23rd September 2024 – post by Debbie Hepplewhite
Well, to be honest, I’m in somewhat of a dilemma. As author of the (free) Phonics International programme and the hard copy (to buy) No Nonsense Phonics programme (both published by Phonics International Ltd) and author/consultant of the Floppy’s Phonics programme (published by Oxford University Press), it would understandably be considered very poor form to criticise someone else’s competitor phonics programme – but, that is the position in which I find myself.
Why is that?
This is because I have observed the resources, rationale and practice of the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme and found them badly wanting. I have also received additional information and feedback from practising teachers and worried parents who have approached me. I have found their comments and experiences equally worrying – confirming my own thoughts.
I note a major HOLE in the Little Wandle programme – with fundamentally important resources and provision for children MISSING from the core ‘phonics teaching and learning cycle‘.
The Little Wandle Revised Letters and Sounds programme is NO BETTER THAN the Letters and Sounds (DfES, 2007) it is claiming to replace. You see, many teachers adopted the original Letters and Sounds publication despite the fact it was never a ‘programme’ as such because it had various weaknesses and no teaching and learning resources – something that Nick Gibb, historically the Minister for School Standards, himself admitted years after weak provision was noted in many Letters and Sounds schools. So, historically these teachers often ‘equipped’ their Letters and Sounds provision with hard copy resources such as Frieze Posters and Flash Cards provided by, for example, Read Write Inc or Jolly Phonics – thus conflating exactly what their provision really consisted of or benefited from – but still claiming they were ‘doing’ Letters and Sounds.
Moving forwards, the Little Wandle provision really amounts to Frieze, Flash Cards (many), mini whiteboard work (sound to print for spelling but not much of this), and three guided reading sessions a week with, over time, hundreds of Harper-Collins decodable reading books. In other words, Letters and Sounds but equipped with hard copy Frieze and Flash Cards by a replacement publisher – Harper-Collins.
So what is the ‘phonics teaching and learning cycle’?
In systematic synthetic phonics provision, we can identify a more-or-less routine ‘phonics teaching and learning cycle‘ for the delivery of planned phonics lessons. This cycle is structured along these lines: 1) Revisit and review (past learning), 2) Teacher-led introduce the next/focus letter/s-sound correspondence of the English alphabetic code, and model blending for reading (decoding) and model oral segmenting and allotting letters and letter groups (encoding), and model handwriting, 3) Learners ‘apply and extend’ their code knowledge and phonics skills to ‘matched’ captions, sentences, texts (for reading and spelling), 4) Read cumulative, decodable, ‘closely matched’ texts and reading books, (and I also emphasise at an early stage in my approach: ‘building up knowledge of spelling word banks’).
Now, to EVALUATE AND COMPARE phonics programmes and provision, what people need to do is to understand the notion of this ‘phonics teaching and learning cycle’ but then observe, IN REALITY AND REAL TIME, what each component of this cycle LOOKS LIKE for each and every child. More about this later.
I have been urged by other worried people to review the LW programme, and when I have expressed my reservations and reluctance to critique the programme personally, my conscience was ultimately pricked by someone who said, “If Little Wandle is as weak as you say, and is now in 5,000+ schools and growing, and favoured by the DfE, some English Hubs and now by many leaders in Multiple Academy Trusts, HOW CAN YOU NOT do something about this?” This person knew of my pioneering for systematic synthetic phonics in schools including through the parliamentary process, and all my other associated work in this field – for decades. And this person heavily pricked my conscience for the sake of the children themselves (and their parents and carers) – and the misguided and misinformed teaching profession.
As my knowledge, experience and credentials in this field of foundational literacy is extensive, I am therefore in a very strong position to provide an honest review despite the uncomfortable circumstances. It’s my duty.
