Episode 12: Phonics for Parents and Carers with Donna Smith

In the twelfth episode of The Sounds-Write Podcast Donna Smith, one of Sounds-Write's In-House Trainers, gives advice and guidance for parents and carers of children who are being taught phonics. She gives an overview of what Sounds-Write is and how best to support students who are learning to read and spell. Enjoy!

Some helpful links:
Help Your Child to Read and Write course
Bruce Robertson's book
St. Thomas Aquinas Primary School directory of sounds
The weekly spelling list blog post
Sounds-Write's Facebook
Sounds-Write's Instagram
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Transcript

Laura:  00:01
Hello and welcome to the Sounds-Write podcast. I'm the host, Laura, and in today's episode I'm speaking to Donna Smith, one of our in-house trainers at Sounds-Write. In the episode, Donna gives an introduction to phonics and discusses how parents and carers can support children who are being taught Sounds-Write at school. Enjoy. Hi Donna, it's great to have you on the podcast.

Donna:  00:26
Hi Laura, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Laura:  00:28
And actually, today is our 12th episode, which means we've been going for a whole year on the Sounds-Write podcast, which is exciting.

Donna:  00:37
Oh, that is, that's great. I feel quite privileged somehow to be here on the 12th episode then. [Laughter]

Laura:  00:42
Indeed. So, Donna, could you start us off by telling us a little bit about what your professional background is, how you became involved in Sounds-Write, and what your role is now at Sounds-Write as well?

Donna:  00:55
Yeah, no problem. So, I qualified as a teacher back in 2006, and my first job was working in a very small school where I was Key Stage 1 teacher with a mixed-stage class. I then went on to work as a local authority advisor for e-learning when things like learning platforms were a big thing in England. And I went on after that to become a deputy head teacher of a primary school where I spent four years as the nursery teacher and then about eight years in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. And during that time I've worn lots and lots of hats, including being the English subject lead of various times and then the phonics lead, or phonics champion. We gave it lots of different terms across the years. But my school implemented Sounds-Write and I couldn't not apply to join Sounds-Write as a company when they were advertising for the new role of the in-house trainers. So, I joined in September 2022, so it's been nearly a year and it's been a great year so far. And as an in-house trainer, I deliver in-person training. I work on the online courses and I support schools as well. So this involves working with them directly, as well as developing guidance and being involved in lots and lots of Sounds-Write projects. So recently I was working on a workshop for some trainee teachers at university in the north of England, and now I'm taking on the role of being the named contact for the English hub, which are a thing here in England.

Laura:  02:16
And a big congratulations to you because you recently graduated as well, on top of all that other stuff, from your MBA, which is amazing.

Donna:  02:26
Oh, thanks, Laura. It's always good to be learning, I suppose.

Laura:  02:29
It is indeed. I remember when you first joined the team that we found out you had a background in e-learning, and it's just one of those perfect combinations and intersections of all your different backgrounds that come together to suit the role at Sounds-Write perfectly.

Donna:  02:46
Yes, it is, because I used to train people on how to use learning platforms and now I'm actually a trainer sort of using learning platforms to train other people, so I guess it's come full circle for me.

Laura:  02:55
Yeah, exactly. So this episode is aimed at parents and carers who want to find out more about phonics and how they can support their child's learning. So when we were developing the concept for this podcast together, we had a little bit of back and forth kind of confusion on who exactly this episode was for. So I think it would be good first if you clarified that for everyone who's listening.

Donna:  03:21
Yeah. So, when we were thinking about aiming something at parents and carers, and thinking about what Sounds-Write means to parent and carers, we were thinking about really how we can help schools and help parents to understand what Sounds-Write means for those children who are in schools that use Sounds-Write. So there might be parents out there of children who are struggling or their children aren't using phonics or not using Sounds-Write in the classroom. And this episode really is more for the parents who already have children in a school using Sounds-Write. But we do have a free course for parents and carers, which is called Help Your Child to Read and Write. And we'd encourage everyone, anyone, to access that course if they want to learn a bit about how their children actually begin to learn to read and to spell. It's going to be particularly useful for anyone again, in a school using Sounds-Write, but really, it would give any parent and carer a good understanding of what actually happens when their child begins to read, so I'd really recommend that they go to that. And I wonder if you could pop that in the podcast notes Laura, so that people can find the link.

Laura:  04:18
I will do, yeah.

