Phonics

In June 2023, Mike Glavin wrote a blog entitled Beyond My Relationship With A Phonic Fairy.

A link to it can be found here

Since then he has engaged with ten schools in Wales to:

Data is being used to measure the impact on standards.

The relevant baseline assessment was used for each year group i.e. reception baseline for reception, Y1 baseline for year one pupils and Y2 baseline assessment for Year 2 pupils.

This has enabled a comparison to be made between the phonic standards in each school with the expected standard in England.

Baseline data had been collected for:

In addition, the participation of a Welsh medium school in the research project has provided baseline data for all its pupils from Y3 to Y6.

The baseline assessment with be repeated in late June/early July to demonstrate the impact on attainment in phonics in each year group in each school.

There are three aspects to exploring the enablers and barriers to the scheme having impact on phonic standards.

Network

Network meetings are being held every six weeks. These are designed to:

Provide information on both the research and the synthetic phonics scheme
Build professional trust so that participants can be honest about standards in phonics at their schools
Facilitate the sharing of what has gone well and what has not gone well
Share resources and ideas
Provide an insight into which areas to explore in the questionnaire and school visits

2. Questionnaire

The questionnaire was completed by each school in March. It was designed to capture:

A full analysis of the questionnaire responses will be included in the final write up. However of immediate interest:

There are 10 participating schools, one of which is a federation of 2 schools. The Federation completed one questionnaire so 9 responses.

Across the schools there are 43 teachers and 41 support staff using Monster Phonics in Early Years through to Year Two.

In addition there are 15 teachers and 15 support staff using Monster Phonics in KS2. Note that 6 of these teachers and 5 of the support staff are in the Welsh Medium school where English phonics are taught from KS2.

Of the 8 English medium schools 5 have used Monster Phonics in KS2, though this was not initially intended to be part of the action research.

Pupil Response To Monster Phonics

School A:

The pupils love Monster Phonics, particularly the monsters! Following the planning and not using other resources from elsewhere has a positive impact on pupil learning. The daily repetition for younger pupils has been of great benefit seeing positive results, Older pupils who have always struggled with reading and spelling have also made good progress.

School B:

There has been a huge impact within out school. We have seen an impact and improvement in pupils’ reading ages, their ability to blend and recognise sounds, most of all we have been blown away by the confidence and engagement the pupils have shown towards their learning.

School C:

Pupils are very enthusiastic about the scheme. They love the monsters. We have noticed that nearly all children are more engaged in phonics sessions. They have become familiar with the monsters very quickly and enjoy talking about them.

School D:

Enthusiastic and enjoying, especially the songs. Filling gaps in phonological knowledge. Improving spelling.

School E:

The pupils have loved the scheme. They are very enthusiastic and engaged. Sound knowledge has increased in all classes. Levels in reading have improved with many children moving up over 10 levels since September.

School F:

The pupils have responded so well to Monster Phonics. They love it. I teach Reception and my children love all aspects of it. The love the monsters and I the colour coded sounds have made a huge impact on their reading. My children have a real passion for phonics year. When sharing books with their friends or looking at signs and print out and about they are always identifying the sounds that have been introduced.

School G

Engagement and confidence has improved. Pupils eager to read and love the monsters.

School H:

Amazing. The children are fully engaged. They love the characters and they are recognising and reading colour coded graphemes etc with so much more ease and fluency

School I:

Real buzz about phonics. Songs have had a big impact, they are heard throughout the day and parents say they hear them at home too. Very excited to do sessions, they enjoy the sessions and notice if it doesn’t happen! Assessment tracking is showing many pupils are improving with their phonic knowledge, more analysis to be done. Daily feedback from staff shows many pupils are blending and doing this earlier. Looking forward to seeing the baseline data repeated evidence and how this progresses over the coming years. Most pupils are now more confident to ‘have a go’ when reading and spelling.

3. School Visits

Visits will be made to each school in late June/early July. These will be designed to explore specific areas in more depth. The areas will be identified through the network meetings and questionnaire.

Selection of DFE Validated Scheme

This study does not compare the different DFE validated phonics schemes. The author selected Monster Phonics for the following reasons:

DFE validated
Comprehensive range of resources
Rigour
Training provided
Engaging/ Child centred and can fit with CfW
Has a baseline assessment and an integrated assessment structure
Colour coding matched to phoneme/grapheme/monster
Addresses workload issues as its all prepared for teachers
Company prepared to invest in understanding Welsh context and provide discount/matched funding for participating schools

Mike will write up this action research and share.

Phonics

If you would like to know more about Monster Phonics:

Rhian Rogers: rhian@monsterphonics.wales

If you would like to know more about this research project, contact mike.