A response to Naomi Nelson's critique of Phonics Plus

Yesterday Naomi Nelson wrote a blog for the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) titled, ‘Phonics Plus: does the new Victorian approach to reading miss differentiation and meaning-making?’ As the person who partnered with the Department of Education Victoria to design then advise during the development of Phonics Plus, I want to respond, mainly to clarify a few things, but to also defend the deep-thinking and hard-working public servants and educators who sit behind this work.

Firstly, I want to thank Naomi for sharing her views publicly. We are all better off in Education when we can be critical consumers of information and resources, and when we can respectfully discuss and debate key ideas. More dialogue and less dogma, more thinking and less following.

I completely agree with Naomi that rich text experiences are essential, and that comprehension should be prioritised. Recent research by Phil Capin and colleagues demonstrated that only 23% of reading instruction was devoted to comprehension instruction. This is US research. In Australia, we can refer to the valuable contributions of Reid Smith. His PhD research recently demonstrated we seem to disagree quite a lot on how to teach comprehension and that how we spend time or divide time across our literacy blocks varies significantly, at times within schools, and certainly between schools. My personal view (partly based on research and partly based on experience) is that comprehension should be 25% or more (at least 30 minutes) of the primary literacy block because it’s so important, but also because anything so dialogic and interactive requires time.

It's important to note, on top of Phonics Plus, the Department of Education Victoria is also working on the F-10 English Lesson Plans. Apart from the provision of initial advice, I am not involved in this project, but I am across some of the detail. The purpose of the English Lesson Plans is to ensure rich and interactive lessons that achieve Speaking & Listening, Reading & Viewing and Writing aims in the curriculum, with a key focus being reading increasingly complex fiction and non-fiction texts across the years of schooling. A key focus is meaningful texts experiences and comprehension, so students in F-2 are not missing out on meaning. It’s quite the opposite.

In F-2, this is now the general guidance on the literacy block.

Foundational skills (1 hour approx.) Schools can use Phonics Plus if they wish to.

English (1 hour approx.) Schools can use the English Lesson Plans if they wish to.

Phonic and word knowledge (phonological awareness including phonemic awareness, phonics, and morphology) – includes the 25 minutes per day SSP mandate Reading fluency (applied practice with simple connected text, texts increase in complexity across the scope and sequence) Handwriting (aligned to phonics instruction) Writing fluency (applied writing practice with simple connected text) Elements of the Big 6: phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency

Text based curriculum (a range of rich and diverse texts which increase in complexity across F-2) Reading & Viewing Speaking & Listening Writing  Elements of the Big 6: fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, oral language

I agree with Naomi that effective reading instruction involves code-based and meaning-based approaches, although I don’t totally agree with her representation of Duke & Pearson’s work, Castles, Rastle & Nation’s work, or the assertions about the Simple View of Reading. I think we risk opacity when we talk too much about integrated or balanced approaches, although I do agree with elements of reading receiving appropriate amounts of time and emphasis. We have known for a long time that phonics instruction is best taught on its own rather than in context or via analytic approaches, with application of code-based knowledge in fluency routines and in wider reading at school and at home. The deliberate and applied practice of code-based knowledge through fluency routines as well as wider reading over time means that students reduce their reliance on decoding-based reading, and begin to read more automatically, or by sight. This is because repeated practice and application leads to orthographic mapping, or automatic recognition of whole words from memory.

Yes, we want to integrate all elements of reading instruction as soon as possible, but that’s not realistic in the early years when students still have so much code to master. The above guidance attempts to illustrate the elements of reading that can be integrated versus isolated in the early years, with the aim to spend more and more time on English as students need less time on foundational skills. For example, students in Grade 5 or 6 may only be spending 20-30 minutes on a spelling lesson 4-5 days a week, while the rest of the 2-hour block could be spent on rich text experiences and/or creating texts.

To understand Phonics Plus, we must understand how reading develops.

Reading is complex. Firstly, we need to be able to read [recognise] the words. This can be done in two ways. We can decode (relies on blending and code knowledge, slow and effortful) or we can automatically read the word (fast, based on memory). Automatic word recognition or word reading fluency doesn’t guarantee connected text fluency, so we also need to be able to read connected text with accuracy and rate (two of the three elements of fluency). We often talk about reading smoothly or continuously, or as we speak. Now connected text fluency is important because it frees up cognitive bandwidth for comprehension. So, if I can recognise words, and read connected text automatically at speed, I’m able to think about meaning. Now, when we are reading simple texts, this isn’t too hard, because the vocabulary and sentence structure is uncomplicated, but as texts increase in complexity, there is more and more to integrate. My ability to integrate meaning sometimes means I have to go back and correct my fluency (accuracy) based on context. If I can successfully integrate things like knowledge, vocabulary, sentence structure, text structure, language features and inferences in real time (comprehension, the process), I build a situation model of the text, which is essentially comprehension (the product). Now if I am comprehending well, I can apply expression, because expression is essentially my ability to apply meaning beyond the words on the page. We know comprehension and expression are reciprocal, so the more I apply expression, the richer my meaning making too. Now this all happens in an instant. It’s quite amazing!

