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Is synthetic phonics teaching helpful to bilingual learners?

There is still limited research specifically on the effectiveness of synthetic phonics with bilingual children but broadly speaking the consensus is that whilst synthetic phonics teaching and the development of phonological awareness will contribute to bilingual learners’ English reading development, this should not supplant EAL language development work. The ability to decode, a skill which many EAL learners develop rapidly, is often not accompanied by the comprehension skills necessary for achievement within the educational system. Care must be taken to ensure that the teaching of phonics does not displace other activities which support the language and literacy development of bilingual children.

Synthetic phonics is being strongly promoted by the current government, for example it is to be included in the revised standards for QTS and the focus on reading in inspection from January 2012 as well as being the background to the controversial reading tests to be carried out at age 6. The government is also match funding materials to support schools to teach synthetic phonics. Against this backdrop, some specialist teachers are observing that EAL support activities are being curtailed in favour of extensive or additional phonic teaching.

There are few research studies on the impact of synthetic phonics on the reading of bilingual pupils. A 2008 research review on synthetic phonics and EAL learners warned teachers to be alert to the comprehension needs of pupils who are learning to read in an additional language. In Synthetic Phonics and the Literacy Development of Second Language Learners: Ideologies, Policies,and Research Methodologies Sumanpreet Purewal noted that 'a sample of research studies relating to second language young learners indicated that although word recognition and word identification was enhanced in all of the included studies, the effects on comprehension were not statistically significant'. A pdf copy of this paper can be downloaded from http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/filearea.cgi?LMGT1=ESOL-RESEARCH&f=/L2literacy

Further Reading

NALDIC Occasional Paper 23 - EAL Reading: Research and Policy explores reading instruction for bilingual learners in more depth.

NALDIC's Response to the Rose review of the teaching of reading provides a very full background to EAL learners' educational needs in relation to reading.

Frank Monaghan summarised these arguments in a response to a TES article in March 2011 http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6073421

For an alternative view, listen to Sir Jim Rose discuss phonics and EAL learners. A transcript of the interview is also available.