SQE Policy On Teaching Children To Read

Q: What is the difference between the SQE approach and the balanced approach used in most Canadian schools?

SQE: The balanced approach is not balanced; it only uses phonics either incidentally or, when a child has experienced failure, on a need basis. SQE advocates a sequential phonics program as a starting point. Large-scale research on instruction shows that a direct, teacher-centred approach to reading is best for most children. Children should also be read to, in school and at home, but a daily program of focused teaching is necessary. The best of several approaches to phonics is one where a beginning is made with sounds, moving to a sound-letter connection and then moving to words and simple sentences, e.g., synthetic phonics.

Q: When should instruction begin and when should children be able to read, to themselves and others, and understand simple sentences and paragraphs? 

SQE: There is no right time, but in Canada, where children are in kindergarten at age five, systematic instruction should begin then. It takes about six to eight months for most children to learn the basics of phonics and reading. All children should be able to read when they enter first grade. Extra help should be given immediately to those children who are struggling. If formal instruction is postponed until grade one, children should be reading by the end of the year. Phonics should be totally unnecessary by the end of grade two.

Q: This conjures up dreary pictures of children forced to sit still in rows as they endlessly recite meaningless sounds and words. Won't children get restless and bored?

SQE: No. The formal reading instruction typically takes 45 minutes a day. Most children want to learn to read and enjoy seeing concrete signs of progress. The words quickly become meaningful as they master the connection between sounds and the written words in stories, rhymes and songs. Children want to read. As they are rewarded by progress, they pay attention and try hard. Phonics can be presented in entertaining ways.

Q: Does phonics strangle creativity and spontaneity so that children will never enjoy reading?

SQE: No. The child-centred approaches dominant in in Canadian schools over many decades (whole language, balanced, look-say, and language experience) have not produced more voracious readers than there are in other countries or were in other times. Phonics takes a part of one of thirteen years of schooling, Competence is a prerequisite to enjoyment of any activity.

Q: Don't children learn better in small groups, where more advanced children can help others? What does direct instruction do for gifted children who can read before kindergarten, and others with leraning difficulties?

SQE: Learning in undirected, mixed small groups is ineffective. One learns to swim various strokes by sequential focused instruction. Rapid learners do not know how to teach others, thus both they and the slower students become frustrated. Genuinely gifted children may often be better off learning on their own, but an absence of phonetic skill may interfere with their spelling later on. Those with severe disabilities should be given special help as soon as the difficulty is identified.

Q: Don't children learn to read without any special help if they are exposed to lots of books in the same way as they learn to walk and talk, without having to be taught?

SQE: Yes, some learn to read on their own just as some children learn geography and history without help. Most do not. Children learn to walk and talk naturally, even in the least developed country. But most do not learn important cultural skills without instruction, which is why many adults cannot throw a baseball, swim, speak a second language, read or write.

Q: Does SQE want phonics to be compulsory in all classrooms?

SQE: No. Teachers are professionals, choosing their own methodologies and taking responsibility for the results. At present, faculties of education do not teach primary teachers how to use phonics, while administrators prefer the less effective balanced approach and even forbid the use of phonics texts. Regular annual testing using standardized tests of reading would give primary teachers reliable feedback on the effects of instruction, without which they depend on their own assessments which lack any comparative base. Teachers should have or develop the competence to choose the most effective method.

Q: What should parents do to help their children learn to read?

SQE: They should try to find a school where phonics is used as the prime instructional methodology. They should hold the teacher and the school accountable for their children?s progress. They should make their wishes for systematic, sequential phonics and accountability by regular external testing known to the school and other parents. Good parents also provide encouragement and support by reading to children daily and by using suitable, including low vocabulary learn-to-read, books. If the classroom fails, they plan to provide tuition using direct instruction, available from Kumon, Oxford, Sylvan and other schools, if they do not themselves have the time and skill. Materials are available for home-schooling.

Q: What do successful countries do?

SQE: The countries most successful in teaching the basic skills - Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan - all emphasize direct instruction. England and the United States, with instruction more like ours, have results similar to ours.

Note on research: A good starting point is, ?A synthesis of research on reading from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development? by Bonita Grossen. This summary provides a wealth of further references.  See: www.frontlinephonics.com/nichd-synthesis.html