Donna:  04:19
But just if anyone is thinking about those, they're really easy to access. Everything in it is in bite-sized chunks, so it can be used on your computer, a tablet or even your phone. So, a smartphone. And it's about an hour, just over an hour of content and it introduces parents and carers to the Sounds-Write programme, but also gives them knowledge, resources and activities they can use to help their child to start learning to read and write. So as, maybe parents for children around the age of four to six, and if they want to know how to get them started on their learning journey, it's a great place to begin. There's two parts to it, and the second part goes into a lot more detail about the Sounds-Write phonics programme and thinking about some more complex words and goes on there. So, this episode of the podcast really is we're thinking about those parents and carers who have children in schools who are using Sounds-Write.

Laura:  05:07
Brilliant. And I think this episode will also be useful for schools to see the process, kind of, from the parents perspective as well.

Donna:  05:15
Yeah, I'm hoping we can give lots of information, really, about how schools can help parents and carers. You know, rather than it coming sort of directly from us through a podcast, we want schools to be engaging with parents and carers.

Laura:  05:26
Yeah, of course. So, first of all, could you give us an overview of what phonics is and specifically what approach Sounds-Write takes to teaching reading and spelling and you know, in kind of a way that parents and carers are going to understand?

Donna:  05:44
Yeah, of course, I think that's the thing. So, let's keep it simple. Phonics is about how we teach children to read and spell. So, all of the DfE in England's validated systematic synthetic phonics schemes aim to do this, and what makes Sounds-Write different is that it takes a speech-to-print approach, or a sound-to-print approach you might hear it called. And this means it starts with what the children already know when they arrive at school and that is, of course, to speak the sounds of their own language. so the teachers in school will then teach them to listen to these sounds and words, so to tune into them and to represent the sounds with spellings and a spelling might be made up of one, two, three, or four letters. So, in the word 'mat', for example, we have three spellings, each represented by one letter, but if we think of the word 'street', we have the sound /ee/, represented by a two-letter spelling and in the word 'light' we have a sound /ie/, represented by a three-letter spelling, and in the word 'dough', we have the sound /oe/, represented by a four-letter spelling. So as the children progress, they also learn that some of the sounds can be represented by more than one spelling. So, for example, in Sounds-Write, they will learn the first five spellings of the sound /ae/, and then another three when they come to More Spellings, that gives a total of eight ways to spell this sound. The children will also learn to understand the concept that some spellings can represent more than one sound. So if we think of the < ea > spelling, for example, we can think of it in the words 'cream'  'head' and 'grate'. So in each of those three words, that < ea > spelling is representing a different sound. So the teachers are going to make sure that they teach the children the three skills, which are segmenting, blending and phoneme manipulation. So just to explain them just a little bit for our listeners. So, segmenting is basically the ability to pull apart the individual sounds in words, so if I said the word 'cat', for example, the children could say /k/ /a/ /t/ and give me the three individual sounds that make up that word. And if you can segment the sounds, then you can represent each sound with a written symbol. So, if we ask them to write the word 'cat', then in their heads they are thinking /k/ and representing that, /a/ representing that, and /t/ and representing that. So we get them able to actually represent everything they've heard with a written symbol. And blending is the ability to push the sounds together. So it's a reversible process, really, if you think about it. So instead of saying the word 'cat', if I gave them the sounds /k/ /a/ /t/, we would expect the children to be able to blend that back together and say the word 'cat'. Now, that also works with their reading, so they can see that written representation of the word 'cat' and they can say the sounds and read the word. So, they would say /k/ /a/ /t/ 'cat' and read the whole word. Now, that's a very simple word I've demonstrated that with, but it can be any word and it can be polysyllabic words, it can be really technical words. But that's the basics, where children begin to do that with their blending and segmenting with really simple words, maybe with three sounds in their Reception class here in England. So, the third skill is phoneme manipulation, which is the ability to insert sounds into and delete sounds out of words and that's really important for children to be able to test out alternatives for spellings that represent more than one sound. So when I gave that example earlier of the < ea > spelling in 'cream', 'head' and 'grate', really what we're doing there is testing out the different sounds that that spelling can represent, so that we get the right one and read the word correctly. So what all of this means, these concepts I've talked about and these skills, is that Sounds-Write might look and sound a bit different to the way parents and carers themselves were taught to read, and also perhaps a little bit different to other phonics programmes they might have encountered if they had, for example, an older child, or if their child has moved schools. And what we need to think about here is that Sounds-Write is really introducing the sounds in a really structured and systematic way. And it's allowing for lots and lots of time for practice and for repetition, because we want to make sure the learning sticks in the children's long-term memory. And Sounds-Write, therefore, is drawing upon what we term, or what people term as the science of reading. So the Sounds-Write programme is really grounded in research and about what we know about how children best learn and how they best learn to read and spell.

