In Plenary this week (02/10/24) when questioned by Tom Giffard, the Minister said: “I want to be really clear with you, though, that phonics is an absolute expectation that we want to see taught in our schools in Wales.”
During Tuesday’s (01/10/24) FMQs, when questioned by Welsh Conservative Party Leader Andrew RT Davies on the illiteracy in Welsh schools reported by ITV, the First Minister said. “I know this is absolutely a priority for the Cabinet Secretary for Education. She'll be making a statement on how she thinks things should be improving in the next couple of months. One of the issues, of course, is about how you teach reading, and there has been a discussion about what the best way to do that is. I think it's important that we follow evidence, and, if we follow evidence, my understanding is that there should be more concentration on phonics.”
In her written statement today the Minister said: “it is clear that we must work with partners to clarify our guidance and support to ensure that our expectations are clear for schools. This includes where the importance of phonics needs to be more explicit and where wording needs to be clarified around the use of picture cues.”
“As a method of teaching children to read, cueing has been universally condemned as harmful to pupils’ development.
“Rather than ban the practice like in England to great success and follow the evidence, Labour are being incredibly vague and appear happy to let schools continue with the damaging practice of cueing. This is despite the Welsh Labour Government claiming to have “absolute expectations” when it comes to phonics.
“After all the talk of tackling illiteracy, Labour are failing to deliver. There needs to be a stronger message from the Labour Welsh Government to scrap cueing as a teaching method and replace it with the proven method of systematic synthetic phonics.”