Whole-School Literacy: why every school needs a Sisyphus.

This post is a response to Alex Quigley’s recent blog, ‘Why whole-school literacy fails!’.

If you have any knowledge of Quigley, you’ll know how unnecessary it is to build an opposing argument to his. There’s rarely a moment where my own viewpoint is misaligned with his when it comes to teaching and learning – and all things language. And, in truth, 80% of the post I do agree with. However, having lived out the role of a ‘modern-day Sisyphus’ as he describes (that of literacy co-ordinator) for a number of years now, I’m keen to offer an alternative angle on the importance of literacy and language in schools.
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To keep it brief, it’s clear we agree on some key fundamentals:

1. There is no more important act in education than helping children to learn to read.
2. Developing our students as confident readers, writers and speakers is the core business of every teacher, regardless of age, phase or subject specialism.
3. The matter of ‘literacy’ really is a boulder of gargantuan proportions, beyond the will and wit of any individual leader (including especially me).
4. The domain of literacy is so wide and so complex.
5. The education profession has been known to package ‘literacy’ into a small, relatively useless box, which sits on a shelf until Sisyphus gets an hour’s PPA time to shift data around on an excel spreadsheet or photocopy handwriting sheets for tomorrow.

When I consider what it was about this post that fired me up enough to respond, I suppose it’s the knowledge – and driving passion – that underpins my work; one that promotes a different kind of literacy. It’s not the implied bolt-on accessory that I’ve seen countless times in so many schools. Like Alex, I’m fully behind Geoff Barton’s message of clarity in his book, ‘Don’t Call It Literacy!’, where he argues that teachers so often see literacy as an additional burden to teaching; just another box to tick or a passing fad, like so many others they’ve seen come and go before.

I hear exactly where Alex is coming from when he explains the overwhelming responsibility of a role such as this, and he’s right. It’s colossal. To oversee the assessment of literacy and language, ensure students who need additional support (e.g. phonics) receive it, make sure that staff feel fully-equipped to deliver robust teaching around core language within their subject domain and assess the long-term impact of these interventions in offering greater access to the curriculum – it’s almost impossible.

I guess, for me, the wrestle occurs in negotiating the solution to the boulder-up-the-hill dilemma. Having trained in primary teaching before moving to secondary, one huge shock in that transition was the realisation that teachers across the school were expected to apprentice students into effective reading for comprehension, and model extended writing in their subject without any prior training. For me, the solution to raising the bar with language and embedding a deeper knowledge of literacy across the curriculum is inextricably linked to having a key figure in place to drive these vital whole-school priorities forward.

The difference, then, between the Sisyphus analogy and my own utopian ideal, is in the careful appointment of the role, but also in the discernment of building structures that would likely scaffold the creation of robust systems. To me, a perfect candidate for ‘Literacy Co-ordinator’ is someone who is open to the vast complexities of the role, yet understanding of the need to build capacity by establishing focus teams around core priorities. Alex’s list below is a great starting point:

• Reading for pleasure;
• Reading issues(such as poor decoding, weak comprehension, dyslexia, and the readability and accessibility of texts for our students);
• Academic vocabulary;
• Teacher explanations, talk and questioning;
• Improving writing;
• Improving spelling and writing accuracy;
• Speaking and listening;
• Enhancing teacher knowledge and providing training for all of the above;
• Developing parents’ knowledge and understanding of all of the above.

I’d add these three after a quick think:

a) discrete teaching of roots, prefixes and suffixes
b) effective transition from KS2 to KS3, knowing the long journey of language acquisition that students have already taken
c) effective oracy – presentation, communication, assimilation

As I’ve said, there’s much I agree with. Teams are better suited to developing whole-school systems required for long-term positive impact on language and literacy. The use of allocated non-contact time to address literacy targets and data sheets has big potential to do a real disservice to stakeholders, if one is blind to the true needs of students and staff alike. One person alone cannot master this field. FACT.

I just question that the answer, in light of the above, is to admit defeat and remove the role from schools entirely. I’d much rather ensure that literacy co-ordinators have regular opportunities to deepen their own knowledge and understanding of the non-negotiables listed above, supported by senior leaders and cluster teams to ensure that school priorities are mobilised as effectively as possible, all working towards a shared goal. Without a driving force behind these principles, I’m concerned that time constraints in this busy profession would ultimately mean that those schools not yet awakened to the utter importance of embedded literacy and language would witness a decline in this area.

It’s true: the absence of a literacy co-ordinator has got to be better than the appointment of a poor one who demonstrates negative impact. I’m just not prepared to see this role as a dead root in the tree of school life yet; there’s so much more to be done.

And, for me, there needs to be a central force – be it a single person or a couple more – who possess responsibility for carving out the vision of literacy and language, ensuring no student or member of staff on this ever-evolving journey is left behind.

Should reading ever be discouraged?

An article written in the TES News this week caught my eye and got me thinking. John Boyne, author of ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’, claims that we should be encouraged to read well, or not at all. He believes that there is little point in reading for its own sake. Citing titles such as ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, he asks, “Reading for its own sake – what’s the point of that, if people aren’t reading interesting or challenging books?”
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It’s a tough one, isn’t it. On the one hand, we have a duty as teachers to encourage students to find intellectually stimulating texts with challenging vocabulary and grammatical accuracy. As Literacy Leader, I am careful not to direct students to books that I feel would offer no opportunity for progression on their reading journey. We SHOULD be encouraging readers to embrace texts that demonstrate beautifully constructed sentences, take us to exciting and unfamiliar places, test our opinions and open our minds to new ways of thinking. With that, I don’t disagree.
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What I would question, however, is the idea that a text that does not challenge is pointless. Boyne’s viewpoint neglects all those readers who read for enjoyment. Consider a student who has a very difficult home life and needs something to escape to. Or a struggling, weary teacher who finds reading a peaceful exercise, but doesn’t have the energy to be questioned or face anything too testing after a long day at work. Surely there is merit in the practice of reading in those instances?
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I wonder if the analogy of running might help here. Suppose a runner has a marathon to undertake in a month’s time and is currently in the training phase. If the runner was to attempt a marathon-long run every day in the lead up to that event, they would surely reach a point of exhaustion before the event. Any experienced runner knows that a good training plan alternates run days with rest days and other forms of interval training. What’s more, many experienced runners without an event in the pipeline enjoy a short jog every now and then. It’s good for the mind and soul.
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Could we not apply the same idea to reading?
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As a teacher, I question what right I have to discourage a student from reading, if it gives them pleasure. While I would, of course, encourage students to be mindful of the text choices they make, asking them to review what a certain book may or may not offer, I would be concerned that having an opinion where students should ONLY read if it will pose challenge might put them off reading altogether.
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Like any hobby, one must take ownership of a practice in order to develop a love for it and, I believe, there is no harm in reading, sometimes just for the sake of reading.

