BOLT-ON

BRI – 10 MIN. PLAN TO BANISH YEAR 3 LITERACY CRISIS

Following the daily Systematic Synthetic Phonics lesson in Reception and Year 1 a guided teaching session with BRI decodable stories offers multiple benefits. By incorporating a short BRI story reading 3 times all children, including both precocious learners and struggling readers, practice their decoding, fluency and communication skills. 

 ‘Bolt-On’ takes only a few minutes using:

 ‘I do’

 ‘we do’

 ‘you do’ 

^{*A universal model created by the distinguished American educator, Anita Archer} 

Advantages of establishing BRI practice:

1. Provides a routine to embed rigorous decoding and additional blending practice 

2. Offers the opportunity to encompass prosody and oracy 

3. Provides an opening for the introduction of grammatical conventions including capital letters, full-stops, question marks, exclamation marks 

4. Offers the opportunity for more precocious readers to connect deeply with the stories’ characters and their foibles 

5. Provides the essential focus on those children who still struggle to ‘lift the words from the page’ and rapidly to identify those requiring Tier 2 and/or Tier 3 instruction.

Materials: Teacher requires a copy, initially, of BRI Level 1A (6 stories). The class overhead projector with ie a blunt pencil to act as a ‘pointer’. 

Children require their white board, pen and eraser at the ready.

A TA or volunteer observer (the ‘extra pair of eyes’) requires a note-book for recording any children who may be struggling and who lack confidence. She/he should stand in the optimal place for observing both front and back rows. 

Children engaged in Tier 1 or Tier 2 sessions will also need their own copies of BRI and copies of SPELLING WITH BRI. For Teachers, notebooks are essential for noting each child’s specific difficulties and progress, including all specific areas of difficulty and any error corrections.   

Whole Class Practice: 

1^st reading:

Teacher models the first ‘I See Sam’ story emphasising both expression and ‘all-through-the word’ reading while sliding ie a blunt pencil precisely under each letter(s)/sound. 

(The first six stories of ‘I see Sam’ contain only 5 sounds and 3 words).

2^nd reading:

Teacher provides a reading scaffold by reading the story aloud, with the class simultaneously echo or whisper-reading, directing them to imitate the teacher’s intonation. This will encourage children to develop both fluency and expression.

Before embarking on echo reading, the teacher needs to explain what pupils should be listening for ie intonation. 

TA or volunteer (‘a second pair of eyes’) needs to carefully monitor children who may be struggling.

3^rd reading: Teacher ‘cold calls’ children to read a sentence each, supporting any child who is still unable to decode/read the sentence alone. It is important to proceed gently with struggling and shy children. Teachers should initially choose a simple l or 2 GPC word for the pupil. 

When time permits, use the questions accompanying each story to probe the characters, their personalities, actions, motivations etc.

Alternatively, delay all introduction of Cold Calling until Year 1, and instead invite a discussion exploring the BRI characters, their personalities, actions, motivations. Oracy, with the optional choice to include the questions accompanying each story, can then be prioritised. 

Recommended:

Christopher Such, Primary Reading Simplified. A succinct examination of why significant problems can arise when children reach Yr 3.

Reading Myths, Mastery & Motivation, Getting Fluent with Christopher Such Mind the Gap. Hosted by Emma Turner & Jon Hutchinson (available on YouTube).

For additional information see https://www.piperbooks.co.uk including 30 Reasons to Teach Children to Read Using BRI Decodable Readers (Blog Section).

For class discount see https://www.piperbooks.co.uk/buy-bri-books e-mail for details

DYSLEXIA TRAUMA

1st communication

“[A leading literacy expert] believes dyslexic people reading words backwards is a misconception. Well I have the classic problem of difficulty in working out a ‘b’ and a ‘d’, which can cause misreading a word. I also misread words that have a similar visual appearance eg ‘swimming’ and ‘slimming’ (can be very embarrassing). My brain picks up visual clues to what the word is going to be and very often jumps the gun, causing me to read it wrong. So I can’t read fluently, because l have to concentrate hard on checking what letters are making up the word (hence reading becomes exhausting).

