The DfES is planning to introduce a quality assurance scheme to evaluate commercial and other phonics programmes and ensure that they meet minimum standards (News, 26 October 2006).
Last week, schools minister Lord Adonis said that the list of approved schemes would be published next spring following consultation on the criteria that the schemes must meet.
The Early Years Curriculum Group has circulated a draft of a letter outlining their concerns.
Wendy Scott, who is a member of the Curriculum Group and has co-ordinated the draft letter, told Nursery World that there had been an overwhelming response opposing the plans from local authorities, academics and early years practitioners throughout the country.
Experts fear that the Government's insistence on using phonics as the primary method for teaching young children to read is misguided and believe that the research evidence for such an approach is 'highly questionable'.
Ms Scott said, 'Speech therapists confirm that many children are not yet able to pronounce some phonemes by the age of five and there's widespread concern about the low levels of expressive language of three- and four-year-olds in nursery.'
The letter drafted by early years specialists says clearly that children should become keen and fluent readers and raises concern that the enforcement of 'approved' phonics programmes will enrich commercial interests at the expense of meaning and motivation in children's literacy learning.
It also raises concern that a single prescribed approach to teaching young children to read reduces teachers to technicians.
In addition, the letter questions how this stance can be applied in line with the Rose recommendation that practitioners should exercise their professional judgement in relation to teaching children to read.
