From the Isle of Thanet Gazette, 4th November 2005
How school’s pioneer approach is giving children a head start
Rising truancy rates and falling literacy skills have put schools under the spotlight. One infant school in Ramsgate believes it has found a better way to improve learning right from a child’s first days in class – the phonics-based Sounds-Write system. Reporter Kathy Bailes visited the school to find out how it works:
Children at Priory infants school in Ramsgate are speeding ahead with their reading and writing, thanks to a new system of teaching. The Sounds-Write phonics scheme concentrates on letter sounds to help children understand what makes a word and how to put different sounds together.
Headmistress of 20 years Lin Parry says the benefit to the children is enormous. She said: “The Sounds-Write scheme is moving on from the basic approach, which concentrates on letters. With this new way we teach precise sounds which make up the words. It sounds obvious, but when you ask, ‘what does that word say’, it doesn’t actually say anything until it is spoken. We teach children how to recognise the sound and the spelling.
“I have done the training and thought it was really good. I have been teaching for more than 30 years and I wish I had known about this before. The scheme is very planned and prescriptive and you have to say each sound in a particular way, but it seems to be getting results.”
This year’s Standard Assessment Tests seem to support the school’s enthusiasm for the Sounds-Write approach. Results for reading among the school’s seven-year-olds at the national level 2 standard rose from 62 per cent in 2004 to 80 per cent this year. Results for writing are even better with a 25 per cent rise to 93 per cent – far above the national average of 80 per cent.
Lin believes a large part of this improvement is due to teaching phonetically. “Sounds-Write goes past any accent to listening to the word,” she said. “I have a one-year-old grand-daughter and have been telling her mum and dad to try this out. If she is reading well by the age of six I will know I was right.”
Sounds-Write teaching starts at Priory with four and five-year-olds in the reception classes. Some are introduced to the system on their first day. The method used is not only simple but fun, supporters say. The first group of six from the reception pink class bustled into the library area for their first session with deputy teacher Tracey Jones, who has been teaching for 16 years.
The pupils’ first taste of phonics looked quite like a game of bingo. Each had a card with several pictures. As Tracey sounded out the letters of the word, they had to work out what she was spelling, then circle the picture if they had it on their card. The children were wriggling around in their seats with excitement as they waited for each set of sounds.
The next step was to build three-letter words on the whiteboard by listening to Tracey make out the sounds. Once the word was made, the children repeated the sounds and looked at the letters. This seems so simple yet teachers in Thanet have only been trained in the system for the past two years. It has been in action at Priory for little more than 12 months.
Tracey says the results can already be seen: “In the past children in reception were not expected to write anything until the summer term,” she said, “so by year one some had an idea of building up letters but many didn’t. Now they start in September and by November many of the youngest children can write words of three letters and read those words back. They learn confidence in trying spellings and all the rules we teach them work. The boys enjoy this as much as the girls because we use objects, like a peg, to demonstrate what is being spelt.”
After mastering words of three and four letters in reception classes, the system moves on a stage from the initial code to the extended code. Here, six and seven-year-olds in year two are taught how the same sounds can be formed with different letters and shown how to build up more words and recognise the difference between different spellings.
Teaching assistant Sharon Warner takes many of the older children for the extended stage of learning. She was one of the first staff members to take the five-day training course and has been responsible for planning classes, making equipment and learning aids and taking catch-up classes. Sharon’s group of children were clearly excited to take part and could hardly refrain from shouting out the answers as Sharon asked them to put words together on the board.
The children are taught how the same sounds can be made with different spellings. The use of precisely sounding out each letter helps them grasp the different spelling without confusion. It seems clear the pupils at Priory enjoy this kind of teaching.
In an end-of-year assessment, 87 per cent of pupils said reading was one of their favourite things at school. Of course, 94 per cent of them plumped for play-time, but you can’t win them all.
(Reproduced with permission)
Item Filed: 22/11/2005