Also, its just occurred to me, I also have to check the grammar of anything I have written. I very often get the content of what I trying to say, ‘back to front’ (I can even get two words or characters in the wrong order, needing simply to transpose them). 

I personally just don’t see or register the word in my brain, it’s as if my brain has already decided what the word or even the sentence is right from the outset – my brain just decides (probably based on context of story) what it wants to read.

I should clarify that a fare amount of my misreading and misinterpretation is amplified because of ‘embarrassment’. A fear of looking stupid because I cannot read out loud with the same fluency as someone who is considered normal. I try to emulate a mainstream persons speed of reading, which causes me to lose my concentration in the deciphering of words.”

2nd communication

“I’ve started listening to a series of podcasts called ‘Sold a Story’ by Emily Hanford. I found the first episode very interesting and will continue with it, all thirteen or so. Whilst typing this email to you, its occurred to me that predictive text works in a similar way reading was taught to me ie guessing the word.

A question has arisen in my mind whilst listening to the pod cast. What part of my poor reading ability is because of my reading disability ie dyslexia and what part can be contributed to bad learnt reading behaviour, taught to me by teachers etc.

A very large number of people don’t have reading disability, but whole reading and guessing just doesn’t work for them (although you could say they have a reading disability brought about by poor reading instruction).

So what part of my reading disability is learnt behaviour?

Is the reason I totally misread a sentence, because I was taught a strategy of guessing?

A combination of the two I suspect!

Sometimes I read a sentence correctly but misunderstand it (miss comprehend). Is this because so much effort was put into decoding the reading of the sentence or paragraph, I didn’t comprehend? Is it my mind wanting to guess?  Is it a touch of my autism (ie interpreting things literally)? Or is it my dyslexia fighting back?

Is there a fine line between decoding and possibly missing out on comprehension and possibly missing out on the enjoyment of the story? Or is it just my neuro diversity?”

3rd communication

“I’ve never had a formal dyslexic assessment, dyslexia just wasn’t a thing when I was a young person (late 60’s 70’s early 80’s). I didn’t realise I probably had what’s now known as dyslexia with a healthy dose of autism, until I was 40 years old. I had developed my own coping mechanisms and generally managed to hide my cognitive issues from people outside my nearest family.

I have no idea what would make up a dyslexic assessment, but I wonder whether numbers, numeracy, general life skills etc. are even factored into the assessment?

I constantly hear how poor reading ability can set a child’s education right back, but never how numeracy/mathematics and generally dealing with numbers, can set their education right back (not least self esteem).

I have terrible trouble seeing numbers correctly. I read numbers incorrectly, I write numbers incorrectly (I’ll write down numbers wrongly, even when given vocally and consecutively). I have as much trouble memorising my Times Tables as my Alphabet. Telling the time on analog display is an absolute nightmare, setting timers digitally very problematic, the list goes on.

Interesting that in Austria they don’t have dyslexic children  …their reading is slower.

It raises the whole issue of whether you should categorise people as dyslexic or as having a disability – I’m not sure. But I did have an interesting impromptu conversation that touches on this subject area, whilst eating dinner with some friends recently.

The conversation started to revolve around dyslexia. I had mentioned I was dyslexic, that I understood part of my brain functioned in a different way to the majority of people, but for want of a better word, I still considered myself as ‘thick’. It turned out that two of the younger men in our dinner group (one of whom was family) were dyslexic. I was surprised as they were both high functioning ‘read out loud’ people. They are at least one generation younger than me and were diagnosed as dyslexic during their time in education and I presume they received appropriate help. Neither of them considered themselves as ’thick’ or having a disability. If fact, rather encouragingly, they consider their cognitive abilities a contribution to society.

Things are moving on, although luck and the social demographic, I feel is still a major part of it.

When I came to the end of my primary education, I would hear my teachers, parents talking about whether I should go to the local ESN school.  The thought that I could be going to a school entitled ‘Educationally Subnormal’ horrified me, what would all my friends think (categorised as person with very limited intellectual ability). All my educational life I’ve been generally thought of as backward – is it any wonder I still entertain the possibility that I’m thick!

