Review of Systematic Phonics

Bowers (in press). Reconsidering the evidence that systematic phonics is more effective than alternative methods of reading instruction. Educational Psychology Review.

It has taken about 2 years, but my review of systematic phonics has been accepted in the prestigious journal Educational Psychology Review. I show that the “science of reading” does not support the widespread claim that systematic phonics is more effective than alternative forms of instruction. If you are interested in the topic I hope you have a look at the paper itself:  Reconsidering the evidence that systematic phonics is more effective than alternative methods of reading instruction, but for summaries you can either
(1) have a look at  slides of a talk that outline the same points  or
(2) read my earlier blogpost: https://jeffbowers.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/blog/phonics/

To avoid any confusion, my criticism of systematic phonics does not provide any support for whole language or balanced literacy. Rather, I am claiming that the decades long “reading wars” is best characterized as a draw. The implication is that researchers should consider alternative approaches to reading instruction. In my view, one promising alternative is structured word inquiry (Bowers & Bowers, 2017, 2018), but the main point is that more research is needed before making evidence-based claims regarding the efficacy of phonics, balanced literacy, structured word inquiry, or any other method.

Unfortunately, research into reading instruction has been one of the most contentious areas in all of psychology and education. Proponents of phonics who simply ignore this critique are engaging in advocacy not science. Whether you agree or disagree, it would be great to get feedback here.

21 Responses to Review of Systematic Phonics

  1. Jeff bowers says:

    As detailed in my first two responses to Buckingham, based on the NRP and Camilli et al. meta-analyses there is little no evidence that systematic phonics is better than standard forms of alternative instruction that include some (non-systematic) phonics, and even less evidence that SSP is better than whole language given only 4 studies were carried out, with mixed results. The Torgerson et al. (2006) meta-analysis further undermines the conclusions that can be drawn from the NRP. What the authors note is that few of the studies included in the NRP were actually RCT studies, and the quality of the studies is problematic. Here is a passage from this meta-analysis that specifically focused on 14 RCT studies that exist (including one unpublished study):

    “None of the 14 included trials reported method of random allocation or sample size justification, and only two reported blinded assessment of outcome. Nine of the 14 trials used intention to teach (ITT) analysis. These are all limitations on the quality of the evidence. The main meta-analysis included only 12 relatively small individually randomised controlled trials, with the largest trial having 121 participants and the smallest only 12 (across intervention and control groups in both cases). Although all these trials used random allocation to create comparison groups and therefore the most appropriate design for investigating the question of relative effectiveness of different methods for delivering reading support or instruction, there were rather few trials, all relatively small, and of varying methodological quality. This means that the quality of evidence in the main analysis was judged to be “moderate” for reading accuracy outcomes. For comprehension and spelling outcomes the quality of evidence was judged to be “weak”.

    So not a great basis for making strong conclusions.

    But what about the results? Jennifer Buckingham writes: “After limiting the included studies to RCTs, Torgerson, Brooks and Hall (2006) found moderate to high effect sizes for systematic phonics on word reading (0.27 to 0.38) and comprehension (0.24 to 0.35), depending on whether fixed or random effects models were used. The word reading effect was statistically significant. After removing one study with a particularly high effect size, the overall result was reduced for word reading accuracy but still of moderate size and still significant.”

    Again, the claim that the effects were moderate to high is at odds with the effect sizes, and this summary does not capture the fact that the comprehension effect was not significant, nor was spelling (d = 0.09). And as noted by Torgerson et al. *themselves*, after removing a flawed study with an absurd effect size of 2.69, the spelling effect just reaching significance one analysis (p = 0.03) and nonsignificant on another (p = 0.09). For Buckingham to summarize this as a significant and moderate effect is misleading (never mind the replication crisis that has highlighted how insecure a p < .05 effect is). Torgerson et al. also reported evidence of publication bias in support of systematic phonics. This bias will have inflated the results from previous meta-analyses, and the fact that the authors identified one additional unpublished study does not eliminate this worry. More importantly, the design of the study did not even compare systematic phonics compared to some phonics that is common in school settings. If this comparison was made, the effect sizes would be reduced even further. This means that the following claim by Torgerson et al.’s regarding whole language is unjustified. “Systematic phonics instruction within a broad literacy curriculum appears to have a greater effect on childrens progress in reading than whole language or whole word approaches”.

