopes, clipboards, journals, stencils, golf pencils, markers, and various types, sizes, and colors of paper throughout the classroom.

Provide specific teacher guidance to scaffold children's writing. While some children may be off and running with an open-ended question, others might be better supported if the teacher helps write their ideas-at least to get them started.

Create writing opportunities connected to your current classroom themes or topics of interest. Involve the children in collaborative writing projects, such as creating a diorama after a farm visit and making labels for the different animals and the barn. With teacher support, the class could also develop a narrative to describe their farm visit.

Home-school connection

Both preschool writing instruction and home writing experiences are essential components of helping children develop writing skills. A major advantage of the home- school connection is that children see the value of what they learn in school when parents actively participate in the same type of activities at home. Teachers can encourage parents to display photos of their child engaged in writing activities at home and to share samples of their child's writing or drawings from home to inform instruction (Schickedanz & Casbergue 2009). To maximize parental involvement and support, teachers should be sensitive to the diversity of the families in their programs and be inclusive by promoting writing in children's home languages. These experiences can help promote children's conceptual, procedural, and generative knowledge.

Ms. Noel wants to strengthen home-school connections with the families in her program. She decides to introduce the children to Chester (a stuffed teddy bear). She tells the children that Chester wants to learn more about what the children do at home and to go on some weekend adventures. She says, "Each weekend, Chester will travel home with a child in our class. During the time Chester stays at your house, take pictures of the activities you do with Chester and write about them in the Chester Weekend Adventures journal. At the beginning of the week, bring Chester and the journal back to school to share what you did. We will put Chester and the journal in the classroom library when he is not on a visit, so everyone can see where he has been." The children are excited about taking Chester home and writing about their adventures.

Tips for teachers

Find writing opportunities that strengthen home-school connections. For example, encourage families to create books at home related to a particular theme or a specific topic. Invite children to share their books with the class and then add them to the library.

Invite families to share the types of writing activities their children engage in at home. Encourage parents to establish routines that include writing lists, messages, stories, and letters.

Give families postcards to mail to friends in other states and countries. Have them ask their friends to mail a reply to the preschool class. Create a display of the return messages and postcards.

Teachers play an important role in promoting emergent writing development by scaffolding writing activities that engage young children in building their conceptual, procedural, and generative knowledge. Writing can easily be embedded in daily routines as children write their names, engage in learning centers, practice writing for a purpose based on teacher and peer models, and contribute to group writing activities. Be intentional during interactions with children and incorporate best practices. Promote the development of emergent writing-and emergent literacy-by implementing purposeful strategies that encourage writing in the classroom and at home. Teachers who provide young children with a diverse array of early writing experiences lay the foundation for kindergarten readiness.

Authors' note: A special thanks to all of the teachers who participated in the Striving Readers Literacy Program and shared their literacy ideas. Thanks to Barbara Berrios for sharing the Chester Bear idea.

References

Both-de Vries, A.C., & A.G. Bus. 2008. "Name Writing: A First Step to Phonetic Writing? Does the Name Have a Special Role in Understanding the Symbolic Function of Writing?" Literacy Teaching and Learning 12 (2): 37-55.

Cabell, S.Q., L.M. Justice, T.A. Zucker, & A.S. McGinty. 2009. "Emergent Name-Writing Abilities of Preschool-Age Children with Language Impairment." Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 40 (1): 53-66.

Dennis, L.R., & N.K. Votteler. 2013. "Preschool Teachers and Children's Emergent Writing: Supporting Diverse Learners." Early Childhood Education Journal 41 (6): 439-46.

Drouin, M., & J. Harmon. 2009. "Name Writing and Letter Knowledge in Preschoolers: Incongruities in Skills and the Usefulness of Name Writing as a Developmental Indicator." Early Childhood Research Quarterly 24 (3): 263-70.

Gerde, H.K., G.E. Bingham, & B.A. Wasik. 2012. "Writing in Early Childhood Classrooms: Guidance for Best Practices." Early Childhood Education Journal 40 (6): 351-59.

Hall, A.H., A. Simpson, Y. Guo, & S. Wang. 2015. "Examining the Effects of Preschool Writing Instruction on Emergent Literacy Skills: A Systematic Review of the Literature." Literacy Research and Instruction 54 (2): 115-34.

Mayer, K. 2007. "Emerging Knowledge about Emergent Writing." Young Children 62 (1): 34-41.

National Center for Family Literacy. 2008. Developing Early Literacy: A Scientific Synthesis of Early Literacy Development and Implications for Intervention. Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Washington, DC: National Institute for Literacy.

Neumann, M.M., M. Hood, & R.M. Ford. 2013. "Using Environmental Print to Enhance Emergent Literacy and Print Motivation." Reading and Writing 26 (5): 771-93.

Ouellette, G., & M. Sénéchal. 2017. "Invented Spelling in Kindergarten as a Predictor of Reading and Spelling in Grade 1: A New Pathway to Literacy, or Just the Same Road, Less Known?" Developmental Psychology 53 (1): 77-88.

Pelatti, C.Y., S.B. Piasta, L.M. Justice, & A. O'Connell. 2014. "Language- and Literacy-Learning Opportunities in Early Childhood Classrooms: Children's Typical Experiences and Within-Classroom Variability." Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29 (4): 445-56.

Pool, J.L., & D.R. Carter. 2011. "Creating Print-Rich Learning Centers." Teaching Young Children 4 (4): 18-20.

Puranik, C.S., & C.J. Lonigan. 2012. "Name-Writing Proficiency, Not Length of Name, Is Associated with Preschool Children's Emergent Literacy Skills." Early Childhood Research Quarterly 27 (2): 284-94.

Puranik, C.S., & C.J. Lonigan. 2014. "Emergent Writing in Preschoolers: Preliminary Evidence for a Theoretical Framework." Reading Research Quarterly 49 (4): 453-67.

Rowe, D.W., & C. Neitzel. 2010. "Interest and Agency in 2- and 3-Year-Olds' Participation in Emergent Writing." Reading Research Quarterly 45 (2): 169-95.

Schickedanz, J.A., & R.M. Casbergue. 2009. Writing in Preschool: Learning to Orchestrate Meaning and Marks. 2nd ed. Preschool Literacy Collection. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Vygotsky, L.S. 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Ed. & trans. M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman. Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wu, L.Y. 2009. "Children's Graphical Representations and Emergent Writing: Evidence from Children's Drawings." Early Child Development and Care 179 (1): 69-79.

Photographs: pp. 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, courtesy of the authors; p. 74, © iStock

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Emergent writing skills, such as the development of namewriting proficiency, are important predictors of children's future reading and writing skills.

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The 49th Shelf is a Canadian Literature database that allows its users to find fiction and nonfiction titles and book lists based on genre, themes and more. It is a useful platform to learn about the Canadian literature available based on your and your children’s interests.

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Book Picks and News Most Anticipated: Our Fall 2020 Books for Young Readers Preview Kid Sterling: Books on Jazz and Justice Ann Eriksson Launches BIRD'S EYE VIEW Notes from a Children's Librarian: Bird Books Launchpad: Grandmother School, by Rina Singh and Ellen Rooney Notes from a Children's Librarian: What I

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“The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) reviews the existing research on different programs, products, practices, and policies in education. Our goal is to provide educators with the information they need to make evidence-based decisions. We focus on the results from high-quality research to answer the question “What works in education?”

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As an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) was created in 2002 to be a central and trusted source of scientific evidence for what works in education.

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The Journal of Classroom Research in Literacy (JCRL) is an online, peer-reviewed journal that highlights research conducted by teacher candidates and teachers. JCRL provides a forum for educators to work through ambiguities and complexities as they conduct action research and then reflect upon and write about their findings. Teachers who read the research use this shared knowledge to conduct research and address challenges in their own classrooms. This online journal features classroom-based research and honours the perspectives of teacher-researchers. It creates bridges between theory and practice for those who write the articles and for those who read them. Journal articles are written and reviewed by teacher candidates and teachers.

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The Journal of Classroom Research in Literacy (JCRL) is an online, peer-reviewed journal that highlights research conducted by teacher candidates and teachers. JCRL provides a forum for educators to work through ambiguities and complexities as they conduct action research and then reflect upon and write about their findings. Teachers who read the research use this shared knowledge to conduct research and address challenges in their own classrooms. This online journal features classroom-based research and honours the perspectives of teacher-researchers. It creates bridges between theory and practice for those who write the articles and for those who read them. Journal articles are written and reviewed by teacher candidates and teachers.

OUR MISSION
* To showcase the research conducted by school-based educators, and
* To encourage teacher candidates and teachers to conduct classroom-based research and disseminate the results through the online journal.

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Journal of Classroom Research in Literacy

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The Journal of Classroom Research in Literacy (JCRL) is an online, peer-reviewed journal that highlights research conducted by teacher candidates and teachers. JCRL provides a forum for educators to work through ambiguities and complexities as they conduct action research and then reflect upon and write about their findings.

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This is the collective response the group who set up this padlet (see intro text above) composed for the ON Human Rights Commission's request for consultation on the Right to Read Inquiry.

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Response to ON Human Rights Commissions Right to Read Inquiry

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ILA has just published a special online issue of Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ) devoted to the topic of the science of reading. It contains 26 articles, authored by 77 researchers, that span a wide range of research perspectives and methodologies. A second special online issue on the same topic will release in the spring.

