I'm just popping onto the forum to say 'hello' because some people are wondering what has happened to me!
I've been so busy doing all sorts of things on behalf of Phonics International but I thought it was time to provide an update:
I've been visiting some primary schools using the PI resources to see how they are progressing and to advise them further. It's very early days for these schools but it's great to meet 'real' people and to get involved with their uptake of their 'new' programme. It's been heart-warming to meet the children also - and to see the programme's resources 'in action'.
It's surprising some teachers just how much all the students love using the core resources. It's so easy for adults to dismiss 'worksheets' nowadays without taking into account the content of the worksheets and the range of activities in which the students become involved. I deliberately call them 'activity sheets' because they ensure that core activities are undertaken by each student. This is really important. Whilst some of the synthetic phonics teaching involves modelling and interacting sessions with groups and whole classes of students, it is still really important that the follow-up activities guarantee that EACH student gets to rehearse their blending, segmenting and writing skills whilst focusing on revising old learning and integrating their new code knowledge learning.
Over and again the students themselves describe how much they love using the core Sounds Book Activity Sheets. They really become engaged in how to use them and they clearly enjoy doing the routines which soon become established. Frequently teachers tell me how they are 'surprised' by their students' responses.
So, please don't be fooled by the 'appearance' of the resources because the content is VERY thoughtfully designed to rehearse the requisite knowledge and skills PER STUDENT.
I've also been developing further resources which we shall start to upload shortly:
Arun, our illustrator, has been working hard to provide full colour illustrations for all the I CAN READ storylines which will provide extra aids to memory for learning specific word banks. The word banks themselves and line drawings for colouring and labelling will be included for the actual student 'activity' part.
In addition, I'm currently kept very busy at a relatively local primary school as we undertake a whole school case study. This involves a huge amount of pre-testing to ascertain baselines across a range of reading/comprehension, spelling/writing and phonemic awareness skills. Phew! The enthusiasm at this school knows no bounds and it is inspiring spending time there.
I'm also in the process of promoting some evaluations in Australia whereby teachers can share a group email system as their ongoing professional development.
If any other teachers in other countries wish to set up a support group of this nature to share good practice and so on, please let me know at:
debbie@phonicsinternational.com
Finally, I would like to remind people about the difference between using resources as 'just resources' and using resources as a 'programme'. In other words, if you want to make the best use out of the Phonics International resources, you really do need to understand and apply the synthetic phonics teaching principles in full and to give enough of the time-table over to doing the teaching!
Sometimes I provide teacher-training and my heart sinks as I hear the occasional teacher say something like, "I'm not ready to give up on all my reading strategies!"
If this applies to anyone using the PI resources, then you are really not giving the 'programme' a chance to work properly. If your 'reading strategies' amount to multi-cueing along the lines of learning words as whole shapes, guessing the words from picture clues, context clues or first letter clues - then this is not synthetic phonics teaching at all.
I can only guarantee good results for your use of the PI resources if you use them underpinned by the synthetic phonics teaching principles - and give sufficient time and attention to understanding what these amount to.
Another aspect I am finding out from my visits is that teachers are so busy - or not sufficiently committed to this type of teaching, that they are not keeping up to date with my provision of new resources - or they are not following my advice about the use of the CORE Sounds Book Activity Sheets which need to be used very frequently - at least three times per week when teaching beginners and around twice a week when students CAN read and they are using the PI programme as a spelling programme.
Sorry for my recent 'silence' - I'll get back into the swing of adding to the message forum more often.
Love to all,
Debbie
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