    In sum, Torgerson et al. assessed the efficacy of systematic phonics on spelling, comprehension, and word reading accuracy. The first two effects were not significant, and the word reading accuracy results according to their own analysis was borderline (significant on one test, not on another). Torgerson et al. did not even test whether systematic phonics was more effective than standard alternative methods that include some phonics. On top of this, as noted by Torgerson et al., the quality of the studies in their meta-analysis was mixed. It is hard to reconcile these facts with Buckingham's characterization of the findings. As we will see, all subsequent meta-analyses are even more problematic for the claim that the science of reading supports systematic phonics compared to common alternatives.

  2. Joe says:

    Here is one of the conclusions of a largely favourable piece of 2019 research conducted into minilit, a program associated with Jennifer Buckingham, by the University of Melbourne:

    “While we did not see better outcomes on reading whole passages of text (this covers accuracy, reading rate and comprehension), this finding should be treated with caution as reading can be difficult to measure in younger students who are struggling with the basic reading skills.” https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/finding-the-fundamentals-of-reading

    For me, this strikes chords with the following passage in Buckingham’s piece: “The study found phonics interventions to have relatively small long term effects. The lower long-term effects of phonics interventions can be explained by the constrained nature of phonics. Once children have mastered decoding, other aspects of reading instruction become stronger variables in their reading ability.”

    Thus, it doesn’t matter if the long-term effects of phonics are small, since, for a few, sweet years only, students were reading better than they would otherwise have been. Were I a principal of a primary school, I would really wonder if this was worth all the fuss. Any marginal gain from a reform is of course great, but it has to be weighed against the costs of implementation.

    To be fair, some advocates of phonics have a far stronger account of what they can achieve. Here is John Walker, the director of Sounds Write, the 4 year phonics program my children are treated to, writing about what he has achieved in England: “There you can see whole classes of children – children who don’t speak any English at home, children whose parents don’t own any books never mind read them, children who come from some of the poorest backgrounds – yet, who, by the age of seven are already literate enough to be able to read a broadsheet newspaper or anything in a classical novel. (https://theliteracyblog.com/2018/07/29/exploding-myths-imploding-arguments/). Really? Henry James? George Elliott? – anything??

    I think that’s what is called ‘the science of reading’.

  3. Denyse Ritchie says:

    Is the confused and interchanging use of the terms systematic phonics and synthetic phonics deliberate by Buckingham et.al. The terms are not synonymous. Systematic phonics can include synthetic, analytic and phonics in context. The evidence at hand is for ‘systematic phonics’ teaching – but not, as is confused, synthetic phonics. By interchanging the terms the debate is confusing teachers/schools that rely on academic knowledge and endorsements for their employment of pedagogy. The ‘synthetic phonics’ approach starting with ‘letter sounds’ or initial code is false phonics teaching that leads to disaster for those that don’t overthrow the foundational learning. SSP is flawed, restrictive and what has caused many to shun the word phonics and has enabled the so called reading war to continue . Teaching letter names and the alphabetic principle and ‘real phonics’ allows for the teaching of phonology, morphemes and etymology all relevant skills in teaching vocabulary and written words.

  4. Jeff Bowers says:

    This morning I started writing a response to Jennifer Buckingham’s post entitled “The grass is not greener on Jeffrey Bowers’ side of the fence: Systematic phonics belongs in evidence-based reading programs” that was published on the “five from five” website. I was hoping they would allow comments, but appears not, so I thought I would post my initial response on here.