I’ve illustrated in a very rudimentary way below what goes on when we put a text in front of a student, or what they need to be able to do to make meaning (The Active View of Reading does it much better). Phonics Plus is just focused on the two first elements illustrated there, which I really conceptualise as access to literacy or access to meaning. While in Phonics Plus they are building their foundational expertise in word recognition and fluency, in English lessons they are also building knowledge and skill with the rest, through teacher read alouds and shared reading of rich and complex texts, with lots of time for questions and discussion.

To understand Phonics Plus, the new Victorian English Curriculum is essential reading.

We have a new English Curriculum in Victoria. Last year was the familiarisation year and this year schools are expected to teach it and report against it. There are quite a few changes, but for brevity and given the focus, I will just detail the content descriptions that relate to Phonics Plus.

Phonic and word knowledge sub-strand

Foundation	recognise and generate syllables, rhyming words, alliteration patterns and phonemes in spoken words (phonological awareness) VC2EFLY03, orally blend, segment and manipulate one-syllable words (phonemic awareness) VC2EFLY04, use knowledge of letters and sounds to read and spell consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words (phoneme–grapheme correspondence knowledge) VC2EFLY05, recognise and name all upper- and lower-case letters and know the most common phoneme–grapheme correspondences (sound–letter relationships) VC2EFLY06, read and write some high-frequency words and other familiar words VC2EFLY07, understand that words are units of meaning and can be made of more than one meaningful part (morphemic knowledge) VC2EFLY08
Level 1	blend, segment and manipulate phonemes in words (phonemic awareness), including words with consonant blends at the beginning and end, and words with more than one syllable VC2E1LY03, use knowledge of short vowels, common long vowels, consonant blends and digraphs to read and write one- and 2-syllable words VC2E1LY04, understand that a letter can represent more than one sound and that a syllable must contain a vowel sound VC2E1LY05, spell one- and 2-syllable words with common letter patterns VC2E1LY06, read and write an increasing number of high-frequency words VC2E1LY07, recognise and know how to use grammatical morphemes to create word families VC2E1LY08
Level 2	use knowledge of blending, segmenting and manipulating to read and write increasingly complex words (phonemic awareness) VC2E2LY03, use phoneme–grapheme correspondence knowledge to read and write words of one or more syllables with vowel digraphs, less common long vowel patterns, consonant blends and silent letters (phonic knowledge) VC2E2LY04, use knowledge of spelling patterns and morphemes to read and write words whose spelling is not completely predictable from their sounds, including high-frequency words VC2E2LY05, build morphemic word families using knowledge of prefixes and suffixes VC2E2LY06

Building fluency and making meaning sub-strand

Foundation	read decodable and authentic texts using developing phonic knowledge, and make and monitor meaning using context and emerging grammatical knowledge VC2EFLY09
Level 1	read decodable and authentic texts using developing phonic knowledge, phrasing and fluency, and make and monitor meaning using context and grammatical knowledge VC2E1LY09
Level 2	read different types of texts with phrasing and fluency, using phonic and word knowledge, and make and monitor meaning by re-reading and self-correcting VC2E2LY07

Handwriting

Foundation	form most lower-case and upper-case letters using learnt letter formations VC2EFLY15
Level 1	write words using unjoined lower-case and upper-case letters VC2E1LY15
Level 2	write words legibly and with growing fluency using unjoined lower-case and upper-case letters VC2E2LY13

Achievement Standards

Foundation	When listening, reading and viewing, students engage with a range of different types of texts, including decodable and authentic texts, using developing phonic knowledge. They blend, segment and manipulate phonemes in one-syllable words, and use knowledge of letters and sounds to read consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words. They read some high-frequency words and identify boundary punctuation.
Level 1	When listening, reading and viewing, students engage with a range of different types of texts, including decodable and authentic texts, using developing phonic knowledge. They blend, segment and manipulate words with one and 2 syllables. They read an increasing number of high-frequency words and understand boundary punctuation.
Level 2	When reading and viewing, students engage with a range of different types of texts for meaning. They read using phonic, morphemic and vocabulary knowledge; grammatical knowledge such as compound sentences, noun and verb groups; and knowledge of punctuation. They read some unfamiliar words and most high-frequency words.

To understand Phonics Plus, the rationales and policy context are important.

We wanted to build a curriculum that was made by Victorian educators for Victorian educators. Victoria could have gone down the path of many other systems, where they provide lists of (typically very expensive) commercial programs that they “endorse” using a range of criteria. It is important to state that this is a free curriculum that is optional to use. Schools don’t have to use it, and they could pick it up and only teach the phonics component to meet the SSP mandate and that would be totally fine.

