I have just read a paper written as a response to the Rose Review by one of our Whole Language friends who speaks with the authority provided by the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA). The paper claims to "unpicks and questions the thinking behind a diet based on SVR" (Simple View of Reading).

The author sites Duel Route Model research by Castles & Coltheart which appears to validate the Whole Language/Reading Recovery position that, "Of course we teach phonics" but that children should be taught 'multiple strategies' to learn to read and phonics should be the 'Last & Least' strategy.

I can now understand why RRF'ers hackles go up when the Duel Route Model is mentioned. However, my understanding of the Duel Route is that it does not support the Whole Language position.

So I wrote to Castles and Coltheart and asked them. I received the following responses.

From Max Coltheart;

" ... The dual route model is a model of what skilled readers are like, not a model of how seven-year-olds read. There's the classic fallacy of the whole word people here, which is to say: skilled readers don't use phonics therefore we should not teach beginning readers to use phonics. That's like saying: great pianists don't practice their scales every day, so we should not make people just beginning to learn to play the piano practice scales. Skilled chess players don't spend any of their time learning the rules of chess so we shouldn't teach these rules to chess beginners.

The dual route model definitely does not displace the simple view of reading. They are entirely consistent with each other. At least, that is Jim Rose's view - he said this to me - also my view and Morag Stuart's view."

From Anne Castles;

"... I think the key distinction that the Whole Languagers below are missing is that between the dual-route processes themselves and how they are acquired. The dual route model does propose that there are two processes in reading aloud, one involving a set of whole-word representations and one involving a set of phonics rules. But this model doesn't say anything about how these two processes are learned by children.

And there is now a lot of evidence that teaching phonics is a good way of helping a child to learn both lexical and nonlexical skills. Being able to sound out helps the child to match up what they sound out with something already existing in their spoken vocabulary, and this matching process may then help them form whole word lexical representations. So teaching phonics seems to assist acquisition of both the lexical and nonlexical routes, which is why you are right that "phonics - first and fast" seems like a good idea, even from a dual route perspective."

Part of the Whole Language lobbying strategy is to use 'spin' to create a belief that their philosophy is widely supported. It isn't.

Interesting post, Yvonne! Thank you.

It would be interesting to know what this paper is. Is it on-line?








Thank you, Yvonne. Their replies are very helpful.

Funnily enough, this paper was flagged up on TES by our old friend, dolfrog.

Functional Neuroimaging Insights Into the Development of Skilled Reading

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2741313/

I found this particularly interesting:

Along the lines of this discussion, I recently had a special ed teacher tell me that above the age of 9 or 10 years old, phonics instruction has been shown not to work for struggling readers. Is there evidence in this regard?

It's hardly my personal position, but I'm curious as to the possible sources for such a position. Are there studies indicating this? Just curious.

Rod E.

I googled the question, Rod, and here is the very first result! Make of it what you will....

Phonics Instruction for Older Students. Just Say No

And here is my google results page:

Google results

A mixed bag

The piece I read which claimed that the Duel Route Model supported 'phonics - last & least'.

The Simple View of Reading- explained

"What is the 'Simple View of Reading'? Henrietta Dombey from the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) takes us through the background to our understanding of how children actually learn to read. In this article she unpicks and questions the thinking behind a diet based on SVR."

“… to identify many words the reader draws on a repertoire of spelling patterns...”

http://www.teachingtimes.com/articles/the-simple.htm

Rod,

The issue of how best to teach reading to older students who have already experienced many years of failure is complex. These students have both entrenched avoidance behaviours and habituated guessing & memorising strategies.

All the efffective programs I know of that successfully teach older students to read start with teaching sound/letter correspondences. The teachers who say that phonics is not helpful probably heard this in the staffroom one day and accepted it as gospel. I'm sure if you had asked this teacher for evidence that proved this claim to be correct, s/he would have had no answer.

MULTILIT has been highly successful in teaching older, slow-progress readers. Their 'Schoolwise' program takes students who are in Years 5 & 6, while their tutorial centres take students from about Year 3 upwards. They teach phonics - first & fast.

More information is available from their website, www.multilit.com.

I can remember how astonished I was to find that an 18 year old girl I was asked to tutor bacause of her poor reading skills could easily read simple children's books. It was when I asked her to read some text in a newspaper that I discovered that she was reading by 'whole word'. She kept running into those 'big words' and that slowed her down so much she would forget what she was reading.

I found that she could easily read the word 'locomotive'. I asked her to divide the word into syllables. I will always remember her reply: "How can I do that, it is just a mass of lines on the page to me".

I did some checking with a list of nonsense words. Three-syllable words were not readable. That told the story.

Two professional engineers told me that they found out in grade school that they were not reading well at all. They took the time to find out what was wrong and found out that good reading requires a knowledge of phonics, which they then commenced to study, with excellent results. They were writing complex scientific papers when I knew them.

Bob Boden

Teaching older poor readers , is as Susan S. has pointed out, a complex process. Many of these older children present with multiple problems and many of these problems stem from not learning to read in their primary schools. They weren’t taught to read either because their teachers weren’t trained or more usually had been mistrained. Not learning to read in the primary school can be a life sentence. Research shows that only 24% of poor readers in Grade 1 ever catch up.

Ruth Miskin’s definition of a good school is one that teaches all its children to read and I agree wholeheartedly with that definition. Unfortunately too many people in education don’t believe that this is possible.

As far as using a synthetic phonics approach to teach older weak readers is concerned it’s the best system that I have used in over thirty five years of teaching. It’s not a magic bullet but before I discovered this method I was lost and so were the children I tried to help. The magic of synthetic phonics is not just that it teaches the children to read but equally important it empowers teachers and gives them a sense of hope that maybe, just maybe, things can be different for these children.