    I am pleased that Buckingham has provided a detailed response to my article, but almost every point she makes regarding my review of the evidence is either factually incorrect or a mischaracterization. There is nothing in her post that challenges the conclusions I’ve drawn. I’ll need to spend a few hours responding to all the points and don’t have the time today. But for now I thought I would start with her first response to my review of the evidence, namely, the findings from the NRP. Her summary of my critique of the NRP is as follows:

    “In his summary of the National Reading Panel (NRP) analysis, Bowers argues that the effect sizes are not large and do not justify the NRP’s conclusions that systematic phonics should be taught in schools. However, the effect sizes quoted by Bowers are moderate to high, especially for synthetic phonics in particular, and are certainly stronger than the evidence found for any other method, including whole language”.

    This is wrong in multiple many ways. First, it a gross mischaracterization of my summary, which I provide in the paper itself:

    “In sum, rather than the strong conclusions emphasized the executive summary of the NRP (2000) and the abstract of Ehri et al. (2001), the appropriate conclusion from this meta-analysis should be something like this:

    Systematic phonics provides a small short-term benefit to spelling, reading text, and comprehension, with no evidence that these effects persist following a delay of 4– 12 months (the effects were not reported nor assessed). It is unclear whether there is an advantage of introducing phonics early, and there are no short- or long-term benefit for majority of struggling readers above grade 1 (children with below average intelligence). Systematic phonics did provide a moderate short-term benefit to regular word and pseudoword naming, with overall benefits significant but reduced by a third following 4–12 months.”

    But on a point of fact, Buckingham’s claim that “the effect sizes quoted by Bowers are moderate to high, especially for synthetic phonics in particular” is straightforwardly contradicted by the following point from my paper:

    “And although the NRP is often taken to support the efficacy of synthetic systematic phonics (the version of phonics legally mandated in the UK), the NRP meta-analysis only included four studies relevant for this comparison (of 12 studies that compared systematic phonics with whole language, only four assessed synthetic phonics). The effect sizes in order of magnitude were d = 0.91 and d = 0.12 in two studies that assessed grade 1 and 2 students, respectively (Foorman et al. 1998); d = 0.07 in a study that asses grade 1 students (Traweek & Berninger, 1997); and d = − 0.47 in a study carried out on grade 2 students (Wilson & Norman, 1998).”

    It is worth highlighting this point. The NPR has no doubt been cited 100s of times in support of the claim that synthetic phonics is more effective than whole language. But if you look carefully, this is the basis for this claim.

    Also, according to the NRP itself, there is no statistical evidence that synthetic phonics is more effective than other forms of systematic phonics:

    “Are some types of phonics instruction more effective than others? Are some specific phonics programs more effective than others? Three types of phonics programs were compared in the analysis: (1) synthetic phonics programs that emphasized teaching students to convert letters (graphemes) into sounds (phonemes) and then to blend the sounds to form recognizable words; (2) larger-unit phonics programs that emphasized the analysis and blending of larger subparts of words (i.e., onsets, rimes, phonograms, spelling patterns) as well as phonemes; and (3) miscellaneous phonics programs that taught phonics systematically but did this in other ways not covered by the synthetic or larger-unit categories or were unclear about the nature of the approach. The analysis showed that effect sizes for the three categories of programs were all significantly greater than zero and did not differ statistically from each other. The effect size for synthetic programs was d = 0.45; for larger-unit programs, d = 0.34; and for miscellaneous programs, d = 0.27”

    Also, note these effect sizes. Cohen suggested that d=0.2 be considered a ‘small’ effect size, 0.5 represents a ‘medium’ effect size and 0.8 a ‘large’ effect size. So unclear why Buckingham writes: “the effect sizes quoted by Bowers are moderate to high, especially for synthetic phonics in particular, and are certainly stronger than the evidence found for any other method, including whole language”. Indeed, as noted above, the NRP only had 4 studies that compared synthetic phonics to whole language.