Appropriate content on worksheets or workbooks for teaching, engaging, learning, applying, extending, revision – and a continuous work-in-progress record shared with all stakeholders:
For decades, literally, I’ve been addressing and challenging the demonisation of ‘worksheets and workbooks’ by so many in the teaching profession. No one wants to see children with a diet of these as a lazy way of teaching across many curriculum subjects which has sometimes been evident in schools. But when introducing the most complex alphabetic code in the world, and aiming to hone the phonics skills and their sub-skills for reading and spelling, and teach handwriting, and ensure more-than-ample practice at code, word, sentence, text level for reading, spelling and writing, what could be more FIT FOR PURPOSE than rich, cumulative content ON PAPER and FOR EACH AND EVERY CHILD and which routinely goes back and forth to ‘home’. To me, this is so obvious. I am not the only one, by any means, in the phonics field who understands the value of paper-based provision for each and every child for tangible, cumulative, rich content – and which can be shared with ‘home’ and facilitate the greatest engagement of the children, and provides a record of every child’s formative practice and achievement. Indeed a number of DfE-validated systematic synthetic phonics programmes also include some form of phonics Pupil Books or paper-based content and practice of some kind.
But this is not the case for the Little Wandle approach. Author, Charlotte Raby, and her Wandle Trust and Collins associates have established their ethos as ‘strictly no worksheets and no workbooks’.
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Taken from a screenshot, here is the exact wording on a Little Wandle FaceBook message (Sept 2024):
‘*Official message from LW*
Little Wandle does not, and never will, offer worksheets or workbooks. Why?
They run counter to the Little Wandle pedagogy, which is that expert direct instruction from trained staff is how children learn to read. That’s why we say no to ‘phonics’ continuous provision and it’s why we say no to workbooks and worksheets.
At the very early stages of learning, a lack of direct teacher input risks children embedding or overlearning misconceptions.’
Debbie again: This Little Wandle ethos is utter nonsense. Not only does this training (brainwashing) demonise phonics ‘worksheets and workbooks’ – and indeed ‘any’ worksheets and workbooks for young learners – it also demonises phonics activities in ‘continuous provision’. It compounds the practice of phonics ‘being done to’ the child by ‘direct instruction’ without any understanding that the child ALSO needs to apply him or herself in the form of ‘direct practice’, as an individual to enable the phonics code knowledge and phonics sub-skills and core skills for reading, spelling and writing to actually take place! This lack of DIRECT PRACTICE, PER CHILD, will be CONTRIBUTORY to ‘special needs’ developing. And then, irony of ironies, the DfE has now commissioned the very people of The Wandle Trust with this flawed approach to become the specialist trainers of the English Hubs personnel in special needs provision. It’s heartbreaking. And setting up the notion of ‘direct instruction’ alongside ‘no worksheets and workbooks’ is to imply that the inclusion of ‘worksheets and workbooks’ works against ‘direct instruction’ whereas quality phonics provision needs BOTH to be as good as it can be and a greater guarantee of success for all children – AND to facilitate the greatest possibility of working in partnership with those at home, or at least the school ‘discharging its duty’ to routinely inform parents and carers what the phonics provision consists of and how their children are faring.
Further, the Little Wandle pedagogy is undermining – demonising – phonics in ‘continuous provision’. Now, in Sir Jim Rose’s independent review in 2006, he warned against ‘extraneous’ phonics provision which I have described as ‘pink and fluffy’ phonics provision – this is when the phonics activities are so indirect and not ‘core’ that the teaching and learning is diminished – perhaps watered down, perhaps the game or activity becomes the main focus at the expense of effective teaching and learning – think of the infamous Ofsted ‘phonics parachute’ game which was neither a good phonics activity nor a good parachute activity – that is, not fit for purpose. What is important is that teachers provide ‘core’ and ‘explicit’ phonics lessons and activities – but there is nothing wrong with additional phonics games and activities in ‘continuous provision’ which, in effect, ‘saturates’ the environment with very important phonics content and practice and also adds to the engagement of children needing to learn the alphabetic code and practising their phonics skills for reading and spelling – and writing.
So what does the Little Wandle ‘phonics teaching and learning cycle’ look like?
Teachers have daily lesson plans listing ‘which’ words – on flash cards – to sort out for the revisit and review part of the cycle, and for the teacher-led ‘introduce’ part of the lesson. Someone alerted me to this short video demonstrating how to sort out these Flash Cards. You can make your own mind up about this daily necessity for the Little Wandle programme! Teachers are known to openly complain about it via Facebook groups.
