A system of phonics devised in Northern Ireland has had 'dramatic' results in improving the reading skills of young children, according to a new study.
Linguistic phonics builds on children's existing language, developing phonological awareness before introducing children to letters.
Linguistic phonics was developed with advisory speech and language therapists for a revised curriculum to start in September 2008, which delays the formal teaching of reading and emphasises problem-solving and thinking skills.
Lead researcher Dr Colette Gray from Stranmillis University College in Belfast said the study showed significant gains in children taught using linguistic phonics compared with children who were not.
The study evaluated linguistic phonics with 745 children in Year 2 and Year 3 in 12 Belfast schools. The group was split between children who were taught using linguistic phonics and children in a control group.
Dr Gray said that prior to the introduction of linguistic phonics, there were no significant differences for Year 2 children from both groups. But when children were tested at the end of Year 2, she said, those in the linguistic phonics group 'significantly outperformed the control group and made the greatest gains in reading'.
In contrast, for Year 3 children, baseline testing showed 'a huge gap' in reading attainment, with children in the control group ahead of the other children. But once exposed to linguistic phonics, Year 3 made great gains in reading attainment and almost closed this gap by the end of the year.
'You wouldn't expect such a dramatic improvement,' said Dr Gray. 'In three to six months, children in the linguistic phonics group would have outperformed the control group.'
Hilary McEvoy, an advisory officer with the Belfast Education and Library Board, who helped devise linguistic phonics, told Nursery World, 'The research indicates that this multi-sensory approach is getting exciting results, without pushing children into learning to read and write too early.'
Taking this approach, in Year 1 (when children are five and six) the focus is on developing phonological awareness. Children are only explicitly introduced to letters following work on syllable, rhyme and phoneme awareness.
Most children are using synthetic phonics techniques - segmenting, blending and phoneme-manipulation - by the end of Year 1. In Year 2, children continue to 'discover' how the 44 phonemes in speech are represented in print, as they systematically work through a series of multi-sensory activities designed to help them 'crack the code'. They 'problem-solve' unfamiliar words using sound-letter knowledge and drawing on context.
Ms McEvoy added, 'Synthetic phonics teaches children what sound is associated with a letter or letter-combination - for example, this is "ay" - and children learn the sound. If this is not the sound the children use in speech, there is a problem.
'Linguistic phonics starts from speech. It's the basic principle of "You say tomato, I say toma(y)to". Both are spelled the same way. Children have to "work out" what makes sense to them.'
The report is available at www.stran.ac.uk/news.