ROOT MAP: A Vocabulary Instruction Model

Last July, I wrote the first of a two-part blog post (see part 1 here) sharing some early musings around the best approach for a new vocabulary model that we wanted to introduce at my school. This generated much interest and a number of people since have asked for the second instalment. As a result of the programme’s ongoing evolution, there have been alterations along the way. Nevertheless, I finally present to you the sequel, in the form of a write-up from my session at ResearchED last Saturday. My colleague, Phil Stock, has also written about this here.

Footage of the session will be available here soon.

On Saturday 7^th November, I was privileged to speak at the first ResearchED Secondary English & Literacy conference at Swindon Academy. (To see my Top 5 takeaway points from the day, see here.) My session explored the importance of direct vocabulary instruction.
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To begin, I asked those present to spend a few minutes discussing where they would rank each of these actions on a scale from least energy required to most.

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When feeding back as a group, two members of the audience beat me to my own teaching point, making the case that this task would be impossible without the semantic knowledge of the words in bold. I then displayed the following slide, which I had composed to exemplify how unfamiliar words can instantaneously become unwelcome hurdles that students must face when trying to comprehend a given text.

“Those who know 90 percent of the words in a text will understand its meaning and, because they understand, they will also begin to learn the other 10 percent of the words.” (E.D. Hirsch, 2003)

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I proceeded to explain that a study conducted by Beck et al. into the acquisition of new vocabulary resulted in the speculation of a continuum, whereby different texts can present a reader with a variety of scenarios, some which offer the necessary clues to help us learn a word meaning and, for others, no clues at all. More information is given in the PPT slides embedded at the foot of this post.

As a result of their studies, Beck’s team resolved that “…relying on learning word meanings from independent reading is not an adequate way to deal with students’ vocabulary development.” Beck, McKeown & Kucan (2013)

I’m in full agreement with this, not least because there are a great number of students who won’t necessarily come into contact with unfamiliar vocabulary through independent reading anyway, as a result of a lack of interest in books, or they may be reading texts that lack enough challenge.

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Next, I outlined the memory process we believe to be true when acquiring new information. I shared Anderson’s theory (1994), asserting that information is stored in biomodal packets, separated into linguistic packets called ‘logogens’ and non-linguistic packets called ‘imagens’.

Both Anderson’s theory and that of Sadoski and Paivio’s Dual Coding Theory (1994), support the notion that experiences are stored in language terms but also in ways more connected to senses, feelings, emotions, visual perceptions etc. From these theories, it can be ascertained that an individual learns new information by initially creating an episodic memory of an event (ie. a one-off experience) which, with repetition, can become a semantic experience whereby the learner begins to assimilate new information as part of a deeper network of knowledge around a particular idea or theme.

I noted the importance of Graham Nuthall’s working memory model here, stressing that three conditions that lead to effective processing are:

1. Strength – multiple exposures to new information (at least 3 or 4 within a limited time) is essential in order to embed knowledge
2. Depth – ensuring students think ‘hard’ about new information so as not to allow it to just hover on the surface, instead challenging learners to wrestle with new ideas and concepts to ensure they are deeply rooted
3. Elaboration – providing opportunities for learners to make connections and associations with previously acquired knowledge, in order for this to ‘latch’ onto something

In discussing which words should be targetted for direct instruction, I made reference to three sources:

1. Rolfus and Ackerman (1999) asserted that subject knowledge has a high degree of specificity i.e. little transfer. The five particular areas they recommend to teach are:
   a) Subject specific words and phrases embody deep, underlying concepts e.g. condensation, genre
   b) Roots and suffixes e.g. gen, anti-
   c) Proper nouns e.g. Carl Lewis
   d) Compound words e.g. drummer boy
   e) Subject and verb phrases e.g. book review
2. Beck’s contribution of the tiered vocabulary pyramid suggests that words can be categorised into three tiers.
   

The advice from Beck suggests that it is Tier 2 words that should be taught explicitly, since these are the words that arise less frequently in conversation, more in writing. This theory would suggest that, as a result of teaching Tier 2 words, Tier 3 words can then be accessed more easily by the learner. While there is some sense in this approach, much of the research undertaken in the area of memory would dispute this method, arguing that the teaching of words need to be deeply rooted within their subject domain, in order to connect new information to already-learnt knowledge.

3. The final source was taken from a synthesis of research studies undertaken by the National Reading Panel (NRP) in the US, 2010. As a result of their analysis, they identified eight findings that provide a scientifically based foundation for the design of rich vocabulary instruction. These were:

These findings, as well as the great research undertaken by Robert J. Marzano in his book “Building Academic Vocabulary“, have directly informed our delivery of vocabulary instruction at Greenshaw.

All too aware of the gap between word-rich and word-poor students, we recognise the crucial importance of providing all students with direct and indirect experiences, broadening their understanding of the world, enabling students from both privileged and disadvantaged backgrounds alike to obtain and retain new words taught.

“[There is an] estimated difference of vocabulary knowledge of 4,700 words between students of high and low social economic status.” (Templin, 1957)

It is through the mediums of those listed below that we might be able to develop students’ vocabulary in a way that meets their individual needs.

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Taking direction from Marzano’s work, we have implemented 6 steps of effective vocabulary instruction in our Year 7 research trial.

See slides 41-60 of the PPT shared at the bottom of this post for more information and the filmed session, which will be available here shortly.

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In closing, I will attempt to outline the structure we have designed, in order to deliver two strands of vocabulary instruction, namely subject-specific English words (Tier 2&3) and roots, prefixes and suffixes.

As you can see from the image above, one tutor time session a week is reserved for a morphology and etymology focus on words. During this time, tutors across a range of different curriculum subjects deliver 15 minutes of intensive vocabulary delivery, teaching the meaning of common roots required at KS3 and beyond.
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In addition to this, students are also explicitly taught Tier 2 and 3 subject-specific words in their English classes, directly linked to the text being studied at the time. See the slide below for our first cycle of Autumn term words and roots taught.

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Here is a rough idea of how much direct instruction students might receive over a fortnight’s cycle.

As I explained in my talk and, as is the reality for so many teachers, there is never enough time to teach the content of the curriculum, let alone trying to cram in additional vocabulary content. This is why we have moved some of the definitions and connections tasks originally designed to take place in English lessons to our online learning platform, giving students the opportunity to revisit information multiple times by completing multiple choice quizzes and games online between lessons, set as homework. (When I figure out how to share the demo of this on here, I will!)

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I hope this has given some insight into the development of our vocabulary curriculum design, but would encourage you to check out the footage from the session when it becomes available for a complete walk through.

