Developing young readers through the linguistic phonics approach

This paper reports findings from a large‐scale evaluation undertaken to explore the impact of the ‘linguistic phonics approach’ (LPA) on young children’s reading. The LPA is a systematic and applied programme that differs from traditional phonics programmes. For example, rather than ask children to look at letters and speculate on the sounds they make, the LPA begins with the sounds and oral language skills children bring with them to school and progresses to a stage where they marry sounds with the written word. Implicit in the approach is the notion that children can learn to make associations between their spoken language (native speech sounds which are embedded from around the age of one) and the written language. Findings from this three‐stage test/retest matched‐samples evaluation (n = 745, Yr 2 and Yr 3 pupils) indicate that the LPA does significantly raise standards and that the gains made by pupils taught through this approach sustain over time. Particularly worthy of note is the finding that, in contrast to non‐systematic phonics approaches, the LPA positively affects the attainment levels of high‐, middle‐ and low‐ability readers.