Palmer & Jarvis launch yet another attack on phonics...

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debbie
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Palmer & Jarvis launch yet another attack on phonics...

Post by debbie »

This morning I received a message which has been circulated to a number of people and organisations:

...this paper has just been tweeted by Joy Mower, a ‘Senior lecturer Primary Education and PhD student (language, literacy, inclusion) at Canterbury Christ Church University’.

She described it as ‘’Coherent evidence based argument about why phonics is not the panacea politicians claim it to be’’

Sue Palmer & Dr Pam Jarvis
On behalf of the Save Childhood Movement
Early Years Education (EYE)

Academic Advisory Group www.savechildhood.net

http://www.weebly.com/uploads/2/0/3/8/2 ... _final.pdf
Here are some responses from various people having read the paper above:
On many levels this is incorrect but children in China Hong Kong and Singapore and Korea start to learn to read and write at 3 (not kidding).

That is also they way they are taught English - reading and writing and at 3 - some parents even start at 2.

One might conclude that formal instruction early helps children become better readers.

Linda Siegel
My initial thoughts on Sue and Pam’s submission:

a) Despite vast and seemingly impressive lists of their experience in the field of education I note no mention of any actually teaching experience especially within the Early Years/ Key Stage 1.

b) As mentioned, I think, in Jim’s letter previously to Rosen (?) we are again listening to arguments that revolve around false opposites. No phonics fan has ever alluded to not embracing and providing the ‘other’ side of reading (understanding, enjoyment etc)

c) Surely we cannot draw comparisons with other countries when the languages and cultures are so different? I certainly don’t think sweeping statements can be made as they are by Sue and Pam.

d) How depressing that Rosen is being quoted with such authority in a supposed academic document.
Maggie Downie wrote:
What a strange document. Are the Dfe really impressed by a mixture of opinion, misinformation and conjecture about the future?

Strangely enough, there are bits that I can actually agree with, such as the earlier and earlier start. But of course, Richard House is cited as a reference...
though I believe the trend to early formal reading instruction was initially a response to the fact thast so many children were failing under Whole Word or Mixed Methods regimes.

There is so much wrong with the Palmer/Jarvis submission that it would take me all night to deconstruct it line by line and I'm not prepared to give up a night's sleep because of these two airheads.

However, I think they are much cleverer then we are with the way they manipulate language to make themselves out to have the moral high ground. The name of their group alone, 'SAVE CHILDHOOD' is a corker! Disagreeing with 'save childhood' makes us what - people who want to destroy childhood?

I think the best way to respond is to follow Reid Lyons example, quote follows;

"The bottom line is for a country like America to be leaving behind about thirty-eight to forty percent of its youngsters in terms of not learning to read is unconscionable.

What makes it equally or doubly unconscionable is if you disaggregate those data, seventy percent approximately of young African Americans kids can’t read. Seventy percent! If you look at Hispanic kids, the figure is sixty-five to seventy percent. That means we are producing failure where it doesn’t have to be.

We know what we can do to help those youngsters; we know how to get to them early; we know how to identify these kids at risk, at four or five years of age; we know how to bring to bear good evidence-based programs that if applied and implemented will move those kids all the way from the tenth percentile right up to the average range, to be concrete.

We can reduce illiteracy in many of our research sites - in real classrooms in real schools with real kids at risk where ninety-eight percent are free and reduced lunch, and eighty percent are a minority. That is seventy percent of kids leaving the first grade as failing readers reducing to two to six percent when we do it right"


Reid Lyon Children of the code interview.

We should point out that the Palmer/Jarvis philosophy is the mainstream, entrenched practice in our schools and the result has been disastrous.

Yvonne Meyer
Sue Palmer was a primary head teacher long ago. She is an ally of Richard House (see below) and author of Toxic Childhood. She is also one of those who tars the teaching of early reading using synthetic phonics with the 'formal' brush, once describing advocates as, ''(A) rabble of back to basics diehards'' (Palmer. TES 10/11/95). More recently she opined that it was 'cruel and mad' to expect the majority of five year olds to be able to write simple sentences (Nursery World 11/1/12). But, as Jim Rose said, ''The term ‘formal’ in the pejorative sense in which phonic work is sometimes perceived in early education is by no means a fair reflection of the active, multi-sensory practice seen and advocated by the review for starting young children on the road to reading'' (Rose Review.2006 Summary p3)

Any organisation which includes Richard House on its committee is at least a partial front for Steiner education.

Here’s some background.

The UK's most prominent Steiner advocate is Dr. Richard House. He is a trained Steiner Waldorf teacher and now a Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Winchester. Dr. House campaigns vigorously for a Steiner-style (anti-intellectual, no reading, no phonics, no number work, and definitely no ICT) curriculum for all children until the age most have lost their milk teeth, around the age of seven. The spiritualist beliefs behind the Steiner devotees' demand for an age seven start to formal education are not communicated openly to the public or even to the parents of children attending Steiner schools.