PPT slides here: 

My Top 5: ResearchED Secondary English and Literacy

Saturday 7th November saw the first ResearchED Secondary English & Literacy event at Swindon Academy. It really was a fantastic day. Whether you made it to the event or not, here’s my top 5 moments of the day:
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1. Professor Ray Land opened the day with a keynote talk on Threshold Concepts, revealing why new knowledge can be so troublesome and unsettling for learners at any age. It would be foolish for me to even attempt to summarise Ray’s presentation as it was brilliant in many ways. His research-rooted insight into why students struggle to understand or take hold of such large scale concepts in the classroom was fascinating.
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2. The structure of the day; the travelling, the cake breaks and the pockets of times waiting for sessions to begin, offered welcome spaces for some geeky, intellectually provocative and nutritious conversations about teaching and learning matters with colleagues both familiar and new.
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3. The menu of sessions on offer was packed with so many great choices. There was real opportunity to hear some fantastic teachers and leaders share their knowledge of research and how they are applying this to their curriculum design and pedagogy in the school where they work. For me, this included:
   a) listening to Summer Turner share the English curriculum design with a heavy focus on rich literature that she and colleagues have put in place at the East London Science School
   b) learning from Katie Ashford about the importance of rigorous grammar instruction – something we are evolving at our school, so it was great to see that Michaela Community School is one step ahead
   c) soaking up the wisdom offered by Eric Kalenze on the importance of background knowledge (was sorry not to see the end of this, but grateful for technology!)
   It was a shame to miss other great speakers including Phil Stock, Andy Tharby, James Murphy, but am looking forward to catching up with their sessions online when they’re available.
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4. The priviledge of delivering a session myself alongside some excellent speakers, on the importance of direct vocabulary instruction. I do believe this is one area of literacy that has huge value in the classroom and enhances students’ deeper learning, so I was grateful to have the opportunity to lead on this (blog post soon to follow on here).
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5. Not wishing to wrestle any credit away from Tom Bennett or David Didau, there’s a warm sense of achievement that I believe those involved can enjoy on days like this. It’s worth reflecting that the ResearchED community is central to this ever-growing grassroots movement, snowballing solely because those people who live and breathe education are passionate enough to ensure that this super profession remains transparent, research-driven and authentic.
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I will blog about my talk here in the next couple of days.

Here’s to the next one!

Vocabulary Matters – My contribution to ResearchED Literacy, 7th Nov 2015

Next Saturday, I will be one of a number of gathered teachers and researchers who share a common aim – hopeful that, through organic grass roots events like @researchED1, it might be possible to reduce the considerable chasm between educational research and classroom practice.
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Attending this event for the first time last year, I was surprised by the number of delegates present who had sacrificed a day of their weekend to travel, ready to participate in the workshops on offer and be willing to engage in educational conversations with others there. It was refreshing to experience an approach to teaching and learning so rooted in research and, after a powerful day, I left feeling positively challenged.

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That’s why this year I’m really pleased to have been invited to lead a workshop at the @researchED1 Literacy event on Saturday 7^th November at Swindon Academy, run by event directors David Didau, Tom Bennett & Hélène O’Shea.
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As Literacy Leader in my school, and also recently appointed as a Lead Learner in research too, I will be delivering a workshop on the importance of teaching vocabulary in order to enhance students’ understanding across the curriculum. Incidentally, the session itself is far more interesting than the somewhat tedious title I gave it: “Improving students’ understanding through direct vocabulary instruction”.
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Many months ago on my blog, I wrote Part 1 of a 2-part post on the new vocabulary programme we were soon to implement in my school as a result of the research we had carried out called ‘Root Planner’. See here. It was always intended that the second part of the duo (‘Root Map’) would be published soon after, outlining the implementation of the programme. For a number of reasons this failed to transpire and, so, albeit a year later, I will be posting Part 2 of this post following my presentation next Saturday.

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A great colleague of mine, Phil Stock, has shared the journey of this whole-school language intervention with me and has recently written about this on his blog here, following the presentation he gave at #TLT15 earlier in October.
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I’m very much looking forward to the day; to hearing some super speakers, to reflecting on my own practice and to embracing the possibilities an event of this nature can bring to teaching and learning.

Hope to see you there!

Illiteracy: What are we going to do about it?

On Saturday 28^th March, I was invited to speak at a conference organised by the Reading Reform Foundation (RRF). The purpose of the event was to highlight the vital importance of systematic synthetic phonics (SSP)*. A great variety of speakers with different areas of expertise were asked to talk on the subject and it seemed many fruitful conversations were had by those who attended. I was invited to talk about my decision to use SSP with secondary school students within SEN, which will be available online shortly.

*Simply put:

Systematic Synthetic Phonics (or SSP) is a structured, repetitive approach to teaching reading with a total reliance on the smallest units of explicit sounds – in both spoken form (‘phonemes’) and written form (‘graphemes’) – to teach reading. This method usually starts with the most common sounds and moves through to more complicated ones e.g. knowing a ‘dge’ makes the same sound as a ‘j’, and a ‘tch’ makes the same sound as a ‘ch’.

This is in contrast to analytic phonics, where students are often asked to read beyond a difficult word to the end of the sentence, then attempt to guess it using contextual clues. This approach, while helpful in the opinion of some, does not develop the reading skills of a student nor help them learn explicit sounds, since they have simply guessed the word through their understanding of the rest of the passage. This also often has negative impact for those new to English, since their knowledge of vocabulary at entry point to the UK is minimal, so there are flaws in the reliance of a guessing technique.

While I have been aware of the benefits of using a structured approach to reading for a long time, it has made me more sure than ever that this is the most targetted, reliable, efficient and, without wishing to go overboard, moral way to teach reading.

Unfortunately, official governmental guidance does not stipulate that a single methodical approach to teaching reading is key though does advise this. For me, a directive which would acknowledge the necessity of teaching reading through SSP would be a great step towards ensuring that far more students might have the opportunity to learn to read before they leave primary school.

Not to add fuel to the fire in the debate around the phonics screening check at the end of Year 1, but I am a keen and outed supporter. Ensuring that any individual has a good grasp of the fundamental skills of reading and writing can surely only be a good thing.

With my SEN head on, however, there seems to be a flaw in the system. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding of it is as follows:

 

The DfE website states that:

… And after that? What happens then?

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If, as educators, we acknowledge that children physically grow at different rates, mature emotionally at different times and adopt new knowledge at different speeds, is it okay that we let so many fall off the radar beyond Y2 simply because their learning of our complex alphabetic code has not fit into our man-made termly organisation?