Laura:  10:03
Lovely. Thank you for that. So, when a child begins learning to read and write at school, what can the parent or carer expect from the school itself? So, what sorts of things can a school do to kind of make sure that parents have this understanding of the school's phonics programme?

Donna:  10:23
It's a really good question, Laura, and actually this part might be really helpful for the schools who are listening. So this is parents and carers, what you could expect, but also schools, hopefully some food for thought for you to think about what you're sharing with your parents and carers and how you could develop that. So, the first thing I'd say is it's really important that schools tell parents and carers a bit about the phonics programme being used and how the school is going to take their approach to ensuring that all the children, they have, all the students, they have become proficient readers and spellers. So, a parent or carer really is the child's first teacher. And that sounds something quite cheesy, but it's very, very true. So, children spend a lot of time in school, but they spend a lot of time with their parents as well. And we need to think of that and value that ongoing support, because although the children are coming to school for lots and lots of hours of their day, they're still going to be at home for an awful lot of time as well. So, we need to think about how the school and the parents can work in partnership to really make sure the children get a great start. And reading is something that parents and carers tend to view as a really key piece of early learning that goes on in the first important year of school. And I've had this experience myself, so I have my own children and one of them is school age, and I know that whenever I ask her what she's done in school, I get some answers of 'I don't know', or she tells me what she had for lunch or which friend she played with. And I don't find out a great deal about her learning sometimes. And I say that from someone who, I was a deputy head teacher at her school. So I knew pretty much almost exactly what was happening in her classroom on a daily basis and had a great relationship with her teacher and we worked together on planning and things like that, but my child would still try and tell me nothing or tell me things that weren't actually very particularly what she had been doing that day. So I know this is really common, and even if you got an insight into what your child is doing in the classroom, they will still say, 'I don't know, I played and I had jacket potato with tuna for lunch', which is mostly what I heard at that point. So when she was in Reception, I was thinking, well, obviously a lot more is going on, but if I take a step back and think about as a parent, my only little window into her learning world was that reading book she was bringing home. So reading is the first bit, really, where parents feel they can get an insight into what their child is doing in school. And that means that parents can do two things. So, they can celebrate all the success their child is having with reading. But it also means there's a potential here for parents to be worried about how their child is doing with reading. And that's why I said that schools really need to do more than just telling them the name of the phonics programme being used. We need to inform them about how the learning to read and spell works and what it looks like in school, and ideally, what it would look like at home as well, with that valuable support. So schools really need to think about the Sounds-Write difference, and they're going to have to think about how they're going to explain to parents and carers a bit about that. So, think about how those adults themselves may have been taught how to read and spell, and how this differs from the Sounds-Write approach. So, you're sitting at home, parents and carers, or teachers who are listening in on this, and I'm hoping you can all read and spell to a pretty good level. But the way that we've been taught in the past and the way we taught ourselves as children might be a bit different to how your children today are being taught. So, we need to think about how we sort of take the historical knowledge of what reading and spelling was about and make sure everybody knows the approach that we're taking now. So schools need to explain a bit about what makes Sounds-Write different and what might be different from what the parents themselves experienced learning how to read at school and what their children are doing now. So schools are going to need to explain to parents that we first of all, don't use letter names at first, and they will be introduced later on, but not at first. We want to focus on the sounds of the language when the children are first beginning to learn to read and spell. So, we need to give parents and carers an approach then, don't we? For when their child asks how to read or how to spell a word. So we could ask the parents and carers to, for example, write the word and show the child and say like, 'This is 'cake', /k/ /ae/ /k/, say cake here', instead of saying, this is /k/ /a/ 'kicking-k' /e/ when the child is asking how to spell it. Because we always want the children to be saying and listening for the sounds, okay? We're really focusing on what they can hear, what they can listen to, and that's the sounds, rather than thinking about those written representations and how we might describe them to a child who doesn't have letter name knowledge at that point. So we really want the /k/ /ae/ /k/ 'cake' rather than /k/ /a/ 'kicking-k' /e/. So, any of that that you've got from the past, let it go and embrace the sounds of the language as being what we talk to the children about. So it's also helpful for schools to give some guidance for parents and carers on the correct pronunciation of sounds. And it can be helpful to link to the Sounds-Write video, which I'm hoping, Laura, again, you could pop in the podcast notes for everyone so they can see it, because we've got a video of a little boy who is actually saying all the sounds. And that's a good model for how they should be said really clearly, really precisely. And schools can even make their own version, of course, if they don't want to use the one that we've got provided. And the other thing that can be helpful is just dealing with some possible misconceptions or common misconceptions that parents and carers might have, again, just based on their own history of learning to read and spell at school and when I think about what the children are doing now. So, we could think about the letter < x >, for example, because that actually represents two sounds, /ks/, okay? So /ks/, rather than one sound, as sometimes it might have been thought of. And conversely, we have the letters < q > and < u >, which so often are treated to be one sound of /kw/. But if you really break that down, we've got a /k/ and a /w/ in there. So we need to really make sure we're teaching children things correctly and precisely in the way we want them to know. So, we need to help parents and carers to be really alert to any outside of school learning resources that might be less than transparent than what we're intending to teach the children. So we want to be really clear and if the letter < x > represents two sounds, we want that to be the case, and if the letters < q > and < u > each represent one sound, rather than being a little blend together, then we need to make sure that any resources that parents and carers might pick up are going to be accurate and actually reflect what the children are taught in school. So, the schools in England are required by law to include the name of the phonics or reading scheme used in Key Stage 1 on the school's website. But it is really sensible for schools to think about going a step beyond this and actually putting it on the school website to explain to parents and carers about Sounds-Write and the approach to teaching reading and spelling. We've got some good examples from our Sounds-Write training schools and perhaps again, Laura, that might be something we could link to so that people can find those.

