Reading Reform Foundation

Video of the Centre for Independent Studies event ‘Why Jaydon Can’t Read’ is now available to view on youtube.

It is in three parts:
1/3 Jennifer Buckingham http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWPtyEypWHs
2/3 Justine Ferrari and Tom Alegounarias http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyDNiEqcpi0
3/3 Q&A session http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPxIni6mtBE

Cheers,
Jennifer

Thanks Yvonne - am looking forward to watching these.

Yes, thanks Yvonne.
For me, a number of things in the first talk stood out. Buckingham suggests five key elements in learning to read: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. She goes on to say that "It’s difficult to state it any more clearly, phonics is one of five essential elements. Nowhere has it ever been claimed by serious reading scientists that phonics alone is sufficient."
I also liked how she described balanced approaches as being either whole language ‘in disguise’ or a ‘mish mash of approaches’. This echoes the findings of Bonnie Macmillan in her excellent Why Schoolchildren Can't Read, in which Macmillan also systematically demolishes the rationale for a mixed approach, which incorporates analytic phonics (pp. 52-53).
As Buckingham says, ‘Phonics instruction helps beginning and struggling readers most when it is taught explicitly, that is not incidentally in book reading, and in a particular sequence, and is purposefully integrated into text reading.’[/quote]