There seems to be a black hole for those students who have not grasped reading by this point and, in my opinion, this could be one key factor contributing to the situation I’m faced with as Literacy Leader of a secondary school, welcoming in substantial numbers of students arriving in Y7 who are still unable to read. Pass at Y2 or branded SEN. Hereth begineth the dreaded ‘gap’.

I have no doubt that schools in the majority do their best to scaffold the learning of students who fail to pass the phonics check at Y2. It is our moral obligation to ensure that our learners are equipped as best as possible for the education journey they walk. However, there are questions we need to be asking here:

1. What does the research suggest and how are we applying it to our own classrooms?
2. If there are so many students failing to grasp reading across the UK, are we really using the most suitable approach that meets the needs of ALL our students?
3. How else can we support students beyond this stage if they haven’t learnt it by the end of Y2?
4. Have we done all we can to ensure this student is able to access the curriculum?

 

Disclaimer: I have been a primary school teacher. I have seen the amazing job that primary school teachers do, day in, day out. This post is by no means an attack on the teachers who deliver phonics to younger students. My intention is simply to verbalise my thoughts on the current situation I observe from a secondary perspective and explore ways we might overcome some of the flaws in the system.

 

If we are to see illiteracy in the UK reduce by any significant measure, we have a duty to ensure that:

1. the most targetted, research-based, fail-proof, methodical approach to teaching reading is employed
2. ALL students are supported to a point where they are able to read and write independently as early as possible (and beyond!) 

By achieving these two points above, I am almost certain that we would see numbers of those arriving at secondary labelled as ‘SEN’ dramatically decrease, since there would have been no gap (or at least a much smaller learning gap) to close. I’m sure we would begin to witness less students arrive at secondary who are clearly able in many areas of the curriculum, extremely competent in verbal responses, but branded with a ‘Specific Learning Difficulty’ in reading. I do acknowledge that there will always be some level of need in this area, which is likely to extend to education in the older years. I do also recognise, however, that we are clearly doing something wrong at present and, until it is addressed and corrected, we are failing a great number of our students.

“Say what you see!” Is Phonics Really Necessary?

For safety’s sake, I’m going on the assumption that there may be some readers arriving at this post who would appreciate a simple definition of some of the key terminology used around this topic. I’ve listed these in an A4 document which you can download by clicking here: Glossary of Phonics Terms JM.

If you don’t need it, skip it. Any terms in the post that are in bold are listed in the glossary.

The legendary debate regarding the best approach to teaching reading has been around for as long as I can remember. It has particularly been warming up over the past few years, however, not least because of its heightened publicity in the media around the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check. (I’ll briefly touch on this to conclude, though pedagogy is my primary focus here.) There are a number of different camps that plausibly offer their own valuable ‘fuel’ to keep the metaphorical ‘phonics-or-no-phonics’ fire aflame though, for me, a couple of these camps have their tent pegs more firmly hammered into the ground than others.

 

In this post, while I’d like to think I have the burning magical powers to unite all parties involved, successfully luring both phonic-lovers and phonic-haters to join hands and chant ‘Kumbaya’ (or ‘mm’, ‘igh’, ‘ah’ if you like), beneath a starlit sky through the irresistible offer of a simple but decadent s’more (Google it – you’ll want one, and then ‘s’more’…), leading all to unanimously accept that my way of thinking is the only way, it won’t happen. Call me a pessimist (or preferably, a realist) but there are some firm roots beneath the feet of those who are used to their own familiar way of teaching reading to take a risk just yet.

 

Until then, I’d like to make the case that synthetic phonics is invaluable in teaching students how to read and is unparalleled in its ability to teach the various explicit phonemes (heard sounds) and graphemes (spellings) within the English language. While I stand firm to this, I’d also assert that this single method, while incredibly powerful, is not sufficient on its own without its partners in crime analytic phonics and embedded phonics, though am confident they should only come into play as a means to apply the synthetic phonic knowledge learned.

Historically, a number of different approaches have been trialled in the teaching of reading, including the alphabetic code where students learn the sounds of each letter of the alphabet in order, learning the capital and lowercase symbols at the same time as the sounds. Students would first learn letter names, subsequently being taught their sounds. This, interestingly, was the method used in schools at the time when I was taught to read so, while it must have worked for me, I’m not sure it is the best-fit model across the majority of students in this country. Other approaches include the ‘look and say’ method and the ‘whole word’ technique, both of which encourage the repetition of a single word until it is learnt.

In recent years, the government has pushed for a ‘phonics-only’ approach, which teaches children to decode words through knowing the make up of individual sounds, rather than recognising the whole word at once (the “Say What You See” method, if you like). This method of synthetic phonics relies on words being broken up into the smallest units of sound (phonemes). So, for example, in the word ‘church’, there are 6 letters but only 3 phonemes: ch / ur / ch and, in ‘dough’, 5 letters but 2 phonemes d / ough.

 

There are, undoubtedly, many benefits to teaching reading using the phonic principle. If a student has mastered a sound correctly, e.g. knowing that the combination of ‘p’ and ‘h’ will make a ‘f’ sound, the scope for using this knowledge is mammoth. Phonics is invaluable. The application opportunities of this approach are great, with students being able to use this newfound awareness to break down a wide range of both familiar and unfamiliar words. Once learnt and embedded, the 44 phonemes (sounds) created by our 26 letters of the English alphabet, offer readers the freedom to decode hundreds and thousands of words that follow the same pattern.

Tim Shanahan, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Education at University of Illinois, Chicago has written a short series of four articles on Literacy, entitled ‘Teaching My Daughters to Read’. In his third post, which focuses on phonics, Shanahan suggests that:

‘Memorizing some words is always part of beginning reading, but reading is more than memorizing words.

Phonics both reduces students’ reliance on word memorization and makes such memorization easier. It accomplishes the former, by allowing students to sound out words that are yet unknown. Phonics allows the young reader to approximate the pronunciation of a word from nothing but the letters on the page, a liberating tool.

But phonics instruction also sets students off on trying to figure out and use the spelling patterns in text. Those patterns are not usually used to “sound out” words in any obvious way (except initially), but learning them does seem to increase how quickly and easily students come to “remember” words. Initially, children struggle to remember words, but as they learn the spelling patterns and sound-symbol relations the words get stickier—they seem to stay in memory with much less work.’