Laura:  17:00
Yeah, I definitely will put it in the show notes. It makes me think, actually of the first school that Sounds-Write trained. It was our pilot school way back 20 years ago, and as a whole school they made a page on their website with different students saying the sounds really precisely and it was available for anyone to use so it was a lovely resources for their community to refer back to. Yeah, so I'll see if I can find that actually and put it in the show notes as well.

Donna:  17:31
I think that's a great idea. And that's it. Yeah, we can provide a video, but if schools want to develop their own, then that's even better, isn't it? If they want to make something for their own school community, that would be great.

Laura:  17:42
So parents might be involved in supporting their child, in learning to read and spell. In fact, they likely will be involved in some kind of way in supporting their child. So, what would that usually look like at home and what kind of form would that tend to take?

Donna:  17:58
I think that's a really good question, Laura. It's quite hard to give a simple answer because there's so many variables that schools are all so different across countries and across the world in the approach they take to maybe engaging with parents and carers or sending things home. But I'll try and give a simple, straightforward answer mainly based on my own experiences, but hopefully that'll be useful for lots of listeners. So most schools in my experience tend to send home reading books for children to share with an adult at home or to read to an adult at home, and that's usually accompanied by some sort of reading record. So it might be a little booklet form, or a sheet. Well, the idea is that the parents would record the reading that's gone on at home. So, at Sounds-Write we really recommend that schools provide some information to accompany this, because giving parents and carers as a book and something to record something on isn't really giving the information on exactly what you'd like them to do or the approach to take with this book or with their child. So we suggest that schools might want to do something like a letter home. We've seen some examples of a letter written as if from the child, so sort of saying, 'Dear parent, please help me to learn to read by doing these things. This is what would encourage me. This is what would support me'. I've seen some where it's like a prompt on a bookmark that goes, obviously that can be easily kept with the book. So there's a few ways schools could do it, but we just recommend that some information is provided to parents and carers. And it's also good, if schools can, to do something a little bit more interactive, too. So, I've seen some examples of hosting an open event for parents where they can come in and they can actually maybe see a Sounds-Write lesson, for example, or a demonstration of how to listen to a child read and how to help them. I saw some tweets, actually, from a school in England called Peacehaven Heights Academy, and they shared what they'd been doing several months ago, they had actually been inviting parents and carers into school to see Sounds-Write in action. So there was pictures on their Twitter feed of parents who'd come in to watch lessons in all sorts of year groups. Right the way from Reception, there was a Year 3 picture, and that was really giving parents that insight into, 'Oh, this is how my child is learning to read and spell in class, in school', and that would give them all the information then when they get something home, whether it be a reading book or something else, they know what sort of approaches the teacher is taking. They've seen a bit of or heard a bit of the language that happens within a Sounds-Write lesson. So if schools are able to facilitate that kind of thing, then that's really valuable for everybody involved, I think.