    These misrepresentations and misstatements of fact continue, but I’ll need a few days before I have some time. I do allow responses on my website, so happy to get comments. Do give me a few days, I’m in the middle of marking exams….

    • Holly Shapiro says:

      I look forward to the remainder of your response. I’m glad folks are interested in your paper but disappointed so far in the quality of the challenges to your conclusions.

    • Jeff bowers says:

      I think I’ll be breaking up my responses rather than one long response. Here I focus on the Camilli et al. studies.

      As I’ve shown above, Buckingham makes a number of factual and misleading comments about NPR. She next criticizes my review of Camilli et al. and argues that these analyses provide further support for systematic phonics. Here are the key passages from her response:

      “Bowers presents the findings of two re-analyses of the studies included in the NRP by Camilli, Vargas and Yurecko (2003) and Camilli, Wolfe and Smith (2006) that are alleged to dispute the NRP’s conclusions. Yet after some substantial re-engineering of the data, Camilli, Vargas and Yurecko (2003) still found that the effect of systematic over non-systematic phonics instruction was significant.”

      And…

      “Camilli, Wolfe and Smith (2006) manoeuvered the data even more, creating a multi-level model that included language-based activities as a moderating variable. It reinforced the finding that systematic phonics was superior to no phonics but reduced the simple effect of systematic phonics over non-systematic phonics, which Bowers incorrectly interprets to mean that “Camilli et al (2006) failed to show an advantage of systematic over unsystematic phonics” (p. 9).

      Buckingham concludes: “Overall, far from presenting a challenge to systematic phonics, the findings of Camilli et al. can be described as supporting the conclusion that some phonics instruction is better than no phonics instruction, and the more systematic the phonics instruction is, the better. The best case scenario is systematic phonics instruction paired with high quality language activities.”

      The first thing to note is that Buckinghan seems to think that Camilli et al are up to no good, writing: “Yet after some substantial re-engineering of the data” and “Camilli, Wolfe and Smith (2006) manoeuvered the data even more”…. This seems to relate to Greg Ashman’s criticism of Camilli et al. in his earlier critique of my work that is nicely summarized in a recent tweet by him:

      “The fundamental flaw is it’s all post hoc. Bowers is slicing and dicing the meta-analyses to suit his hypothesis. He relies heavily on Camilli who also slice and dice the results. You can prove pretty much anything that way.”

      The first thing to note is that there is nothing arbitrary or post-hoc about the Camilli et al.’s analyses. As noted by the authors of the NRP, almost all forms of instruction in the USA included some degree of phonics, with systematic phonics less common. So, when claiming the science of reading supports a change to systematic phonics, the relevant question is whether systematic phonics is better than some phonics. Because the NRP did not test this hypothesis, Camilli et al. carried out new meta-analyses to address this question. There is absolutely nothing post-hoc about asking this reasonable question. The authors also wanted to distinguish the impact of systematic phonics from one-one tutoring and language-based activities more generally. Again, nothing post-hoc about asking this, let alone “substantial re-engineering of the data”. They carried out new meta-analyses to ask a new set of reasonable questions.

      But what about the results? Do they provide further support for systematic phonics? In first analysis Camilli et al found the benefit of systematic phonics was reduced to .24 (from .41), but nevertheless, the effect was still significant. Great news for systematic phonics! Well, no. What one should note is that this overall effect that combines the results from decoding of nonwords, regular words, etc. Based on these results there is no reason to think that systematic phonics improved any reading outcome other than decoding for the short-term. Here again is my summary of the original findings from the NRP (when the overall effect was .41), and the most appropriate conclusion from the Camilli et al. (2003) meta-analysis is that the impact of systematic phonics compared to some phonics (i.e., standard forms of instruction in schools) is about half this strength.