As Amanda Goodwin and Robert Jiménez of Vanderbilt University, the RRQ editors, explain in their executive summary, “the goal of this issue is to highlight how bridging of perspectives via accurate and meaningful information can move us forward.” They go on to observe that “we [know] much more than was coming out in the discussions taking place. In other words, the science of reading is much broader than what was being used to inform theory, research, policy, and practice.” To see the article lineup, browse the abstracts, and read the executive summary, use this link.

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Resources and research that offer insight into how to implement what science tells us about how we learn to read.

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This synthesis of research raises questions about the exclusivity of systematic phonics as an effective approach to teaching reading.

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"Having considered a wide range of evidence, the review has concluded that the case for systematic phonic work is overwhelming ..." (Rose 2006, p. 20).

It will be clear from our review so far that there is strong scientific consensus on the effectiveness of systematic phonics instruction during the initial periods of reading instruction.

Structure of Paper

The remainder of the paper is organized in three main sections. First, I review the most common methods of reading instruction. There are some points of overlap between the alternative methods, but a commitment to systematic phonics entails some specific claims about what constitutes effective early reading instruction. Second, I explore the experimental evidence taken to support of systematic phonics by providing a detailed and exhaustive review of all meta-analyses that have assessed the efficacy of systematic phonics. The conclusion from this review is simple: There is little or no evidence that systematic phonics is better than the most common alternative methods used in schools. The problem is that (a) the findings are often mischaracterized by the authors of the reports, and these mischaracterizations are passed on and exaggerated by many others citing the work and (b) that the designs of the meta-analyses often do not even test the hypothesis that systematic phonics is more effective than whole language and other common methods. Third, I review the outcomes of a large naturalist experiment, namely, the impact of requiring systematic phonics in all English state schools since 2007. Again, the findings provide little or no evidence that systematic phonics has improved reading. Together, this should motivate researchers to consider alternative teaching methods.

What Is Systematic Phonics and What Are the Common Alternatives?

All forms of reading instruction are motivated by one or more of the following facts: (1) Written words have pronunciations; (2) written words have a meaning; (3) words are composed of parts, including letters and morphemes; (4) written words tend to occur in meaningful text; and (5) the ultimate goal of reading is to extract meaning from text. Different forms of instruction emphasize some of these points and downplay or ignore others, but there is nevertheless some overlap between different methods, and this complicates the task of comparing methods. For example, whole language instruction focuses on understanding words in the context of text, but it also includes some degree of phonics (e.g., Moats 2000; NPR, 2000), and this has implications for how the meta-analyses described below can be interpreted. A further complication is that it is widely claimed that systematic phonics should be embedded in a broader literacy curriculum. For instance, the NRP (2000) emphasizes that systematic phonics should be integrated with other forms of instruction, including phonemic awareness, fluency, and comprehension strategies, and again, this makes it more difficult to make claims regarding systematic phonics per se. Because of these complexities, it is important to review systematic phonics and its relation to alternative methods in some detail so that the claims regarding the importance of systematic phonics can be evaluated.

As noted above, systematic phonics explicitly teaches children grapheme-phoneme correspondences prior to emphasizing the meanings of written words in text (as in whole language or balanced literacy instruction) or the meaning of written words in isolation (as in morphological instruction). That is, systematic phonics is committed to the "phonology first" hypothesis (Bowers and Bowers 2018a). It is called systematic because it teaches grapheme-phoneme correspondences in an organized sequence as opposed to incidentally or on a "when-needed" basis. Several versions of systematic phonics exist (most notably synthetic and analytic), but they all adopt the phonology first hypothesis.

The main alternative to phonics is whole language that primarily focuses on the meaning of words presented in text. Teachers are expected to provide a literacy-rich environment for their students and to combine speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Students are taught to use critical thinking strategies and to use context to guess words that they do not recognize. Importantly, whole language typically includes some phonics, but the phonics instruction is not systematically taught (e.g., children are taught to sound out words when they cannot guess the word from context). For example, the authors of the NRP (2000) report write

Whole language teachers typically provide some instruction in phonics, usually as part of invented spelling activities or through the use of graphophonemic prompts during reading (Routman, 1996). However, their approach is to teach it unsystematically and incidentally in context as the need arises. The whole language approach regards letter-sound correspondences, referred to as graphophonemics, as just one of three cueing systems (the others being semantic/meaning cues and syntactic/language cues) that are used to read and write text. Whole language teachers believe that phonics instruction should be integrated into meaningful reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities and taught incidentally when they perceive it is needed. As children attempt to use written language for communication, they will discover naturally that they need to know about letter-sound relationships and how letters function in reading and writing. When this need becomes evident, teachers are expected to respond by providing the instruction.

The fact that whole language (and related methods) includes nonsystematic phonics turns out to be critical to the evaluations of the meta-analyses that follow.

Another approach to reading instruction called balanced literacy is designed to combine whole language with its focus on reading for meaning with systematic phonics. However, it is often claimed that balanced literacy is effectively just another name for whole language given that the phonics in balanced literacy is not taught first, not given enough emphasis, nor is it taught systematically (e.g., Moats 2000).

Another teaching method is called whole word or sight word training in which children are taught to identify individual words (out of context) without breaking down the words into phonemes or other sublexical parts. For instance, in order to improve word naming, children might be given a list of written words and then one of the words is read aloud. The child's task is to select the corresponding written word, with the goal of improving their ability to read the word later (McArthur et al. 2013, 2015). Similarly, the look-say-cover-write method is commonly used in whole word instruction to teach children the spelling of words. In this method, a child looks at a word, reads it aloud, covers the word up, and then attempts to spell the word (for review, see Browder and Xin 1998). Although whole word and whole language methods are different in many ways (most notably in whether some or no phonics is included), the two methods are often treated equivalently in the meta-analyses described below, and this has important implications for how the meta-analyses can be interpreted.

Morphological instruction, like whole language or balanced instruction, emphasizes the importance of attaching meaning to words, but it also teaches children to break down words into their meaningful parts (prefixes, bases, and suffixes). For review of this method, see Carlisle ( 2000). Related to this, structured word inquiry (SWI) teaches children the interrelation between all the sublexical components of written words (phonology, morphology, and etymology) in order to make sense of word spellings with the aim of improving all aspects of literacy, including reading, spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension (Bowers and Kirby 2010). Like systematic phonics, this approach explicitly teaches children the mappings between graphemes and phonemes, but children are taught how these mappings are organized within morphemes from the start (Bowers and Bowers 2017, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c).

The overlap between methods and the claim that systematic phonics should be embedded with other methods makes the task of assessing the efficacy of systematic phonics per se more difficult. Nevertheless, proponents of systematic phonics are committed to two specific claims about what does and does not constitute good instruction, meaning that this approach can be evaluated.

First, it is claimed that systematic phonics should be taught before meaning-based approaches that focus on the meaning of written words in the context of sentences or focus on the meaningful sublexical structure of words (e.g., morphological instruction). For example, Castles, Rastle, and Nation ( 2018) write

...morphological instruction... may detract from vital time spent learning spelling-sound relationships. Instead, we would predict that the benefits of explicit morphological instruction are more likely to be observed somewhat later in reading development...

The claim that grapheme-phoneme correspondences should be taught prior to any morphological instruction is widespread (e.g., Adams 1994; Ehri and McCormick 1998; Henry 1989; Larkin and Snowling 2008; Taylor et al. 2017).

Second, it is claimed that grapheme-phoneme correspondences should be taught systematically (as the name suggests). That is, there should be a program of instruction in which all the relevant grapheme-phoneme mappings are taught explicitly in an ordered manner. This is not possible when teaching the grapheme-phoneme correspondences of words embedded in meaningful texts as typical with whole language (given that order of grapheme-phonemes in meaningful texts is too variable). The main justification for systematic phonics is empirical, namely, the widespread claim that studies support systematic phonics over alternative methods, as summarized in multiple meta-analyses detailed below.

To summarize, there are a number of different forms of reading instruction, some of which emphasize letter-sound mappings before other properties of words (e.g., systematic phonics), others that emphasize meaning from the start (e.g., whole language), and others that claim that the phonology and meaning of word spellings should be the focus of instruction from the beginning (structured word inquiry). There is no disagreement that reading instruction needs to ultimately incorporate both meaning and phonology, but the widespread consensus in the research community is that instruction needs to systematically teach children the grapheme-phoneme correspondences before meaning-based strategies are emphasized. Accordingly, almost all researchers today claim that systematic phonics is better than whole language, balanced literacy, and all forms of instruction that consider morphology from the beginning. The evidence for this claim is considered below and found wanting.

A Critical Examination of the Meta-Analyses Taken to Support Systematic Phonics

A total of 12 meta-analyses have assessed the efficacy of systematic phonics for individuals of different ages and abilities. In most cases (although not all), the meta-analyses are taken to support the conclusion that systematic phonics is an essential component of initial reading instruction and more effective than common alternatives such as whole language. As detailed below, this conclusion is not justified by any of the meta-analyses. The results have been mischaracterized by the authors themselves (summarizing the results in ways that mislead the reader), and in most cases, the design of the meta-analyses was not even designed to test the conclusions that were drawn by the authors.

