Thank you to literacy consultant, Carl Pattison, for writing this post in immediate response to the DfE announcement (30th March 2021) of the U-turn regarding an official revision of 'Letters and Sounds' (DfES, 2007).
Minister of School Standards in England, Nick Gibb, and the DfE had previously commissioned literacy specialists to revise 'Letters and Sounds'. A group of people with different roles and responsibilities then strongly questioned this position and persuaded Nick Gibb to change the direction of travel.
Letters and Sounds 'partner schools' (in the English Hubs initiative) will now have a two-year window to transition to a fully-equipped systematic synthetic phonics programme that has been 'validated' by the Department for Education.
Carl writes about his liaison with me to learn about my work and in particular to widely promote the No Nonsense Phonics Skills series and the Phonics International programme:
https://cpeducationhelp.wixsite.com/sit ... and-sounds
Wide-scale adoption of No Nonsense Phonics & PI
Wide-scale adoption of No Nonsense Phonics & PI
Debbie Hepplewhite
Re: Wide-scale adoption of No Nonsense Phonics & PI
We're building up a range of Phonics Reading Books to complement our phonics programmes - No Nonsense Phonics and Phonics International (Units 1 to 6), and we have received various positive comments about our reading books as well as our No Nonsense Phonics Skills Pupil Books series.
Here is a lovely example from a headteacher enquiring when our full range of Phonics Reading Books might be available:
https://phonicsintervention.org/shop/
It's important that children have access, in various ways, to a wider range of literature and not 'just' matched decodable reading books. I really love this graphic that Ann Sullivan started following attending a webinar provided by Abigail Steel and me featuring the issue of literature provision. We don't want the need and benefits of providing children with 'matched text' reading books to preclude wide exposure to all sorts of books:
https://phonicsinternational.com/wp-con ... v-22-2.pdf
The graphic above, and further helpful graphics and documents about phonics are available for free via this page:
https://phonicsinternational.com/free-resources/
Here is a lovely example from a headteacher enquiring when our full range of Phonics Reading Books might be available:
The headteacher is referring to the No Nonsense Phonics programme which includes the No Nonsense Phonics Skills Pupil Books. You can see all these resources via our shop here:The instant feedback that I can give is that we find the phonics programme to be ambitious and carefully progressive and that our pupils are responding extremely well as a result.
The reading books that have already been produced are an excellent way of supporting parents at home in having a clear understanding of how to support their children and continue the ‘no nonsense’ experience that the children have in school.
I fully understand your comment about offering children a wider range of reading books at home and this is something that we are currently looking at and can develop to address our current issues. Having said that, we love the books that you have produced are great and frankly, we want more of them!
https://phonicsintervention.org/shop/
It's important that children have access, in various ways, to a wider range of literature and not 'just' matched decodable reading books. I really love this graphic that Ann Sullivan started following attending a webinar provided by Abigail Steel and me featuring the issue of literature provision. We don't want the need and benefits of providing children with 'matched text' reading books to preclude wide exposure to all sorts of books:
https://phonicsinternational.com/wp-con ... v-22-2.pdf
The graphic above, and further helpful graphics and documents about phonics are available for free via this page:
https://phonicsinternational.com/free-resources/
Debbie Hepplewhite