The research programme

A few years after we implemented the new teaching methods at Woods Loke, we were
asked to participate in a research programme. Although the programme was an
organisational nightmare, it did open our eyes to the importance of teaching the
children to listen for and identify all the sounds in words. We simplified the teaching
and, by adding extra phonemic awareness into our approach, we saw another big
improvement, particularly at the bottom end.

All the teachers involved thought that the standard of reading at the end of Year 1 was
now equivalent to the standard achieved at the end of Year 2. Our reading quotient had
risen again, from an average of 108 to 110+. Just as exciting, was the fact that the
children were writing independently at a much earlier than average age. They listened
for the sounds in words and wrote down the letters that represented those sounds. In
order to check that the children’s spelling had not suffered with this new approach to
writing, we tested the 7 year olds on the Vernon Spelling Test every year. The average
was always about 8.5 years, which meant that the children were well above average.
Moreover, the improvements we saw could only be attributed to the method of
teaching; it was the only thing we had changed. The teachers remained the same
throughout the study. We had gone from a visual method to a systematic, synthetic
(blending) phonics method*. The results we achieved made us realise how important it
was to use correct methods of teaching.

*Although the term ‘synthetic phonics’ was not widely used at the time, the teaching
method remains largely the sam
The persistence of the real book approach

Naturally, after our success, I felt sure that the educationalists and advisory service
would be interested in our achievements. However, this could not have been further
from the truth. The 'real book' approach (whole language) was in fashion at the time
and the advisors were telling teachers the exact opposite to what we were saying. The
advisors did not want the children to sound out words. Their belief was that children
should, and would, pick up reading naturally when given interesting books, just as
children learn to speak naturally. Time has now shown that these advisors were
completely wrong. Sadly, many children have been failed because the advisory service
followed fashionable ideas rather than evidenced-based scientific research.

Sue Lloyd

In this video, Sue recalls the approach at the time

The Phonics Handbook

In 1990 I met Christopher Jolly, the publisher. He was interested in our method of
teaching and the good results we achieved. He studied the relevant scientific research,
realised that it supported our classroom findings, and asked me to write a manual for
teachers. This manual became The Phonics Handbook. At this stage, my colleague
Sara Wernham joined me. Her talents have been invaluable for creating all the
materials that are now a part of Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar.

Sue Lloyd

In this video, Sue describes how the events occurred at the time.
The Jolly Phonics programme

The Jolly Phonics programme, which we developed in the classroom, is fun to teach
and very suitable for young children. Each new letter sound (phoneme) is introduced
with a story and an action. I had noticed, when I was teaching, that if I used an action
and linked it to the letter or digraph, for example, if I rubbed my tummy and said
'mmmmmm' for the letter ‹m›, or pricked my finger and said /ou/ for the ‹ou› digraph,
then the children remembered the letter-sound correspondences more easily.
Consequently, there are actions for all the 42 letter sounds. Both the stories and the
actions keep the children actively involved and help them to concentrate; the actions
also act as a reminder when the children are not sure of the sound.

As the children learn the letter sounds, they are also taught to blend (read) words that
use these sounds. The children are given a thorough grounding in blending regular
words before attempting to read books. In addition to their regular blending session
every day in the classroom, each child takes home word boxes or word strips and is
encouraged to read at least 10 words each night (180+ words in total) to his or her
parents. For writing, the children are taught to identify all the sounds in a spoken word,
and to write down the letters that represent those sounds. The majority of children
taught with Jolly Phonics are able to write independently at a very early age. Although
the children’s spelling may not always be accurate, because there are several ways of
writing individual sounds, it is a satisfying accomplishment for the children when their
teacher can read their efforts. As the children read more and follow a spelling
programme, such as that found in The Grammar Handbooks, their spelling gradually
becomes more accurate.
The spread of Jolly Phonics

Over the years, the Jolly Phonics programme has become very popular in English-
speaking countries around the world. The spread of Jolly Phonics can, to a large
degree, be attributed to its effectiveness as a teaching programme. Jolly Phonics has
been tested more than any other programme that I know of, and it has consistently
been found to produce much better results than can be achieved with other teaching
methods. During the last decade there have been three large evidence-based pieces of
research carried out comparing Jolly Phonics with a control group (the control groups
used analytic or mixed methods). On all measurements, the Jolly Phonics groups
outperformed the control groups. Overall, the Jolly Phonics groups had average
reading ages that were about one year ahead of chronological age. These were highly
significant results. Many of the children were in poor socio-economic areas and/or from
non-English speaking families. More details of this research are provided in Module 5.