National Reading Panel (2000) and Ehri et al. (2001) Meta-Analyses

The seminal report most often taken to support the efficacy of systematic phonics compared with alternative methods was a government document produced by the National Reading Panel (NRP, 2000), with the findings later published in peer review form (Ehri et al. 2001). The authors carried out the first meta-analysis evaluating the effects of systematic phonics compared with forms of instruction that include unsystematic or no phonics across a range of reading measures, including word naming, nonword naming, and text comprehension tasks. The meta-analysis included 66 treatment-control comparisons taken from 38 experiments, and the main findings can be seen in Table 1. Based on these findings, Ehri et al. ( 2001) concluded in the abstract:

"Systematic phonics instruction helped children learn to read better than all forms of control group instruction, including whole language. In sum, systematic phonics instruction proved effective and should be implemented as part of literacy programs to teach beginning reading as well as to prevent and remediate reading difficulties."

The NRP report has been cited over 24,000 times and continues to be used in support of systematic phonics, with over 1000 citations in 2019. In addition, the Ehri et al. ( 2001) article has been cited over 1000 times. However, a careful look at the results undermines these strong conclusions.

Table 1 Summary of findings

The most important limitation is that systematic phonics did not help children labeled "low achieving" poor readers ( d = 0.15, not significant). These were children above first grade who were below average readers and whose cognitive level was below average or not assessed. By contrast, children labeled "reading disabled" who were below grade level in reading but at least average cognitively and were above first grade in most cases did benefit ( d = 0.32). Note, by definition, half the population of children above grade 1 will have an IQ below average, and it is likely that more than 50% of struggling readers above grade 1 will fall into this category given the comorbidity of developmental disorders (Gooch et al. 2014). Of course, additional research may show that systematic phonics does benefit low achieving poor readers (the NRP only included eight comparison groups in this condition), but there is no evidence for this from the NRP meta-analysis.

Second, based on the finding that effect sizes were greater when phonics instruction began by first grade ( d = 0.55) rather than after first grade ( d = 0.27), the authors of the NRP wrote in the executive summary "Phonics instruction taught early proved much more effective than phonics instruction introduced after first grade" (pp. 2-93). But in the body of the text, it becomes clear that findings do not support this strong conclusion. One problem is that the majority of older students (78%) in the various studies included in the NRP analysis were either low achieving readers or students with reading disability, and as noted above, systematic phonics was less effective with both these populations (especially the former group). With regard to the normally developing older readers, the NRP meta-analysis only included seven comparison groups, and four of them used the Orton-Gillingham method that was developed for younger students. As noted by Ehri et al. ( 2001):

"The conclusion that phonics instruction is less effective when introduced beyond first grade may be premature... Other types of phonics programs might prove more effective for older readers without any reading problems." (p. 428)

This is straightforwardly at odds with the above executive summary and explains why so many authors cite the NRP as providing evidence that early phonics instruction is important.

Third, although the authors of the NRP emphasized that the systematic phonics had long-term impact, the effect size declined from d = 0.41 when children were tested immediately following the intervention to d = 0.27 following a 4 to 12-month delay. However, the authors did not assess whether the long-term benefits extended to spelling, reading texts, or reading comprehension. Given that the short-term effects on spelling, reading texts, or reading comprehension was much reduced compared with the overall short-term effect (Table 1), there is no reason to assume these effects persisted.

Fourth, the evidence that that systematic phonics is more effective than whole language is weaker still. This claim is not based on the overall effect size of d = 0.41, but rather, on a subanalysis that specifically compared systematic phonics to whole language. This analysis was based on 12 rather than 38 studies, and not one of these 12 studies used a randomized control trial (RCT) design. This analysis showed a reduced overall effect of d = 0.31 (still significant), with the largest effect obtained for decoding (mean of the reported effect sizes was d = 0.55) and smallest effect on comprehension (mean of the reported effect sizes was d = 0.19), with only two studies assessing performance following a delay. And although the NRP is often taken to support the efficacy of synthetic systematic phonics (the version of phonics legally mandated in the UK), the NRP meta-analysis only included four studies relevant for this comparison (of 12 studies that compared systematic phonics with whole language, only four assessed synthetic phonics). The effect sizes in order of magnitude were d = 0.91 and d = 0.12 in two studies that assessed grade 1 and 2 students, respectively (Foorman et al. 1998); d = 0.07 in a study that asses grade 1 students (Traweek & Berninger, 1997); and d = − 0.47 in a study carried out on grade 2 students (Wilson & Norman, 1998).

In sum, rather than the strong conclusions emphasized the executive summary of the NRP ( 2000) and the abstract of Ehri et al. ( 2001), the appropriate conclusion from this meta-analysis should be something like this:

Systematic phonics provides a small short-term benefit to spelling, reading text, and comprehension, with no evidence that these effects persist following a delay of 4-12 months (the effects were not reported nor assessed). It is unclear whether there is an advantage of introducing phonics early, and there are no short- or long-term benefit for majority of struggling readers above grade 1 (children with below average intelligence). Systematic phonics did provide a moderate short-term benefit to regular word and pseudoword naming, with overall benefits significant but reduced by a third following 4-12 months.

And even these weak conclusions in support of systematic phonics are not justified given subsequent work by Camilli et al. ( 2003, 2006) and Torgerson et al. ( 2006) who reanalyzed the studies (or a subset of studies) included in the NRP, as described next.

Camilli et al. (2003, 2006)

Camilli et al. ( 2003) identified a number of flaws in the NRP meta-analysis, but here I emphasize one, namely, it was not designed to assess whether there is any benefit in teaching phonics systematically. Similar design choices were made by all subsequent meta-analyses taken to support systematic phonics, and this has led to unwarranted conclusions from these meta-analyses as I detail below.

As noted above, the headline figure from the NRP analysis is that systematic phonics showed an overall immediate effect size of d = 0.41. What needs to be emphasized is that this figure is the product of comparing systematic phonics with a heterogeneous control condition that included (1) intervention studies that used unsystematic phonics and (2) intervention studies that used no phonics. As elementary point of logic, if you compare systematic phonics to a mixture of different methods, some of which use unsystematic phonics and other that use no phonics, then it is not possible to conclude that systematic phonics is more effective than unsystematic phonics. In order to assess whether the "systematic" in systematic phonics is important, it is necessary to compare systematic phonics to studies that included unsystematic phonics, something that the NRP ( 2000) did not do.

The reason why this is important is that unsystematic phonics is standard in common alternatives to systematic phonics. Indeed, in addition to the widespread use of unsystematic phonics in the USA prior to the NPR ( 2000) report (as shown above in a quote from NRP), Her Majesty's Inspectorate ( 1990) reported that unsystematic phonics was also common in the UK prior to the legal requirement to teach systematic synthetic phonics in England in 2007, writing

"...phonic skills were taught almost universally and usually to beneficial effect" (p. 2) and that "Successful teachers of reading and the majority of schools used a mix of methods each reinforcing the other as the children's reading developed" (p. 15).

Accordingly, the important question is whether systematic phonics is more effective than the unsystematic phonics that is used in alternative teaching methods.

In order to assess the importance of teaching phonics systematically, Camilli et al. ( 2003, 2006) coded the studies included in the NRP as having no phonics, unsystematic phonics, or systematic phonics. In addition, the authors also noted that some moderator variables were ignored by the NRP analysis that may have contributed to the outcomes. Accordingly, the authors also coded whether or not the intervention studies included language-based reading activities such as shared writing, shared reading, or guided reading, whether treatments were carried out in the regular class or involved tutoring outside the class, and whether basal readers were used (if known). Both the experimental and control groups were coded with regard to these moderator variables. It should also be noted that the Camilli et al. ( 2003, 2006) analyses were carried out on a slightly modified dataset given problems with some of the studies and conditions included in the NRP report. For example, the authors dropped one study (Vickery et al., 1987) that did not include a control condition (an exclusion condition according to the NRP) and included three studies that were incorrectly excluded (the studies did fulfill the NRP inclusion criterion), resulting in a total of 40 rather than 38 studies. The interested reader can find out more details regarding the slightly modified dataset in Camilli et al. ( 2003), but in any case, the different datasets produce the same outcome as discussed below.

The Camilli et al. ( 2003) analysis showed that effect size of systematic phonics compared with nonsystematic phonics was significant, but roughly half the size of the effect of systematic phonics reported in the NRP report ( d = 0.24 vs. d = 0.41). Interesting, the analysis also found significant and numerically larger effects of systematic language activities ( d = 0.29) and tutoring ( d = 0.40). The subsequent analysis by Camilli et al. ( 2006) was carried out on the same dataset but used a new method of analysis (a multilevel modeling approach) and included three rather than two levels of language-based reading activities as a moderator variable (none vs., some, vs. high levels of language-based activities). This analysis revealed an even smaller effect of systematic phonics ( d = 0.12) that was no longer significant. Camilli et al. ( 2006) took these findings to challenge the strong conclusion drawn by the authors of the NRP.

These analyses were subsequently supported by Stuebing et al. ( 2008) who reanalyzed the Camilli et al. ( 2003, 2006) dataset and showed that the different outcomes were not the consequence of the slightly different studies included in the Camilli and the NPR meta-analyses. However, Stuebing et al. ( 2008) drew a different conclusion, writing

The NRP question is analogous to asking about the value of receiving the intervention versus not receiving the intervention. The Camilli et al. ( 2003) report is analogous to asking what is the value of receiving a strong form of the intervention compared to a receiving weaker forms of the intervention and relative to factors that moderate the outcomes. From our view, both questions are reasonable for intervention studies.

