Joy in the “Eureka” moment: Why teach phonics to adults? | Julia Olisa

This article refers to adults who have English as a first or strong additional language.

Adults with low or no literacy have a long journey towards proficiency after years of missed learning and exposure to print. The skills they need to gain are complex. In reading, for example, the ultimate goal is comprehension. To achieve this, they require sufficient spoken language, the ability to tackle unfamiliar words, a bank of recognised words, and knowledge of punctuation, grammar and text structure. Working memory underpins the ability to monitor all of these.

As teachers, how should we approach the task of supporting adults to build this network of skills? With many more years of life experiences than children, do they benefit from similar teaching techniques to those used in schools?  

I argue that they do. My thoughts here reflect research into the psychology of literacy acquisition and literacy difficulties, which has informed my work with individuals of all ages struggling to read and write. 

Literacy acquisition in childhood

Methods of teaching initial reading and spelling skills to young children have been debated for decades. The issue was largely resolved in this country by the emergence of a strong body of evidence in favour of ‘phonics’. For readers unfamiliar with the principles of this approach, a brief outline may be helpful.

Within the English alphabetic spelling system, written letters correspond to spoken sounds, or ‘phonemes’, which we blend together to form words:

“c”  -  “a”  -  “t” = “cat”

Compare this to Chinese characters, for example, which represent units of meaning, not pronunciation:

黃 = ‘yellow’

Numerous studies from around the world have established that children’s early literacy development in alphabetic writing systems is underpinned by their perception of the sound segments of speech: words, rhymes, syllables, and phonemes. This is referred to as ‘phonological awareness’.

Explicit teaching in phonemic awareness alongside a systematic phonics programme  help to build knowledge of sound-to-letter (phoneme-to-grapheme) correspondences. It allows learners to decode (read) or encode (spell) unfamiliar words independently. This approach was embedded in the primary schools curriculum in 2006 (following the Rose Report), and confirmed in the core National Curriculum in 2014.  Since then, the gap between the lowest- and highest-scoring pupils in England has reduced in favour of previously lower-achievers.

Literacy acquisition in adults

Unlike the evidence surrounding initial literacy acquisition in children, far less is available to support the efficacy of one method over another when working with adults. Nonetheless, we should take account of what research can tell us.

Studies consistently highlight challenges faced by low/no-literacy adults in acquiring fluent word decoding, word recognition and spelling. In particular, their ability to work with phonemes is weak. This may explain why, when encountering unfamiliar words, they are inclined to guess, using visual impressions and context. 

Should teachers focus on the preferred strategies of adults and avoid the weaker? I  would suggest not for the following reasons.

1. The current strategies of low/no-literacy adults have clearly failed them so far. Why?

   1. Most of us do not have photographic memories. Without an understanding of letter sounds and spelling patterns, initial literacy learners have no ‘hooks’ on which to support the memorisation of hundreds or thousands of words. Visual memory is certainly of no help when faced with unfamiliar vocabulary, and is an ineffective primary strategy for learning spellings – which are likely to be quickly forgotten. This is particularly true for dyslexic learners.

   2. ‘Prediction’ of written words based on context is equally inefficient, little more than a guessing game. How do you decide, for example, whether a recipe calls for ricotta or risotto, radishes or radicchio?

2. Understanding of the alphabetic principle provides an insight into the code of our written language. Strongly literate people continue to automatically apply this principle, using phonology to decode and distinguish between words.  Although low/no-literacy adults have weak phonological skills, evidence from the ‘ba – da’ test (“Are the sounds the same or different? ”) tells us that they are able to perceive single phonemes.  Just like young children, they have a foundation on which to build their skills and to develop phonic knowledge.  

Multisensory techniques are fundamental to this approach, reinforcing learning through looking, speaking, listening and writing. The idea of analogy is introduced early on, demonstrating that many common patterns are found in spelling (e.g. sit, fit, lit; band, land, sand).

Reading books allow learners to apply their decoding skills to text, to develop a sight vocabulary, and to become familiar with the conventions of punctuation and grammar. Comprehension improves as reading becomes less effortful.

In a compelling description of one woman’s struggle to learn to read and write, Victoria Purcell-Gates compares the effortless use of phonology and phonics by strongly literate people with the perplexity of adults without these skills. She concludes that, as teachers:

‘It is unfair and unethical to withhold insider information until ….. adults figure it out for themselves, as if they were insiders all along.’   

My experiences of using phonology and phonics with adults have been predominantly positive.  I have shared many joyful “Eureka” moments with learners who have begun to ‘crack the code’, as they celebrate their growing mastery of reading and writing.

'In my 50s I started learning from the very beginning with A B C, how to break down words and make sentences. I got to know how English works. It gave me the self-confidence and belief that I didn’t have before.'

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Rose, J. (2006). Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading. DfES

• Department for Education. (2014). The National Curriculum in England: Framework document. Online]. Available at: [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-framework-for-key-stages-1-to-4

• Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) (2021). Accessed at:  https://pirls2021.org/results/

• Sabatini, J., O’Reilly, T. Dreier, K. & Wang, Z. (2020). Cognitive processing Challenges Associated with Low Literacy in Adults. In  The Wiley Handbook of Adult Literacy. Edited by Dolores. John Wiley & Sons Inc., New Jersey, USA

• Morais, J. & Kolinsky, R. (2020). Phonological Abilities in Fully Illiterate Adults. In  The Wiley Handbook of Adult Literacy. Edited by Dolores. John Wiley & Sons Inc., New Jersey, USA

• Morais, J. & Kolinsky, R. (2020). Phonological Abilities in Fully Illiterate Adults. In  The Wiley Handbook of Adult Literacy. Edited by Dolores. John Wiley & Sons Inc., New Jersey, USA

• Purcell-Gates, V. (1995). In Other People’s Words: The Cycle of Low Literacy. London, Uk.: Harvard University Press