Reading Made Simple |
In our work with many children over many years we have drawn not only upon our own experiences and knowledge, but upon the work of many others who have gone before.
In our practices in London state schools, in deprived areas we have seen what works best with the many children we have worked with, and we have utilised different ideas from various phonic programmes to meet the needs of the children. Disillusioned by the complexity and inflexibility of many phonics programmes we saw the need for our own programme - one that was simple and one that made use of those parts of the programmes we had tried that work best for most children, and one that teaches both reading and spelling thoroughly. In this way, Reading Made Simple was born. Reading Made Simple is fully in agreement with the five principles set out by The National Reading Panel (2000) and The Science of Reading that a programme of phonic instruction should include the teaching of:
1. The teacher must take responsibility for the child's progress. If a child fails to learn to read, it is the teacher's fault, not the child's or that of the programme being used per se. 2.The capabilities of children are vastly underestimated. I have seen many children reading fluently well before their 5th birthday, having been taught by a good phonics method. 3. The need for simplicity: Many programmes include far too many rules and use complicated vocabulary to describe the phonic code. The more rules, the more to remember and some children just cannot cope. These are the children with poor short-term memories and difficulties processing information. They need things to be kept as simple as possible - and so do many teachers and parents! Phonics can be easy to understand, easy to teach and we can make it easier for the child to learn to read and write, rather than putting stumbling blocks in their path. 4. The power of a dictation to help children's spelling and therefore writing ability to progress quickly.
5. The need of constant revision, using
6. The need for careful introduction of sounds: So that no word is ever presented for which the necessary spelling has not already been introduced. This is one of the main difficulties I have encountered with many other phonic programmes. For example, some will include the word ’shark, when teaching ’sh’, without having first taught ’ar’. This causes many children to stumble in their progress, 7. The need of vocabulary carefully matched to the child’s age at each stage This is another problem I find in many phonic programmes. Very often, word families are introduced according to some ‘ideal’ schedule, but the words in some of the families are just not relevant to young children - so they are not likely to stick so easily and be easily forgotten. Other programmes introduce phonic sounds which are only found in words that the child is less likely to use at a young age. For example, which child is going to be using the word ‘jaunty’ in their writing? Or ‘renew’? Experience proves that these words are best left until children are well on their way with phonics and have the maturity to process them. The words used in Reading Made Simple at each level are words that, on average, children are likely to use and need when either reading or composing their own writing, at each level of ability. 8. The need for a key set of words for each sound, that are concentrated on for both reading and spelling for all, but particularly by all for spelling. Of course, the more able will quickly learn to apply the new sound to many more words when reading and spelling, but spelling goes more slowly and any with a processing difficulty, especially, but all children, benefit from a list of ‘key’ words to use as a point of reference for each sound. I pin the relevant list for that week up around the room for easy reference. I have them on hand for quick reference whenever a child needs short, sharp revision. In short, I make every effort to help the child to assimilate the teaching. 9. The need to spend one whole week on each new sound for spelling, but also for reading if a child has a special need.
10. The need to use multi-sensory methods:
11. The need of a reading scheme that:
12. The value of games: For some children, learning is very hard and it can become tedious. For these children especially we recommend the use of phonic games to ease the child over a difficulty, be that learning to blend, or which letter combination needed to spell a word. Games can be found on our sister site: Sound it out Phonics. This programme is designed to make use of all these excellent, time-honoured components. If you would like more information about the Reading Made Simple method please read further: Reading Made simple uses phonics to teach both reading and spelling. It is a flexible programme that you can use to suit the needs of your child. It can be used as a reading and writing programme for a child who is just starting out. Others only desire to use it as a spelling programme for a child who can already read. Others may be using it for intervention work with a child who has failed to make progress so far. Whatever your need, Reading Made Simple can help! Always remember that spelling and reading are two sides of the same coin! The one helps the other and together both are stronger. The Reading Made Simple method: How and Why Reading Made Simple WorksReading Made Simple is a highly structured programme of synthetic (building from sounds to words), systematic Phonics that utilises what is called the spiral method of teaching phonics. The spiral method emphasises the introduction of concepts slowly, over time and gives pupils plenty of practice and repetition. Reading Made Simple teaches phonics through a process of incremental development and continual review. How does Reading Made Simple use Incremental Development? Reading Made Simple breaks the learning of phonics down into small, manageable pieces. See the progression chart here. Reading Made Simple introduces these pieces a little at a time and lets phonic concepts build upon one another. This incremental development, as it is called, is designed to spread skills and knowledge development out over time, developing confident readers and writers. Reading Made Simple chunks phonic information; that means, it presents phonic concepts in bite sized pieces, over a longer period, so that learning becomes less of a strain on a student’s working memory, leading to longer term information retention and lessening frustration in the long run. This is the main component that makes it suitable for all children, including those with a processing difficulty of any kind. Reading Made Simple is based on well-established and long-standing educational studies. Continual Review The other feature that characterises Reading Made Simple, is the importance it places on continual review, practice and assessment. With Reading Made Simple, phonic concepts are reviewed and practiced periodically over time, mixing older concepts into newer lessons and thereby cumulatively giving children lots of practice and repetition over the course of the programme. Through experiential knowledge of those points in learning where many pupils falter, extra practice has been built in to help children progress as seamlessly as possible. The supply of worksheets and games can help to ease a child over a difficulty. By placing a stronger emphasis on practice, repetition and doing dictations, Reading Made Simple can help with information retention and in making phonic skills more automatic (known as procedural fluency), leading to greater reading and writing fluency, and further to good reading comprehension. Because this constant repetition and practice is done over time, the learning of phonics can therefore be less frustrating and stressful for some children, particularly those that tend to get overwhelmed by too much information too soon, whereas those without any difficulties make good progress, with ease. Reading Made Simple may look from the outside like any other phonic programme. On the inside, it differs much, especially from Level 1 onwards. Find out more! In a nutshell: Why does Reading Made Simple work when others fail?
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