Fortunately, the local secondary school had such a poor reputation and consequently trouble keeping their pupil numbers up – they took me onboard, reducing the uneasiness felt by everyone around me, not least myself. The school basically took anything that breathed, every problematic kid in the area was taken in.  

And I thought I’d had a lucky break…”

Decluttering the Curriculum

There are some excellent SSP programmes for beginner readers. Each one includes meticulous sequencing, an emphasis on both blending (synthesising) for reading, and encoding for spelling in conjunction with instruction on letter-formation. Indeed, the success of the Phonics Check for the majority of children indicates that blending, in tandem with encoding, leads to significant improvement in children’s ability to understand ‘how reading works’. And yet, by the end of primary education, Diane Murphy, co-founder of ThinkingReading, a successful programme focusing on struggling readers at Secondary, notes that up to 20% of pupils transferring from Primary School still have inadequate reading skills.  The cause is, more often than not, insufficient decoding practice and/or poor comprehension. This inevitably leads to angry/frightened/passively detached children, lacking the wherewithal and motivation to tackle sustained reading. Who would be keen on reading when it is such a struggle? 

In the years following the Phonics Check, the equivalent of the US ‘fourth-grade slump’ appears as an intractable problem. The Reading League in America states that the foundational curriculum ‘often consists of an extensive array of materials. A common concern noted by our review teams is insufficient time within the school day to cover all included content … publishers inflate their programs with supplementary materials, add-ons, and extension activities. This makes it challenging and time-consuming to locate necessary or recommended materials for a given lesson across manuals, texts, and digital platforms’, exactly mirroring the situation in the UK. It is time for a rethink.

A case might be made for delaying some elements of foundational skills, the practice of rigorous writing instruction in Reception and Year 1, for instance. This would allow time to introduce children to picture books and story books while encouraging speech and communication skills. At the same time it would free up time for sustained readingofbothhigh-quality fiction and non-fiction in tandem with the sustained development of blending practice combined with increasing code knowledge. Mary Myatt in her Newsletter (April 2024) comments: ‘The amount of content to be taught in the foundation subjects in primary can feel daunting… I’m a great believer in fewer things in greater depth.’ 

Christopher Such in his exemplary work, The Art & Science of Teaching Primary Reading, observes that ‘reading aloud authentic stories and quality non-fiction texts should be sacrosanct. I have lost count of the number of times that having read a book to the class, reluctant readers have approached me and asked for a copy. Re-reading a book where the plot is understood and the characters have already been brought to life by a teacher can be a great first step into independent reading for reluctant readers. In addition, adding extra reading time as a treat sends a powerful message about the enjoyment that can be derived from books.’ Additional help through the timely introduction of Tier 2 – normally in the first term of Reception – also helps to close the gap. It goes without saying that the school’s Literary Lead needs to possess an excellent understanding of Systematic Synthetic Phonics in order to ensure teaching consistency throughout the primary years.

There are some excellent decodable readers and also extensively trialled decodable stories such asBRI: Beginning Reading Instruction (https://www.piperbooks.co.uk) (https://www.piperbooks.co.uk/post/what-distinguishes-bri-ari-as-a-reading-programme) that teach children how best to understand how reading works, through Alphabetic Code exposure and practice within stories. Here it is the stories themselves that draw children into an imaginary world of endearing animals, and encourages both curiosity and conversational skills at the same time as expanding basic grammar and syntax and encouraging prosody. In other words, stories combined with instruction constitute an example of Scarborough’s Reading Rope (200l):

A reprioritised timetable presents the opportunity for reading to flourish before Year 2. By this time there is space to concentrate on the precision teaching required for handwriting, including instilling routines of meticulous posture, pencil-holding, handwriting formation, and concentration on writing development, including creative writing such as Pie Corbett’s ‘Talk for Writing’ (https://www.talk4writing.com/about/does-talk-for-writing-work/).  