      “Systematic phonics provides a small short-term benefit to spelling, reading text, and comprehension, with no evidence that these effects persist following a delay of 4– 12 months (the effects were not reported nor assessed). It is unclear whether there is an advantage of introducing phonics early, and there are no short- or long-term benefit for majority of struggling readers above grade 1 (children with below average intelligence). Systematic phonics did provide a moderate short-term benefit to regular word and pseudoword naming, with overall benefits significant but reduced by a third following 4–12 months.”

      And furthermore, in a subsequent analysis of this same dataset (with a more careful assessment additional variables and improved statistics), Camilli et al. (2006) found that there was no longer any significant main effect of systematic phonics compared to unsystematic phonics. Instead, according to the Camilli et al. (2003, 2006), the strongest effect in the studies included in the NRP came from one-on-one tutoring.

      For some reason Buckingham claims I am incorrect in writing: “Camilli et al (2006) failed to show an advantage of systematic over unsystematic phonics”. But that is exactly what they found. And even if the nonsignificant d = .12 is taken to support systematic phonics over non-systematic phonics, the effects will mostly be driven by short-term measures of decoding, with even weaker effect sizes for all other measures of reading, and weaker effects still with children with reading difficulties (remember, Camilli et al. are working with largely the same dataset as the NRP). Indeed, as we will see later, subsequent meta-analyses highlight how systematics phonics does not have long-lasting effects on reading outcomes, and that children with reading difficulties do indeed benefit the least.

      To summarize thus far, the NRP provides weak evidence at best that systematic phonics improves reading outcomes, little or no evidence for synthetic phonics is better than whole language, and that the main design of the NRP did not even test they hypothesis that systematic phonics is better than common alternatives in schools. There is no basis whatsoever for Buckingham’s claim that the effect sizes in the NRP “are moderate to high, especially for synthetic phonics in particular”. When meta-analyses were designed to test whether systematic phonics is better than common alternatives that include some (nonsystematic) phonics, the effects are dramatically reduced, and indeed, in one analysis, the overall analysis is not even significant. There are no good scientific grounds to argue that the NRP or the Camilli et al. meta-analyses provide good support for systematic phonics. In my next post, I show that the Torgerson et al. (2006) meta-analyses further undermines the claim that the NRP or indeed Camilli et al. analyses support systematic phonics.

      • Harriett says:

        Thanks, Jeff, for chunking your responses. In a future response can you please address the position that many of us hold, that systematic phonics instruction is necessary but not sufficient to improve reading performance. Buckingham writes:

        “Systematic phonics does not preclude a focus on the meaning of words. There is no directive that learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) must precede all other elements of reading instruction. The criteria for systematic phonics only apply to the aspect of instruction that focuses on teaching decoding. The expectation is that children will have concurrent instruction in all of the ‘Big 5’ – phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension – and that the phonics component will be systematic and explicit.”

        I have been fortunate these last two years to do a job share and teach a third grade class once a week. Over this time, 18 of my former first and second grade intervention students (who came to me lacking decoding skills) have been in my third grade class. For the most part, they have come to third grade as quick and efficient decoders because of the phonemic awareness, phonics and fluency activities I did with them during their intervention sessions. However, in order for them to do what our state requires of them in the spring–to analyze multi-paragraph articles focused on a single topic and synthesize a response in either a narrative, argumentative or informational format–merely resting on their ability to decode words will get them nowhere.

        This is why an emphasis on comprehension and vocabulary are a must at all times, and especially once students can decode. Oral comprehension and vocabulary are important even when students can’t decode, but nailing the decoding piece is crucial if these students have any kind of chance in tackling multi-paragraph grade level text.

        Thanks for addressing (at some point) this point, that systematic phonics instruction is “necessary but not sufficient”.

  5. Harriett says:

    And finally, Jenny Chew in a November 8th response to you on Pamela Snow’s blog, “Trick or Treat: More nonsense words about phonics instruction and assessment”, ends her comments with the same question that I have.

