• Latest news
  • RSS feeds
• Find recent news
• Ofsted News
• Media Centre

Press release: Trainee teachers are well prepared to teach early reading skills, says new Ofsted survey

Providers of initial teacher training have responded well to an independent review which recommended ways that teachers can improve their teaching of early reading, according to the latest survey by Ofsted.

The survey, Teacher trainees and phonics - An evaluation of the response of providers of initial teacher training to the recommendations of the Rose Review, assesses how the Rose Review has been taken on board by providers, including higher education institutions, school-centred initial teacher training centres and employment-based graduate teacher programmes.

Published in 2006, the Rose Review found teaching phonics systematically, or blending the sounds of letters all through a word in pronunciation, should be the method of choice for teaching early reading skills. In September 2007, the teaching of synthetic phonics was added to the national curriculum.

The survey found that overall, providers had responded positively to the Rose Review. Trainees were found to be well prepared to teach early reading, and were given sufficient theoretical information before starting their first school placement. All providers had altered the centrally taught elements of the course to some extent since September 2007, and had placed emphasis on the teaching of systematic phonic work .

Despite this, the survey reveals that some training providers are failing to prepare teachers to rigorously assess individual pupils' phonic knowledge and skills, which would allow them to intervene before a pupil falls behind. Furthermore, some courses are not highlighting the links between early reading and writing effectively. As a result, around half the trainees visited had a weaker understanding of the use of phonics for spelling than for reading.

The survey also found that not all providers arranged suitable opportunities for trainees to observe high-quality phonics teaching.

Christine Gilbert, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector said:

"The Rose Review is proving invaluable in improving the teaching of early reading. The review highlights the importance of teaching phonics systematically and underlines that, if you can use phonics to read, then you can use them to write. It is very encouraging that, on the whole, teacher training providers are taking good account of the Review's recommendations. Having good reading skills is the crucial tool which children require if they are to be successful throughout their school careers, and, indeed, in later life.

"However, more can be done to ensure that pupils’ phonic skills are accurately assessed. Courses also need to do more to highlight the link between early reading and writing. And trainees need more opportunities to be able to observe high quality lessons so they know how much children can achieve when they are taught phonics well."

Ofsted's recommendations:

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) should:

• refine and add to existing assessment materials so that providers can help trainees to be clear about the precise assessment of individual pupils' phonic knowledge and skills.

The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) should:

• clarify the proportion of time that should be devoted to the recommendations of the review within taught courses, particularly for providers of training for employment-based routes.

Providers of initial teacher training should:

• prepare trainees so that they are able to assess rigorously individual pupils' phonic knowledge and skills

• ensure that all primary trainees are observed teaching early reading, and that the feedback they receive from tutors and school mentors is quality assured so that it is sufficiently subject specific.

• clarify for trainees the links between phonic skills for early reading (blending) and for writing (segmenting to spell)

Related Links

• Read the report
• Read the news article

Notes For Editors

1. The survey can be found on the Ofsted website www.ofsted.gov.uk.

2. The survey was requested by Ruth Kelly, then Secretary of State for Education and Skills. It set out to answer two key questions:

• How have providers of initial teacher training responded to the recommendations of the Rose Review?

• Have the trainees' knowledge, skills and understanding of the teaching of early reading, including high-quality phonic work, improved as a result of their training?

3. The survey was conducted by two of Her Majesty's Inspectors (HMI) during the autumn term 2007 and the spring term 2008. It encompassed 20 providers of initial teacher training, which included higher education institutions (HEIs), providers of school-centred initial teacher training (SCITTs) and employment-based graduate teacher programme routes. HMI visited 13 of these providers; the remaining seven took part in a telephone survey. The HEIs and SCITTs in this survey were selected providers which had been awarded grade 1 or 2 at the time of their previous short or full inspection by Ofsted.

Providers of training for employment-based routes were not subject to regular inspection at the time of this survey. Weaker providers were not available for this survey and so the key findings are based on stronger providers only. In order to reduce the burden of inspection, the survey avoided those providers that had recently been inspected or were soon due to be.

4. In March 2006, Sir Jim Rose published the findings of his Independent review of the teaching of early reading. The review concluded:

The case for systematic phonic work is overwhelming and much strengthened by a synthetic approach, the key features of which are to teach beginner readers:

• grapheme/phoneme (letter/sound) correspondences (the alphabetic principle) in a clearly defined, incremental sequence

• to apply the highly important skill of blending (synthesising) phonemes in order, all through a word to read it

• to apply the skills of segmenting words into their constituent phonemes to spell and that blending and segmenting are reversible processes.[1]

5. The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) has the responsibility for the inspection of adult learning and training, the regulation and inspection of children's social care, the inspection of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. Ofsted inspects or regulates the following services - childminders, full and sessional day-care providers, out of school care, crèches, adoption and fostering agencies, residential schools, family centres and homes for children, all state maintained schools, some independent schools, Pupil Referral Units, the Children and Family Courts Advisory Service, the overall level of services for children in local authority areas (known as Joint Area Reviews), further education Initial Teacher Training, and publicly funded adult skills and employment based training.

[1]J Rose, Independent review of the teaching of early reading: Final report, DfES, 2006, p. 20.

Share this

Google Plus One