Time and again, research has shown that mastering the phonic code is key to successful, fluent reading. The mastery of this knowledge is particularly vital for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Experienced teachers will have observed that some children manage to unscramble the phonic code for themselves, and will learn to read regardless of how they are taught. Others do not. These children need structured teaching of the phonic code until they learn to master it. Now that systematic synthetic phonics is part of the National Curriculum, one may think that the ‘phonics debate’ has been settled.
Nevertheless, some teachers still advocate the use of ‘mixed methods’ (also known as ‘multi- cueing’). They do so without realising that they’re scuppering some of their pupils’ chances of mastering the phonic code – the key to reading success.
Under the banner that children are all different, many teachers believe they must offer their pupils different approaches to reading. What they don’t realise is that other strategies are unhelpful to their pupils and contradict their own phonics teaching.
What are the ‘mixed methods’ strategies?
In our phonics lessons, we teach graphemes, the sounds they spell and how to blend them into words. In contrast, teaching ‘mixed methods’ encourages the reader to seek clues other than reading the word. Children are encouraged to seek clues in:
- pictures
- first letters
- the context of a story
- the grammar of a sentence.
What does this mean? It means that children are guided away from the graphemes on the page and encouraged to guess. So, in fact, ‘mixed methods’ are guessing strategies.
They mean that, although we teach children decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling) skills in our phonics lessons, we encourage them to use their guessing skills when reading.
What’s wrong with guessing?
Guessing can cause confusion. Children will resort to guessing, given half a chance, as this is an easier option than decoding a new word. They may use guessing as the primary strategy for working out any new word they encounter, which will cause confusion. When reading a new word, they might wonder: ‘Do I sound it out? Guess from the picture? Guess from the first letter? Guess from the story? Read on and guess from the sentence? Which strategy do I use, and when?’
Guessing also results in conflicting messages. By teaching phonics but not reinforcing it when children actually read, we are giving our pupils conflicting messages. The reading experience should consolidate and develop the phonic knowledge and skills taught in phonics lessons. What is the point of teaching phonic reading strategies if pupils are then discouraged from using them while reading a text?
Guessing leads to inaccurate reading. Inaccurate reading leads to poor comprehension. Poor comprehension leads to – well, poor readers.
Like guessing strategies, mixed methods are unreliable.
- If children guess a word by scanning the picture, what do they do when there is no picture?
- If children guess by the first letter, how can they know if a word is ‘response’, ‘repose’, ‘responsibility’, ‘responsible’, ‘respite’ or one of many more alternatives?
- If children guess by context or grammar, what happens when there is no context, e.g. in a caption or title?
In short, ‘mixed methods’ offer the reader unreliable props.
Mixed methods also don’t help children to master the phonic code. When children get into the habit of guessing, they don’t utilise or develop their phonic skills. They can’t extrapolate their phonic knowledge from one word to other words with similar graphemes, and thus have to guess every new word they encounter – which is a missed learning opportunity. Teachers should be asking the question: ‘Does this strategy help my pupil to read this word the next time they see it?’
It’s really important that we all understand that ‘mixed methods’ are unhelpful to children learning to read, and that they contradict our own teaching. Let’s stick to Synthetic Phonics not just in our lessons but also when reading with children. Then our pupils will have a better chance of mastering the phonic code and becoming successful readers!