The Rose Review
and
its research base
Morag Stuart
Aspect 1 of the remit:
What best practice should be
expected in the teaching of early
reading and synthetic phonics?
Report draws on:
Research on the teaching of reading
Written evidence and oral accounts of effective practice
Papers submitted by respondents to the Education and Skills
Committee report
HMI survey
Ofsted reports and data
Visits by the review team
Early findings from the PNS Early Reading Development Pilot
Responses to the Review
Four recommendations
re Aspect 1
1. The forthcoming EYFS and the renewed Primary National
Strategy Framework for teaching literacy should provide,
as a priority, clear guidance on developing children’s
speaking and listening skills
2. High quality, systematic phonics work as defined by the
review should be taught discretely. The knowledge, skills
and understanding that constitute high quality phonic work
should be taught as the prime approach in learning to
decode (to read) and encode (to write/spell) print.
Four recommendations
re Aspect 1
3. Phonic work should be set within a broad and rich
language curriculum that takes full account of developing
the four interdependent strands of language: speaking,
listening, reading and writing and enlarging children’s stock
of words.
4. The Primary National Strategy should continue to
exemplify ‘quality first teaching’, showing how robust
assessment of children’s learning secures progression in
phonic work and how literacy is developed across the
curriculum from the Foundation Stage onwards.
Two controversial issues:
1. The recommendation (in the annex to the review) that
reliance on the ‘Searchlights’ model of reading should give
way to the principles embodied in the Simple View of
reading.
2. The recommendation that systematic phonics teaching
should conform to the major principles implemented in
what has become known as ‘synthetic’ phonics
The Simple View of
Reading
by the time
children come to
school they can
produce and
understand
language
language
comprehension
g
o
o
d
word recognition
poor
good
p
o
o
r
we need only
teach children to
decipher the
words on the
page
they will
automatically
understand
what they read
The Simple View of
Reading
language
comprehension
g
o
o
d
word recognition
poor
good
We must first only teach children to
recognise words.
Once they are fluent word readers we can
p
encourage them to understand
what they
o
reado
r
The Simple View of
Reading
word recognition
poor
language
comprehension
good poor
We must first only teach children to
recognise words.
Once they are fluent word readers we can
encourage them to understand what they
read
good
The Simple View of
Reading
language
comprehension
Good language
comprehension,
poor word
recognition
word recognition
g
o
o
d
poor
Poor word
recognition, poor
language
comprehension
Good word
recognition, good
language
comprehension
good
p
o
o
r
Good word
recognition, poor
language
comprehension
Four predictions
from the Simple View: 1
Different skills and knowledge will contribute to performance
in each dimension
Oakhill, Cain & Bryant (2003)
Muter, Hulme, Snowling & Stevenson (2004)
Four predictions
from the Simple View: 2
Factor analysis of data sets on different measures of reading
will reveal more than one underlying factor.
Pazzaglia, Cornoldi and Tressoldi (1993)
Cornoldi & Fattori, 1979
Nation and Snowling (1997
Four predictions
from the Simple View: 3
Dissociations in performance across the two
dimensions
Good word recognition / impaired comprehension
Grigorenko, Klin & Volmar, 2003 (review); Bishop & Adams, 1990;
Snowling & Frith, 1986; Pennington, Johnson & Welch, 1987;
Jackson, Donaldson & Cleland, 1988; Stothard & Hulme, 1992 .
Good language comprehension / impaired word recognition
Spooner, Baddeley & Gathercole (2004)
Catts, Adlof & Weismer (2006)
Four predictions
from the Simple View: 4
Different use of context by skilled and less skilled
readers
Less skilled readers rely more on context to aid word
recognition
Briggs & Underwood, 1986; Nation & Snowling, 1998; Perfetti,
1985; Pring & Snowling, 1986; Schwantes, 1985, 1991; Stanovich,
West & Feeman, 1981
Skilled readers use context to aid comprehension
Baker & Brown, 1984; Nation & Snowling, 1998; Stanovich &
Cunningham, 1991
The Simple View is only
the beginning
Need to understand the complex processes involved in skilled
word recognition and its development if we are going to
enable children to read the words on the page
Need to understand the even more complex processes
involved in language comprehension and how language
comprehension can be developed in children if we are going
to enable children to understand what they read.
Situating ‘phonics’ within
the Simple View
Phonic knowledge is essential to developing word recognition
skills
Phonics teaching therefore is concerned with the word
recognition dimension of reading
What do we know about skilled word recognition – about the
processes involved in reading and understanding the words
on the page?
What do we know about how these processes develop?
What is the role of phonic knowledge (and hence, phonics
teaching) in their development?
