Welsh government accepts 'need' to improve guidance on teaching reading
The Welsh Government has admitted that it needs to clarify its guidance for schools on how to teach reading.
This is in response to an ITV News investigation which revealed that methods of teaching reading which have been discredited for decades are being used across Wales.
ITV News analysed hundreds of primary school inspection reports, school websites, and teaching resources and found that primary schools are using a method commonly referred to as “cueing” to teach children to tackle unfamiliar words alongside phonics.
This method has been proven to make it more difficult for some children to learn to read but our investigation found its use is being praised by school inspectors.
In one recent Estyn report, an inspector noted that “younger pupils quickly develop a good understanding of letter sounds and use picture cues to develop their early reading skills.”
Curriculum for Wales guidance also says pupils should use “context and pictures” to help them understand what they read.
The Welsh government disputes that this promotes the use of “cueing” strategies to tackle unfamiliar words, but now admits that its guidance “needs to be clarified”.
On Thursday, a Welsh government spokeswoman told ITV News:
“We accept there are places in our guidance where the importance of phonics needs to be more explicit and where wording needs to be clarified around the use of picture cues.”
The government further clarified that it does not believe that children should be taught to use picture cues to decode unfamiliar words.
A method known as Systematic Synthetic Phonics - where children are taught to say the sounds represented by a letter or letter group and blend them into words - was implemented in England by the last Labour government in 2005, but the Welsh government opted not to follow suit.
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Yesterday, when being questioned repeatedly in the Senedd about ITV News’ investigation, the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Lynne Neagle, claimed that the government has a “clear expectation that all schools will use synthetic phonics to teach reading.”
This was the first time anyone in the Welsh government has ever used the term “synthetic phonics” in relation to guidance for schools in Wales, but the government says that the synthetic phonics approach is specifically described in the curriculum expectations.
However, ITV News has obtained an email written by a civil servant in the Welsh government’s education department in May 2024 which states using one particular method of teaching reading would “undermine” the curriculum.
Responding to a call on the government to mandate the teaching of Systematic Synthetic Phonics, the civil servant replied that “to impose one method of teaching phonics on schools would undermine the Curriculum for Wales framework which is inclusive of all learners and designed to support schools design their own curriculum…”
Last week, the Welsh government said that it did “not advocate any one specific method to teach reading, rather we enable teachers to use their professional judgement and knowledge of their learners to use the best tool to meet the individual needs of their learners.”
Tonight however, a Welsh Government spokesperson said:
“The Cabinet Secretary’s comments in the Senedd are consistent with the description of phonics in our guidance on the Curriculum.
“We are always interested in finding ways in which we can further improve our teaching methods in the best interests of children.
“We accept there are places in our guidance where the importance of phonics needs to be more explicit and where wording needs to be clarified around the use of picture cues.”
The schools’ inspectorate Estyn has been approached for comment.
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