After introducing Jolly Phonics, a number of teachers have experienced the same kind
of improvement that we experienced at Woods Loke in the 1970s, and they have let us
know that their 6 year old children were now as good at reading and spelling as their 7
year old children. Some of these teachers, and their schools, have gone on to take part
in a 'Jolly Case Study', where their children were tested after one year. Each time, the
children were found to be about one year ahead of chronological age in reading and
spelling. One of the schools to take part was St Michael's, which is a large school in a
poor socio-economic area, Stoke Gifford, in southwest England. St Michael’s not only
trialled Jolly Phonics, but also used decodable books and with this addition, the
children achieved an average reading age 17 months ahead of their average
chronological age. In 2003, at Woods Loke, 97% of the children achieved Level 2 and
above for writing (National 75%), and 98% achieved Level 2 or above for reading
(National 82%) in the Key Stage 1 SATs tests. Interestingly, the boys at St Michael’s
and Woods Loke schools were, on average, better at reading than the girls. The 'tail-
end of underachievement' had been vastly reduced.
The principles of Jolly Phonics

It is clear from the research findings, as well as school test results, that Jolly Phonics
can be used to overcome many of the problems experienced by the economically
 deprived, dyslexic, non-English-speaking children, as well as the 'tail-end' boys. Other
synthetic phonics programmes achieve similar results when the following principles are
adhered to.

The children should:

 Be taught letter sounds, and how to blend those sounds together for
reading, before they are expected to read books
 Always use blending (synthesising) as the first strategy for reading unknown words
 Be taught to form the alphabet letters correctly, and should be able to say the letter’s
(or letters’) corresponding sound
 Be taught to identify the individual sounds in spoken words and to write the letter(s) for
each sound (this is key to independent writing).
 Learn the tricky words
 Only progress to a free choice of books when blending is the automatic response to
unknown words and when there is fluency in their reading

Preferably, the children should be given only decodable reading books until they have
achieved confidence and fluency in their reading. Teachers should avoid giving
children reading books containing words that include letter sounds that have not yet
been taught.

We, at Woods Loke, learnt through our classroom experience, and through studying
the available scientific research, that synthetic phonics is the best way to improve
reading, spelling and comprehension. It is the best teaching method for all children
because it teaches them to read and write through using the alphabetic code. My
colleague, Sara Wernham, came to the same conclusions, albeit through slightly
different experiences. Her experiences are told in the following pages.
Woods Loke Primary School and the ‘Sound Start’

Phonics first made an impact on my life when I joined the reception class (for 4-5 year-
olds) at Woods Loke Primary School in Suffolk, England. A very fitting time it would
seem, except I was not a bright-eyed eager 4 year old, but the bright-eyed and eager
probationary teacher!

I had arrived at my first job to be told I was to have the reception class. Having just
come from a middle-school training course, I had no experience at all of how to teach
reading. Our ‘English’ lectures at University had consisted almost entirely of ‘writing
books for younger children’, not very useful with a reception class. When asked how to
teach reading by the students, our lecturer’s response had been an airy wave of the
hand and an assertion that ‘we didn’t need to know that’, as ‘any 9 year old who
couldn’t read was special needs responsibility and not ours’. Any further pressing
proved equally useless. So, there I was: the reception class teacher, with not a clue as
to how to approach the task now facing me.

Adding to my problems was the fact that I had started school at the beginning of the
1970s and had been taught by the ‘Look and Say’ method. I therefore had no skills to
apply or to fall back on. I was fortunate, (though it didn’t always feel like it, as I grasped
for understanding), to arrive at Woods Loke under the eagle eyes of Joan Dorr, Sue
Lloyd and Ann Winslade. Even more fortunate for me was that the school had ready for
me virtually the first half-term’s (six weeks’)English work, in the form of Sound Start.
This was the prototype for what was eventually to become The Phonics Handbook’.