But the two questions are not equally relevant to teaching policy. The relevant question is whether systematic phonics is better than preexisting practices. Given that unsystematic phonics was standard practice, and given the Camilli et al. ( 2006) analysis failed to show an advantage of systematic over unsystematic phonics, Camilli et al. analysis challenges the main conclusion that schools should introduce systematic phonics.

To avoid any conclusion, it is important to highlight that the Camilli et al. ( 2006) reanalysis of the NRP dataset does not suggest that grapheme-phoneme knowledge is unimportant. Indeed, their reanalysis suggests that systematic phonics is significantly better than a nonphonics control condition. Rather, their key finding is that systematic phonics was no better than nonsystematic phonics as commonly used in schools.

Torgerson et al. (2006)

The Torgerson et al. ( 2006) meta-analysis was primarily motivated by another key limitation of the NRP report not touched on thus far, namely, the fact that the NRP included studies that employed both randomized and nonrandomized designs. Given the methodological problems with nonrandomized studies, Torgerson et al. ( 2006) carried out a new meta-analysis that was limited to randomized control trials (RCTs). But it is worth noting two additional limitations of the NRP report that motivated this analysis.

First, the authors were concerned that bias played a role in 13 RCT studies included in the original NRP report given that the NRP report only considered published studies (studies that obtained null effects may have been more difficult to publish). Indeed, the authors carried out a funnel plot analysis on these 13 studies and concluded that the results provided: "...prima facie evidence for publication bias, since it seems highly unlikely that no RCT has ever returned a null or negative result in this field." Accordingly, Torgerson et al. ( 2006) searched for unpublished studies that met their inclusion criteria. They found one additional study that reported an effect size of − 0.17 that they included in their analyses. Note that this bias would have inflated the small effects reported in the NRP ( 2000) and the Camilli et al. ( 2003, 2006) meta-analyses. Second, Torgerson et al. removed two studies that should have been excluded from the NRP analyses (Gittelman and Feingold 1983, because it did not include a phonics instruction intervention group; Manzticopoulos et al., 1992, because the children in the control condition did not receive a reading intervention, and the attrition rate of the studies was extreme, with 437 children randomized and only 168 children tested). This led to 12 studies that compared systematic phonics to a control condition that included unsystematic phonics or no phonics instruction control. The key positive result was with regard to word reading accuracy with an effect size estimated to between 0.27 and 0.38 (depending on assumptions built into the analyses). By contrast, no significant effects were obtained for comprehension ( d estimates ranging between 0.24 and 0.35), or spelling ( d = 0.09).

There are, however, reasons to question the significant word reading accuracy results. This result was largely due to one outlier study (Umbach et al. 1989) that obtained a massive effect on word reading accuracy ( d = 2.69).1 In this study, the control group was taught by two regular teachers with help from two university supervised practicum students, whereas the experimental group was taught by four Masters' degree students who were participating in a practicum at a nearby university. Accordingly, there is a clear confound in the design of the study. Torgerson et al. themselves reanalyzed the results when this study was excluded and found that the word reading accuracy result was reduced ( d estimates between 0.20 and 0.21) with the effect just reaching significance one analysis ( p = 0.03) and nonsignificant on another ( p = 0.09). For summary of findings, see Table 1. And even these findings likely overestimate the efficacy of systematic phonics given the evidence that bias may have inflated the estimate of effect sizes in this study. As Torgerson et al. wrote

In addition, the strong possibility of publication bias affecting the results cannot be excluded. This is based on results of the funnel plot... It seems clear that a cautious approach is justified (p. 48).

The conclusions one can draw are further weakened by the quality of the studies included in the meta-analysis, with the authors writing

...none of the 14 trials reported method of random allocation or sample size justification, and only two reported blinded assessment of outcome... all were lacking in their reporting of some issues that are important for methodological rigor. Quality of reporting is a good but not perfect indicator of design quality. Therefore due to the limitations in the quality of reporting the overall quality of the trials was judged to be "variable" but limited.

Nevertheless, despite all the above issues, the authors concluded

Systematic phonics instruction within a broad literacy curriculum appears to have a greater effect on childrens progress in reading than whole language or whole word approaches. The effect size is moderate but still important.

This quote not only greatly exaggerates the strength of the findings (which helps explain why the meta-analysis has been cited over 250 times in support of systematic phonics), but it again reveals a misunderstanding regarding the conclusions one can draw from the design of the meta-analysis. The study continued to use the design of the NRP ( 2000) meta-analysis that compared systematic phonics to a control condition that combined (1) nonsystematic phonics and (2) no phonics. Accordingly, it is not possible to conclude that systematic phonics is more effective than whole word instruction that uses unsystematic phonics. That would require a direct comparison between conditions that was not carried out.

To summarize thus far, a careful review of the NPR ( 2000) findings show that that the benefits of systematic phonics for reading text, spelling, and comprehension are weak and short-lived, with reduced or no benefits for struggling readers beyond grade 1. The subsequent Camilli et al. ( 2003, 2006) and Torgerson et al. ( 2006) reanalyses further weakens these conclusions. Indeed, Camilli et al. ( 2006) found no overall benefit of systematic phonics over nonsystematic phonics, and Torgerson et al. ( 2006) did not find any benefit of systematic phonics in the subset of RCT studies included in the NRP for word reading accuracy, comprehension, or spelling (when one outlier study was excluded). The null effects in the Torgerson et al. ( 2006) meta-analysis were obtained despite evidence for publication bias and flawed design that combined unsystematic and no phonics studies into a control condition (with both of these factors serving to inflate the benefits of systematic phonics).

McArthur et al. (2012)

This meta-analysis was designed to assess the efficacy of systematic phonics with children, adolescents, and adults with reading difficulties. The authors included studies that use randomization, quasi-randomization, or minimization (that minimizes differences between groups for one or more factors) to assign participants to either a systematic phonics intervention group or a control group that received no training or alternative training that did not involve any reading activity (e.g., math training). That is, the control group received no phonics at all. Based on these criteria, the authors identified 11 studies that assessed a range of reading outcomes, although some outcome measures were only assessed in a few studies. Critically, the authors found a significant effect of word reading accuracy ( d = 0.47, p = 0.03) and nonword reading accuracy ( d = 0.76, p < 0.01), whereas no significant effects were obtained in word reading fluency ( d = − 0.51; expected direction), reading comprehension ( d = 0.14), spelling ( d = 0.36), and nonword reading fluency ( d  = 0.38, the unexpected direction). Based on the results, the authors concluded that systematic phonics improved performance, but they were also cautious in their conclusion, writing

...there is a widely held belief that phonics training is the best way to treat poor reading. Given this belief, we were surprised to find that of 6632 records, we found only 11 studies that examined the effect of a relatively pure phonics training programme in poor readers. While the outcomes of these studies generally support the belief in phonics, many more randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are needed before we can be confident about the strength and extent of the effects of phonics training per se in English-speaking poor word readers.

But there are reasons to question even these modest conclusions. One notable feature of the word reading accuracy results is that they were largely driven by two studies (Levy and Lysynchuk 1997; Levy et al. 1999) with effect sizes of d = 1.12 and d = 1.80, respectively. The remaining eight studies that assessed reading word accuracy reported a mean effect size of 0.16 (see Appendix 1.1, page 63). This is problematic given that the children in the Levy studies were trained on one set of words, and then, reading accuracy was assessed on another set of words that shared either onsets or rhymes with the trained items (e.g., a child might have been trained on the word beak and later be tested on the word peak; the stimuli were not presented in either paper). Accordingly, the large benefits observed in the phonics conditions compared with a nontrained control group only shows that training generalized to highly similar words rather than word reading accuracy more generally (the claim of the meta-analysis). In addition, both Levy et al. studies taught systematic phonics using one-on-one tutoring. Although McArthur et al. reported that group size did not have an overall impact on performance, one-on-one training studies with a tutor showed an average effect size of d = 0.93 (over three studies). Accordingly, the large effect size for word reading accuracy may be more the product of one-on-one training with a tutor rather than any benefits of phonics per se, consistent with the findings of Camilli et al. ( 2003). In the absence of the two studies by levy and colleagues, there is no evidence from the McArthur et al. ( 2012) meta-analysis that systematic phonics condition improved word reading accuracy, word reading fluency, reading comprehension, spelling, or nonword reading fluency, leaving only a benefit for nonword reading accuracy.

But even putting these concerns aside, the most important point to note is that this meta-analysis compared systematic phonics to no extra training at all, or to training on nonreading tasks. Accordingly, it is not appropriate to attribute any benefits to systematic phonics. Any form of extra instruction may have mediated the (extremely limited) gains. So once again, this analysis should not be used to make any claims that systematic phonics is better than standard alternative methods, such as whole language that do include unsystematic phonics.

Galuschka et al. (2014)

Galuschka et al. carried out a meta-analysis of randomized controlled studies that focused on children and adolescents with reading difficulties. The authors identified 22 trials with a total of 49 comparisons of experimental and control groups that tested a wide range of interventions, including five trials evaluating reading fluency trainings, three phonemic awareness instructions, three reading comprehension trainings, 29 phonics instructions, three auditory trainings, two medical treatments, and four interventions with colored overlays or lenses. Outcomes were divided into reading and spelling measures.

