In 2020 the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk., 2020) stated in their online phonic toolkit that, ‘For older readers who are struggling to develop reading skills, phonics approaches may be less successful…children aged 10 or above who have not succeeded using phonics approaches previously require a different approach…’. They cited Ehri (2004), who suggested that the teaching of phonics to older pupils was undermined by pupils’ reliance on absorbed, inefficient compensatory strategies that were problematic to reverse.
The EEF’s (2020) conclusion, however, does not align with Beck’s (1998) assertion that phoneme to grapheme mapping is to reading as the skill of dribbling is to basketball: crucial knowledge necessary to play the game. The implication from Beck (1998) appeared to be that without sufficient phonic knowledge, reading was not be possible. This presents a dilemma for older readers who have failed to master basic decoding skills in earlier years: without phonics mastery, fluency may not be possible, but the teaching of phonic strategies to older pupils has suspect efficacy. For an older child who has failed to master phonics, the most efficacious strategy when attacking an unknown word is to wait until an adult decodes it for them (Connor, Morrison, Katch, 2004) - if you want to see this strategy in action, observe the majority of KS2 and KS3 reading lessons.
The suggestion that phonics should be fast and first (DfE, 2015) implies that if code knowledge is not learned in the first years of schooling, then any knowledge deficit may be difficult to overcome as children mature. Glazzard (2017) argued that if a child has received phonics instruction from aged five to seven and was still struggling to read then more phonics instruction was irrational; something different would be needed and not more of what had already failed. Ehri (2004) suggested that beyond the age of seven, phonics instruction must be combined with other forms of reading instruction if maximum impact were to be attained. This contradicted the ‘Simple View of Reading’ (Gough and Tunmer, 1986) which concluded that decoding ability and language comprehension were both required for reading comprehension and that gains in one area could not compensate for deficits in the other. Ehri (2004) made her supposition directly from effect sizes but conceded that there existed a paucity of research in the field. She surmised that the diminishing effect sizes for phonics instruction in older pupils may have been a result of the difficulties in altering students’ habits and the complexities of unravelling acquired, inefficient compensatory strategies employed when attacking unknown words. Gray, Ferguson, Behan, Dunbar, Dunn and Mitchell (2007) also found that for older children, SSP appeared less effective although the older pupils in their study were in secondary schools and were children with Special Educational Needs specifically relating to reading.
Although research into the teaching of phonics beyond the age of seven is not substantial, inferences can be drawn from wider studies on older readers. ‘The Reading First Program’, a reading intervention for struggling readers, established as part of the ‘No Child Left Behind’ (2001) legislation in the United States, included substantial decoding instruction for seven and eight-year-olds. The impact on reading fluency and comprehension was poor. However, the effect on decoding was significant and positive (Kucan and Palincsar, 2011). Further indication that phonics instruction in later years may be effective can be implied from research into a thirty-week intervention for forty-five eight-year-old children identified with reading problems (Vaughn et al., 2003). Although the intervention included both fluency and comprehension instruction, the early weeks were weighted heavily in favour of phonemic awareness and letter-sound relationships. Seventy-six per cent of the sample met the success criteria at the end of the phonics element of the intervention and further monitoring indicated that of those, 70% went on to become successful readers.
McCandliss et al.’s (2003) study of seven-year-olds whose word-attack strategy relied on initial consonant decoding also indicated that interventions that focused on phonemic manipulation resulted in participants significantly outperforming the comparison group in decoding assessments. These results were supported by a study into word building interventions that focused on older participants writing letters to form words rather than focusing on speech activities (Harm et al., 2003). The pairing of orthography and phonology was crucial, the study concluded, to enhance the knowledge of phonemic structure. A study of third grade children who were in the bottom 20% of readers (Blachman et al., 2004) found that after a year’s intervention they had made significant gains compared to the comparison group. The intervention included substantial elements of sound to symbol correspondence instruction and the use of texts controlled for those learned correspondences. The positive effects were evident one year after the intervention and a follow up study ten years later also suggested moderate effect sizes and benefits (Blachman et al., 2014).
Edwards’ (2006) small scale action research study of sixteen 14 to 16-year-olds reported significant improvements in word reading following a systematic phonics intervention. These results were supported by Jeffes’ (2016) phonics-based intervention for 30 secondary pupils which showed significant improvements in decoding and word recognition for participants. Jennings’ (2008) research study noted that many pupils enter KS2 with, ‘much of the phonics input from KS1 still unlearned…’ (2008:32). The study also found that polysyllabic decoding was often the most in deficit. The study provided phonics intervention for 16 Year 5 children with the most pronounced shortfall finding that they made four times the progress of the average child. Jennings (2008) notes, however, that the intervention was not a pure phonics intervention, that the pupils had been taught early reading under the National Literacy Strategy (DfEE, 1998) and thus had not been exposed to Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) and that the study focused on readers with chronic reading issues and had a very small sample size.