 

In line with my comments above, Shanahan agrees that, while memorising words is one technique that would eventually transfer knowledge into the long-term memory, it is not the most thorough approach to teaching reading or the most efficient. In the same way that I argue that teaching root words and their meanings is the best way forward for teaching vocabulary in a recent blog post (see here), I also believe synthetic phonics can have an incredibly powerful impact on students’ ability in the decoding and spelling of words. By learning the 44 phonemes of the English language and the various ways to spell them (which reaches up to the heights of over 150 variations!), we are giving students a ‘tool’ to be able to tackle any word they might encounter. To my mind, when I consider the students I currently work with in KSs 3 & 4, this approach has resulted in a reduced anxiety for so many as, like any individual approaching a job they are uncertain about, if they are well-equipped to complete the task, they can tackle the job feeling adequately prepared. The weaker readers I work with are presented with multiple opportunities to rehearse blending the isolated sounds they have already been taught. It seems to be this, rather than memorising individual words, that gives them far greater confidence in reading as, through this approach, they find themselves armed with the skill set to be able to decode both familiar and unfamiliar words.

 

Shanahan’s full article can be found here:
http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/2014/07/teaching-my-daughters-to-read-part-iii.html

If there is one thing that remains certain while the debate continues, it is vital that whatever method is being used to teach reading must be regular, consistent, and systematic in its approach. I feel a little uneasy when I think there may be schools delivering phonics in a way that isn’t supporting memory retention, e.g. not recognising the benefits of repetition and offering frequent opportunities for application. I would even go so far as to say that, I suspect for those schools where phonics has not had a significantly improved impact on student learning, additional obstacles could include the consistency of delivery perhaps not being as regular as required, or there may be an underlying lack of confidence around the teaching of phonics, possibly due to staff members not being supported with adequate training. I say this only because I have seen the immensely positive effect that synthetic phonics has had on students across KS1, 2 (ranging from the very weak to the very able), and weaker readers at KS3 & 4. While wholly aware that every student brings a different attitude and context to the learning environment, as a pedagogical approach to teaching reading I cannot see why synthetic phonics would not work for the majority of our students.

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A bold claim, I realise.

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In December last year, the National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE) published a paper looking into the view on phonics of teachers within the classroom. The report, ‘Phonics instruction and early reading: professional views from the classroom’, offers a critical analysis of current approaches to the teaching of reading, making use of government documents and professional literature, drawing on the views of respondents to the 2013 NATE survey on phonics instruction and early reading. In its discussion, it states:

“No respondent to the survey regards phonics instruction in early years education as unnecessary, and there is significant support for the view that phonics should be the prime focus of teaching beginning readers. Several people agree with the assertion of the DfE evidence paper (DfE 2011a) that the ability to decode grapheme/phoneme correspondences is the first requirement for success in reading. Some respondents who work with children with special learning difficulties believe that early phonic instruction is particularly important for the progress of such children. A large majority of both infant and junior teachers report positive effects on their pupils’ writing and spelling, and about a third of each group report positive effects on pupils’ comprehension and higher reading skills.”

Click here for the full paper.

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The findings of the survey, completed by educationalists whose business it is to teach students how to read, clearly support the notion that synthetic phonics should be the leading approach employed within the classroom. The collossal benefits to outweight the drawbacks.

Those who oppose synthetic phonics assert that this method alone is not enough to enable a student to read. For example, if looking at the word ‘row’, one would not be able to tell whether they should read it as in the sentence ‘I am sitting in row 4’ or ‘There were two people on the bus having a row’. Similarly, with the sound ‘ough’, there are about nine variations in total…

 

Critics of synthetic phonics suggest that an additional element of whole sentence context is essential in teaching pupils how to read, in order to overcome issues around fluency and understanding. The NATE report goes on to say,

“But the view of more than two-thirds of respondents is that, while phonic decoding is an important part of learning to read, other strategies are also vital. More than a quarter of respondents emphasise the importance of reading for meaning, and there is much concern that an overemphasis on phonics leads to an unbalanced reading curriculum in which other reading skills such as prediction and contextual information are not taken into account.”

To me, synthetic phonics is the most foolproof approach and the best-fit model for the majority of students, so long as staff are given sufficient training and sessions take place regularly and effectively. However, perhaps anticlimactically, I agree with the findings of the survey outlined above, arguing that the grapheme-phoneme correspondence alone is not enough to teach the art of reading. Opportunities for application are a must, including having a range of books accessible to students that still generate a love of reading and maintain an interest in the exploration of our diverse language. Scaffolding student learning is important of course, especially in the very early stages, but I see this freedom to read books of interest alongside the teaching of phonics as a necessary chance to apply knowledge to real-life situations. A text that provides the reader with both a challenge but also the chance to achieve mini successes too sounds like a healthy balance to me.

ONE WORD OF WARNING: DON’T JUDGE A STUDENT BY ITS COVER.

A strong ability in decoding and fluency does not necessarily equate good comprehension too.

These more refined skills still need to be taught and rehearsed with students. There is often a level of inference and deduction that is written into the most simplest of story books and students need to begin to learn how to identify the different layers of a text in all its glory. However, this should come secondary to the explicit teaching of the isolated sounds. At least from this point, students then possess the necessary foundation on which to develop more advanced tools when looking at a text.

It is a fair point to raise that in recent years, since the Government’s push for phonics in KS1, we have seen growing numbers of students entering KS3, identified through our thorough baseline testing who, while they may be able to decode words accurately, they fail to grasp the full meaning of what they are reading. This is why I believe that the whole phonic picture – the synthetic (isolated sounds) and the analytical (teaching sounds within context) and, indeed, the opportunities for application, need to be intertwined when teaching reading to our students.

Unsure of which has been going on longer
– the phonics debate or this blog post –
I’ll end here
…nearly.

I have one concluding comment that I’m conscious may ignite the rousing flame once again over the ‘Should the Y1 phonics screening check be scrapped?’ debate, but my simple answer is:

“No.”

Following the open letter that was addressed to Nicky Morgan, requesting for the Phonics Screening Check to remain (see links below), I have researched heavily around the test. On reading the opposing views which highlight concerns around teachers teaching to the test, a heightened student anxiety, the use of nonsense words, undetected comprehension issues etc. I would still support the screening check. Having seen students enter KS3 unable to read (and even some in the first year of my role reaching Year 11) and seeming so demoralised that they cannot sufficiently decode even the most common of words independently, I’m convinced that any early assessments that provide an indication of how students are performing in comparison to their peers can only be a good thing. Many of the students I talk about here are incredibly bright students, held back throughout their education only by their inability to read and spell, not having been identified earlier.

Looking at the guidance sent out to schools, administrators are directed to ensure that students do not see their ‘screening’ as a test in any way (though I recognise is difficult when you have multiples of 30 children to listen to). While there will always be inevitable drawbacks to a national test, I would propose that for this purpose, a standardised measure might be the best route forward for identifying students for concern. However, it will only have a positive impact if schools actually make use of the information, informing their future teaching based on the results of the screening check. I would also claim, in line with comments made previously in this post, that an assessment which measures not only decoding but comprehension too would be the best way to identify a weakness in reading. This, I believe, would allow us a greater chance to catch those students who tend to fall through the net when they are younger, thus reducing the number of students who have to battle through their education years with underlying difficulties around reading and comprehension, liberating those who possess all the other learning skills to succeed.