    You write:

    “The key part of my quote is: “before focusing on the meaning of written words in isolation and in text”. Note the word *written*. Yes, children learn the meaning of spoken words, largely from home, and as far as I know, there is no systematic way in which meaning of spoken words is taught in schools. So phonics focuses on GPCs (like the quote from Max), with minimal teaching of meaning. SWI does explicitly teach GPC, but in the context of morphological matrices where the meaning of a set of morphologically related words are studied. Here, children are being taught meaning of *written* words, and learning GPCs in this context.”

    And Jenny Chew responds:

    “It looks as if you are using ‘focusing on’ to mean ‘teaching’, and are therefore saying that phonics teaches GPCs before teaching the meaning of written words. But written words have the same meanings as their spoken counterparts, and if children can use phonics to translate written words, however many morphemes they have, into spoken words whose meanings they already know, there is no need for teachers to teach the meanings of those written words separately. In those circumstances, however, not teaching meaning doesn’t mean that there is no ‘focus’ on it – teachers use questions and discussion to make sure that children understand what they read.

    Would you use a morphological matrix to teach GPCs from scratch to children who as yet knew no GPCs? Can you give an example?”

    It’s this example of a “morphological matrix to teach GPCs from scratch to children who as yet knew no GPCs” which would help me understand what SWI instruction to beginning readers looks likes in practice.

    Thanks!

    Harriett

    • Jeff bowers says:

      Hi Harriett, I’ve responded to these questions multiple times to the best of my ability. Videos have been posted of teachers teaching SWI in the early stages of reading instruction. Analytic phonics is an type of phonics where children learn GPCs within words at the start of instruction (no one claims that this is hard to understand as far as I know). But in any case, this is a paper about the evidence for systematic phonics, not about SWI. For this blogpost I’m hoping to talk about the claim that the science of reading supports SSP.

      • Harriett says:

        Thanks, Jeff. You say: “Analytic phonics is an type of phonics where children learn GPCs within words at the start of instruction (no one claims that this is hard to understand as far as I know).”

        Definitely not hard to understand. Forgive me, but I hadn’t appreciated that SWI promotes the use of analytic phonics. I’ll now revisit your links and look for analytic phonics combined with “morphological matrices where the meaning of a set of morphologically related words are studied. Here, children are being taught meaning of *written* words, and learning GPCs in this context.”

      • Harriett says:

        You’re right, Jeff, that I haven’t been addressing the main points of your review, but after reading what Anne Castles says, I realize that if she’s struggling with interpreting the data, then I would be way out of my depth. She writes:

        “I’d still cite the NRP study as coming out overall in favour of systematic phonics. I did read the Camilli et al (2006) study, but found it very hard to figure out what they’d actually done, and why they’d made the decisions they did about which factors to control. No doubt there are many, many different ways these data could be carved up – I really have no way of knowing whether things they have done have introduced other confounds. So, imperfect though it may be, I place more weight on the results as reported against the original set of criteria”

        However, I am not out of my depth when it comes to teaching 5 and 6 year-olds how to read, and after watching Pete’s video on teaching SWI right from the start (http://www.realspellers.org/forums/orthography/1412-video-on-how-swi-explicitly-teaches-grapheme-phoneme-correspondences-from-the-start), I’d have to say that I just don’t see that method working until students have nailed their GPC’s through quick and efficient blending and segmenting. Too much information! But once they’re “off the blocks” as Pamela Snow says, it’s good stuff.

        • LEX says:

          There’s really no good reason to fixate on Pete’s videos as examples of teaching 5 or 6-year-olds to read; instead, please view the many resources and videos from kindergarten and first grade teachers who actually are working with SWI and very young children.

          Let’s not act like there aren’t a million phonics videos out there that you would not think are good representations of phonics. Pete’s video really isn’t representative of much except Pete trying to kind of artificially model what he’d do beginning **remediation** with a kid who’s struggling, or introducing SWI concepts to a class for the first time. Nowhere does he make the claim that it’s a model of him working with a brand-new, beginning reader.