Primary Education: Time for a Rethink?

The rejection of high-quality, knowledge-based education began its latest reincarnation in the late 1960s with the publication of the Plowden Report and the shift to discovery-based learning. The damage to the most disadvantaged students – especially in the North of England – was particularly stark.

Three calamitous decades later, knowledge-based teaching staged a recovery. But since its rebirth, multiple problems have blighted progress. Large numbers of academics still take little responsibility for the damage to children’s life-chances and continue to push their ‘child-centered’ instruction during teacher training, including balanced literacy and exploratory maths.

‘What happens in schools has implications for many decades… outcomes like low literacy & numeracy levels as workforce challenges should be a call to action in education facilities, schools, and policy think-tanks alike.’ @PamelaSnow2, Twitter.

A problem thus confronts education. Many young teachers, confused by mixed methods and inappropriate basic maths instruction, lack the clear direction for teaching literacy and numeracy. New directives, time-consuming changes, excessive data collection and a toxic mix of competing ideologies wear down school leaders and encroach on their home lives. Teachers are left with neither the time nor the space to fully investigate, study or organise ‘how children learn’. Frequently rushed DfE changes contribute to the excessive workload. And public humiliation caused by an arbitrary and punishing accountability system leaves the teaching profession in a parlous state. Teachers exit in their droves.

‘Teacher recruitment last year was the worst ever in terms of meeting targets. This year it’s looking even worse. Schools posted ads for over 81k vacancies last year, a 59% increase in 2018/19, and it’s on track to be higher this year’ Sam Freedman, Substack.

On top of this, the effects of Covid will scar generations. ‘What’s not really talked about is teacher absence through burnout, workload, mental health issues, ill health, Long Covid. When schools are being held to account, especially over results, will this be considered? I think the impact of this is significant across the sector. The goalposts have really shifted with the pandemic. People are really struggling in a way like never before.’ – Sam Strickland @Strickomaster.

In addition to the above stresses, schools must plan for an increasingly tight budget in the face of a tsunami of rising costs.

Over the last few years, many primary schools have slashed play-time, sports, arts, crafts, music, drama, cookery and other curriculum ‘non-essentials’. School librarians and libraries, where still in existence, are tempted frequently to fill their shelves with ‘pile-’em-high’ budget-priced books at the expense of high-quality children’s literature and non-fiction. And across the UK, public libraries are now an endangered species.

‘The levels of teacher stress, with many teachers leaving teaching after just a few years, and increasing numbers of children with special needs. Then there’s the question of funding inequity, leaking roofs, lack of evidence-informed training, constant directives from the DfE, the devastating effect Covid has had on children’s mental health.’ – Laura McInerney @miss_mcinerney.

In lieu of tinkering with the curriculum yet again, a radical review of school structure is surely long overdue. Implemented with care, volunteers could result in schools offering a rounded education, neighbourhood cohesion, parental engagement and teacher and child well-being.

A four-day streamlined, largely ‘Academic Curriculum’, with the main emphasis on literacy and basic mathematics, followed by ‘Community Friday’ is worth consideration. Fridays could then focus on Arts, Crafts, Sports and specific interests, led by volunteers. Any plan would need to embrace a ‘bottom up’ collaboration, rooted in a strong ethos of volunteering with increasing numbers of early retirees and other volunteers bringing a rich diversity of talent to schools.

This is a country full of generous volunteers doing essential work. Not so long ago, people willingly gave their time to stand in windy car parks or in unprepossessing buildings to ensure a smooth-running Covid roll-out. Volunteers, too, came forward in their thousands to take part in a vaccine trial that ultimately saved over a million lives. These form part of the vast army of unsung heroes providing essential support across many areas of society. Only needing half the teachers each Friday would grant them alternating four-day weeks, the benefits of which are becoming increasingly apparent.

Community involvement would also be a powerful conduit for uniting school and community, affecting every aspect of curriculum, fundraising and school ethos, inspiring savings for Special Needs, Speech Therapists, Early Years teacher and parent training, for example. A more traditional approach to literacy, numeracy and discipline, together with increased use of high quality non-fiction books to augment an essential knowledge base, would finally give veracity to the slogan ‘no child left behind’.