The authors noted that only phonics produced a significant effect, with an overall effect size of g ′ = 0.32, and concluded

This finding is consistent with those reported in previous meta-analyses... At the current state of knowledge, it is adequate to conclude that the systematic instruction of letter-sound correspondences and decoding strategies, and the application of these skills in reading and writing activities, is the most effective method for improving literacy skills of children and adolescents with reading disabilities

However, there are serious problems with this conclusion. Most notably, the overall effect sizes observed for phonics ( g′ = 0.32) was similar to the outcomes with phonemic awareness instruction ( g′ = 0.28), reading fluency training ( g′ = 0.30), auditory training ( g′ = 0.39), and color overlays ( g′ = 0.32), with only reading comprehension training ( g′ = 0.18) and medical treatment ( g ′ = 0.12) producing numerically reduced effects. The reason significant results were only obtained for phonics is that there were many more phonics interventions. In order to support their conclusion that phonics is more effective, the authors need to show an interaction between the phonics condition and the alternative methods. They did not report this analysis, and given the similar effect sizes across conditions (with small sample sizes), this analysis would not be significant. Of course, future research might support the author conclusion, but this meta-analysis does not support it.

To further compromise the authors' conclusion, Galuschka et al. reported evidence that the published phonics studies were biased using a funnel plot analysis. Using a method called Duval and Tweedie's trim and fill they measured the extent of publication bias and estimated an unbiased effect size for systematic phonics to be greatly reduced, although still significant, g′ = 0.198. And yet again, the design of the meta-analysis did not assess whether systematic phonics was more effective than unsystematic phonics (let alone show that systematic phonics is more effective than the alternative methods they did investigate). Nevertheless, the meta-analysis is frequently cited as evidence in support of systematic phonics over whole language (e.g., Lim and Oei 2015; Treiman 2018; Van der Kleij et al. 2017).

Suggate ( 2010) carried out a meta-analysis to investigate the relative advantages of systematic phonics, phonological awareness, and comprehension-based interventions with children at-risk of reading problems. The central question was whether different forms of interventions were more effective with different age groups of children who varied from preschool to grade 7.

The meta-analysis included peer-reviewed randomized and quasi-experimental studies, with control groups receiving either typical instruction or an alternative "in-house" school reading intervention. They identified 85 studies with 116 interventions: 13 were classified as phonological awareness, 36 as phonics, 37 as comprehension based, and 30 as mixed. Twelve studies were conducted with participants who did not speak English. A range of dependent measures were assessed, from prereading (e.g., letter knowledge, phonemic/sound awareness), reading, and comprehension measures.

Averaging over age, similar overall effects were for phonological awareness ( d = 0.47), phonics ( d = 0.50), meaning based ( d = 0.58), and mixed ( d = 0.43). The critical novel finding, however, was that there was a significant interaction between method of instruction and age of child, such that phonics was most useful in kindergarten for reading measures, but alternative interventions were more effective for older children. As Suggate ( 2010) writes

If reading skills per se are targeted, then there is a clear advantage for phonics interventions early and-taking into account sample sizes and available data-comprehension or mixed interventions later.

However, this is not a safe conclusion. First, the difference in effect size in phonics compared with alternative methods was approximately d = 0.10 in kindergarten and 0.05 in grade 1 (as estimated from Figure 1 in Suggate 2010). This is not a strong basis for arguing the importance of early systematic phonics. It is also important to note that 10% of the studies included in the meta-analysis were carried out on non-English children. Although the overall difference between non-English ( d = 0.61) and English ( d = 0.48) studies was reported as nonsignificant, the difference approached significance ( p = 0.06). Indeed, the phonics intervention that reported the very largest effect size ( d = 1.37) was carried out in Hebrew speakers (Aram & Biron, 2004), and this study contributed to the estimate of the phonics effect size in prekindergarten. Accordingly, the small advantage of phonics (the main novel finding in this report) is inflatedwhen applied to English. And once again, the treatments were compared with a control condition that combined a range of teaching conditions, and accordingly, it is again unclear whether there was a difference between systematic vs. unsystematic phonics during early instruction.

But the most critical limitation is that Suggate's ( 2010) conclusion regarding the benefits of early phonics instruction is contradicted in a subsequent Suggate ( 2016) meta-analysis. This meta-analysis included 71 experimental and quasi-experimental reading interventions that assessed the short- and long-term impacts of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and comprehension interventions on prereading, reading, reading comprehension, and spelling measures. The analysis revealed an overall short-term effect ( d = 0.37) that decreased in a follow-up test ( d = 0.22; with mean delay of 11.17 months) with phonics producing the most short-lived benefits. Specifically, the long-term effects were phonics, d = 0.07; fluency, d = 0.28; comprehension d = 46; and phonemic awareness, d  = 0.36.

As with the other meta-analyses, there are additional issues that should be raised. For example, a funnel plot observed evidence for publication bias, especially in the long-term condition, and once again, the study does not compare systematic to unsystematic phonics. It is striking that long-term benefits of systematic phonics are so small despite these factors that should be expected to inflate effect sizes.

Other Meta-Analyses and a Systematic Review of Meta-Analyses

There are a number of additional relevant meta-analyses and reviews of meta-analyses that should be mentioned briefly as well.

Hammill and Swanson (2006)

These authors took a different approach to Camilli et al. ( 2003, 2006, 2008) in criticizing the NRP ( 2000) report. Rather than challenging the logic and analyses themselves, they noted that the effect sizes reported in the NRP were small and questioned their significance.

The NRP reported that systematic phonics instruction was effective across a variety of conditions, with 94% of the d's supporting the superiority of phonics instruction over other approaches. However, as noted by Hammill and Swanson, the standard convention in evaluating the magnitude of d sizes ( d = 0.2 is small, d = 0.5 medium, and d = 0.9 large) reveals that 65% of the significant d's were small. In order to get a better intuitive understanding of the practical significance of the results, the authors converted all these d's values to r-type statistics. They noted that the overall effect of 0.44 corresponds to an r ² value of 0.04. That is, 96% of the variance in reading achievement can be attributed to factors other than the systematic phonics instruction.2 The r ² value for the follow-up analysis (4-12 months later) was 0.02.

What Hammill and Swanson do not acknowledge, however, is that these small effect sizes translate into real benefits when considering an entire population of children. The real problem is not with the size of the effects; it is that many of the critical contrasts were not significant or not assessed, that the small effects that were significant were inflated for the reasons noted above, and perhaps most importantly, the main meta-analysis did not even test the critical hypothesis of whether systematic phonics is better than unsystematic phonics that is used in alternative methods such as whole language.

Han (2010) and Adesope, Lavin, Tompson, and Ungerleider (2011)

These authors reported meta-analyses that assessed the efficacy of phonics for non-native English speakers learning English. Han ( 2010) included five different intervention conditions and dependent measures and reported the overall effect sizes as 0.33 for phonics, 0.41 for phonemic awareness, 0.38 for fluency, 0.34 for vocabulary, and 0.32 for comprehension. In the case of Adesope et al. ( 2011), the authors found that systematic phonics instruction improved performance ( g = + 0.40), but they also found that an intervention they called collaborative reading produced a larger effect ( g = + 0.48) as did a condition called writing (structured and diary) that produced an effect of g  = + 0.54. Accordingly, ignoring all other potential issues discussed above, these studies do not provide any evidence that phonics is the most effective strategy for reading acquisition.

Sherman (2007)

Sherman compared phonemic awareness and phonics instruction with students in grades 5 through 12 who read significantly below grade-level expectations. Neither method was found to provide a significant benefit.

Torgerson et al. (2018)

Finally, Torgerson et al. carried out a systematic review of all meta-analyses that assessed the efficacy of systematic phonics (unlike the papers discussed above, this is not a meta-analysis itself). They identified 12 meta-analyses, all of which were considered above. The authors raised several concerns regarding design and publication bias of studies included in these meta-analyses and argued that more data (in the form of large randomized controlled studies) are needed before strong conclusions can be made. Nevertheless, the authors still conclude the evidence support systematic phonics, writing

Given the evidence from this tertiary review, what are the implications for teaching, policy and research? It would seem sensible for teaching to include systematic phonics instruction for younger readers - but the evidence is not clear enough to decide which phonics approach is best.

Despite their modest conclusions, the authors are still far too positive regarding the benefits of systematic phonics. In part, this is due to the way the authors summarize the findings they do report. But more importantly it is the consequence of ignoring many of key limitations of the meta-analyses discussed above.

With regard to their own summary of the meta-analyses, they stated that 10 the 12 meta-analyses showed that there were significant benefits of systematic phonics on at least one reading measure, with effect sizes ranging from small to moderate effects (Ehri et al. 2001; Camilli et al. 2003; Torgerson et al. 2006; Sherman 2007; Han 2010; Suggate 2010; Adesope et al. 2011; McArthur et al. 2012; Galuschka et al. 2014; Suggate 2016). Furthermore, they note that positive effects were found in the remaining nonsignificant meta-analyses (Camilli et al. 2006; Hammill and Swanson 2006). They take this to support the conclusion that teaching should include systematic phonics.

One problem with this description of the results is that it does not indicate which measures tended to be significant over the meta-analyses. In fact, as discussed above, most meta-analyses failed to obtain significant effects for the measure we should care about most. For example, only 1 of 12 studies reported significant effects in comprehension, and there is no evidence that this effect survived a delay (NRP 2000). And this characterization of the findings obscures the fact that the benefits did not always extend to the children who are below average in their cognitive capacities (NRP 2000).

