Aston Literacy Project

Aston Literacy Project (ALP)

The Aston Literacy Project (ALP) is a large study tracking children's literacy from school entry into secondary school. In the first phase of our research (Skills for Reading), we investigated the skills that are crucial for reading in children at the beginning and intermediate stages of literacy development. This research was funded by the ESRC (2011 - 2016) and conducted by Dr Laura Shapiro (Principal Investigator), Dr Caroline Witton, Professor Joel Talcott, Professor Adrian Burgess, Dr Anna Cunningham (Research Fellow 2011 - 2015) and Amy Fox (Research Coordinator in 2016).

We have continued to work with these same participants in secondary school (Reading and Vocabulary project, funded by the Nuffield Foundation) and Sanne van der Kleij is continuing to track their reading activity as part of her Leverhulme Trust fellowship investigation into the benefits of reading fiction.

Key findings:

• An awareness of the sounds within spoken words is vital when learning to read. Being good at segmenting words (e.g., best into /b/e/s/t/ and show into /sh/O/) and doing so out loud is especially important for the development of early reading. Click here for the academic paper.

• Learning to read has knock on benefits for the development of spoken language: improvements in reading lead to better recall of new spoken words, which is fundamental to vocabulary development. Click here for the academic paper.

How can we prepare children for learning to read?

Spoken words are the first step

• The awareness of sounds in spoken words is called phonological awareness (e.g., understanding that the word “train” breaks down into 4 sounds: t-r-ai-n).

• The terms phonological awareness and Phonics are often confused. Phonological awareness is about spoken language, whereas Phonics is a method of translating written language into spoken language. Phonics teaches children to translate written letters into sounds and then to blend the sounds together to produce a spoken word (t-r-ai-n = “train”).

• Phonological awareness is important for learning to read because learners need to hear the different sounds in words in order to understand how letters link to individual sounds, and to be able to blend those sounds together.

• Learning to read helps children gain better phonological awareness because it encourages them to think about the sounds in words. However, children need some phonological awareness in order to understand how to get started! We have found that children who start school with poor phonological awareness struggle to follow Phonics teaching (Shapiro & Solity, 2016). Children need help to develop these skills in pre-school, so they are ready for phonics.

How can parents help?

• Parents can help by playing games with the sounds in words. The best games are ones where the child is encouraged to break a word into individual sounds, and say these sounds out loud (e.g., saying the first sound in a word; saying each sound in a word); Cunningham et al., 2015.

• Parents need support to help them say the sounds correctly: use letter sounds not letter names and say the “pure” sound without the extra “uh” at the end (called a schwa). Saying the pure sound is hard for adults as it can feel too quiet (we should say “mmm” not “muh”) or too short (say “t” not “tuh”). It is important to say the pure sound, because otherwise blending the sounds is impossible (“muh” “uh” “muh” doesn’t blend into a word but “mm” “u” “mm” blends into “mum”).

• Let children take the lead on how to say the sounds. Pre-school children usually pick up the correct way to say the sounds more easily than adults. It is also a great motivator for children to be able to show their parents how to do something!

• The most important thing is to find activities that are enjoyable for both child and parent. Playing games with sounds, and reading books to a child just for fun will help them develop a love of reading.

Related Project:

In a collaborative project with Family Learning Teams, led by Dr. Jo Taylor at University College London, we find that phonics courses offered by family learning teams improve parents’ ability to say letter sounds accurately and increases their confidence in supporting their children with reading: http://bit.ly/ParentLiteracyProject