Eng: 'Schools are streaming the youngest children by phonics ability'

[Debbie_Hepplewhite]

This piece in SchoolsWeek required a response to set the record straight which I have posted:

Schools are streaming the youngest children by phonics ability

Alix Robertson

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-are-s ... ent-134438

The reader's comment I left:

I know of only one reputable phonics programme that organises the provision based on homogenous grouping. Other programme authors do not recommend such grouping. Further, the ‘six phases’ are a feature of the ‘Letters and Sounds’ phonics programme (DfES 2007) and these steps are not necessarily in other phonics programmes. The phases were only ever meant as a means of chunking up the alphabetic code, not for means of differentiation. This is teachers’ interpretation.