[Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: What do Warwick Elley, Tom Nicholson, and other NZ'ers think of this?

[P Pearson]

Great to hear from you, Warwick!!!!  Appreciate your measured,
evidence-based perspective!!
David

On Tue, Aug 27, 2019 at 10:12 PM <val.warwickelley at iconz.co.nz> wrote:

> I have been asked to express my views on the recent debates in NZ and
> elsewhere on the role of phonics in learning to read.
> As one who has found it difficult to attend or participate in RHF
> activities, due to the frailties of advanced age, I have been reluctant
> to join in these controversies, once again.
>
> However, for what it is worth, I see no good reason to revise my former
> position that children best learn to read, and develop a long-standing
> interest in reading, when they are immersed in authentic, predictable
> books and have the guidance of a teacher who understands and applies the
> shared reading approach with its high-interest activities.
>
> Done well, this approach has worked effectively for me for most children
> in a wide range of countries learning to read and write in a second
> language, just as it has in New Zealand for many years. Certainly there
> are a few who may fall by the wayside, for a range of reasons, and who
> may benefit with greater phonemic emphasis, but I find most children
> learn their phonics as they learn to read by more natural meaningful
> approaches, rather than in phonics schemes studied out of context.
>
> These debates have surfaced many times during my 68 years as a teacher
> and researcher, here in NZ and internationally. It seems that empirical
> studies have so far not been convincing enough for those with entrenched
> positions to change their view. However, one study I came across
> recently has not had the publicity I think it deserved in this part of
> the world. Wyse and Goswami reported on a year-long study of how well
> children learned to read in their first language by synthetic phonics in
> 14 different European countries. Probably those in England know of the
> study.
>
> After one year of instruction, all the children in the selected classes
> were tested on 20 familiar words and 20 pseudo words.
> Not surprisingly children in Finland scored best, with an average of 98%
> on the familiar-word test, and 95% on the pseudo-words. Finnish is the
> most phonetically-regular language.  The children in eight other
> European countries scored over 90% on the familiar word test, and nearly
> the same in the other test. Three others,  (French, Danish and
> Portuguese) scored in the 70%s. But those children learning in English,
> had an average of only 34% on the familiar words and 29% on the
> pseudo-words. Clearly, English is quite different from the other
> languages for children learning by synthetic phonics.
>
> Admittedly, the samples were small, and the mean ages were not equal,
> but the size of the differences between languages surely highlights the
> fact that learning to read with synthetic phonics is much more difficult
> in English than in other languages.
> As Wyse and Goswami point out, "The phonological complexity of the
> syllabic structure in English is different from the other languages.
> ...and requires instructional levels other than the phonemes may be
> required."  (p. 693)
>
> This research may well have been interpreted differently by others, but
> I find it explains well why children learning by phonic approaches learn
> well in phonetically regular languages, but not in English. As my
> grandchildren learning to read in England discovered, a year-long focus
> on phonics is merely an interference when one can already read
> meaningful text. Of course they were read to daily as pre-schoolers!
>
> Refs:
> D.Wyse & U. Goswami. (2008) "Synthetic Phonics and the Teaching of
> Reading." British Journal of Educational Research, 34, 6,
> p691-710.
>
> P. Seymour, P. Aro & J Erskine (2003) "Foundation Literacy Acquisition
> in European Orthographies" British Journal of Psychology, 94, p143-147.
>
>
>
> On 2019-08-23 01:58, Greg Brooks wrote:
> > Brian and others
> > My response would be as in the attachment.
> > Best to all
> > Greg Brooks
> >
> > On Wed, 21 Aug 2019 at 04:08, Brian Cambourne <bcambrn at uow.edu.au>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>
> > https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12259907
> >>
> >> Assoc. Prof. ( Dr) Brian Cambourne
> >> Principal Fellow
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> >>
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P. David Pearson
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