Changing How Literacy Is Taught: Evidence on Synthetic Phonics

Abstract

A significant number of people have very low levels of literacy in many OECD countries. This paper studies a national change in policy and practice in England that refocused the teaching of reading around “synthetic phonics.” This was a low-cost intervention that targeted the pedagogy of existing teachers. We evaluate the pilot and first phase of the national rollout. While strong initial effects tend to fade out on average, they persist for those with children with a higher initial propensity to struggle with reading. As a result, this program helped narrow the gap between disadvantaged pupils and other groups. (JEL I21, I24, I28)

Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert

“…One approach to determining whether a causal relationship exists between phonics instruction and broader literacy performance was described in a report by the U.K. Centre for Economic Performance (Machin, McNally, & Viarengo, 2016). Specifically, because the phonics policy in England was piloted and then implemented across different school districts at different times, it is possible to assess the impact of this change on children’s performance on national tests of reading comprehension administered at ages 5, 7, and 11 relative to children in “untreated” districts.…”

“…Specifically, because the phonics policy in England was piloted and then implemented across different school districts at different times, it is possible to assess the impact of this change on children’s performance on national tests of reading comprehension administered at ages 5, 7, and 11 relative to children in “untreated” districts. Using this approach, Machin et al (2016) documented strong impacts of the policy change on reading comprehension up to the age of 7. There was also a longer-term benefit at age 11, years after the original intervention occurred, for those children who had a high probability of starting school as struggling readers because they were nonnative speakers of English or were economically disadvantaged.…”

Reconsidering the Evidence That Systematic Phonics Is More Effective Than Alternative Methods of Reading Instruction

“…So much like the Suggate (2016) meta-analyses, the overall systematic phonics intervention effect did not persist. However, Machin et al (2018) highlighted that the effects did persist in the key stage 2 tests in the CLLD treatment condition for non-native speakers (0.068) and economically disadvantaged children as measured by their receipt of free school meals (0.062), with both effects significant at the p < 0.05 levels. They took these small effects to show that phonics does provide long-term benefits for children who are in the most need for literacy interventions, writing Without a doubt it is high enough to justify the fixed cost of a year's intensive training support to teachers.…”

“…The obvious way to test whether the improved decoding skills translate to better reading is to compare the PSC results to the SATs carried out at key stages 1 and 2 during the years 2012-2017. These are the same tests analyzed by Machin et al (2018) above (although they analyzed data from before 2012). And in fact, there have been some claims that improved performance on the phonics screening check is associated with improved performance on the SATS.…”

England: England and PISA—The Long View

“…Notably, highest attainers in the 'phonics check' also were high performers in the 2016 PIRLS survey (McGrane et al 2017). The Government's commitment to phonics subsequently was justified by both a new community of researchers (Willingham 2017;Machin et al 2016) as well as by the continued improvement in PIRLS results for year 5 pupils. The phonics check for year 1 children also saw escalating scores-from 31.8% reaching the threshold score in the trial test of 2010, climbing to 81% in 2017.…”