Ellacombe R&D
Project
Lead Teacher: Nicola Jones
Aims…
• To share my journey of dealing with pupils
not making expected progress in phonics.
• To explore possible reasons for barriers to
learning and some ways you can support
pupils who are finding reading difficult
• To share some ideas for good practice.
2012: Identifying the Gap.
Which teaching and learning approaches would raise standards in
the application of phonics in reading for year 1 pupils not yet at
ARE?
Why Phonics and How does it
help with Reading?
• Rose Review
• Reading by six
• Getting them reading early
• Year 1 phonics’ screening test
Reading the Text: Reading for Meaning
• Children should be taught to read the text!
- they need to be taught to apply their phonics, then read for
understanding
Digging Deeper…
• Approx 30 % of the group
selected
•Identified as the lowest 10
pupils in year 1.
•Grouped into those working
within phase 2 or 3
•To be taught by an
experienced teacher
-
50% FSM
-
40% low
attendance
-
60% were SA or
SA+
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20% EAL
-
50% Summer born
-
80% male
Global Barriers to Learning
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Poor attention spans
Poor retention of new information
No love of learning
Poor self –esteem
Poor learning behaviours e.g. little in the way of resilience or
perseverance,
Little understanding of the purpose of the phonics lesson
Poor attendance
Poor language comprehension
English not a first language
Learning dispositions: SelfRegulation
Children who are engaged and interested
and who pay attention not only spend
more time on their tasks, but also spend
higher-quality time on these tasks
Global barriers affecting
phonic skills plus…
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Poor pronunciation of letter sound correspondences
Poor knowledge of the alphabetic code beyond phase 2
Inability to recognise diagraphs within words
Poor application of blending and segmenting skills
Correct pronunciation and the
alphabetic code
-Lots of practice to ensure it goes into long term
memory
-Recognition needs to be instant.
Uncluttering Learning: Extraneous Cognitive
Load Theory
Can you tell me
words that have
an ‘igh’?
Let’s play
lotto...
Can you match the words to the
pictures?
What were the key elements to any
sequence?
• Purpose – make this explicit
• Praise- specific encouragement
• Pace- stops it getting boring
• Participation- increases learning
• Perseverance- keep revisiting to embed in long
term memory.
Phonics for Reading
• Introduce sounds and words orally
• Identify and recognise grapheme
• Blend phonemes within words using ‘sounding
out’
• Blend instantly
Phonics for Spelling
• Hear the word
• Segment it
• Count the sounds
• Choose best phoneme grapheme