My reply:
Phonics instruction should last as long as it is needed to last!
I’m trying to change the notion that ‘phonics instruction’ is only the domain of infant teaching by describing that when we, as competent adult readers encounter a long, unknown word, we either don’t bother to decode it all (perhaps we are reading silently to ourselves and just ‘blurgh’ over the word as we can still ascertain the gist of the text – which is what many young readers or weak readers do with many words that they do not recognise automatically), or we may apply our phonics knowledge and decode the word from left to right placing ‘stress’ in the word where it makes sense from our previous reading experience to do so!
As spellers, when we want to spell a longish word or new word, we mentally break down the word into its main phonic sounds from beginning to end of the word and then translate the sounds into written phonic chunks according to our existing phonics knowledge. Many of us ‘say’ those chunks silently in our heads as we write down the chunks from left to right.
By cutting our phonics teaching too short – or indeed failing to teach any phonics rigorously at all (or mixing a bit of phonics teaching with other reading and spelling strategies), then for most of our students we have failed to ensure that they have sufficient breadth of alphabetic code knowledge of the letter/s-sound correspondences, and we have failed to ensure that their skills of decoding all-through-the-word for reading and orally segmenting all-through-the-spoken-word for spelling (and knowing the spelling alternatives to select), are proficient and automatic – and the domain of experienced adults and not just infants!
So, in answer to your question, ideally phonics teaching should be sustained throughout primary education and used in a general way to support students in secondary education (that is, teachers may model their phonics chunking as they write down long, technical words on the board or when reading texts collectively with the students – and support assistants should be properly trained in alphabetic code knowledge and the skills of blending, segmenting and handwriting as well as the teachers).
Phonics International is designed as a beginners’ reading, spelling and handwriting programme which moves seamlessly to a spelling programme. The programme could therefore last six or seven years in a primary school. Whilesoever literacy standards are abysmally low in many of our primary schools, secondary schools may also need to consider using the programme with at least their weaker students for intervention – or as a spelling programme perhaps for their youngest intake students (for example, ten to thirteen year olds as required).
In addition to using a rigorous phonics programme, I also describe how ‘incidental phonics teaching’ is an important element of general classroom practice – and I’ve provided a short paper describing this in the jade box on the central column of the homepage:
http://www.phonicsinternational.com/Deb ... g_Tips.pdf
Bear in mind, however, that synthetic phonics teaching is so effective – especially with such a content-rich programme as Phonics International, that the vast majority of learners will be blending and segmenting independently very quickly. Some will be able to do it within a couple of weeks (or even instantly!) and some may take a few months to be secure in their skills, even from the ages of four and five (and many from three!).
The idea is that each teacher follows the programme starting from the youngest infant class, and then informs the following teacher which point has been reached in the programme. In England, some of our first PI schools are teaching the programme from Reception (age four to five), progressing through units 1 to 5 in the first two-thirds of the school year, and then revising the units 1 to 5 with text level material. The Year One teacher then assesses the new pupils’ alphabetic code knowledge and blending and segmenting skills at the beginning of the academic year, and then decides how much unit 1 to 5 revision to do before proceeding with unit 6. Dependent on the context of the setting, some Year One teachers may only complete units 5 and 6 thoroughly, with the Year Two teacher addressing units 7 and 8. By this time, the programme is predominantly a spelling programme (which includes reading and writing of course) – because students have actually been ‘reading’ for a long time – which is why it is important that teachers and parents accelerate the teaching of letter/s-sound correspondences ‘incidentally’ as children ‘encounter’ these correspondences in their wider reading.
As the programme is ‘cumulative’, the letter/s-sound correspondences from previous units are constantly revised through resources such as the ‘Say the Sounds’ Posters which can be used as Posters but also as pages in the students’ clip files – and as assessment papers.