Laura:  20:27
Yeah, very nice. Cool.

Donna:  20:30
So, I would also encourage schools to think about what we call the error corrections in our training, because they are linked to the lessons, but they're also fantastic to use whenever a child is getting something incorrect or struggling with something in their reading or their writing. And schools could carefully select some to maybe model or demonstrate to parents for actually using at home. I wouldn't say that's something you could just send home, though. I think it would only be if schools were taking quite an active role in modelling this to parents and making sure they've got lots of information. But that's really what we want parents and carers to be able to do, isn't it? We want them to enjoy their children reading, but also, if something crops up which is more difficult for the child or trickier to do, then we want them to have the confidence to help the child. That's ultimately what everyone's all about, isn't it? Is helping the children to learn to read and spell.

Laura:  21:18
Of course and as you say, error corrections really are kind of an integral part of how we teach lessons at Sounds-Write. So, as you said earlier, the Help Your Child to Read and Write course is a great free resource for parents, and it gives a lot of clear demonstrations of these error correction processes that you can use with your child as they read at home. So, that course really sets those examples out for you.

Donna:  21:45
Yeah, that's great and that'd be really helpful for people to use then. So I think that people should do that course and ask any questions they can of their child's teacher to get more involved with the process, so that's brilliant. Something else that came to me there that often happens in schools is not just the reading book and the reading record, but sometimes schools will send home spelling lists, for example, Laura. So that's something that Sounds-Write, doesn't advocate, but we know that it's a really common practice in schools, certainly here in England, which is where my experience is, and traditionally, that's been a list of words sent home for the children to memorise for a spelling test. So they might get some spellings on a Friday, and then they're going to have a spelling test on the next Tuesday or something. And what that's meant is children having to do a bit of what we would have called in the past, a 'Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check' type of approach. So they're looking at the words, they're writing them, then they're looking again to see if they got it right. But as you've probably guessing by now, that doesn't really tie in with our idea of listening to the sounds, which is really what Sounds-Write is all about. We're teaching children to listen to the sounds and represent those, rather than look at the shape of a word we're thinking about the sounds that are in it. But here we have to stop for a moment and really think about the learning that was taking place. Because even if they were getting 10 out of 10 in their spelling test, we weren't seeing that translated into their actual writing. So after the spelling test had been and done, the learning had gone. It wasn't there the week after when they had to write those same words again in a piece of writing. And that's because the learning was fleeting, it wasn't sticky, and for a lot of children, this learning was even more fleeting. And they would score really poorly on that weekly spelling test, even if perhaps in their practice at home, they were getting them right now. Bruce Robertson, in his book 'The Teaching Delusion 3, Power Up Your Pedagogy', talks about this sticky learning. So, if spelling is really important, and I think it is, then teachers need to think about how they send things home and the information they give with it. We don't want to teach words by sight in class, so we shouldn't be promoting any kind of sight-word type approaches like 'Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check' at home. And John Walker, our CEO of Sounds-Write, has written about spelling lists in a blog post, which, again, hopefully we can pop in the show notes. Can we, Laura? So everyone can find.

Laura:  23:58
Will do.

Donna:  23:59
And that gives parents and carer sort of a better way of practising spellings at home. And that would support the actual learning that happens in class.

Laura:  24:06
All of this makes me think of when I was learning languages at school. We would be sent home with like a long list of French words, for example, for us to memorise the spellings of. And it's kind of a similar example because we hadn't been explicitly taught the sound-spelling correspondences of French, which now retrospectively would have been extremely useful. But, yeah, we were just sent home with these words to kind of memorise how they're spelt. And we'd get tested on these weekly. And sure, I usually did all right on these tests, but generally about a month later, I'd have forgotten them already.

