My name is Margaret Bertram.  I am a teacher in Australia, currently working in a regional office teaching teachers.

I am passionate about getting the message out to schools and teachers about the importance of using a synthetic phonics approach in their early years’ literacy programs. 

I have suffered for many years with what I term ‘teacher guilt’ (a rip-off from ‘mother guilt’).  Despite all my best ‘tricks’, I was still not able to achieve success with the few perfectly intelligent students in my classes struggling with reading. Some of these children had received up to 6 months of daily, one-to-one teaching in Reading Recovery, but failed to thrive once the program was finished.  I felt like such a failure as a teacher. Unfortunately, a very strong Whole Language approach to teaching reading has predominated in Victoria (Australia) for many decades - in fact, all the decades that I have been teaching. My knowledge and practice in teaching phonics was very rudimentary and ad hoc. I think I must have decided that these students in my class who were failing must have learning difficulties as it couldn’t possibly have been my teaching causing them to fail!

In 2002, I decided that enough was enough. I embarked on a journey of discovery to find out how to teach my struggling readers.  I learned about the learning difficulty known as dyslexia; a word not often used in Victoria.  Most educational psychologists here do not recognise this as a real disability.  Further research led me to a book titled ‘Overcoming Dyslexia’, by Dr Sally Shaywitz. Dr Shaywitz is a paediatrician and educational researcher at Yale University who sat on the US National Reading Panel, which reviewed 100,000 research studies into the teaching of reading. Dr Shaywitz’s book made very clear the strategies she recommended for teaching dyslexic students to read- phonemic awareness and a systematic, explicit phonics program using a multisensory approach.  In fact, her research studies demonstrated that these strategies worked.  I was thrilled to have an answer to my problem.  

By now, I was hooked.  I continued my learning journey by reading the recent National Inquiries into teaching reading in the US, UK and Australia.  Each country independently came up with the same recommendations: The five key components of an effective reading program - these being:

1. Phonemic awareness  

2. Explicit and systematic phonics,  

3. Fluency  

4. Vocabulary  

5. Comprehension strategies.   

Synthetic phonics was determined to be the most effective form of phonics instruction.  I read widely about this approach and eventually undertook intensive training in the ‘Write to Read’ method. Using a multi-sensory approach, students are taught the alphabetic code, the rules of English, and how to analyse words for reading and spelling.  When I began to implement this new learning, I immediately achieved significant success with my ‘hard to teach’ students and by the end of the year, they were writing and reading at an appropriate standard.  Actually, every student in my class learned so much about reading and spelling, that they all understood our language much more fully.  It all suddenly seemed to make sense.   

I now tutor students after-hours. Nothing beats the thrill of seeing a child achieving success in reading and writing, especially if they have had difficulties before.  As a by the way: one of the students was 2 – 3 years behind in all aspects of his literacy 2 years a go.  He was born without a corpus callosum, among several other disabilities.  After 2 years of tutoring with a synthetic phonics program (including Write to Read and Phonics International materials) for 1 hour per week, this young man is now able to read and spell at an age appropriate standard.  I can’t believe the success one can achieve with this approach.

When I came upon the Phonics International program I knew that this program was what teachers needed.  I knew Debbie Hepplewhite was an experienced early years’ and primary teacher and an expert in the area of effective teaching of reading.  Debbie’s guidance book and tutorials provide professional development for teachers on evidence-based strategies for teaching reading, to help them to achieve success for all students in their classroom. The resources are comprehensive and very supportive of the busy teacher.  Her attractive downloadable resources can be used as planning guidelines, teaching materials, and assessment and record keeping tools. Debbie outlines very clearly and simply what to teach and how to teach it, to ensure that children are given the best chance of becoming capable and confident readers and writers.  What greater gift can we give a child?

I am delighted to join the Phonics International team and to support the introduction of Phonics International into Australia.  However, it is not an easy task to change teachers’ beliefs, understandings and practices about literacy.  Most teachers have had years of literacy training and experience with an anti-phonics bias.  Most are also very hard-working and time-poor, and investigating and training in a new approach can be very demanding.  Despite the clear recommendations from our national inquiry, education departments and teacher training institutions have been very slow to respond. One would have expected an overhaul of the curriculum recommendations for our schools and large scale strategic planning to ensure change was affected in response to the national inquiry.  However, education departments and universities are staffed by former teachers who spent many years training in whole language methods, followed by a career in writing and/or teaching others about the benefits of this approach.  Understandably, these people are reluctant to hear contradictions to their message or accept that phonics, which they have denigrated for many decades, is actually a crucial part of early literacy success for many students. Our leaders in education need to put their egos and arrogance aside and put our children’s needs first. Too many children are failing unnecessarily and suffering the awful consequences that illiteracy so often brings. 

There is some hope however. Some practising teachers have begun to use a synthetic phonics approach and are achieving rapid results.  When this happens, word spreads.  But, the transition is very slow.  Literacy co-ordinators and Reading Recovery teachers in some schools feel confronted by the synthetic phonics approach and reluctant to ‘allow’ their teachers to use it.  It is like a religious belief, and phonics is heresy.  Perhaps we need a university fellow to undertake a local action research project on this subject, to add some validity and local evidence to the huge quantity of international research into effective teaching practices. 

I will persist with promoting the research findings and encouraging teachers to train up in a synthetic phonics approach. I hope I can offer some assistance to teachers, to make a difference in the lives of our children.

Best wishes from ‘Down Under’

Marg Bertram