 

If you’re interested and want to know more, here are some links you might like to explore:

Open letter to Nicky Morgan:

http://news.tes.co.uk/b/opinion/2014/07/30/open-letter-to-nicky-morgan-39-why-the-year-1-phonics-check-must-stay-39.aspx

News articles:
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/16/phonics-children-education-research

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10901099/Children-taught-to-read-using-phonics-two-years-ahead-by-age-seven.html

NATE review:
http://www.nate.org.uk/cmsfiles/papers/Phonics_and_early_reading.pdf

DfE Phonics Screening Check Information:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/phonics

How Far is ‘Too Far’?

In my role as Literacy Leader, I find myself constantly reflecting on what we are doing well as a school and what we could be doing better with regard to supporting student literacy. Embedded within this review process is a persistent thought that works its way into my conscience time and time again, leading me to question what reading or writing support students are getting at home.

 
Working in a great secondary school based in Greater London, rightly proud of its own active engagement with the local community, it welcomes students from quite a diverse catchment area. This results in the intake of a wide range of students who have vastly different backgrounds. This includes those who come from homes where literacy is rated as fundamental, being the foundation on which all other learning can take place, to those families who consider literacy as almost irrelevant, so long as their child is happy to step into the family business. In these cases (which thankfully are few but nevertheless real) being able to read and write is considered merely a ‘bonus’. Not an easy partnership to nurture when your aim is to equip every student with the same essential ‘toolkit’ to get through life beyond their compulsory education years.

 
Standing with most other educationalists in the teaching profession, I presume, I’m of the strong opinion that a positive home-school relationship with regular and valuable communication is the best approach to scaffolding student learning. For this reason, when I see articles like the two listed below, I question whether we are going far enough with sharing our expertise with students and their parents/carers. Take a look…

1. http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=alicia_molina

2. http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2014/07/24/Reading-should-be-a-family-affair-But-parents-can-t-help-their-children-learn-to-read-if-they-can-t-read-well-themselves/stories/201407240156

With my reading-instruction-radar firmly switched to ‘ON’, it seems to me that we are missing a step in the learning process, particularly for those students from homes where reading might not come naturally to their parents, either.

Geoff Barton, in his great book ‘Don’t Call it Literacy!’ (Routledge: 2013) outlines some of the key points taken from a survey carried out by the National Literacy Trust in 2010, named Literacy: State of the Nation, A picture of literacy in the UK today. Barton writes:

• ‘Parents are the most important reading role models for their children and young people’

• ‘One in five parents easily find the opportunity to read to their children’

That’s 80% of parents who don’t, then…

• ‘Recent research has shown that the likelihood of fathers reading to their children is linked to their socio-economic background.’

21% of dads in £40-50k income homes read with their children compared to 11% in £10-15k income homes.

Various different research studies have looked into the positive and negative effects of adult support within education and, in all those that I have come across, results seem to suggest that TAs who have had the necessary, thorough training around how to deliver particular programmes to students are ones where impact is most effective. Just one of these examples can be found here: http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/Default.aspx?tabid=2438

With this in mind (i.e. the knowledge that training is essential in order for adults to have a positive impact on student learning), is it time for schools who have, for example, established reading programmes and interventions in place, to now take a step further and look to supporting parents as well? If research suggests that academic success is determined partially through the level of parental involvement in their own child’s studies, do we need to start thinking creatively about how to support the parents as well as the students? Perhaps that initially means just targetting families where illiteracy or, at least, a very low level of literacy is present, or delivering a series of workshops within different departments across the school to create greater discussion opportunities that focus on how parents can support their child’s learning best? 

Another superb book highlighting the importance of literacy within schools has been written by David Didau called ‘The Secret of Literacy: Making the implicit explicit’ (Independent Thinking Press:2014). In a section of the book on ‘Building a Reading Culture’, Didau lists the recommendations given by the Department for Education on reading. The very first point in the list advises,

• ‘Engage parents by inviting them to become members of the school library, or by inviting them to workshops on how to support their child’s reading.’ 

This is useful advice and, while I’m confident we do this as a school to a point by engaging and training up some of our invaluable volunteer parents in how to teach reading to our weaker readers across the school, I don’t know if we are going far enough. For our weakest readers, in particular those ones who come from homes where parents are unable to support due to a lack of reading ability themselves, do we need to target the root of the problem here first?

Unquestionably, our biggest priority is to put our students first. This is our call of duty, our responsibility as facilitators of learning. I just wonder if we now need to start thinking outside the box with these home-school related issues a little more in order to best support our students and, as a result, advancing ever closer towards our goal for a more holistic approach to learning.

Part 1: ROOT PLANNER

This is the first of a two-part post.

‘Part 1: ROOT PLANNER’ outlines the ideology behind the new vocabulary stream I’ve designed in connection with the launch of our new English Curriculum.

‘Part 2: ROOT MAP’ will offer a more detailed sketch of the vocabulary map we will be working from, exploring ways to engage students with the importance of language and the art of how to use it.

1. FIND THE KEY

It took me four attempts to pass my driving test. I’d like to say it was the fault of the innocent-looking woman waiting at the zebra crossing, for showing no obvious signs she was about to step into the road as I zoomed past (at quite an impressive speed). Or I could blame that thoughtless trio of examiners I had for endeavouring to engage me in polite conversation during the journey, despite it being glaringly apparent I had a lot going on. But really, I knew.

 

It was only after the third walk of shame up the garden path back to my parents’ house where I was living at the time that I consciously took a moment to gather my thoughts and reflect. I realised where I’d been going wrong. It was not, in fact, those dreaded manoeuvres that were my downfall after all, but more my hazard perception in built up areas. If I’d had the sense to identify my specific weaknesses, noticing a pattern earlier on rather than seeing each test as just another ghastly event independent from the others, I’m sure I’d have cracked the code sooner.

How is this relevant?

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Well, apart from offering you a rare opportunity to indulge in a moment of healthy schadenfreude, for me, the development of literacy is a bit like learning to drive. The challenges embedded within complex processes such as being able to recognise written letter combinations (graphemes) and being able to decode them, spell spoken sounds (phonemes) accurately – within both familiar and unfamilar vocabulary – and grasp the full meaning of a rich text at its various different layers can sometimes be a little overwhelming.

 

Gear in neutral, check. Start the engine, check. L foot on the clutch, check.
Gear into 1st, check. Position mirrors, check. Control the wheel, check.
R foot gently on the gas, check. Remove handbrake, check.
Final blindspot check. Turn the wheel, check.
L foot off the clutch, check.