‘I have a feeling that the stuff about curriculum is mostly a wish list in cloud cuckoo land – someone needs to think about what is manageable, doable and reasonable for 22,000 primary schools’ – @PieCorbett, Twitter.

Since KPMG’s reports on the cost of poor literacy and numeracy, amounting to billions of pounds per year, many new ill-conceived initiatives have been spawned. Without a commitment to hold educational establishments to account, these initiatives continue to escalate. The damage to the fabric of the country – and to the children and adults affected – is massively corrosive.

Some schools are already considering a scaled-down primary curriculum. As Edward Booth (@edwardbooth) states in Mary Myatt and John Tomsett’s book ‘Primary Huh’:

‘We want pupils to know fewer things in greater depth rather than just a lot of material at surface level.’

And finally, ‘Until a school gets on top of behaviour, nothing else is possible.’ – @tombennett71, Twitter.

Why delay extended reading?

Decodable books are an invaluable resource for beginner readers. But following Reception and Year 1, there is a case for most children to be untethered from their decodable readers. The restricted language and vocabulary so helpful for beginners can ultimately limit deeper elements of reading. In an essay ‘deep reading can be learned’, Maryanne Wolf writes, ‘What is at stake are empathy, imagination and critical thinking, namely those dimensions that define and are typical of the so-called “deep reading”.’

By the time of the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check, most children have the ability to self-teach, and many six-year-olds are capable of reading longer stories. Decades ago, children actually read far more words with books including Enid Blyton’s hugely popular (if problematic) Famous Five series, thereby honing their reading skills and stamina with stories of 20,000 words or more (largely limited to the most common 80-100 correspondences). Such books encouraged a habit of fluency and sustained reading, paved the way for richer reading and introduced children to layer upon layer of word meaning.

Christopher Such, author of The Art & Science of Teaching Primary Reading, notes: ‘beyond the development of relatively fluent word recognition – our ability to comprehend what we read is based on everything we know about our world and our language, alongside an additional layer of knowledge related to written text conventions (e.g. punctuation, sub-headings, italics, etc)’.

https://primarycolour.home.blog/2022/02/25/whats-stopping-us-from-teaching-reading-comprehension-really-well/

In other words, ‘developing pupils’ spoken language and their knowledge of the world is key to fostering their ability to read. Building meaning from words is also supported by some knowledge that is unique to written language, including knowledge of how words are presented within texts.’

https://primarycolour.home.blog/ The Art and Science of Teaching Primary Reading in 500 words.

‘Books are the places where we can suspend reality and instead explore our imagination’s more tolerable, more beautiful promise of possibility. We can do this.’ – Maryanne Wolf.

Perhaps it is the profoundly damaging effects of the Reading Wars that has resulted in widespread caution about abandoning decodables’ ‘training wheels’. Could this reluctance to leave decodables behind be one of the reasons that many children fail become fully functional readers by the time they leave primary school – a failure that exists even after significant progress in early reading?

In a seminal paper on the teaching of reading, Professors Anne Castles, Kate Nation and Kathy Rastle propose a change of emphasis in their paper ‘Ceasefire in the Reading Wars’.

1. Why phonics has to be the first step

2. The importance of morphemes and morphology

3. Reading experience counts

4. Teaching the means to create meaning

5. Time for a truce

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1529100618772271

As well as encouraging Year 2s to progress to richer texts, there will always be a significant minority of children who haven’t managed to acquire stable foundations. Even after two years of intensive synthetic phonics, some children still need further practice at the foundational level. Bite-sized introduction of material, clear, short instructions – alongside endless patience and empathy – all can be achieved with a minimum of oversight via a TA, responsible volunteer, parent, grandparent, or carer, enabling pupils to keep abreast of their peers. This is a vital duty, if we’re not to consign children to mental distress and limited life chances. Ideally, additional practice for struggling readers should have been in place as soon as possible, once formal Synthetic Phonics has begun. Signs of struggle begin as early as that.