A meta-analysis of research into interventions for struggling older readers by Flynn et al. (2012) indicated significant effect sizes for the phonics interventions included. However, these only included very small samples with pupils with severe reading debilities and focused more on the intervention structure than the content. Results from a meta-analysis that included adolescents with reading difficulties, concluded that phonics training for poor readers was effective (McArthur et al.,2013). This was supported by a further meta-analysis of randomised controlled studies that included adolescents and found that only phonics instruction produced significant positive effect sizes (Galuschka et al., 2014). The study concluded that systematic instruction in letter-sound correspondences and decoding strategies were the most effective for improving literacy skills for children and adolescents with reading difficulties.
Gorard, et al. (2015) studied 433 pupils who had recently entered the English secondary school system (aged 11) but had achieved below the expected English standard, so were not necessarily classified as having a reading debility. Two hundred and twelve pupils were removed from their English lessons for three hours every week for 22 weeks, and in small groups received phonics and word recognition practice. The study found that the intervention group made the equivalent of three months additional progress in standardised comprehension scores compared to the comparison group and concluded that there was considerable promise from using phonics as an intervention for these older pupils.
Perhaps the most emphatic conclusion was drawn in Mills's (2022) study of 125 Year 5 pupils who lacked comprehensive code knowledge. He concluded that, 'The suggestion that, where a code deficit exists, the mastering of the complexities of the English alphabetic code for older children is often too complex an undertaking and that a different approach is required (Ehri, 2004; Glazzard, 2017; educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk., 2020) is not supported by the data. The results suggest that pupils in upper KS2 are able to significantly improve their basic decoding skills with regular, specific phonics instruction. The significant improvements in word reading imply that compensatory word attack strategies can be replaced with phonic strategies once code knowledge improves with the resultant improvements in orthographic processing.
Furthermore, the data suggest that although comprehensive expertise of decoding to polysyllabic level is not a requirement for reading fluency to become manifest, substantial code knowledge of the simple and complex code is.'
The growing recognition that many reading difficulties are revealed beyond the early years of schooling (Chall, 1967) has not corresponded with research studies in this area (Kucan and Palincsar, 2011). However, Leach et al. (2003) studied older pupils with late-emerging reading difficulties (eight and nine-year-olds) and concluded that deficits in word recognition, decoding and spelling were significant impediments to progress in reading achievement beyond early school grades. They suggested that late emerging reading difficulties were being overlooked by educators and that more forensic assessment protocols were required by schools. Summarising the findings of research into struggling readers, particularly in later years, Kucan and Palincsar (2011) conclude that, ‘We need to focus our efforts on minimising the bottle-neck effects of the decoding problems experienced by some struggling readers…’ (2011: 354).
In 2021 the EEF commissioned a research study into a commercial phonics intervention for older pupils. The results suggested that those pupils in receipt of the intervention made less reading progress than those who did not receive it and the study (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk, 2022). However, Gorard (cited in schoolsweek.co.uk, 2022) suggested that the study had a low trustworthy rating and was a failed trial. Part of the failure was attributed to to the lack of fidelity of delivery of the programme as a result of teacher insouciance and the assessments associated with it. The EEF concluded that, ‘Going forward, we need more research around the impact phonics can have on older pupils. Building the evidence base further will help us understand the impact that phonics approaches have on this age group.’ (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk, 2022)
With the poverty of research into the value of phonics instruction in later years it is apposite to review studies into adult literacy improvement for any clues as to the efficacy of an approach which seeks to advance decoding strategies where some non-phonic compensatory schemas may be established. Despite there being little academic investigation in this area of reading prior to the 1970s (Brooks, 2011), Kruidenier’s (2002) analysis of random controlled trials into adult illiteracy indicated that phonemic awareness and word analysis instruction led to an increase in achievement for poor adult readers. Burton’s (2007) small-scale study of adult illiterates supported this with its conclusion that phonics instruction enhanced students’ progress. A follow-up study by Burton (2008) found that there was a positive correlation between students’ progress and the amount of phonics training that their teachers had received. Brooks notes the lack of research into the efficacy of systematic synthetic phonics instruction for older learners despite the positive indications for very young readers and suggests that this approach ‘awaits convincing demonstration…’ (2011, p.192).
That the efficacy of phonics instruction for older learners has been questioned posits a crucial line of inquiry. There is little explicit research into this area of pedagogy, but what implicit research exists suggests that it is possible and effective. If phonics mastery is a threshold that must be traversed for reading fluency to be possible then the unpicking of compensatory strategies will be essential along with the establishing of an effective instructional programme in phonics for older learners.
And finally, the EEF have removed their statement from their website. Nice to know that they catch up eventually. However, the Australian equivalent still retains the verbatim advice...
What all this means for schools:
Assess the full code for all pupils until mastery of the simple and complex code - and don't rely on the PSC (it does not assess the full code).
Keep teaching the code until mastery is achieved - that is likely to be into KS2.
Ensure your phonics programme has a substantial amount of polysyllabic level decoding.
Spelling has a greater effect on reading than reading has on spelling and spelling is linked to the code (more here)
Post COVID 19 many secondary schools are receiving pupils with a chronic code deficit - you'll need a phonics programme and interventions and assessments.
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