 

Having felt quite secure in my knowledge of the English alphabetic code growing up, I never considered the possibility that I’d only been exposed to a minute proportion of the key principles underpinning our language. I could read, write and spell with ease but it was really not until I began teaching reading and vocabulary acquisition myself (primarily to younger students, then older ones with reading difficulties) that I became fully aware of our diverse and creative language.

In Art, we take time to appreciate intricate patterns. As Mathematicians, we make it our business to hunt for them. In Science, we continually look for patterns in results, consequently making crucial predictions based on these. So why on earth do we not naturally think to do this with our language – the single most important communication tool we rely on day in, day out?

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A very real but healthy challenge secondary schools must acknowledge is the sheer scale of subject content covered across the different departments. Unlike primary education where a closer environment lends itself to more regular teacher collaboration, working in isolated departments is possibly one of our biggest obstacles in guaranteeing a holistic approach to learning. And yet, on the flipside, this very hurdle could be our greatest friend. Language spans across all curriculum subjects and, without wishing to be melodramatic, across every other aspect of life yet we fail to use it in its magnificent entirety. This ‘tool’ contains hundreds of patterns just waiting to be identified in order to help make our acquisition of language easier, be that in reading it, spelling it or understanding it.

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 2. KNOW YOUR ROOT 

—
The oxford dictionaries website claims,

“…there are, at the very least, a quarter of a million distinct English words, excluding inflections, and words from technical and regional vocabulary not covered by the OED, or words not yet added to the published dictionary, of which  perhaps 20 per cent are no longer in current use. If distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach three quarters of a million.”

Excellent. As a proud and ‘outed’ logophile, I rejoice in the knowledge of this. If the above estimate is true, that’s somewhere between 250,000-750,000 words floating around for us to explore. Wonderful. So how do we propose to teach them all?

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Simply put, we don’t. That would be ridiculous.

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I am confident, however, that we’re missing a trick (where ‘a trick’ means ‘a simply great way to teach vocabulary’). What we are in a position to do is employ strategies that offer the most time-effective, cognitively engaging methods to ensure words are taught and embedded in the long-term memory, drawing on research-based assessment methods to consolidate learning.

I am without doubt that language needs to be taught explicitly. While it is obviously pleasing to see students reading texts for their own enjoyment and, usually as a result they broaden their knowledge of vocabulary, this is not the only way to encourage language aquisition. It’s not the only way and it’s not the best way, either.

In his excellent book, ‘The Secret of Literacy’ (2014), David Didau suggests that, while ‘wide reading’ is fine, we are mistaken to believe that this is the best way to develop vocabulary. He explains,

“Written language is a far less effective medium for building vocabulary than spoken language.
Typically, pupils only learn between five and fifteen of every 100 new words encountered in
written texts.” (p173)

While engaging and helpful in the process, this kind of exposure to new words is never going to move mountains. Didau goes on to cite the great English teacher and education blogger, Joe Kirby, who suggests that we should be teaching root words as our default rather than isolated words divorced from others possessing the same root. “In that way, instead of just teaching one word, we’re potentially teaching hundreds of words.” (p174)

I suppose, in likening this aspect of literacy to maths, it would be comparable to teaching every single number independent from all the others, rather than teaching the decimal principle which relies on the use of hundreds, tens and units etc.

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Language has a clear structure and as educators it is our responsibility to scaffold students’ learning by ensuring we provide the necessary foundation blocks for them to be able to continue building on this independently.

An understanding of what root words, prefixes and suffixes are is the first step to solid language development, in my opinion. Following that, a consistent, direct teaching which targets the most common roots in our language will undoubtedly give students greater freedom to explore vocabulary.

Take the root word ‘chron’. ‘Chron’ means ‘time’.

During one of my regular Sound Training sessions (a literacy programme we use and rate highly – designed to support both reading accuracy and knowledge of root words to aid learning), I was asked:

“Miss, so if ‘chron’ means time, why does my Dad say he gets ‘chronic’ back pain?”

I couldn’t answer this with any conviction as, until this moment of realisation, had always misunderstood the term to mean ‘severe’. On researching it’s etymology with the group of Year 9 students we learnt it actually means ‘continuing for a long time’.

I’ve also welcomed conversations with questions like this…

“Miss, so if ‘photosynthesis’ means […] does that mean ‘sis’ means
‘the process of’ like ‘tion’ does?”

To be able to explore such an intricately-woven tapestry like the English language, investigating roots and their meanings with students who clearly show an interest is the kind of precious learning time I relish.

I really do believe there are huge merits to teaching vocabulary in this way and, working in partnership with a great colleague of mine, Phil Stock, plan to pilot this approach from September with the launch of the new English Curriculum. (See his post on the broader new KS3 English curriculum here.) 

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Not only do root words have invaluable benefits on students’ comprehension of unfamiliar vocabulary, they also significantly aid spelling. Once the meaning and spelling of a single root has been learnt, by utilising the other essential ‘tools’ taught alongside roots (such as: counting the number of syllables in a word, learning both common and akward graphemes, having an awareness of confusing homophones & homographs etc.), it is anticipated that students will be able to spell with far greater confidence.

WREWTS MEEN VARY LITUL UNLESC YEW CANNES WREED AN RITE

I have no desire on the final leg of this marathon blog post to steer us in another direction but it would be ludicrous not to briefly mention another equally important aspect of literacy – the ability to decode isolated sounds (phonemes) and spell them accurately (graphemes). Within the vocabulary stream of our new English curriculum model, we intend to build in tried and tested methodologies to teach spelling and decoding in the mainstream classroom, alongside the comprehension aspect of roots.

EXAMPLE 1:

phoneme = e.g. the sound you hear when you say ‘f’
graphemes = the written representations of the sound ‘f’ = fun, phone, cough, puff

EXAMPLE 2:

grapheme = e.g. the written representation of the sound ‘ch’
phonemes = the different sounds you hear in the words: chips, chef, chorus

As a result of including this element in the model*, it is expected that students will benefit from having a greater handle on vocabulary and an increased confidence to use words more freely.

*Part 2 of this post will outline the model in greater detail.

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(As an aside: I should say here that, while we are very eager to launch this model in September, we have no intention to reduce our intervention support for students who face barriers to reading. There will inevitably always be a need for support at Wave 1 (in class), Wave 2 (group support) and Wave 3 (1:1 tuition) for students who require further alternative support to help close the gap between them and their peers. For these students, we will continue to use the synthetic phonics-based programmes we currently use, such as: Read, Write Inc. Fresh start and Toe by Toe etc. We also intend to deliver Sound Training – a phonics and roots-based literacy programme – with each student in our new Year 7 cohort.)