Donna:  24:44
No, and that's exactly it, because we can, for a short period, put some words in our head from flashcards, we can memorise them. Some children can, I should say, it's like I say, more fleeting for some than others, but everyone can learn a few words and we can regurgitate them, but the actual learning, is that going to stick and be applied after that? No, probably not. So, we need to think about taking that approach that's going to tune back in to that listening to the sounds that we've always started from. So at the beginning I talked about how Sounds-Write really begins with what the children already know, the sounds of their language, and then we're learning to represent those. So anything we do in terms of activities in school or activities we send home really has to link back to that. We can't have all this lovely thinking about the sounds and listening for sound in school and then send home a list of spellings for children to memorise with their eyes. The process isn't going to work, is it? So in John's blog post that I mentioned, he takes an approach to linking it back to what the children are sort of doing in school. And I developed that and sort of sent information home to the parents of my own class. And I like to ask them to take a sort of three step approach across the week. The first one, make a bit of a game for the children as well, of course, want this to be fun. We don't want learning spellings at home or anything, or practising reading or writing, to be something dull. So, how do you engage your child and just have a bit of fun with them? So, if you are faced with a spelling list, parents and carers who are perhaps listening to this, or teachers, if you are guilty of sending these home, then I want you to think about the way that you do it and the approach you take. And I'm not at all suggesting you don't send them home. If that's your school's approach, then so be it. But let's make sure give parents and carers that power and that knowledge to do it in a way that supports the way we want children to learn to read and spell. So I would say the first step, so day one, I would say, is that we're going to have the child to actually just read the words, first of all. And we're going to do that with say the sounds and read the word, which is a mantra, if you like, of Sounds-Write, that they'll be used to hearing in class. So we would say to the parent or carer, okay, on day one with this spelling list, I want you to ask the child to say the sounds and read the word, okay, and that would be great. And then, the second step on the next day, we're going to introduce a bit of a game element here. Now, children quite like to test their parents or their teachers if we're doing it in school. So this way, again, the key is we're getting the child to say the sounds and read the word. So we're reading the word still, but they're going to ask the adult to write it down this time. So we're going to say, okay, child, can you say the sounds and read the word? And then the adult is going to try and spell the word and they're going to have to say the sounds while they do it, of course. And then the child can read back the adult's work by saying the sounds, reading the word to check that the adult got the spelling correct at that point. Now, don't worry, adults, you do have the cheat sheet, remember, because the teacher has given you a list, so we can make sure that we get these right. And then on the next day, perhaps the third day, another day of the week, we're going to reverse this. So now we get the child writing it, so this time the adult, the parent or carer at home, can read the word and the child can write it and say the sounds while they do it. And then we can check it back as well at the end. So, here we have sort of a nice, if you think about the week, maybe just three times in the week, we've got the child reading the word, we've got the child reading the word and getting the adult to write the word. And then the third one, we've got the adult reading the word and the child writing the word. So we get this process now, which is much more linked to do saying the sounds and reading the word, or saying the sounds while you write the word. Which is much more mirroring what the child will actually be doing at school in their Sounds-Write lessons, rather than just looking at a word, writing it down, checking they've written it correctly, we're getting them to think about and to say the sounds the whole time. And the idea behind all this is, of course, if we had all that practice in class of these words and these spellings, then at home we're doing it as well. We're getting a lot of practice going on, a lot of retrieval practise, and it's hopefully making all that learning nice and sticky so that it's not just learned for a test and then it disappears, like your French words, Laura. Hopefully these words would actually then turn up in the child's writing. A much higher chance of that if we've given them lots of practice in a way that really supports what they're doing in school. And the idea is really, if we get parents and carers to take this sort of approach, then we're giving them that power. We're empowering them to really help their child to learn to read and spell and to be a good reader and speller. And we're doing it in a way that's supported by all that cognitive science and about what we know the children need to do. So repeated practise will help get the new learning to stick in their memory.

Laura:  29:02
Yeah. And as you said earlier, it might be quite different to how parents learnt to read themselves when they were young, so it might come as a bit of a shock to the system for them. I've heard a few people talk about this, actually, especially in our recent symposium. The parents at, it's a school in Lynbrook in New York State that teaches Sounds-Write and they were quite apprehensive when they first learned that - sorry, the parents were quite apprehensive when they first heard these techniques and methods that the school were going to be using once they'd adopted Sounds-Write because they hadn't learnt to read and write in this way, so it was really different to what they knew or what they were used to. But the senior leadership team of Lynbrook said that they kind of asked parents to really trust the process. And sure enough, of course, they saw their children progressing a lot faster than they'd seen before. We've learned a lot in the past few decades, I think, about how children learn to read and write, so parents really need to trust that this will be an improvement from how they learnt as children.

