Question to the Department for Education:

What recent assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of teaching early literacy through phonics.

There is a significant body of evidence that demonstrates that systematic phonics is a highly effective method for teaching early reading. According to the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), phonics approaches have been consistently found to be effective in supporting younger readers to master the basics of reading, with an average impact of an additional four months’ progress. Research suggests that phonics is particularly beneficial for younger pupils (four to seven year olds) as they begin to read. Teaching phonics is more effective on average than other approaches to early reading (such as whole language or alphabetic approaches), though it should be emphasised that effective phonics techniques are usually embedded in a rich literacy environment for early readers and are only one part of a successful literacy strategy[1].

In 2018 there were 163,000 more six year olds in England on track to become fluent readers compared to 2012. This represented 82% of pupils meeting the expected standard in the phonics screening check, compared to just 58% when the check was introduced in 2012.

The Department is investing £26 million in a national network of English hubs to support local schools in developing their teaching practice, with a focus on systematic phonics, early language development and reading for pleasure. There are now 34 such hubs, based in primary schools across England.

[1] EEF Phonics Teaching and Learning Toolkit, updated August 2018 (available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence-summaries/teaching-learning-toolkit/phonics/).