This summary also does not highlight the fact that many of 12 meta-analyses observed larger effect sizes for non-phonics interventions. For example, from Table 3 of Torgerson et al. ( 2018), you find out that systematic phonics did not produce the largest effect in 5 of the 12 meta-analyses (Adesope et al. 2011; Camilli et al. 2003; Camilli et al. 2006; Han 2010; Suggate 2016). And this table does not include the Galuschka et al. ( 2014) meta-analysis that reported similar-sized effect sizes for phonics, phonemic awareness instruction, reading fluency training, and auditory training, with the largest numerical effect obtained with color overlays.

In addition, when claiming that 10 of the 12 meta-analyses reported significant benefits of systematic phonics, this included the Suggate ( 2010) meta-analysis that was challenged by a subsequent Suggate ( 2016) meta-analysis that failed to obtain long-term benefits of systematic phonics. Furthermore, the claim that 10 of the 12 meta-analyses reported a significant benefit for systematic phonics does not incorporate a key point highlighted by Torgerson et al. ( 2018) elsewhere in their review, namely, the evidence that publication and method bias have inflated these effect sizes in at least some of these meta-analyses.

The conclusion that systematic phonics is better than alternative methods is further compromised by additional factors not considered by Torgerson et al. ( 2018). As detailed above, there were multiple examples of methodological errors in the meta-analyses (e.g., excluding studies that should have been included given the inclusion criteria; Camilli et al. 2003; and including studies that should have been excluded given the exclusion criteria, Camilli et al. 2003; Torgerson et al. 2006), examples of including flawed studies that strongly biased the findings in support of systematic phonics (e.g., the Umbach et al. 1989; Levy and Lysynchuk 1997, Levy et al. 1999), including non-English studies that biased the results in support of systematic phonics (Suggate 2010), amongst others. These errors consistently biased the estimates of systematic phonics upwards.

Most importantly, however, Torgerson et al. ( 2018) did not address the key point identified by Camilli et al. ( 2003, 2006, 2008) that compromises all meta-analyses used in support of systematic phonics, namely, systematic phonics was compared with a control condition that included both nonsystematic phonics and nonphonics conditions (or only included a nonphonics condition in the case of McArthur et al. 2012). Accordingly, these meta-analyses did not even test the hypothesis that systematic phonics is more effective than unsystematic phonics as used in whole language and other methods. For all these reasons, Torgerson et al.'s are unwarranted in their conclusion that systematic phonics is effective for young children.

Summary of Meta-Analyses

In sum, the above research provides little or no evidence that systematic phonics is better than standard alternative methods used in schools. The findings do not challenge the importance of learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences, but they do undermine the claim that systematic phonics is more effective than alternative methods that include unsystematic phonics (such as whole language) or that teach grapheme-phoneme correspondences along with meaning-based constraints on spellings (morphological instruction or structured word inquiry). There can be few areas in psychology in which the research community so consistently reaches a conclusion that is so at odds with available evidence.

The Systematic Phonics Experiment in England

One possible response to the many null results is to note that many of the studies included in these meta-analyses were flawed. On this view, the null results can be attributed to a limitation of the studies rather than any problems with systematic phonics per se. This is hard to reconcile with the fact that these meta-analyses have been cited thousands of times in support of systematic phonics. Nevertheless, the quality of the studies included in the meta-analyses has been repeatedly questioned (e.g., McArthur et al. 2012; Torgerson et al. 2006, 2018), and accordingly, it is possible that systematic phonics is effective, but the meta-analyses are simply not picking his up. Another possible response is to note that systematic phonics needs to be taught in combination with many other skills, and the fact that phonics by itself does not improve reading outcomes is not surprising. Again, this is hard to reconcile with the claims that are drawn from the meta-analyses, but these concerns raise the question as to whether there are other sources of data that can be used to assess the benefits of systematic phonics when embedded in a broader literacy environment?

There is. In 2006, Sir Jim Rose wrote a UK government report concerned with the teaching of reading in primary schools in England where he concluded that "... the case for systematic phonic work is overwhelming ..." (Rose 2006, p. 20). Although this conclusion is unwarranted (see above), the report led to the legal requirement to teach synthetic systematic phonics in English state schools since 2007. And since 2012, a PSC was introduced in order to encourage better teaching of systematic phonics and to assess how well children decode regular words and pseudowords. Over 650,000 children took the PSC in 2018 alone. This constitutes a massive naturalistic experiment that can be used to assess the efficacy of systematic phonics, and indeed, it is widely claimed that the experiment has been a success with systematic phonics improving literacy. But once again, a careful look into the findings shows that the data do not support this conclusion. I summarize the findings next.

Machin et al.'s (2018) Analysis of Standard Assessment Test Results in England Provides Little or No Evidence in Support of Systematic Phonics

The authors took advantage of the fact that systematic phonics instruction was phased in slowly in different local authorities in England, and accordingly, it was possible to compare how children who were part of the systematic phonics trial compared with children who received standard instruction on various standardized language measures. In 2005, the " Early Reading Development Pilot" (ERDp) that involved 18 local authorities and 172 schools began with each school receiving funding for a dedicated learning consultant who trained teachers in systematic phonics (typically for 1 year). Then in 2006, the " Communication, Language and Literacy Development Programme " (CLLD) that included a further 32 local authorities began, again with each school receiving 1-year funding for a dedicated learning consultant.

In order to assess the immediate efficacy of introducing systematic phonics, scores from the communication, language, and literacy components of foundation stage assessment were collected (when children completed year 1 at age 5). And in order to assess the long-term effects of this intervention, reading scores from SATs key stage 1 (when children were 7 years of age) and reading scores from stage 2 test (when children were 11) were collected. These are standardized tests given to all students in state schools, with teachers providing the assessment in the foundation stage and key stage 1, and the tests externally marked in key stage 2. Various statistical methods were used to control for the differences between the schools included in the trials and those not included, and moderator variables included the impact of language background (native English or not) and economic background (operationalized as children receiving or not receiving a free school lunch).

For the ERDp sample, the authors reported highly significant effect of systematic phonics on the foundation stage assessment immediately after the intervention (0.298), but the effect dissipated on key stage 1 tests (0.075), and was eliminated on the key stage 2 tests (− 0.018). Similarly, with the CLLD treatment, an initially robust effect (0.217) was reduced on the key stage 1 tests (0.017), and then was lost on the key stage 2 tests (0.019). So much like the Suggate ( 2016) meta-analyses, the overall systematic phonics intervention effect did not persist. However, Machin et al. ( 2018) highlighted that the effects did persist in the key stage 2 tests in the CLLD treatment condition for non-native speakers (0.068) and economically disadvantaged children as measured by their receipt of free school meals (0.062), with both effects significant at the p  < 0.05 levels. They took these small effects to show that phonics does provide long-term benefits for children who are in the most need for literacy interventions, writing

Without a doubt it is high enough to justify the fixed cost of a year's intensive training support to teachers. Furthermore, it contributes to closing gaps based on disadvantage and (initial) language proficiency by family background.

However, there are both statistical and methodological problems with using these findings to support the efficacy of systematic phonics. With regard to the statistics, apart from the fact that there were no overall long-term effects in either sample, it is important to note that the ERDp sample of children did not show significant advantage for non-native speakers (.045) or for economically disadvantaged children (.050) on the key stage 2 tests. Indeed, for the ERDp sample, there was a tendency for more economically advantaged native English children (not in receipt of free school meals) to read more poorly in the phonics condition in the key stage 2 test (− 0.061), p  < 0.1. As the authors write: "It is difficult to know what to make of this estimate" (p. 22). Note, the long-term negative outcome economically advantaged native English children in the ERDp sample was of a similar magnitude to the long-term benefits enjoyed non-native speakers (.068) and economically disadvantaged children (.062) in the CLLD treatment condition, and accordingly, is difficult to brush this finding aside.

More importantly, this study did not include the appropriate control condition. The advantages in foundation and key stage 1 were the product of intensive training support in systematic phonics to teachers in year 1, but it is possible that similar outcomes would result if intensive training support was given to teachers in whole language instruction, or any other method. As was the case with most of the above meta-analyses, the conclusion the authors made was not even tested.

The Recent Success of English Children on PIRLS Provides Little or No Evidence for Systematic Phonics

A great deal of attention in the mainstream and social media has been given to the recent success of English children in the "Progress in International Reading Literacy Study" (PIRLS) carried out in 2016. PIRLS assesses reading comprehension in fourth graders across a wide range of countries every 5 years: 35 countries participated in 2001, 38 in 2006, 48 in 2011, and 50 in 2016. Many supporters of systematic phonics have noted how far up the league table England has moved since 2006 given that systematic phonics was mandated in English state schools in 2007, and phonics check was introduced in 2012. Specifically, England was in 15th position in 2006 (with a score of 539), joint 11th position in 2011 (score 552), and joint 8th in 2016 (score 559).

In response to the most recent results, Mr. Gibbs, the Minister of State at the Department for Education, said

The details of these findings are particularly interesting. I hope they ring in the ears of opponents of phonics whose alternative proposals would do so much to damage reading instruction in this country and around the world.

A Department for Education report for the UK (December, 2016) reported

The present PIRLS findings provide additional support for the efficacy of phonics approaches, and in particular, the utility of the phonics check for flagging pupils' potential for lower reading performance in their future schooling.

Sir Jim Rose, author of the Rose ( 2006) report, used "the spectacular success of England shown in the latest PIRLS data" as further evidence in support of systematic synthetic phonics (Rose 2017).