Taming the Squiggles

Beginning Reading Instruction: BRI offers lively decodable stories for young children. Pupils are immediately introduced to carefully-structured stories as they begin to understand ‘how reading works’ while simultaneously practising the foundational skills of blending and segmenting.

The BRI programme was developed with phenomenal attention to detail and exhaustively trialled by a distinguished team of linguists, educational psychologists and children’s writers. Its meticulous structure fosters confidence; within an hour of starting Level 1 virtually all children can proudly announce “I can read a story!”

The first BRI tales consist of just 3 words and 5 sounds, creating the conditions where learning to read is as simple as humanly possible. A minimum of text manages to carry a story with a wealth of detail, with the assistance of lively, cartoon-like illustrations designed to enhance but never distract or facilitate guessing. Alongside the optional questions, the narratives lend themselves to a range of conversations about the animals’ characteristics, their adventures and skirmishes. There’s boastful Sam the Lion, larger than life and full of fun and his inquisitive little pal, Mat the Rat, hyperactive, mischievous, and a bit of a tease. Vain Nell, lugubrious Sid, and other endearing characters slowly make their entrance, immersing children in the wonders of fiction.

This rich environment fulfils many functions vital to early years development. In tandem with storytelling, underpinned by the uncompromising focus on decoding, specific aspects of speech and language development encourage all-round language skills. The questions What? Why? Where? Who? and the prepositions under, over, on, behind, for example, help develop an understanding of our language as the stories unfold.

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds particularly benefit from BRI’s evidence-informed word choice, abundance of practice and varied repetition. All learners, including those with poor language skills, are given a strategy that enables them to tackle any word, however unfamiliar, while simultaneously encouraging expressive language. The programme also enables fast-track readers to transfer to a wide range of children’s literature as rapidly as possible.

Above all, BRI is the simplest, most straightforward path to transform beginner into bookworm. With a minimum of preparation or additional materials and little (if any) photocopying, BRI ‘does what it says on the tin’; it enables children to transform the squiggles on the page into gateways to magical worlds.

The Art and Science of Teaching Primary Reading… in 500 words

The Art and Science of Teaching Primary Reading… in 500 words

Reprinted with kind permission of Christopher Such @Suchmo83 (author of The Art of Teaching Primary Reading)

https://amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1529764165/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid

‘Reading is one of the most valuable capabilities that a person can acquire. Every other capability of equal or greater value, such as walking or talking, comes relatively instinctively. In contrast, we have not evolved to be readers. Learning to read is a singular challenge that demands expertise from teachers and school leaders. Thankfully, reading development has been studied for decades. The accumulated evidence, informed by professional experience, can guide us in our aim to give every pupil the best chance of becoming a capable, confident reader…

Reading is the comprehension of visual symbols that represent spoken language. To do this, pupils must develop two capacities that become increasingly integrated as expertise develops – (1) recognising words, and (2) building meaning from those words:

1. To recognise words on a page, pupils must learn to associate the sounds of our language with visual symbols. (The sounds represented are the smallest chunks of spoken sound that we can categorise, called phonemes. The visual symbols representing these phonemes are letters of the alphabet operating individually or in groups.) Explicit teaching can help pupils to learn these associations and how to use them. This is called phonics. Over time, pupils also associate these visual symbols with units of meaning directly. (Words can be thought of as composed of chunks of meaning, called morphemes.) Due to the complexity of our writing system, lots of reading is required for pupils to learn these associations between visual symbols, sound and meaning.
2. Building meaning from written words uses mostly the same knowledge that is used to build meaning from spoken language: knowledge of concepts that words represent and knowledge of how words interact with each other. This means that developing pupils’ spoken language and their knowledge of the world is key to fostering their ability to read. Building meaning from words is also supported by some knowledge that is unique to written language, specifically knowledge of how words are presented and organised within texts.

As pupils become more expert at recognising words and building meaning from them, their reading begins to flow. Pupils can reinforce this important sense of fluency through text experience and through rehearsed reading aloud.

