Research published to date strongly suggests that the most effective way to teach phonics, reading and writing is a balanced approach – one that carefully combines different aspects of reading and writing in all reading and writing lessons. For example, when children are age five to six there would be a clear emphasis on phonics, but this would not be taught as separate synthetic phonics lessons, nor would the emphasis on phonics unduly dominate the other important aspects of teaching reading such as comprehension, motivation for reading, engagement with real books more than decodable books, etc. A balanced approach to teaching reading and writing is not the same as the synthetic phonics-led approach currently enforced in England (see part 2 in this blog series).
It is important to be clear what a balanced approach is and what it is not, because some people may seek to discredit a balanced approach as somehow lacking attention to phonics, or even trying to suggest it is the same as ‘whole language’ teaching. However, although we have seminal accounts of the balanced teaching of reading, we lack a contemporary account built on the latest research, that proposes new theory, and that clearly shows how this would work in the practice of primary school and early years classrooms. In June 2024, I and Charlotte Hacking from the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) will publish The Balancing Act: An Evidence-Based Approach to Teaching Phonics, Reading and Writing, which will be a unique new account of the most relevant research and the details of exemplary teaching.
One of the features of the book is the particular author collaboration that brings together our decades of expertise in research and in professional development for teachers, including leading publications for teachers such as Reading and Writing Scales and the new edition of Teaching English, Language and Literacy (2023). Crucially, this kind of research expertise includes our experiences as teachers – what has been called ‘close to practice’ expertise, which is a hallmark of research carried out in university education departments, and brings something unique to building educational knowledge from research. By contrast, accusations about education researchers as ‘progressives’, or, as former Education Secretary, Michael Gove, put it, ‘the blob’, are as unhelpful as they are misleading.
