Children's enjoyment of reading is threatened by this fundamentalist approach to learning to read, argues Andrew Davis, research fellow at Durham University’s School of Education.
In a new pamphlet, to be launched at the Institute of Education tomorrow, he argues that phonics should not be imposed on children because it can be off-putting for some children who are early readers and already able to read for meaning, and could be ‘seriously inappropriate’ for them.
The system of teaching children to read using synthetic phonics involves set books, specially written to include words that children have been taught through phonetic rules in class, rather than using a wider variety of children’s books.
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