However, once again, these conclusions are unjustified. One important fact ignored in the above story is that English children did well in 2001, ranking third (scoring 553). Of the six countries that completed all the PIRLS tests from the beginning (England, New Zealand, Russian Federation, Singapore, Sweden, and USA), England has gone from second to third position. If the introduction of systematic phonics is used to explain the improved performance from 2006 to 2016, how is the excellent performance in 2001 explained? In addition, the results of the 2016 PIRLS were based on combing the performance of state and private schools (private schools were not required to implement systematic phonics or use the phonics check). When only state schools are considered, performance dropped to 11th (rather than joint 8th), same as the 2011 PIRLS rating (Solity 2018). Note that one of the common criticisms of systematic phonics is that the focus on phonology makes instruction less engaging. The PIRLS 2016 also ranked English children's enjoyment of reading at 34th, the lowest of any English-speaking country (Solity 2018).

It is also interesting to note that Northern Ireland participated in the last two PIRLS, and they did better than England, ranking fifth and sixth in 2011 and 2016, respectively. This is relevant as the reading guidance for key stage 1 published by the "Northern Ireland Education & Library Boards" does not include the words "systematic phonics," nor do children complete a phonics screening check that was introduced in the UK to improve the administration of phonics in English schools. Of course, reading instruction in Northern Ireland does teach children letter-sound correspondences, but this is carried out along with a range of methods that encourage children to encode the meaning of words and passages. For instance, according to the reading guidance for key stage 1, when children encounter an unknown word, various strategies for naming the word are encouraged, including phonics, using knowledge of context (semantics), and using knowledge of grammar (syntax). This is similar to National Literacy Strategy in place in England from 1998 to 2006 that recommended phonics as one of four "searchlights" for learning to read, along with knowledge of context, grammatical knowledge, word recognition and graphic knowledge. If the introduction of systematic phonics is used to explain the strong performance of England in 2016, how is the even better performance of Northern Ireland explained?

A final point worth emphasizing is that the PIRLS test assesses reading comprehension, and as noted above, only 1 of the 12 meta-analyses reported a benefit for comprehension (NRP 2000), and only at a short delay (ignoring the problems of this meta-analysis that question robustness of the short-term effect as well). Attributing any PIRLS gains to phonics is hard to reconcile with existing experimental research.

The Improving Performance on the Phonics Screening Check in England Provides Little or No Evidence that Systematic Phonics Improves Literacy

Since 2012, the UK government has required all children in state schools in England to complete a PSC in year 1 in order "to confirm that all children have learned phonic decoding to an age-appropriate standard" (Department for Education, 2012; p. 4). The phonics screening check is composed of one- and two-syllable real words (e.g., day, grit, shin) and 20 pseudowords that can only be read on the basis of learned grapheme-phoneme correspondences (e.g., fape, blan, geck). Children near the end of year 1 are asked to read the words and pseudowords aloud, with each item marked correct or incorrect. A child who correctly names aloud 32 items (80% of all items) is said the "meet the standard," whereas a child who misses the standard is to be given further support to improve their phonics knowledge (and complete the phonics check again in year 2).

Strikingly, the performance on the task has improved from 58% students meeting the standard in 2012 to 82% in 2018. This is taken to show that the PSC has improved the teaching of systematic phonics, and this in turn has improved decoding skills. The critical question is whether this has translated into better reading.

The obvious way to test whether the improved decoding skills translate to better reading is to compare the PSC results to the SATs carried out at key stages 1 and 2 during the years 2012-2017. These are the same tests analyzed by Machin et al. ( 2018) above (although they analyzed data from before 2012). And in fact, there have been some claims that improved performance on the phonics screening check is associated with improved performance on the SATS. For instance, Buckingham ( 2016) writes

There has also been an improvement in Key Stage 1 (Year 2) reading and writing results since the introduction of the Phonics Screening Check. The proportion of students achieving at or above the target reading level hovered around 85% from 2005 to 2011 but steadily increased to 90% in 2015. There was an even greater improvement in writing in the same period-a seven percentage point increase. (p. 16)

The results of the phonics check and the key stage 1 SAT scores are displayed in Fig. 1.

Results on key stage 1 SAT tests in reading, writing, maths, and science from 2006 to 2018 as well as the results of the phonics screening check from 2012 to 2018. SAT scores to the left of vertical dashed line were achieved without having completed the phonics screening check in year 1, and SAT scores to the right of the vertical dashed lined were achieved after having completed the phonics check in year 1. Accordingly, the improved SAT results on reading and writing between 2011 and 2012 cannot be attributed to the improved administration of phonics

But this characterization of the findings is inconsistent with a report from the Department for Education (Walker, Sainsbury, Worth, Bamforth, & Betts, 2015). The authors analyzed the reading and writing scores for the KS1 for the 2 years preceding and following the introduction of the screening check and concluded:

The evidence offered by these analyses is therefore inconclusive in identifying any impact of the [phonics screening check] on literacy performance at KS1 or on progress in literacy between ages five and seven.

Why the different conclusions? One key point to note is that although the SAT scores did start slowly increasing in 2012 (consistent with Buckingham 2016), it is not possible to attribute these gains to the phonics screening check because these children completed year 1 in 2011, and accordingly, were never given the PSC. As noted by Walker et al. ( 2015):

These analyses of national data therefore indicate small improvements in attainment at KS1, which were a feature before the introduction of the check and continued at a similar pace following the introduction of the check.

In addition, as can be seen from Fig. 1, there is little evidence that SAT scores for reading and writing improved more than SAT scores for maths or science between 2013 and 2015 or between 2016 and 2018.3

Results on key stage 2 SAT tests in reading, writing, maths, and science from 2007 to 2018 as well as the results of the phonics screening check from 2012 to 2018. SAT scores to the left of vertical dashed line were achieved without having completed the phonics screening check in year 1, and SAT scores to the right of the vertical dashed lined were achieved after having completed the phonics check in year 1. The finding that SAT reading results did not improve between 2016 and 2018 indicates that the improved administration of phonics in year 1 (starting in 2012) did not have a long-term impact on the SAT scores

Another important question that can be asked is whether the introduction of the phonics check was associated with improved reading skills at key stage 2 when children were in year 6 (age 11). That is, did the improved teaching of phonics in year 1 (in response to the PSC) have any long-lasting effect on reading outcomes? The results from 2017 provide the first relevant data given that children who completed these key stage 2 SATs were the first to complete the phonics check in 2012 in year 1. As can be seen in Fig. 2, the reading results when slightly down between 2016 and 2017 (while writing results went slightly up), and despite the large gains in the phonics check between 2012 and 2013 (an increase of 11%), there was no corresponding benefit in the reading and writing performance between the 2017-2018 (e.g., the reading results improved 1% whereas the math results improved 2%). These findings show that the decoding skills of children (as measured by the PSC) did not support short- or long-lasting reading improvement as measured by the key stage 1 and 2 SAT results. Note that the fact that the PSC scores have improved so dramatically demonstrates that systematic phonics instruction has improved in recent years in England. The fact that there is such a stark disconnects between PSC and SAT scores undermines the common claim that systematic phonics has improved literacy in England.

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) Results Provide Little or No Evidence that Systematic Phonics Improves Literacy

PISA assesses the scholastic performance of 15-year old students on mathematics, science, and reading. It has been carried out every 3 years since 2000, and critically, the 2018 version is the first to assess the reading outcomes of children in England who were taught systematic phonics in year 1 as legally required post 2007. There is little or no evidence that this cohort of children has benefitted from this new policy as summarized in the PISA 2018 executive summary "The mean scores in reading and science in England have not changed significantly over successive PISA cycles, but in mathematics, England's overall mean score showed a statistically significant increase compared with PISA 2015." It is also worth comparing the English results to other countries that use a range of teaching methods, with none requiring systematic phonics: Canada, Singapore, and Northern Ireland did better, whereas the USA, Australia, and New Zealand did equally well. So again, this challenges the claim that systematic phonics has improved reading outcomes in England.

In summary, despite the widespread claim that children are reading better in England since the mandatory inclusion of systematic phonics in state schools in 2007 and the introduction of the PSC in 2012, there is little or no evidence to support this conclusion. Indeed, the only noticeable change in performance is on the PSC itself, with no discernable effects on reading more generally. This is despite the fact that children in England have received early systematic phonics in the context of a broader literacy environment as recommended by the NRP ( 2000).

Conclusion

Despite the widespread support for systematic phonics within the research literature, there is little or no evidence that this approach is more effective than many of the most common alternative methods used in school, including whole language. This does not mean that learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences is unimportant, but it does mean that there is little or no empirical evidence that systematic phonics leads to better reading outcomes. The "reading wars" that pitted systematic phonics against whole language is best characterized as a draw. The conclusion should not be that we should be satisfied with either systematic phonics or whole language, but rather teachers and researchers should consider alternative methods of reading instruction. For example, one possibility is that reading instruction in English should focus more on the role that meaning plays in organizing spellings (via morphology) and that English spelling system makes sense once the interrelation between phonology, morphology, and etymology are considered (Bowers and Bowers 2017, 2018c). Of course, other possibilities need to be considered as well, but the first step in motivating more research into alternative forms of instruction is to realize that there is a problem with the current approach.

Notes

1. 1.

For some reason, the NRP report estimated the word reading accuracy effect size to be 1.3 whereas Torgerson et al. reported it to be 2.69. Umbach and Darch did not report standardized effect sizes themselves, but reported that the word identification scores from the Woodcock Reading Master subtest were 30.43 and 10.36 in the experimental and control conditions, respectively.