          Pete says the video is “about how we teach GPCs from the very start” — the question is the very start of WHAT? Harriet mistakenly assumes Pete is talking about the very start of literacy, rather than the very place he typically starts SWI with older kids and teachers.

          There are, however, many of us who actually study with very young kids. Depending on the child, I may start with script to ensure letter knowledge and proper pathways, or with the establishment of what vowels are and what consonants are. There are plenty of videos and websites that detail working with SWI with beginning readers, with K or pre-K or 1st graders.

          Might someone use a lexical word matrix to study orthographic phonology? Sure! From the very beginning? Perhaps — it depends on the child and the concept under study.

          I find it baffling how the biggest opponents of SWI, those who poke at it and perseverate on minutia (like what an spells, or a single video) are typically people who haven’t been trained or studied, just watched a video or two and formed false opinions. It’s the biggest barrier there is to learning: thinking you already know everything about something.

          • Harriett says:

            Thank you so much for the clarification!

            You say: “There are plenty of videos and websites that detail working with SWI with beginning readers, with K or pre-K or 1st graders.”

            I’ve watched the “rain” video from a pre-school class that Pete has posted, but that did not show how to teach non-readers GPC’s using SWI. This is the type of video I’m looking for and would be very grateful if you could provide a link.

            Thank you!

  6. Harriett says:

    One more thing:

    You state in your paper: “To summarize, there are a number of different forms of reading instruction, some of which emphasize letter-sound mappings before other properties of words (e.g., systematic phonics), others that emphasize meaning from the start (e.g., whole language) and others that claim that the phonology and meaning of word spellings should be the focus of instruction from the beginning (structured word inquiry).”

    This confuses me. I do letter-sound mappings WITHIN the context of teaching words (dog, cat, mom, dad), and of course these words have meaning. I consider this to be teaching phonics. This is why many of us are unclear about exactly what SWI looks like in beginning reading instruction.

    Harriett

  7. Harriett says:

    Hi Jeff,
    As you know, I find this subject very interesting because I have worked with hundreds of struggling readers, and we practitioners really do want to implement “best practices” since so much is at stake when it comes to getting it right.

    Over the past two years since I first became acquainted with SWI, I have followed links that you and Jeff have posted and watched many videos. And this year I have started using word matrices with my third graders. What I still haven’t seen is a clear “how to” for beginning readers: How do you teach children who have no understanding of grapheme-phoneme connections how to read words?

    In her responses to you and Pete in the February 2018 exchange on her blog, Pamela Snow makes a similar point: the “sticking point” seems to be the “starting point”, and she–like many of us–would like to see how SWI is “translated into everyday practice” with students who have no grapheme-phoneme connections.

    She writes:

    “We have to start somewhere to help novices to understand the nature of reading and I’m curious to understand where you advocate starting . . . I just don’t see morphology as the starting point in a language that has a strong alphabetic component, particularly for the kinds of words we want to start young children off on . . . morphology and etymology are critical, but are not the entry point to early systematic reading instruction . . . I think pretty much all of us agree on the importance of phonemic awareness, phonics, morphology, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and oracy, but the sticking point seems to be whether the starting point is introducing children to a small subset of phoneme-grapheme correspondences to get them off the blocks . . . If you have evidence that starting with morphology and guided word study is “better”, then of course I am eager to be directed to that and will read it with great interest. How such evidence would be translated into everyday practice in early years classrooms (particularly in Australia), however, is a leap into the darkness.”

    Thanks for such an interesting discussion!

    Harriett

  8. Jeff bowers says:

    The third Bowers brother speaks!

  9. Holly Shapiro says:

    Congratulations! I’m so glad your work will be getting the larger audience it deserves.

  10. Kevin Bowers says:

    What the hell is wrong with fonics?

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