Skilled word recognition: two
major processing models
The dual route cascade model
The ‘triangle’ model
Two sets of processes involved
Phonological recoding processes
Orthographic- semantic processes
Dual route cascade and triangle models
printed word
printed word
letter
identification
orthographic
store
orthographic
store
grapheme-phoneme
semantic
store
conversion system
phonological
store
semantic store
phonological
store
phoneme
units
spoken word
spoken word
Developing word
recognition skills
Predictors of success
Phonological awareness
- especially phoneme awareness
Letter knowledge
- both letter name and letter sound knowledge
Understanding the alphabetic principle
Training studies
Training in phoneme awareness plus letter-sounds results in better word reading skills
Bradley & Bryant (1983); Blachman, Ball, Black & Tangel (1994); Byrne &
Fielding-Barnsley (1991, 1993, 1995); Cunningham (1990); Hatcher, Hulme &
Ellis (1994); McGuiness, McGuiness & Donohue (1995)
Knowledge and application of phonic
rules facilitates development of
phonological recoding processes :
printed word
printed word
letter
identification
orthographic
store
grapheme-phoneme
conversion system
phonological
store
phoneme
units
spoken word
spoken word
Knowledge and application of phonic
rules also facilitates development of
orthographic/semantic processes
printed word
WHY?
printed word
letter
identification
orthographic
store
orthographic
store
semantic
store
semantic store
phonological
store
phonological
store
phoneme
units
spoken word
spoken word
Knowledge and application of phonic
rules also facilitates development of
orthographic/semantic processes
Two views:
Share ‘self-teaching’ hypothesis
Ehri ‘partial alphabetic’ phase
WHY?
Self-teaching hypothesis
If children can apply their phonic knowledge to read unfamiliar words,
they will build a store of spelling patterns of familiar words linked to their
meanings more quickly, because left-to-right decoding of each grapheme
forces attention sequentially on to each letter of the unfamiliar word,
increasing likelihood that child will remember it accurately.
Evidence consistent with this hypothesis:
Bowey & Miller (2007)
Bowey & Muller (2005)
Cunningham, Perry, Stanovich & Share (2002)
Kyte & Johnson (2006)
Nation, Angell & Castles (2007)
Share (1999)
Partial alphabetic phase
rain
orthography
r
n
phonology
/reI n/
drops of water falling from the sky
Evidence consistent with
Ehri’s hypothesis
Storage of ‘boundary’ letters:
Dixon, Stuart, & Masterson (2002)
Savage, Stuart, & Hill (2001)
Stuart. & Coltheart, (1988).
National Reading Panel findings:
Systematic phonics programs significantly more effective than nonsystematic or no phonics programs
Systematic phonics programs significantly more effective when given in
kindergarten or first grade
Systematic phonics programs led to better reading comprehension in
younger children
Does ‘systematic’ entail
‘synthetic’?
NRP report distinguished ‘synthetic’, ‘large unit’ and
‘miscellaneous’ systematic phonics programs.
Synthetic
= as defined in Rose Review
mean effect size d = .45
Large unit
= onset-rime, phonograms, spelling patterns
mean effect size d = .34
Miscellaneous = programs that did not fit either of above
categories
mean effect size d = .27
No significant difference in mean effect size of
different types of program
Rose Review, p.15, para 31.
“Research, inspection and leading edge work of settings and
schools may inform best practice. However, findings from
different research programmes are sometimes contradictory
or inconclusive, and often call for further studies to test
tentative findings. While robust research findings must not be
ignored, developers of national strategies, much less schools
and settings, cannot always wait for the results of long-term
research studies. They must take decisions, based on as
much firm evidence as is available from a range of sources at
the time, especially from replicable and sustainable best
practice”
What is ‘analytic’ phonics?
As defined by Johnston & Watson:
“Analytic phonics teaching starts at the whole word level. Typically, children are
taught one letter sound per week, and are shown a series of alliterative pictures
and words which start with that sound e.g. car, cat, candle, cake, castle,
caterpillar. When the 26 initial letter sounds have been taught in this way, children
are introduced to middle sounds e.g. cat, bag, rag etc., and final sounds, e.g. nap,
cup, pip etc.”
But:
Also frequently understood as, or confused with, large unit (onset-rime, analogy)
phonics
And:
Much of the opposition to the Rose Review recommendation that systematic
phonics teaching should adopt the principles and practices of synthetic phonics
comes from advocates of large-unit, onset-rime phonics
Why onset-rime phonics?
Claim that English is more consistent at the onset-rime than the
grapheme-phoneme level
Consistency leads to swifter mastery of word reading skills
Why onset-rime phonics?