2. 2.

Note, the overall effect size reported in the NRP is estimated as .44 or .41, depending on the specific tests that are included in the analyses.

3. 3.

Note, the tests changed in 2016, and this accounts for the large dip in performance.

References

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School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol, 12a Priory Road, Bristol, BS8-1TU, UK

Jeffrey S. Bowers

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Correspondence to Jeffrey S. Bowers.

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Jeffrey S. Bowers, School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol.

I would like to thank Patricia Bowers, Peter Bowers, Rebecca Marsh, Kathy Rastle, and Gail Venable for comments on previous drafts and Abla Hatherell for help on compiling the data for Figures 1 and 2.

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Reconsidering the Evidence That Systematic Phonics Is More Effective Than Alternative Methods of Reading Instruction

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There is a widespread consensus in the research community that reading instruction in English should first focus on teaching letter (grapheme) to sound (phoneme) correspondences rather than adopt meaning-based reading approaches such as whole language instruction. That is, initial reading instruction should emphasize systematic phonics.

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This article written from the standpoint of the UK argues for an expansive view of early literacy.

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This article by Stephen Krashen looks at reading gains as measured by PIRLS and attempts to understand how they came about.

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Foundational literacy researcher Lucy Calkins enters us into a conversation about who "owns" the term science of reading.

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One of the longest-running education debates - commonly referred to as a war - has been over how to teach reading. It started in the 1800s, when Horace Mann, often called "the father of public education" in the United States, argued against teaching the explicit sounds of each letter. He worried that students would concentrate on sounding out words rather than learning how to read for comprehension, so he argued that students should learn to read whole words instead.

Thus began the fight over teaching phonics or "whole language" - and more recently what is known as "balanced literacy." We've also been hearing declarations that a "science of reading" proves that employing phonics in a particular war is the best and right path to teach young children how to read.

The following post looks at this broad issue and whether there really is a "science of reading" that has finally settled how reading should be taught.

It was written by David Reinking, professor emeritus at Clemson University and a former president of the Literacy Research Association; Victoria J. Risko, professor emerita at Vanderbilt University and a former president of the International Literacy Association; and George G. Hruby, an associate research professor of literacy and executive director of the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development at the University of Kentucky.

By David Reinking, Victoria J. Risko and George G. Hruby

Public debates about how to teach children to read have erupted periodically for decades. We are now in another cycle of those debates. Mainstream news sources are reporting, and in some cases fueling, the latest installment of the "reading wars." More worrisome, a majority of states have enacted, or are considering, new laws mandating how reading must be taught and setting narrow criteria for labeling students as reading disabled.

Since last March, the pandemic, the struggling economy, the movement for racial justice, November's presidential election and the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol have all muted attention to these issues. But they are again gaining traction, and with a new twist.

Parents who have had to take on their children's reading instruction at home are asking more questions and seeking informed advice. Marketers of some instructional materials have taken advantage of the situation offering ready-made, and sometimes overly promised, solutions. So, the debates about early reading instruction have a renewed immediacy.

This latest flare-up taps familiar themes. First, reasonable differences among qualified professionals are framed as a war between opposing factions. Second, phonics, as an approach to teaching reading, is a flash point. Finally, mainstream educators are portrayed as purveyors, or clueless victims, of conspiratorial resistance to scientific evidence. The latter theme is sometimes punctuated with anecdotes from distraught parents who have been led to believe that their children are being betrayed by an unenlightened educational establishment.

The straw man in the new round of the reading wars

These themes make for a compelling journalistic narrative and they can benefit for-profit interests outside mainstream education, particularly during a pandemic when many parents are seeking help teaching reading at home. But, they also obscure established evidence that teaching reading is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Overlooked is the common ground shared by those who draw different conclusions on the finer points of available research.

Phonics is the prime example. Few legitimate experts on teaching reading oppose teaching children phonics. Despite a timeworn narrative, there is no sharply drawn battle line dividing experts who completely support or completely oppose phonics.

Instead, reasonable differences exist along a continuum. On one end are those who see phonics as the foundation of learning to read for all students. To them, phonics - lots of it - is the essential ingredient that insures success for all students learning to read, and it must be mastered before other dimensions of reading are taught.

On the other end are those who see phonics as only one among many dimensions of learning to read - one that gains potency when integrated with meaningfully engaged reading and writing, with vocabulary and language development, with instruction aimed at increasing comprehension and fluency, and so forth. (For an extended discussion, click on this.)

Underlying that continuum is the question of whether a deficiency in phonics is at the root of virtually all reading difficulties, or whether, like many medical conditions (e.g., heart disease), those difficulties have multiple etiologies, including external factors, such as impoverished school resources to support students.

There are also reasonable professional differences about what phonics instruction should look like, how much of it is necessary, for whom, under what circumstances, and how it connects with other aspects of reading. But there is no justification for characterizing these differences as a "reading war" between those who believe in phonics and those who don't.

There are other notable points of agreement. One is that phonics is not real reading. It is aptly referred to as "decoding," because it teaches beginning readers to decipher letters into speech sounds. As such, it is a consciously applied, temporarily useful, set of technical skills that are, at best, a gateway to real reading for meaning, understanding, learning, and enjoyment. Phonics is a means to an end and only useful to the extent that it leads to real reading.

It is relatively easy to find measurable increases in decoding ability after phonics instruction. However, establishing a causal relation between approaches to phonics instruction and gains in real reading has been more elusive. Prominent studies across decades have failed to do so convincingly. One example is a critical review of several meta-analyses (comprehensive statistical analyses of effects across hundreds of studies), which was published recently in a highly regarded, peer-reviewed journal. It found no clear advantage for programs with a strong emphasis on phonics compared to those foregrounding other approaches ( click on this).

It is tempting to misappropriate science in claiming a higher ground in an argument, especially one framed as a war. Unfortunately, some have naively suggested that science has unequivocally resolved how reading must be taught to every child and that those who disagree are science deniers.

Not only is that conclusion unwarranted, it is quintessentially unscientific. Among scientists, scientific certainty is an oxymoron and the bar for even approaching certainty is extremely high. The science of reading is more about reducing ignorance than finding ultimate, immutable truths applicable to every child. In the reading wars, scientific certainty is often used rhetorically to deny reasonable differences and cut off healthy debate, turning science into scientism.

There are also reasonable differences about what scientific findings are most relevant and useful to teaching reading, again along a continuum.

On one end are those who turn mainly to research in disciplines such as neurology, cognitive science, and linguistics; others turn mainly to research focusing on educational factors directly related to instructional outcomes.

In any event, educators need to know more than what works pedagogically across many students in general. They need to know why it works, and what contextual and individual factors may qualify general findings. Such research is analogous to medical trials that determine not just the overall effectiveness of a drug, but its side effects, including those that are dangerous for patients with certain conditions.

Brain researchers and psychologists have cautioned against building bridges too far between their work and educational practice. One, Daniel Willingham, has stated the issue succinctly, "As one gets more distant from the desired level of analysis (the child in the classroom), the probability of learning anything useful diminishes."

Put another way, there is an underlying "science" of everything. For example, chemistry is at the root of cooking, and physics underlies driving a car, but they play a limited role in teaching a chef to prepare palate-pleasing food or a teenager to drive safely to the grocery store.

Likewise, many decisions about teaching reading are necessarily practical and informed only marginally by the science of underlying reading processes. Phonics, again, is a good example. English is among the most irregularly spelled languages. (For a satirical rendering, click on this). Further, the most frequently used words in English - words that appear often, even in simple texts, and thus that children cannot avoid - have a high percentage of ambiguous or irregular letter-to-sound spellings.

For example, why isn't "to" pronounced like "so" and "go"? What about "have" compared to "save," or comparing "one," "done," and "lone"? Or, "some" and "home"? Frequent words like these can quickly muddy the phonics waters.

Thus, many educators reasonably teach a small set of high-frequency, irregularly spelled words as special cases. Doing so is a practical, sensible pedagogical decision, not one that is anti-phonics, taking sides in a war, or, necessarily justified by scientific evidence about the brain's role in reading.

Another issue is that in an irregularly spelled language like English, teaching phonics often means introducing children to specialized vocabulary, including terms and concepts such as the following: vowel, consonant, long and short sounds, split/consonant/vowel digraphs, blends, clusters, schwa sound, diphthongs, silent letters, open/closed syllables, hard and soft sounds, r-controlled vowels, etc. The need for these terms reflects the complexity English spelling, adding a conceptual burden to teaching and learning phonics and raising a question about when phonics instruction may have diminishing returns.

Another issue is dialect. In some areas of the southern United States, for example, there may be little, if any, difference between the pronunciation of the word "wheel" and "will." There are also students who hear, and often may be taught to read, a language other than English at home.

These are only a few examples of the complex issues that popularized narratives about a "reading war" obscure. When the teaching of reading is framed as a war, nuance and common areas of agreement are casualties.

But worse, our children can become innocent victims caught in a no man's land between those more interested in winning a conflict than in meeting individual needs.

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Perspective | Is there really a 'science of reading' that tells us exactly how to teach kids to read?

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One of the longest-running education debates - commonly referred to as a war - has been over how to teach reading. It started in the 1800s, when Horace Mann, often called "the father of public education" in the United States, argued against teaching the explicit sounds of each letter.

# data[].attributes.body
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