The change of the school curriculum for the primary classes brings about the need to analyse the current teaching methods and contents, so that pupils can achieve the required level of English indicated by the school curriculum and detailed by the Common European Framework of Reference. Being aware of the official requirements, teachers can help pupils improve their performance in different forms of assessment and encourage them to become pro-active learners, thus ensuring their learning success.
This study will focus on the development of reading and writing skills at very young learners, as reading and writing in English, at this young age, is almost exclusively limited to class training. This is a new approach to teaching young children and the way to do this is by using Jolly Phonics teaching method. “Sf. Cuv. Parascheva” Secondary School has taken part in a pilot project for Galați, together with Secondary Schools no. 28 and no. 29 and Secondary School no. 1 in Șivița, aiming at implementing Jolly Phonics teaching strategies in both urban and rural areas. For the first year, the method has been working really great with good results for pupils who have learnt how to read and write words, blending them, i.e. forming words from sounds (d-o-g – dog; s-u-n –sun etc.), hence being perfectly aware of the process of learning.
The research reasoning departed from two questions: How do we teach reading and writing at preparatory level so that the pupils do not find themselves at a loss when they come up against unknown words? Can we teach communicatively and, at the same time, improve reading and writing abilities?
The objectives of the research were: to emphasize the necessity to teach reading and writing skills at preparatory level in order to increase fluency; to learn the letter sounds (42 sounds, but only 26 letters); to identify the sounds in words; to blend words; to read unknown words correctly.
The working hypotheses were: 1. If we teach the sounds, pupils will be able to blend words; 2. If we teach reading and writing at preparatory grade, pupils will become more fluent, thus ensuring the improvement of reading comprehension abilities at an earlier stage.
The methods and techniques used were the experiment, analysis of school documents, assessment. The experiment had an independent variable, namely the introduction of Jolly Phonics teaching strategies and techniques. The dependent variable was the improvement of the learning results projected from the teaching-learning process. The target groups selected for this research were two groups of 10 students. The control group was made up of 10 pupils in the first grade, whereas the experimental group had 10 pupils in the preparatory grade. The experiment was done during the school year 2016-2017.
During the research the control group was taught using the naturalistic approach. Language acquisition was a natural process, i.e. learning was not the result of formal instruction. Learners were exposed to comprehensible input and vocabulary was taught according to a specific topic: food, weather, clothes, toys, etc. Pupils repeated and memorized the vocabulary they could see in pictures. Even though they wrote words, they could only copy them automatically, without being conscious of the process of writing or reading those words.
On the other hand, the experimental group benefitted from the Jolly Phonics teaching method which offers varied authentic contexts for learning (big books), thus sustaining the “lexical chunks argument” for learning: “throw the stick”, “p/p/puff the candles”, “e/e crack the eggs”, “a/a ants on my arms”; etc. It also provides a scaffold for sentence building: first the pupils learn the sounds, then they blend words, then they form sentences and after that, texts. Thus, this method has instant results with long term sustainability. Pupils learn the sounds, they deconstruct and reconstruct words, paying attention to form, thus learning consciously. This process will help prevent “the fossilization of errors”, a term coined by S. Thornbury, claiming that mistakes that haven’t been corrected will become bad habits. Consequently, the teacher’s responsibility is to form correct habits from an early age, and Jolly Phonics gives teachers the right tools to accomplish that.
The assessment of the method was done by systematic observation, peer correction and gentle correction. Summative assessment consisted of a test with 2 objective items asking pupils to identify 16 sounds and to read 34 words. The results considered satisfactory were over 60 % of the test. As the chart below shows 50% of the control group got 60 % of the test, whereas for the experimental group, all pupils had more than 60%. Half of the group had between 90 -100% of the score. The results were overwhelmingly good for the experimental group, proving the success of this teaching method.
In conclusion, the objectives set for this research were achieved. The research evaluated the possibilities of teaching reading and writing at preparatory level using Jolly Phonics teaching method. The results proved the working hypotheses correct, namely that if we teach the sounds, pupils will be able to blend words and by teaching reading and writing at preparatory grade, pupils will become more fluent, thus ensuring the improvement of reading comprehension abilities at an earlier stage
Consequently, it was demonstrated, through the good results of the experimental group, that it is necessary to teach reading and writing at preparatory level to improve learners’ performance. The pupils participated affectively and effectively during their English classes; hence they improved their learning results.