The argument that onset-rime phonics teaching should lead to faster
acquisition of word reading skills depends crucially on the following
issues:
That English is indeed impossibly inconsistent at the level of GPCs
That there is indeed increased consistency of pronunciation in rime units
than in GPCs
That children have sufficient repeated experience of rime units to notice
and use this increased consistency
GPC consistency in English
Following an analysis of all the English monosyllables in the MRC
database, Coltheart estimates that over 75% of these can be correctly
decoded by application of GPC rules – i.e. English monosyllables are not
particularly inconsistent.
But, how many GPC rules are needed to decode English words?
GPC rules in English
Gontijo et al, (2003)
Analysed word tokens in Celex database.
Identified195 unique graphemes in English.
461 GPC rules allow correct pronunciation of all words in the database.
103 of these 195 graphemes have a single pronunciation: i.e. 53% of
English graphemes are always pronounced in the same way.
A further 64 of the 195 (33%) have one pronunciation that is
overwhelmingly more frequent than any of the alternatives.
There are 28 graphemes for which this is not the case.
That is, most of the irregularity in English is carried by 28 of the 195
graphemes (14%).
Rime consistency in
English
Treiman, Mullenix, Bijeljac-Babic & Richmond-Welty (1995):
More consistency in English orthography if words are analysed into onsets
and rimes. Final consonant of rime helps to determine vowel
pronunciation.
Claim is based in analysis of only 1329 monosyllabic CVC words in the
Merriam-Webster Pocket Dictionary (a US dictionary for adults).
Ziegler & Goswami (2006):
3000 most frequent monosyllables in English contain 600 different rime
patterns.
Vousden (in press):
7,197 monosyllables from CELEX database
16% = onsets inconsistent
18% rimes inconsistent
Productivity of rime units
Stuart, Masterson, Dixon & Gray (2003).
Database of vocabulary in books read by children in KS1
Monosyllables in 300 most frequent words contained 89 different rimes
54 (61%) appeared once only
26 (29%) appeared twice only
9 (10%) appeared from 3-5 times
Replicated this in in extended version of database
Interactive and available on
http://www.essex.ac.uk/psychology/cpwd
Relative productivity of words,
rime units and GPCs
Vousden (in press)
Knowledge of 100 most frequent multisyllabic words  56.7% of text is readable.
Knowledge of even a large number of rime mappings alone will only allow about
3% of all text to be read
i.e. need to learn onsets too, which are GPCs
312 GPCs recorded in 7195 monosyllables in CELEX database; 72 (23%)
graphemes were inconsistent.
Knowledge of 50 GPCs allows 47.7% of monosyllables to be read.
Concludes:
“as vocabulary increases more text can be read by GPC mappings than by either
whole word or onset and rime mappings”
Research base of the Rose
Review
Recommendation for systematic teaching of GPCs based in:
Research evidence that such teaching is at least as effective
as any other method of systematic phonics teaching
Mean effect sizes in NRP report:
‘synthetic’ phonics d = 0.45
‘large unit’ phonics d = 0.34
Research base of the Rose
Review
Recommendation for systematic teaching of GPCs based in:
Observations of current successful phonics teaching in UK
schools
systematic teaching of GPC rules, and phoneme
segmentation and blending
teachers understood ‘systematic phonics teaching’ as
systematic teaching of GPC rules, and phoneme
segmentation and blending
Systematic teaching at GPC
level
Directly provides children with knowledge and skills known to be used by
skilled readers
GPCs
Phoneme blending skills
Develops phoneme awareness in children
provides physical representation for the abstraction that is the
phoneme
Phoneme awareness is the best and longest lasting predictor of word
reading skill
Areas of clear agreement between
Rose Review and NRP report:
Developing word recognition skills is a ‘time-limited task’ that depends on
phonic knowledge and skill from the start
Available evidence suggests that “systematic phonics instruction should
extend from kindergarten to 2nd grade” (2-137)
GPCs should be taught systematically
“It is clear that the major letter-sound correspondences, including short and
long vowels and digraphs, need to be taught” (2-136)
Areas of clear agreement between
Rose Review and NRP report:
Need for teacher education:
Practitioners and teachers “need to be brought up-to-date with research into
the development of word recognition skills” (38-125) and “with research into
reading comprehension” (39-126)
“Teachers must themselves be educated about how to evaluate different
programs and to determine which are based on strong evidence and how
they can most effectively use these programs in their own classrooms” (2136)
Areas of clear agreement between
Rose Review and NRP report:
Need for rich experience of language:
“The findings of this review argue strongly for the inclusion of a vigorous
programme of phonic work to be securely embedded within a broad and rich
language curriculum” (16-35)
“…phonics instruction is never a total reading program. In 1st grade, teachers
can provide controlled vocabulary texts that allow students to practice
decoding, and they can also read quality literature to students to build a
sense of story and develop vocabulary and comprehension” (2-136)