Analyse The Effect Of Phonics On Boys Reading

“There is an understanding that professional development is about teachers learning, learning how to learn, and transforming their knowledge into practice for the benefit of their students’ growth” (Avalos, 2011). Teacher professional learning is a complex process requiring the cognitive and emotional involvement of teachers individually and collectively, the capacity and willingness to examine where each individual stands in terms of conviction and beliefs.

The focus of my assignment will be to examine the effects of phonics on boys reading. I will be examining the disparity of reading ability between the genders and the effect of phonics as a learning method. After discussing these two points I will draw a conclusion as to how phonics compares

29). A great amount of importance is placed on phonics at Key stage 1 in Primary schools. The National Curriculum (DfE, 2013) states that “pupils should be taught to apply phonic knowledge and skills as the route to decode words, to respond speedily with the correct sound to graphemes and to read accurately by blending sounds of unfamiliar words amongst others and progressing to in year two where the pupils must continue to apply phonic knowledge and skills as the route to decode words until automatic decoding has become embedded and reading is fluent”. Phonics can be used broadly and discretely across all English lessons within key stage one. In the national curriculum, phonics is not taught discretely in key stage two. In the curriculum it states that most pupils will not need further direct teaching of word reading skills: they are able to decode unfamiliar words accurately, and need very few repeated experiences of this before the word is stored in such a way that they can read it without overt sound-blending. They should demonstrate understanding of figurative language, distinguish shades of meaning among related words and use age-appropriate, academic vocabulary. (DfE,

I have found that boys have improved reading ability when reading about topics that are of interest to them. I believe that if thought was put into the choices of books available to pupils to read then this would encourage more reading for pleasure rather than pupils feeling pressured into reading for classwork or as set homework. Information from the Literacy Trust states that boys underachievement in reading comes from three factors, the home, family and school environment. Girls are more likely to bring books home and mothers are the role models for reading with them. In the school environment, teachers may have a limited knowledge of contemporary and attractive texts for boys to read and male students may not be given the opportunity to develop an identity as a reader through experiencing reading for enjoyment. Also, there may be a lack of male role models that enjoy reading and value reading as a valuable skill and source of