Children sit on the carpet in front of the teacher who holds up ‘past’ code and words on flash cards (that is, the teacher ‘doing’ the phonics ‘to’ the children – and this is where many children can slip through the learning net). Then the teacher proceeds to introduce the new code on a flash card and uses word flash cards to walk children, as a collective, through the decoding (sounding out and blending process – print to sound). There is some mini whiteboard spelling work (sound to print). There is NO CONTENT AT ALL on paper, for each and every child to ‘apply and practice’ at code, word, text level. There is no paper trail of content or practice in school or at home for each child. Then, additionally, teachers must organise three guided reading sessions per week, for the children (in groups) using the same reading book three times across the week for decoding practice, developing ‘prosody’ (how to read aloud with expression and phrasing) and to develop language comprehension. These books can then ‘go home’ for re-reading. If schools manage to facilitate these three group guided reading sessions per week, this will no doubt show in the Year One Phonics Screening Check results – but it will not show why some children do not reach or exceed the 32 out of 40 words read correctly or plausibly benchmark, and it will not show how their spelling and writing phonics skills are faring.
It’s not really that hard to question how many children simply cannot learn well enough, or at all, from a plethora of daily flash cards held up by the adult. This is what I refer to as the adult DOING the phonics TO the children, rather than each and every child getting the appropriate content and opportunity TO APPLY THEMSELVES to rich, cumulative code, word, text level content (for reading, spelling and writing) and engage with their own sense of learning and achievement.
So, CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCE IS HUGELY DIFFERENT with the Little Wandle diet compared, for example, to the phonics programmes’ content, rationale and provision I have designed. The Little Wandle phonics lesson format is what I refer to as IMPOVERISHED phonics provision. Many children are more likely to slip through the net and this can cause or exacerbate special needs and learning challenges.
Does this matter? Do we know?
SEND TRAINING
To make matters worse (I argue), the DfE has now commissioned The Wandle Trust to deliver SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) training via the 34 English Hubs. I challenge the suggestion that the people associated with the creation of the Little Wandle programme are the people most well-qualified to deliver training in special needs and intervention!
As you can see from my critique of the English Hubs’ initiative, and Warwick Mansell’s findings, the two programmes, Read Write Inc and Little Wandle Revised Letters and Sounds have had enormous advantages compared to others. This continues. Nick Gibb once asked me directly, ‘Why don’t the smaller phonics publishers step up to the plate?‘ I replied that the answer is complicated dependent upon each publisher’s circumstances, but that in simple terms, ‘The big get bigger‘ was my observation. And that is what we continue to see.
OUTRAGEOUS:
And it is utterly disingenuous, in my view, that Little Wandle is promoted as “not for profit” and that the DfE official, Gita Sisupalan, states the DfE is happy with this. Warwick Mansell describes in one of his pieces that teachers are instructed that they must use the associated Little Wandle resources published by Harper-Collins which is a commercial enterprise. So, how can the Little Wandle programme possibly be described as ‘not for profit’? One must ask, exactly ‘what’ constitutes the Little Wandle programme, then, considering that the publisher, Harper-Collins is commercial and has recorded huge profits from LW resources, that LW schools are instructed that they must purchase these commercial resources, and The Wandle Trust provides LW training that costs schools (therefore the public purse) dear for LW?
The above observations and comments do not provide a full critique, but I’ve mentioned enough to raise questions about whether the reputation and rapid uptake of the Little Wandle programme as the ‘go-to’ programme is truly warranted in England’s schools and across whole Multiple Academy Trusts (MATs). I wonder if the DfE, and organisations such as the Education Endowment Foundation, are going to show any interest in, and be accountable for, a deep dive into similarities and differences in the 45 DfE-validated phonics programmes and what experiences these each provide for children, for their teachers and teaching assistants, and for parents and carers at home? Surely the teacher-training universities should also demonstrate some professional curiosity.
Remember, the key question is, ‘What does this phonics provision LOOK LIKE for each and every child – routinely?’ And how many teachers, headteachers, parents and carers really understand any similarities and differences?
And of course, what are the outcomes. Indeed, how can these ‘outcomes’ be shared transparently in these days of the internet?
Some back story
The full back-story to the creation of the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme is long and complicated. It’s also rather sad and disappointing. I suspect it was well-intentioned in its original concept – and, at first, Nick Gibb (at the time, Minister for School Standards in England and a long-time champion for the need for ‘systematic synthetic phonics’ for teaching reading and spelling) was persuaded that it was the best thing to do for the government to provide actual teaching and learning resources for schools to equip the original Letters and Sounds (DfES, 2007) publication and present it as a ‘revised’ version of Letters and Sounds.