Steiner / Waldorf ''Steiner education is based on an esoteric/occultist movement called anthroposophy, founded by Austrian mystic Rudolf Steiner..Anthroposophy is centred on beliefs in karma, reincarnation and advancing children's connection to the spirit world'' (The Observer. 13/05/12)
The Open Waldorf website is particularly informative about the Steiner stance on teaching reading:

‘'Waldorf schools discourage children from reading before the age of 7. In fact, some experts in the Waldorf community consider this type of early development "a tragedy" Why is the Waldorf point of view so different than the bulk of academic research on this subject? The answer can be found in Waldorf's alternative theory of child development, which is based on Rudolf Steiner's clairvoyant insight on the human being. The timing of this proscription against reading corresponds with the "cutting of the teeth," which Steiner indicated as a developmental milestone, with the incarnation of the etheric body in children. Steiner says early reading will hinder the later spiritual development of children’'

Steiner educationalists believe that the early development of intellectual abilities ''is a ‘negative development …a tragedy’'. They say that teaching reading and writing before the 'cutting of teeth' around the age of seven, ''damages the etheric body', and triggers, 'cristallization processes, leading to eventual precocious sclerosis processes later on in life’'

(http://www.ime.usp.br/~vwsetzer/reading.html)

Dr. House appears to agree with this mumbo-jumbo. On the subject of children starting 'formal schooling' before the age of six, he says, ''(T)he evidence is now quite overwhelming that such an early introduction to institutional learning is not only quite unnecessary for the vast majority of children, but can actually cause major developmental harm, and at worst a shortened life-span....Young children's "runaway" intellect actually needs to be slowed down in the early years if they are not to risk growing up in an intellectually unbalanced way, with possible life-long negative health effects"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18084204

Research by Steiner advocate Dr. Sebastian Suggate claims to show, 'that teaching children to read from age five is not likely to make that child any more successful at reading than a child who learns reading later, from age seven'. http://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/otago006408.html

UK educational psychologist, John Noble, commented on Suggate's study: ''All state educated children in NZ are first taught by the language based methods of Marie Clay which are akin to Reading Recovery Methods used here. Using a picture vocabulary test to assess 'receptive vocabulary' as one of his 'controls', the study compared the later reading comprehension scores of about 50 children at 11 and 12 attending Steiner Schools (which also stress the importance of language methods) and State Schools. No differences were found at 11 and 12. This study has absolutely no implications whatsoever for the first teaching of reading in the UK using synthetic phonics, because no such comparison was included in the Otago study. After working in NZ a couple of streets away from Otago University and having assessed some dreadful cases of all round literacy skills failure in the 2 Steiner Schools sampled in this study, as well as witnessed similarly appalling cases of reading and spelling failure in NZ state schools, I think we need to advise great caution in this country about proposals about precipitous changes in the timing of first literacy teaching derivable from this amateurish bit of research nonsense from NZ''

Blogger, Simon Webb, also commented on Suggate's research: ''Another point to remember is that this is not exactly an unbiased piece of work. Sebastian Sugatte was for years a leading light in the students' Anthroposophical Society at the university. He has always been a dedicated supporter of Rudolf Steiner's theories about education. In other words, he did not embark on this research in order to test whether children did better if they delayed learning to read until seven. Rather, he believed this firmly and went looking for evidence to support the hypothesis. That this is so can be seen from the wording he uses. He talks of the age at which children are, "forced to start reading"! How's that for objective, academic language? There is a lack of candour on the part of the man, as can be seen in this quotation from the New Zealand Herald. He is speaking of the apparent discovery that children learning later were not disadvantaged, "Dr Suggate said he was surprised by his own findings that this was not the case." For a dedicated anthroposophist to make such a statement with a straight face suggests strongly that there is an element of deliberate deception involved''.
Last edited by debbie on Sat May 02, 2015 10:51 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Debbie Hepplewhite
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debbie
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Post by debbie »

Sue Palmer was a teacher and headteacher in the past.

And speaking of the past, someone just reminded me about this Reading Reform Foundation thread from 2006. Topic? Sue Palmer!

http://www.rrf.org.uk/messageforum/view ... 631#p16631
Debbie Hepplewhite
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debbie
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Post by debbie »

Someone just alerted me to this TES article by Sue Palmer.

Sue was a primary headteacher, but did she never consider that her daughter would have been truly advantaged by a high-quality, high-content systematic synthetic phonics programme from her infant years? I'm talking about the kind of content and quality of phonics programmes that are now available.


https://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=110462

I simply don't understand Sue's negativity to infant phonics provision.
Debbie Hepplewhite
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debbie
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Post by debbie »

Maggie Downie just emailed me to say she has not managed to get onto the PI forum but this is what she wants to say about Sue Palmer's article in the TES:

"I think this quote from it tells you all you need to know about her view of systematic phonics instruction:

"Who needs a boring structured course introducing spelling patterns in rigid succession when you can just identify the patterns a child needs as she goes along and provide a quick way for her to meet them over and over until they are committed to memory?"
Perhaps if Sue's daughter had received a 'structured course introducing spelling patterns in succession' [I refuse to repeat 'boring' because that is not my experience of phonics and spelling provision - nor the feedback I receive from many different contexts], her daughter might not have had such muddlement over reading and spelling?
Debbie Hepplewhite
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