My first weeks as a teacher and my spelling

As I struggled through my first weeks not only of being a teacher, but of trying to
understand what I was being told about sounds in words, blending, listening for sounds
etc., I wondered where on earth I had ended up and just what they were all banging on
about. However, as the term progressed, I did learn and, surprisingly, so did my class.
Gradually, light began to dawn and understanding grew. A complete revelation to me
was that the letters in words weren’t just randomly chosen; they went with the sounds.
Although I had always been considered a ‘good’ reader, I had always wondered how
people read words that they hadn’t come across already. In books with names, for
example, that I had never heard, I just blanked at the word when I came to it, almost
inserting a picture of that word to represent it in my head. I now realise that I am
blessed with a good memory and that this is what enabled me to read as I did.

Although reading came easily to me, spelling was quite another matter. My memory
was not so good at learning spellings and this caused a great deal of frustration to my
family, my teachers, and to me. The weekly spelling test was a great ordeal (I still find it
amazing that my classes now love their spelling test). I never got 10/10 and this was
regarded by everyone as a wilful refusal to make the effort to learn them. “You’re a
bright girl, look at what you read, of course you should get the spellings right.” Believe
me, if I could have done, I would have done. Life would have been very much easier.

I remember rows with my mother: “How do you spell whatever?” I’d ask. “Look it up in
the dictionary,” came the reply. How? To do that you need to know (or at least have an
idea of) the first three letters. If I could remember those, generally I could remember
the rest of the word. To know how to spell a word, I needed to look it up in the
dictionary, but in order to look it up in the dictionary I needed to know how to spell it: a
chicken and egg situation.

My mother thought she was doing the right thing in encouraging me to use a dictionary.
She couldn’t understand why I couldn’t. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t just tell
me how to spell it; after all, they did at school. Why was she so awkward over it? It
became a standing family joke: ‘Sara can’t spell, don’t ask her, unless you want a good
laugh of course!’ Any marks for spelling in essays, I wrote off. If I got one mark, it was a
bonus and so it remained through school, university, my first jobs and teacher training.
But finally, revelation!

Sue Lloyd

In this video Sue recalls the early days working with Sara and how events unfolded.
The i.t.a.
At the time I joined Woods Loke, they still used i. t. a., the Initial Teaching Alphabet,
developed by Sir James Pitman, and is very sound based. I had to learn to sound out
words in order to write them. Gradually, I began to make the links and so made the
transition to ‘ordinary’ letters and spelling patterns, just like the children in my reception
class. I always say that I really learnt to read and write with my first class.

Once the initial euphoria and delight had calmed, I began to feel angry. I hadn’t been
stupid; I hadn’t been lazy; I just didn’t know how sounds and letters and words worked.
All those frustrating hours trying to learn spellings. All those hours my parents and
teachers had spent trying to help me had been wasted unnecessarily. They simply
didn’t realise I didn’t understand, and I didn’t know I didn’t understand
The birth of Jolly Phonics

Through subsequent conversations with my friends and peer group, I have found that I
was not alone in failing to understand the alphabetic code. Had I not ended up at
Woods Loke, I could still be ignorant and/or struggling. I still find it slightly incredible
that I can now teach others to read and write, and am delighted that they will never
have to go through the frustrations I did.

Teaching in the reception class at that time meant I became involved with the Jolly
Phonics programme. Sue Lloyd had recently met Chris Jolly, who had an embryonic
publishing company, and they had just started along the long journey that would lead
to The Phonics Handbook. I trialled some of the materials, suggested additions and
generally watched the project develop. I became directly involved, initially, when I
contributed three drawings. I was very enthusiastic, as not only could I see myself and
my class learning, I could also appreciate the ‘ease’ and fun involved in the learning. If
a complete novice like myself could use Jolly Phonics and get results, it had to be
good. As time went on I became more and more involved, until now, much to my and
my family’s surprise, I co-write much of the Jolly Phonics material with Sue.

The other thing that I still find amazing, and which stops me dead, is that now my family
ask me how words are spelt, and I can normally answer them! In many ways, my
involvement with the phonics movement in general, and with Jolly Phonics in particular,
has been a very personal one. All the more important for me now, as I have a son and
daughter of my own, and I am able to help them in a way I would not have been able to
have done to before.