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3. PREPARE FOR OBSTACLES 

One reason why this approach to teaching vocabulary may not have been so ardently pursued before could be due to the cocktail of possible misconceptions that lie within the model.

Take these words, for example:

Here, we have two very different words, though their beginnings are identical. It is quite common for students to mix up the roots ‘bi’ and ‘bio’, since it is not always clear to see where one morpheme (root) ends in a word and the next begins. The best way to tackle this is to ensure students are made fully aware, right from the onset, that there are likely to be confusions like this within some words. It is at the point of uncertainty as in the example shown above, that we would then use the learners’ knowledge of roots in combination with their understanding of the word in context to make an educated guess around its meaning. Once the context has been established, it is then possible to dissect the constructed word into what would simply revert back to its original collection of root meanings.

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Other anticipated confusions include…

a) there can be more than one meaning for a root 

b) there can be more than one root for a meaning

c) there can be words without any helpful clues

However, by disclosing these potential misconceptions with students at the beginning of the year, we hope to significantly reduce the potential margin of error surrounding what is, largely, a reliable and precious resource.

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 4. BROADEN YOUR HORIZONS 

(Click on the image above to appreciate its comedic value.)
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It is a small but worthwhile point to make that, when expecting students to use lexical jewels in their writing, we need to be mindful that some will have had greater opportunities and life experiences than others, giving some an inevitable advantage over their peers. Similarly, if students are not choosing to read challenging texts for pleasure at school or at home, they are inhibiting their chances of language development, thus reducing the likelihood that they will ever recreate the extravagant use of vocabulary we see in challenging texts within in their own writing. While this point may be partly out of our hands – unable to influence some home life factors contributing to this – we may be able to support students both within and around the classroom environment by helping them select ability-appropriate books (with a welcome level of demand) that they will enjoy.

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5. TEST YOUR THEORY

 

As previously mentioned, Part 2 of this post will outline in greater detail the systematic approach we will adopt to teaching vocabulary from September 2014. Included in this post, there will be an outline of our proposed method of assessment, discussing the frequency of these and suggesting why formative assessments throughout the year are just as important as the direct teaching. Each term, students will have the opportunity to demonstrate their level of understanding through the use of short, regular, purposeful tests that will be used not only to assess understanding but to embed knowledge too.

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6. GET YOUR LICENCE… and GO!

While I love words and am excited to drive this stream forward, I’m not naïve enough to think that through this approach, all teachers and students will magically become fellow logophiles too. What I do hope, however, is that through employing the best evidence-based teaching methods that support memory retention in the long-term, students will be able to look at language in a refreshed way, seizing opportunities to explore language deeply.

The vision is not only for students to benefit from what will hopefully be an improved confidence in reading, spelling and selecting vocabulary for their writing, but for them to develop a genuine enthusiasm for words too, recognising the incredible impact language can have across all areas of learning and life.

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Part 2: ROOT MAP to follow soon…

Invention of an Intervention – Top 10 Tips

Last week I blogged about differentiation – see here. As Literacy Leader based in the SEN department of a fantastic secondary school (biased but true), I’m not at all hesitant to begin this post by briefly highlighting once again the importance of differentiation. As a teacher who is fortunate enough to spend the majority of their time supporting students with SEN, I see the provision of differentiated work in mainstream lessons as the lifeline for so many along the education journey – be that in literacy or in another area of learning.

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A significant number of frank conversations I’ve had in the past with students (including many very able but frustrated ones) who struggle with literacy, lead me to believe that if we – as a collective body of teachers within schools – could master the art of providing targeted, effective differentiation for our students so that they might reach the objectives/targets we expect them to meet, so many other aspects of school life would fall into place. I’ve encountered a vast range of different students with varying needs, who have gradually become disengaged with school life because they find themselves repeatedly struggling to access the learning in lessons, sometimes on a daily (hourly, even) basis. This reality can, not always but often, lead to further complications as a result:

• increasingly disruptive behaviour
• growing tensions between students and their peers/teachers/parents
• lack of motivation
• loss of confidence etc.

If students are scaffolded in a way that enables them to access the learning, albeit in a slightly different way to others in the same class, there would be little reason for them to have to trail behind their peers as they move through their education.

But, what happens when that effective, targeted differentiation mentioned above is provided and there is still a problem? What if this ‘lifeline’ in class does not breathe the life into learning that we hope it will? It is at this point that alternative routes need to be explored…

If, at the ‘Wave One’ level of support (quality first teaching, differentiated work in class etc.), it appears that a student cannot access the topics/skills/concepts that are being taught and therefore is still not making the progress they should be, then the only option is to adapt. In our profession, that’s what we do, right? And it is at this point that ‘Wave Two’ support – group intervention – must be considered.

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But what, and how?

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Over the past few years in my role, I’ve established a number of group interventions and whole-school literacy programmes, some that seemed to kick off and run a little smoother than others. Many of the reasons for that I’d put down to experience – learning from the successes and failures of previous efforts and recognising potential pitfalls to avoid along the way – and some I’d attribute to the fact that there is no ‘one size fits all’ method, pausing for a moment to remember that, ultimately, we’re working with students who are all entirely different people. So what might work incredibly well for one student with a literacy weakness, may not work very well for another.

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Nevertheless, while we may do our best to get close, teachers are not (and will never be) superhuman. Nor do we have the capacity in schools to provide individualised learning opportunities for every single student in our care. What we can offer, however, is some form of relief for these students by way of an intensive, worthwhile intervention, in order to support their learning of topics taught back in mainstream lessons.

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As I write, I’m very conscious that I don’t want this post to merely become a passionate plea for teachers and school leaders to recognise the importance of interventions in education. I’d hope I can take that as a given. (This I spoke about at the PiXL Club Curriculum Conference in early December 2013 and would be happy to discuss in detail, if you feel this would be helpful…)

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No. More than that, what I’d like to do here is simply share my Top 10 Tips for anyone approaching the important task of inventing an intervention. The Top 10 Guide you will find below has been kept simple intentionally, in the hope that it will be useful to a large number of people and can be applied to a wide range of possible interventions in their embryonic stages.

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Click on the blue link below to view the full size document.

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Intervention Top 10 JMingay2013

Please do read, digest and use, and let me know how you can see it being utilised best for you. As always, I welcome feedback – the good, the bad and the ugly(!) – and would be happy to have further conversations as mentioned above, should you have any more specific questions or comments.

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(I should also just say, while I’ve tried to be direct and succinct with this Top 10 Guide, this is not an exhaustive list and, depending on your unique situation, the points listed may be helpful to you but work better in a slightly different order.)

However this guide might be used, I hope the content is helpful and clear.
Thanks,
Josie
Find me on Twitter… @JAMingay