There have been numerous concerns about the
introduction of a phonics focused synthetic phonics approach to the teaching of
reading in England. One of the concerns
often highlighted is that a phonics focused approach does not suit the opaque
(i.e., irregular) nature of the English writing system. For example, words such as ‘aisle’, ‘pint’,
‘yacht’ are all irregular and pose difficulties for children learning to
read. Indeed, of all the alphabetic
writing systems, English is one of the most irregular and research has shown
that the ease with which a child learns to read is related to the orthographic
depth of the writing system (Ellis et al, 2004). Therefore learning to read English is
challenging.
References:
Ellis, N. C. Natsume, M., Stavropoulou, K., Hoxhallari, L., Van daal, V.
H. P., Polyzoe, N., Tsipe, M-L., & Petalas, M. (2004). The effects of orthographic depth
on learning to read alphabetic, syllabic, and
McGeown, S. P., Johnston,R. S., & Moxon, G.
E. (2014). Towards an understanding of how children read
and spell irregular words: the role of nonword and orthographic processing
skills. Journal of Research in Reading, 37, 51-64. doi:10.1111/jrir.12007.
Seidenberg, M.S. (2005). Connectionist models of word reading. Current Directions in
Psychological Science,
14, 238–242. doi: 10.1111/j.0963-7214.2005.00372.x
However, the argument that a phonics focused
synthetic phonics approach is unsuitable to teach children to read English is
an argument from which I have seen no research evidence. Examples have been given of children being
unable to read ‘high frequency’ words such as ‘the’ – sounding out ‘t’’h’’e’
then blending them together and forming an inaccurate pronunciation. However, to me, this is better than I’ve seen
prior to the introduction of synthetic phonics, where the first three words of
the reading test that I used to administer (British Ability Scales II) were
‘the’ ‘up’ and ‘on’, and read by a number of students as ‘Biff’ ‘Chip’ and
‘Floppy’. Surely teaching children about
the alphabetic nature of the writing system, illustrating that there is a
relationship (albeit not perfect) between the letters and sounds, is better?
In my own research, I have found no evidence that
relying on a phonological reading strategy impairs children’s ability to read
irregular words. In fact, I have found
the opposite. In two studies briefly
described below, I have examined a) the extent to which relying on a
phonological reading strategy influences irregular word reading and b) the
skills supporting children’s irregular word reading.
In the first, we found that children aged 6 -8 who
took a more phonological approach to reading (i.e., relied more heavily on
using phonics rules to read) performed better on assessments of irregular word
reading. In this study, irregular words
were selected to be unfamiliar (i.e., low frequency), thus requiring a strategy
to read them as opposed to immediate recognition. This study was carried out with 172 children
who varied in their strategy use and there was clearly a very strong
relationship between dependence of a phonological reading strategy (use of
phonics rules) and performance on assessments of irregular word reading (r = .66, p<.001) and standardised
assessments of reading (r = .65,
p<.001).
In the second study (McGeown, Johnston & Moxon, 2014), among 180
children aged 6-9, we found that children’s nonword reading skill (ability to
decode using letter-sound correspondences) was a very strong and significant
predictor of their ability to read irregular words. Indeed, it was a stronger predictor than
their frequency of reading or language skills, suggesting that direct
instruction in decoding skills may be appropriate to support children’s ability
to read irregular words.
So why would this be the case?
Rather than categorising regular and irregular words as different word
types, my collaborators and I have argued that even irregular words contain
regular elements that provide a cue to pronunciation. This is the essence of Seidenberg’s theory of
quasi-regularity (Seidenberg, 2005). For
example, words such as ‘aisle’ ‘pint’ and ‘yacht’ are not completely irregular
and a child with good phonics knowledge and using a phonological reading
strategy will be better able to make use of the regular elements of irregular
words to read. It will not be a perfect
strategy – the English writing system will not allow it; however this extra cue
appears to be helpful and supportive as children face the challenging task of
reading irregular words.
McGeown, S. P., Medford, E., & Moxon, G.
(2013). Individual differences in
children’s reading and spelling strategies and the skills supporting strategy
use. Learning
and Individual Differences, 28, 75-81. doi:
10.1016/j.lindif.2013.09.013.
