The Independent review of the teaching of early reading was an influential report by Sir Jim Rose, former HMI director of inspection at Ofsted, into the teaching of reading in primary schools in England. [1]
Another report [2] was published in April 2009, with the name Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum: Final Report, after additional evidence was received from the Cambridge Primary Review. [3]
Both reports recommended that high quality systematic phonics "should be taught as the prime approach in learning to decode (to read) and encode (to write/spell) print". Phonics should be taught systematically and discretely, however, it should be set within a "broad and rich" "multisensory" curriculum. The reports stressed the importance of language development (including speaking and listening). The reports also recommended that the "searchlights" model of reading should be replaced with the simple view of reading. [4]
Whole language is a philosophy of reading and a discredited educational method originally developed for teaching literacy in English to young children. The method became a major model for education in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Great Britain in the 1980s and 1990s, despite there being no scientific support for the method's effectiveness. It is based on the premise that learning to read English comes naturally to humans, especially young children, in the same way that learning to speak develops naturally.
Phonics is a method for teaching people how to read and write an alphabetic language. It is done by demonstrating the relationship between the sounds of the spoken language (phonemes), and the letters or groups of letters (graphemes) or syllables of the written language. In English, this is also known as the alphabetic principle or the Alphabetic code.
Reading for special needs has become an area of interest as the understanding of reading has improved. Teaching children with special needs how to read was not historically pursued due to perspectives of a Reading Readiness model. This model assumes that a reader must learn to read in a hierarchical manner such that one skill must be mastered before learning the next skill. This approach often led to teaching sub-skills of reading in a decontextualized manner. This style of teaching made it difficult for children to master these early skills, and as a result, did not advance to more advanced literacy instruction and often continued to receive age-inappropriate instruction.
The National Reading Panel (NRP) was a United States government body. Formed in 1997 at the request of Congress, it was a national panel with the stated aim of assessing the effectiveness of different approaches used to teach children to read.
The National Curriculum for England was first introduced by the Education Reform Act 1988. At the time of its introduction the legislation applied to both England and Wales. However, education later became a devolved matter for the Welsh government. The National Curriculum is a set of subjects and standards used by primary and secondary schools so children learn the same things. It covers what subjects are taught and the standards children should reach in each subject.
The National Curriculum assessment usually refers to the statutory assessments carried out in primary schools in England, colloquially known as standard attainment tests (SATs). The assessments are made up of a combination of testing and teacher assessment judgements and are used in all government-funded primary schools in England to assess the attainment of pupils against the programmes of study of the National Curriculum at the end of Key Stages 1 and 2 when most pupils are aged 7 and 11 respectively. Until 2008, assessments were also required at the end of Key Stage 3 (14-year-olds) in secondary schools after which they were scrapped.
Synthetic phonics, also known as blended phonics or inductive phonics, is a method of teaching English reading which first teaches the letter sounds and then builds up to blending these sounds together to achieve full pronunciation of whole words.
According to the alphabetic principle, letters and combinations of letters are the symbols used to represent the speech sounds of a language based on systematic and predictable relationships between written letters, symbols, and spoken words. The alphabetic principle is the foundation of any alphabetic writing system. In the education field, it is known as the alphabetic code.
Guided reading is "small-group reading instruction designed to provide differentiated teaching that supports students in developing reading proficiency". The small group model allows students to be taught in a way that is intended to be more focused on their specific needs, accelerating their progress.
The Orton-Gillingham approach is a multisensory phonics technique for remedial reading instruction developed in the early-20th century. It is practiced as a direct, explicit, cognitive, cumulative, and multi-sensory approach. While it is most commonly associated with teaching individuals with dyslexia, it is highly effective for all individuals learning to read, spell, and write. In the US, it is promoted by more than 15 commercial programs as well as several private schools for students with dyslexia and related learning disabilities.
High frequency sight words are commonly used words that young children are encouraged to memorize as a whole by sight, so that they can automatically recognize these words in print without having to use any strategies to decode. Sight words were introduced after whole language fell out of favor with the education establishment.
Diane McGuinness is a cognitive psychologist who has written extensively on sex differences, education, learning disabilities, and early reading instruction. She currently holds the title of Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of South Florida.
Allan Luke is an educator, researcher, and theorist studying literacy, multiliteracies, applied linguistics, and educational sociology and policy. Luke has written or edited 17 books and more than 250 articles and book chapters. Luke, with Peter Freebody, originated the Four Resources Model of literacy in the 1990s. Part of the New London Group, he was coauthor of the "Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures" published in the Harvard Educational Review (1996). He is Emeritus Professor at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia and Adjunct Professor at Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.
Balanced literacy is a theory of teaching reading and writing that arose in the 1990s and has a variety of interpretations. For some, balanced literacy strikes a balance between whole language and phonics and puts an end to the so called reading wars. Others say balanced literacy, in practice, usually means the whole language approach to reading.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is the statutory framework for early years education in England. The term was defined in Section 39 of the British government's Childcare Act 2006. The equivalents in Wales and Scotland are the Foundation Phase and the Early Years Framework.
Analytic phonics refers to a very common approach to the teaching of reading that starts at the word level, not at the sound (phoneme) level. It does not teach the blending of sounds together as is done in synthetic phonics. One method is to have students identify a common sound in a set of words that each contain that same sound. For example, the teacher and student discuss how the following words are alike: pat, park, push and pen. Analytic phonics is often taught together with levelled-reading books, look-say practice, and the use of aids such as phonics worksheets.
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch.
Evidence-based education (EBE) is the principle that education practices should be based on the best available scientific evidence, rather than tradition, personal judgement, or other influences. Evidence-based education is related to evidence-based teaching, evidence-based learning, and school effectiveness research. For example, research has shown that spaced repetition "leads to more robust memory formation than does massed training, which involves short or no intervals".
Multisensory learning is the assumption that individuals learn better if they are taught using more than one sense (modality). The senses usually employed in multisensory learning are visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile – VAKT. Other senses might include smell, taste and balance.
The simple view of reading is a scientific theory that a student's ability to understand written words depends on how well they sound out (decode) the words and understand the meaning of those words. Specifically, their reading comprehension can be predicted by multiplying their skill in decoding the written words by their ability to understand the meaning of those words. It is expressed in this equation:
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