Donna:  30:11
Yeah, I think that's it. It's really hard for us to put our own experiences to one side. And like I said, this reading book thing is that little window that the parents and carers have into school. We don't see much of the other subjects coming home in quite the same way as we do with English and with reading, but we do have to trust the process. And I will say, parents and carers, if you are listening to this and your child is in a Sounds-Write school, those teachers have had brilliant training, okay? And they really have been trained in how to teach children to read and spell in a way that I had not experienced in my teaching career until I found Sounds-Write. So before Sounds-Write, I really was trying my very best to teach children to read and spell, and I was using everything I'd been given. I used lots of different programmes, I had attended lots of phonics training on various degrees of quality, I think, in the past. And it wasn't really until I trained in Sounds-Write that I realised that there was so much I hadn't known before about how learning to read actually works, and that's what Sounds-Write gave me. So if your child is in a Sounds-Write school, then they are very lucky indeed and so are you as parents and carers, because the teachers and the teaching assistants and the senior leadership team will know about how children actually learn to read, rather not delivering a programme they are not blindly following through with 'We're going to learn this sound this week and this sound next week and this sound the week after that'. They are really going to be tuned in to how that learning actually happens. And back to Bruce Robertson's thing about sticky learning. They're going to be making it sticky so that children really learn to be good readers and spellers throughout primary school and beyond. So this is a skill for life, isn't it? And reading should be treated importantly like that. And then we need to get the parents of carers helping, yes, but really trust that process that's happening at school. So in the past, I've had parents who maybe haven't trusted me quite as much. If any of them were listening now, then I know you didn't mean it. But I've often had parents cares wanting to talk to me about the home reading books not being challenging enough or being boring, for example, or definitely this one, not wanting to have their child at home reading the same book more than once. And that's why it's really important, schools listening out there, you need to explain the rationale for using these decodable books or the phonically controlled texts, whatever word you want to use for them. We are talking about the books that children need when they are first beginning to learn to read. And it can be difficult, can't it, Laura, to write some of these stories when you only have a limited range of sounds and spellings you can use, because that's all the children have been taught so far. And I say that everyone at home because... [laughs]

Laura:  32:50
There's only so much you can do with the word 'mat' and 'sad'! [Laughter]

Donna:  32:55
But Laura has very skilfully written some of these books. That's why I laugh and say, you know, she understands how difficult this is. But the point is, that when children are beginning to learn to read, we need to tightly control what they read. And I mean that in terms of the content, as in the code that they're learning to spell, the word structures that appear, because they need to use everything they've been learning in class then has to be practised through a reading book. Now, we don't want to be giving them something that goes beyond what we've taught them because that doesn't make any sense for learning. We want children to have practice and to succeed at what they are doing. Sometimes those books might be repetitive. Yes, we do want you to read the same book over and over again, but that's because we need that repetitive practise to get the learning to go in and be sticky and for them to succeed and be able to move on to the next stage. So schools, you really need to take that to parents and explain to them that these books are part of the process of learning to read, okay? They are not everything that reading is about, but they are part of that process of helping children to decode our written language so they can hear the sounds and read the words. It's as simple as that. And we do want to control it and we do want to make sure the books contain, by and large, only the sound-spelling correspondences, so the sounds and spellings, that they've been learning in school and that practice is important. So parents, you are helping with that practise and you are helping that learning to be sticky. And I can't say enough to what Laura said about trusting that process and trust the teachers on this. That that is how your child is going to succeed, is to have all that practice of their reading book. So, I guess if I summarise that a bit, we're saying that the challenge of reading and spelling is going to be dealt with in school lessons with their teachers. But when they come home, we want the child to be reading something confidently, maybe with some gentle support and encouragement from a parent or carer. And we really want parents and carers to enjoy and celebrate their child's reading success and not be doing that worrying bit I mentioned right at the beginning, because it's the only little window we're getting into what they're doing in school. So we want that thing that comes home to be something they can succeed with. So teachers, you need to think carefully about when you send home decodable books and spelling lists. You need to think about, and this is what Sounds-Write advocates in our programme and in our planning guidance, words are going to be taught in class within what we call the current unit and then they're going to be reviewed. So, we've got the current unit and we're going to carry on reviewing those ones even when we move on to the next unit. And then we're going to think about introducing some decodable books in school for that unit that we've already taught. And then maybe after that, we're going to start sending them home. So what that means, parents and carers, is that what's happening in school is going to be ahead of what you're seeing at home. And that's great. And that's the ideal situation that we want, because we want the children to learn it and practise it in school, then practise it at home. And you can see how strengthening that will be for their reading if they've had all that learning and all that practice going through over all that time. Now, at that point, again, schools might choose, we don't advocate it, but they might choose to send some spellings home for you to practise as well with your child. And we just want to make sure that there's that good lag. So it's definitely got to be behind what they've done in school to make sure children have had all that teaching and all that practice before they come home to celebrate it and succeed with their parents and carers at home and share what they've been doing.

