Phonics and Multi-sensory Approaches

When working with children with dyslexia, specific approaches are important to ensure that learners are supported as effectively as possible to develop their literacy skills. Adopting specific approaches to support children with dyslexia include developing your knowledge of phonics and implementing multi-sensory approaches to teaching. On the course, you will be learning about a Specialist, Cumulative, Structured, Sequential, Multi-sensory Approach, which is phonics based in our specialist teaching. Developing confidence using a phonics and a multi-sensory approach is essential for this role so it is important that you become familiar with this early on in the course.

Phonics

Using phonics allows children to learn to read quickly and skilfully. Following a phonics approach, children will be taught to recognise the sounds that individual letters make, the sounds made by having a combination of letters and how sounds can be blended together, from left to right, to create words. Children will subsequently be able to use this understanding to de-code words they encounter when either hearing or seeing them. Sound recognition, word formation and decoding are all important steps to learning to read (Department for Education, 2013).

Phonics is thus fundamental in teaching children to read in schools in England. According to the Department for Education (2023), ‘by ensuring high-quality phonics teaching, the government wants to improve literacy levels to: give all children a solid base upon which to build as they progress through school; help children to develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information’.

Click on the link below and watch the video to further understand phonics teaching, what is it, why it matters, and what you need to know to teach it effectively:

Understanding Phonics 

In order to further develop your knowledge on the foundations of literacy, it is recommended that you explore Section 3 of the Reading Framework (Department for Education, 2022). This section includes a clear overview of what teaching phonics involves. Click on the following link to access this document: 

The reading Framework – teaching the foundations of literacy

Phonics task: read the section on the Simple View of Reading from the document above (Department for Education, 2022) and summarise it in 30 words. What do you now know about reading which you did not know before?

Phonics Resources: explore the following resources and then answer the question below. Click on the following links to access the materials:

Bitesize

What is phonological awareness

Teaching Systematic Synthetic Phonics – Examples and Tips (twinkl.co.uk)

Which of these resources do you think might be useful as you consider planning phonics-based approaches in your teaching?

Extension activity: audit your understanding of phonics and make a list of ways in which you can improve your knowledge of phonics. For instance, you could learn key phonics-related terms such as phoneme, grapheme etc., practise your pronunciation or learn digraphs.

Multi-sensory approach

Multi-sensory teaching primarily involves designing learning activities which will encourage children to use all five senses to learn. According to this approach, learning is more memorable when learners are able to explore a subject or topic using all their senses.

Watch the video below to understand what multi-sensory teaching involves and how it can support student learning:

The importance of multisensory teaching methods has long been recognised by professionals working with learners who have dyslexia or those with other specific learning difficulties. According to Rose’ study findings (2006, p.21), multi-sensory teaching ‘featured strongly in high quality phonic work and often encompassed, variously, simultaneous visual, auditory and kinaesthetic activities involving, for example, physical movement to copy letter shapes and sounds, and manipulate magnetic or other solid letters to build words’. This suggests that the more powerful the learning experience, the more likely that the information will be retained by the individual.

Watch the video below to further enhance your knowledge of multi-sensory teaching methods:

Multi-sensory approach task: having watched the above video, jot down a definition of multi-sensory teaching, based on your understanding, and make a list of the ways in which you could more actively engage learners when teaching literacy skills.

References

Department for Education (2013) Learning to read through phonics: information for parents. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/194057/phonics_check_leaflet_2013_.pdf (Accessed: 22 May 2023).

Department for Education (2022) The reading framework – teaching the foundations of literacy. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1050849/Reading_framework_Teaching_the_foundations_of_literacy_-_July_2021_Jan_22_update.pdf (Accessed: 11 May 2023).

Department for Education (2023) Choosing a phonics teaching programme. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/choosing-a-phonics-teaching-programme/list-of-phonics-teaching-programmes (Accessed: 22 May 2023).

Rose, J. (2006) Independent review of teaching of teaching early reading. Available at: https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/id/eprint/5551/2/report.pdf (Accessed: 22 May 2023).