Teaching comprehension involves the provision of fascinating, challenging experiences with texts that have been chosen for the breadth and relevance of their content. It also involves awakening pupils to the active, personal nature of comprehension through explanation, modelling and rich discussion.

Pupils learn aspects of reading at different rates. While the same principles apply to all developing readers, struggling readers require targeted teaching that is sensitive to their specific needs, motivation and self-efficacy.

The relationships between teachers, pupils and books are central to the promotion of pupils’ independent reading. Reading aloud to pupils is both a necessity and a privilege.

There are various ways to organise reading instruction. If you keep in mind the ideas outlined above as you construct, implement and evaluate your reading curriculum, then you are likely to give pupils the best chance of becoming capable, confident readers.’

(‘Reading Matters’ notes: All Systematic Synthetic Phonics programmes are based on evidence-informed instruction with individual programmes subject to strengths and drawbacks. Strengths include understanding the Alphabetic Code and ‘how reading works’, meticulous sound-letter/s sequencing, and thorough practice of segmenting and blending. Drawbacks may include overall cost, preparation time, complexity of delivery, and delayed emphasis on breadth and depth of reading. BRI: Beginning Reading Instruction, a unique story-led SSP programme, addresses the drawbacks by eschewing the disjuncture between rigorous foundational skills and language development/literacy, by teaching directly through its carefully calibrated stories. The result is a seamless progress towards independent reading.)

In Praise of Volunteers

In the last few years, there has been a marked improvement in teachers’ understanding of ‘how reading works’. Yet in spite of the billions spent on evidence-informed instruction, thousands of children each year still fall beneath the radar. TAs can be stretched to the limit so why, I wonder, aren’t more volunteers encouraged to come to the rescue? It takes around an hour for volunteers to be briefed on the basic ground rules – the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of Systematic Synthetic Phonics – plus an occasional check from the class teacher, for children needing additional practice in securing foundational skills. Volunteers, aided by the brief instructions accompanying carefully calibrated decodable stories, are eminently capable of delivering this additional help.

A number of well-meaning volunteering reading organisations exist, but many emanate from top-down organisations, often replicating fossilised methods that caused reading mayhem in the first place. Undoubtedly additional support provided by organisations works for some children – but ignorance of the subtle differences between learning to read using a word-limited ‘transparent’ code and careful introduction of the multi-layered Advanced Code compounds children’s difficulties.

We generally aren’t tapping into the good-will and talents of volunteers here in the UK to embrace the school environment. Yet this is a country full of generous volunteers doing essential work to help those in need. Not long ago, volunteers willingly gave their time to stand in windy car parks or in unprepossessing buildings to ensure a smooth-running Covid vaccination roll-out. Volunteers, too, came forward in their thousands to take part in a vaccine trial that ultimately saved over a million lives. There are vast armies of unsung heroes providing essential support across so many areas of society. But where are schools actively reaching out for volunteers to provide appropriate help for their struggling readers? The profoundly shocking statistic of c.17-20% children lacking adequate reading skills by the end of primary school should be the responsibility of all of us.

In the States, things are different. Thousands of volunteer organisations are creatively embracing the challenge of ensuring that all children learn to read, underscored by a powerful awareness that literacy is a human right. Marion Waldman, based in Albany, New York, founded TMKTR (http://www.teachmykidtoread.com) a community literacy project based in public and school libraries using both knowledge-based and creative ways to encourage parents and caregivers to learn about literacy. Tre Hadrick (https://linktr.ee/mrlitedu) of Norristown, Pennsylvania, advocates teaching children to read by encouraging them in the most unexpected of settings – his neighbourhood barber shop. He has organised a display of decodable readers that encourage emergent readers to follow a simple routine – sound by sound – to lift words from the page to read a story accurately. Older children are also inspired by the abundance of carefully-chosen decodable books demonstrating that they CAN read. And all over America there are advocates/authors such as Faith Borkowsky (http://www.highfiveliteracy.com) advocating tirelessly and sharing their knowledge with parents and church groups, hungry for evidence-based information, who then use their newly-acquired expertise to hold schools to account. Her website http://www.ifonlybooks.com demonstrates just how much an influential activist for reading justice can achieve.