Laura:  36:16
Great. Thank you, Donna. So, obviously, we said at the beginning of the episode that this is really for parents whose children are at Sounds-Write schools and who are hopefully well on their way to learning to read and spell. But what can parents and carers do if they think that their child is struggling?

Donna:  36:35
Good question, Laura, and a really important one as well. I think the first thing I would say is that children do learn to read and spell at different rates, you know, we're not training little robots in our classrooms. All children are different and doesn't mean anything to do with the actual thing they're being taught. It's about that some children simply need more practice than others. But if parents are at all concerned, they need to speak to their child's class teacher as the very first step. So the class teacher will be able to explain a bit more about the child's progress and any steps being taken in class. So there might be some differentiation going on in lessons and perhaps some interventions and parents can find out about those by speaking to the class teacher. And the teacher may be able to give some additional activities for using at home. Some parents and carers may choose to seek further support for their child out of school, perhaps in the form of a tutor. This is more common in some places than others, of course, but I would always think it's a good idea to discuss this with the class teacher to ensure that mixed-methods is avoided. And what I mean by that is that we really want children to be learning to read and spell with one method so that it's consistent and there's no confusion going on. So what we wouldn't want to see happen, is the school are teaching Sounds-Write and maybe a tutor at home is taking a different approach. So, it's always worth having a conversation with the class teacher as the first step before you look into anything else. And just find out what's going on at school. What other support could school give? And it might just be that they reassure you that your child is doing very well, of course, because we might be worrying about something that is, you know, unduly worrying about it. But if there is something going on and that needs more help, check what the school are doing first, see what they can offer and really discuss that with them, because I'd really want to avoid a child being confused by having teaching in two different ways.

Laura:  38:21
Yeah, that's a great point and great advice. So, just to round up the episode, I've got one final question for you that I'm interested to hear what your answer is. So literacy, as we know, is about so much more than just learning to read and spell correctly. What's the one bit of advice that you would give to parents to boost their children's love of literacy and the literacy skills in general?

Donna:  38:48
Well, in my opinion, the most wonderful thing is when a parent or carer regularly reads to their child and that's about sharing quality picture books when they're young and moving on to high quality chapter books as they grow. Because children really benefit so much from having reading modelled to them and they love to hear stories and I know as a parent myself, I love to read stories to my child. And I build this into my daily routine, there's plenty of books at home and I get extra books out of the local library. The charity shop is a great place to go to let them browse and pick up a book for just a few pence if you can. That's a brilliant thing to do because when the children are hearing stories and sharing books with someone, they're always building their vocabulary and their comprehension, which are parts we haven't talked about when we talk about phonics, because phonics is about actually learning to understand the symbols on the page and the sounds that we hear and how they're represented. But literacy, as you say, is much wider than that. So we want the children to enjoy stories, to hear adults read to them, to read to adults and just have a great time with books and build up all that rich vocabulary that goes around them so that when they can decode the symbols on the page and read them, they're going to be able to understand and have interesting things to learn about through their books.

Laura:  40:00
Yeah. When I said earlier, especially in those earlier units, when children first start doing Sounds-Write, and there's really only so much we can do with the decodable books when they've only so far covered a few sounds. So it's really important that they're getting all that, what you mentioned, that rich vocabulary, that sentence structure and storytelling in these texts that parents read to them as well, because they can't necessarily read text at that level yet.

Donna:  40:27
Yeah, and that's the wonderful thing of it, isn't it? They can learn to read their own books, which we're tightly controlling, but also we can expose them to a fantastic arrangement of really good quality literature.

Laura:  40:39
Well, it's been great to hear from you, Donna. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us today.

Donna:  40:46
Yeah, thanks, Laura. Thanks for having me. It was really interesting to talk about.

Laura:  40:50
Great. All right, see you next time.