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- Title
Do family learning phonics courses improve parents' reading‐related skills and ability to support their children's reading?
- Authors
Hulme, Rachael C.; Webber, Charlotte E.; Fox, Amy C.; Ricketts, Jessie; Shapiro, Laura R.; Taylor, J. S. H.
- Abstract
Background: Parents play a crucial role in supporting children's literacy, especially in the first years of school. However, parents can find this challenging if they struggle with reading themselves. We explore whether family learning phonics courses boost parents' reading‐related skills and ability to support their children's reading, in a collaboration between UK academics and the National Family Learning Forum. Methods: Prior to data collection, academics and course leaders identified key skills for courses to target: phonological awareness, letter‐sounds, segmenting and blending, and awareness of irregular words. Family learning teams recruited parents of Reception children (4–5 years old) for the phonics group (N = 50), targeting parents who were likely to need literacy support. Parents received 6 weeks of 1‐ to 2‐hour phonics sessions in groups. Control participants (N = 76) were recruited online and had a Reception‐age child (4–5 years old); controls received no training. All participants completed phonics‐related tests at weeks 1 and 6. Results: The phonics group significantly improved on letter‐sound knowledge (by 4.64 letters; 51 total items); the control group did not significantly improve on this measure. Both groups showed some improvement in phonological awareness and word reading (likely due to practice effects), and neither group improved on nonword reading. The reading questionnaire showed that the phonics group reported giving their children more regular support with literacy activities and placed a higher level of importance on homework, with no increase for the control group. Conclusions: We provide evidence that family learning phonics courses can improve crucial reading skills (letter‐sound knowledge) and increase parents' confidence to support their children's reading. Some reading skills (phonological awareness, whole word reading, and decoding) may be slower to change and require longer term support. Future work should explore long‐term consequences of such courses for parents' and their children's reading habits and skills. Highlights: What is already known about this topic Parents with low literacy skills may struggle to support their children's reading development.Phonics training is effective in raising literacy levels for children.Adults with low literacy skills can benefit from interventions focused on phonological awareness and decoding, but studies with a control group are lacking. What this paper adds UK academics collaborated with family learning teams to quantitatively evaluate whether phonics intervention programmes improve phonics skills for parents with low literacy, relative to no intervention.Findings indicate that family learning phonics courses can improve crucial phonics skills (letter‐sound knowledge) and increase the amount parents support their child with reading.Some reading‐related skills (phonological awareness, whole word reading, and decoding) showed no improvement relative to the control group. Implications for theory, policy or practice Family learning phonics courses are an effective means of increasing parents' phonics skills and confidence in supporting their children's reading and writing. These courses should be available to all parents who may struggle to support their children's literacy development.Longer term studies will be key to determining whether raising parents' skills and confidence has a lasting effect on parent and child literacy.Some skills, particularly phonological awareness, whole word reading, and decoding, are harder to change and may require longer term support.
- Subjects
PARENTS; LITERACY; ACQUISITION of data; PHONICS; CONFIDENCE
- Publication
Journal of Research in Reading, 2022, Vol 45, Issue 3, p258
- ISSN
0141-0423
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/1467-9817.12377