In UK schools, children receive foundational SSP daily sessions, but this isn’t sufficient to stop some of them falling further and further behind. Some receive additional help, often at great cost. Yet by far the simplest, most time- and cost-effective way to provide this is through volunteers using carefully-paced and sequenced decodable stories based on ‘how children learn’.

In Praise of School Volunteers

At the start of the 2000s I found myself twice-weekly tutoring struggling readers at a small village school. Year 3 children were coming out of the woodwork unable to read – ‘and they aren’t dyslexic’ the head had observed. This school, with a largely middle-class intake and a few children from social housing, contained a disproportionate number of pupils unable to read. Their reading instruction, like that of other schools at the time, was shot through with balanced literacy topped up by a confusing medley of ‘fun’ activities.

Why, I wondered, aren’t more volunteers welcomed into schools to help with struggling readers? It takes less than an hour to give people a basic grounding in the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of SSP instruction; many schools, in any case, offer reading advice to parents. After all, the NHS arranged for whole armies of volunteers to stand in windy car parks and unprepossessing buildings to direct us millions and ensure that Coronavirus vaccinations were as smooth and speedy as possible. Such communal and disinterested acts of help have been widely celebrated. Yet this type of volunteering has largely vanished from many schools.

Why has a solution not been found to encourage volunteers to help those children who desperately need extra time and practice to hone their fragile reading skills? Surely there are home-based parents, pensioners, grandparents who would welcome the opportunity to play a communal part in the drive to literacy post-lockdown?

I keep thinking of the US volunteer parent whose work with struggling readers made a significant difference to the literacy progress of a number of children. Shay, originally trained as a US secondary teacher, had temporarily removed her struggling youngest child from school to teach him to read. The following year, inspired by a volunteer grandmother, she too volunteered and was allocated sixteen struggling readers, most for just a 15-minute weekly session. From time to time, she sought advice from the parents and teachers who formed the Yahoo Beginning Reading Instruction message board and reported on progress.

After two or three years Shay returned to full-time teaching, this time with special needs older pupils. Some four years later she posted this update about one of her earlier successes, Suzie. This was a particularly vulnerable child with many problems, including  global learning difficulties, with a non-reading mother unable to help. When Suzie’s mother tragically died, Shay was giving her two sessions a week and a little extra sneaked-in help.  Four years later she wrote about her much-cherished learner:

I have changed Suzie’s life and she is functionally literate (and getting better EVERY day), but I am simply “done” with the educational establishment. She is happy, chatty, and would you believe…I have to discipline her the most for her talking!!!  This is the child who cried every day in 1st grade. She is becoming a gymnast and she literally flips and tumbles into my room every chance she can get. She is beautiful, thriving, and most of all…thanks to BRI early…she can read and function.  She cannot pick up and read just anything, though…everything must still be taught and practiced in tiny bits (a necessity with her, and the others). This is the hardest part of my decision…leaving these kids, because they are not done.

Instructional design is the key for these kids. Lack of effective design, I am convinced, is the leading problem in our schools. Yet, my admin wants us to “hook them in” and become “student led” and let them “listen to their iPods” while they work.

What is striking is that Shay, a mere volunteer at the time, was able to help so many children under challenging, crowded conditions and severe time constraints. The invaluable support she received from the Yahoo BRI group included the recommendation to read Diane McGuinness’s seminal work, ‘Why Children Can’t Read and What We Can Do About It’. Even the schools’ Reading Recovery teacher was impressed by the successful outcomes. Tragically, like so many, the school was wedded to a progressive agenda and failed to change its ways.

Children in the UK are now receiving their Government-mandated foundational SSP daily sessions, and are for the moment getting extra help – at great cost – but children also need patient, sympathetic volunteers to give them the additional practice that can make the difference between literacy and illiteracy.