(A post about the shortage of reputable Structured Literacy PLD* in New Zealand)
*Professional Learning & Development
My attention grabbing Lost in Space analogy is for a good reason, though slightly exaggerated. Be careful out there...Let me explain.
I’m feeling pretty proud that my principal has confirmed that we’re switching to Structured Literacy (SL) schoolwide next year and we are signed up with a reputable PLD provider. (We will have seminars, workshops, online lessons, in-class demos and on-going mentoring for at least a year, probably three.)
However, not all colleagues in our SL community are fortunate to be approaching this shift schoolwide. Some are only doing it in their junior teams and some are all alone in the wilderness of ‘Balanced Literacy Land’.
Structured Literacy PLD is scarce out there.
Like a scene from Lost in Space, SL novices are in an alien desert and thirsty for knowledge and they are reaching out for something, anything to quench that thirst.
Imagine their relief when they google PLD in the EdGazette online, and up pops an advert with tantalising words, including ‘systematic’ and ‘structured’.
This is what I tried out last night and I was scared for the novices out there, hence my warning.
Now, I don’t want to be slammed with a defamation case, but a sound defence is that my opinion is based on researched and peer-reviewed facts, hence my warning: Buyer Beware!
Some PLD courses out there - tempting novices with enticing words like ‘systematic’ and ‘structured’ - are still based on Balanced Literacy and their authors defend the role of a bit of phonics, a bit of sight word memorisation and a bit of other stuff - you know, a ‘balanced diet’ of what has been used in our classes for years and with unsatisfactory results!
The problem with this approach is ‘a bit of this and a bit of that’, and a bit of your class will get it and a bit of your class will not. Science has shown that the BEST results for all students comes from an explicit Structured Literacy approach that is diagnostic, systematic and cumulative AND uses a systematic synthetic phonics programme from the start.
The other important point is what we now know about memory and cognitive overload. You know what this is, it’s when your brain hurts from trying to remember too much at once! (Like how it feels when you're trying to learn about SL!)
Yes children can learn sight words by memorising them. I admit I used to teach my students that way. But then they plateaued and got stuck, at around about orange or turquoise levels, and progress was slow.
This happens when children have filled up their memory banks with sight words and they have not orthographically mapped them in their brains, sound to print. In a way, it's like stuffing the letterbox at your gate with junk mail rather than using the more efficient email.
Automatic recall of ‘sight words’ is what happens when readers have mapped a word by sound into their long term memory and then it becomes readable ‘by sight’. But to get it into long term memory it has to be by sound work first, not ‘look and say’ as if it was a picture. Re-reading words already mapped by sound is a valid practice, but it has to follow the sound work first.
Sadly, some popular BL resources use picture clues and context in sentences to get children to memorise a set of about 50 high use ‘first’ words. Even worse, often the job is given to well-meaning teacher aides, who just follow the instructions.
Even more problematic is how these ‘intervention’ programmes are often used with our most struggling learners and we perpetuate their struggles by focusing on such memorisation. Such ‘pictorial reading’ is how poor readers read, when their brains are scanned, not how good readers read.
As teachers, once we know better, we should do better.
So, Buyer Beware: Be a good reader and ‘read the fine print’ before booking any bitsy PLD in the holidays. A short course on ‘phonics’ or a short course on ‘words’ will be like drinking salty water. It will seem to work at first, but will not sustain you in the long run (nor your learners).
The Science of Reading takes time to get to grips with at first, but it is better to go slow and steady than to dash off on a false start. (Really mixing up my analogies now!)
Thirst for knowledge but be sure to check that what you are drinking is really ‘pure’ and healthy for you and your learners in the long term.
And, if you’re finding it hard to get PLD and not keen on a DIY route, write to the MoE and your local MP. Tell them what you want and why. Let’s lift our reading results and sustain the gains.
Here’s some links to help:
The Science of Reading: a top-level primer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2fQyaoGjIo) (Includes lots of links to other readings in the notes.)
What is the science of reading? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnkJ6VvDr2M)
https://sarahsnippets.com/how-do-we-learn-new-words-orthographic/
https://www.reallygreatreading.com/content/make-tricky-sight-words-sticky-really-great-reading-blog
https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/dyslexia-and-learning/understanding-structured-literacy/
https://www.liftingliteracyaotearoa.org.nz/support/looking-for-pld-for-your-school
https://www.liftingliteracyaotearoa.org.nz/initiatives/connecting
NZ Teachers - Structured Literacy and Using Decodable Texts
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