You see, Letters and Sounds (DfES, 2007) had been entitled ‘A high quality phonics programme‘ by the government originally publishing it, but it never was a full and proper programme for several reasons – one of which being it had no actual teaching and learning resources! This caused great hardship for many teachers and teaching assistants as they had to ‘equip’ their phonics provision themselves. Some did this well. Some did this badly. Understandably, various companies went on to produce resources to ‘deliver’ Letters and Sounds. But whenever a school identified as a “Letters and Sounds school”, this could take any form – including using at least some pre-produced resources from other phonics programmes such as the well-known Jolly Phonics, (Jolly Learning Ltd) and the rapidly spreading Read Write Inc by Ruth Miskin (rights bought by Oxford University Press with Ruth Miskin developing and expanding her training provision Ruth Miskin Training for RWI). Well-intentioned people involved in the production of the original Letters and Sounds believed (hoped/expected) that schools would adopt existing commercial programmes rather than adopting Letters and Sounds per se, but this was far from what happened. As I’ve explained earlier, instead we had a mish-mash development across England.
Nick Gibb introduced a Year One Phonics Screening Check in England in 2012. The national results (based on children reaching or exceeding the benchmark of 32 out of 40 words read correctly or plausibly in the case of the 20 pseudo words) originally rose year-on-year but then stalled. There wasn’t a transparent picture of why some schools did so well and others did not even when a wide range of results were from schools claiming to implement ‘Letters and Sounds‘. What did that actually mean?
Nick Gibb was then very badly advised to ‘revise’ Letters and Sounds and provide actual resources for schools. In effect, this could blur the boundaries of resources provided for teachers that were ‘free’ (paid for by public funding) and those published by, and sold by, a massive commercial publisher – Harper-Collins was the publisher selected by someone to fulfil this role. This was not fair on publishers, and even teachers, who had already produced full phonics programmes. It was also unnecessary as there was a wealth of choice of programmes in England by this time.
Some of us approached Nick Gibb to persuade him it was not for governments to produce programmes as this would unduly influence ‘which’ programmes schools would adopt purely on the basis of it being ‘the government’ programme. The very fact so many headteachers and teachers had already adopted a resource-less Letters and Sounds since 2007 indicated that the ‘official’ relationship skewed their judgements for programme-adoption. There was also an element of ‘what Ofsted will want to see’ which influences programme-selection. (Not that ‘Ofsted’ promoted Letters and Sounds per se.)
Nick Gibb was persuaded to do an about-face and instead to produce a Reading Framework providing evidence-informed guidance for the teaching and teacher-training professions. This was my idea as an alternative to the government producing another ‘programme’. The final publication of the Reading Framework, however, is very long – far too long – and not what I had in mind when I proposed the idea – but there were yet more shenanigans by Ruth Miskin and Gita Sisupalan of the DfE to keep me out of any authorship of this new framework.
This about-face was too late. The DfE had already invested financially in the Little Wandle programme to be the de-facto version of the notion of ‘Letters and Sounds Revised’. The publisher Harper-Collins and author Charlotte Raby, and others from two of the 34 English Hubs, were already invested in producing a new phonics programme, and they had insider opportunities in the English Hubs to persuade and train English Hubs personnel. Any English Hubs that were originally ‘Letters and Sounds Hubs’ now needed to find another phonics programme to adopt as the original Letters and Sounds was archived and of course the DfE had already shown it favoured the Little Wandle team and programme – and enabled the LW team insider access to influence the personnel of all the English Hubs.
And it is clear to see for any rational, honest person, that the DfE English Hubs initiative was NEVER ‘impartial’ as claimed by the DfE – and this is the case to this day.
The claim by the DfE that the English Hubs are impartial is no less than Orwellian DOUBLE SPEAK.
Education journalist, Warwick Mansell, has undertaken the hard work of raising some serious questions about unfair DfE practices and possibly cronyism. The four phonics-related pieces he has written to date feature some questions that should raise eyebrows and no doubt he will write further from his investigation. Meanwhile, do see my critique of the establishment of the English Hubs featuring Warwick’s journalism on this topic.