We wanted to build a curriculum that would support early career teachers through clear lesson guidance. We wanted graduate teachers to be able to focus on managing their classrooms and honing their craft rather than spending hours and hours planning. We are fully aware that experienced teachers do not need this level of detail and that is why we have been clear in our implementation support webinars that this is a curriculum that is fully adaptable. We expect and encourage schools and teachers to make it their own.

We wanted to build a curriculum that would support schools in a time of significant teacher shortage. When teachers and leaders are covering lessons and CRTs are relied upon, we wanted to provide a package that could readily be picked up and taught by anyone, again with limited planning time required.

We wanted to build a foundational literacy curriculum that comprehensively achieved all the new/significantly revised content descriptions in VC2 English while at the same time meeting the phonics mandate (25 minutes of SSP instruction daily in F-2), the relevant aspects of the Reading Position and the new Victorian Teaching and Learning Model (VTLM 2.0). I cannot emphasise enough how long it took to design something that incorporated all the new directions, details and documents. It has then taken the very experienced school leaders and teachers, who are the curriculum writers, hundreds and hundreds of hours to produce these lesson plans. All of this is time saved for teachers and leaders in schools. It is grossly unfair and disrespectful to the educators writing these lessons for Naomi to write in the comment section, “I have found it difficult to accept these lesson plans as a model of high-quality literacy instruction. To be frank, if one of these Phonics Plus lessons were submitted to me by a pre-service teacher as part of an assignment, it would not pass.” I really hope we can move beyond this kind of discourse and honour the contributions of all educators working very hard in pretty trying times.

Naomi goes on to say, “The absence of differentiation, the questionable sequencing of content, the limited opportunities for student interaction, and the lack of meaningful engagement with quality text are all significant concerns. These are precisely the issues I teach my students to avoid when designing effective literacy instruction.” 

I take Naomi’s point about within lesson differentiation, but it is important to note we have discussed differentiation a lot in our implementation support webinars and workshops including all the ways teachers could modify lessons, lesson sets, or the scope and sequence. The unfortunate reality is when you build a curriculum for a whole state (as opposed to writing a lesson plan for your own class), you cannot build in tailored or highly specific differentiation opportunities without losing the structural integrity of the curriculum. This is the same as any decent systematic phonics curriculum out there. We trust teachers to do this with their students, who they know, and we don’t. We offer suggestions for differentiation along the way, and this is covered extensively in the implementation guidance, but the reality is that this is for teachers and leaders to do in their own contexts. We have been clear about this and fully expect that schools and teachers would prepare for lessons by deeply considering the students who will be in front of them. I don’t think it’s appropriate for curriculum designers or curriculum writers to provide specific advice on students they don’t know.

The sequencing of the content again is very consistent with other phonic and word knowledge curricula (we reviewed so many in the design phase) and most importantly, the sequencing is consistent with the new Victoria Curriculum (this has been reviewed and cross-checked many times). Meaningful text experiences and rich discussion and interaction sit within the second hour of the literacy block as discussed above, including within the English Lesson plans if schools wish to use them.

It should also be noted here that there have been several rounds of internal and external consultation and review by a range of literacy experts, academics, and school leaders and teachers, and feedback has been incorporated each time.

Responding to Naomi’s key concerns

I think I have responded to concerns about differentiation (very hard to do effectively at scale – best for teachers to modify lessons as they see fit based on knowing their students) and meaning making (covered in rich text lessons via teacher read alouds and shared reading experiences). I’ll try to get to the rest of her questions or critiques now.

Do these lessons actually enhance early reading instruction?

No one knows yet as they are only just being rolled out this year. That will be for schools to monitor over time. You can have a terrible curriculum and get good results, and you can have an excellent curriculum and get terrible results. Whether or not Phonics Plus improves early reading instruction will be all about how it is delivered in schools, how schools monitor impact and how schools provide additional support to students who need it. Phonics Plus is not being positioned as a silver bullet, but rather as a comprehensive foundational literacy curriculum that schools can use if they want to, to meet the SSP mandate, address aspects of The Reading Position and VLTM 2.0, and achieve coverage of the Phonic and Word Knowledge sub-strand, Building Fluency and Making Meaning sub-strand, and Handwriting elements of VC2 English. It is a teaching resource, and its success will be determined by the combination of ‘what’ and ‘how’, like with anything we do in schools.

Where is the research backing these lesson plans?

We were informed and guided by the pretty vast reading research (especially the critical importance of developing word recognition and connected text fluency early, and the importance of aligning code and handwriting instruction as they benefit each other), curricula that already exist, and our own Victorian curriculum. This detail is available in the implementation support resources.

We followed systematic synthetic phonics curriculum development principles established by reading experts (follows a scope and sequence, regular through to less regular grapheme-phoneme correspondences or ‘GPCs’, simple through to complex words/word compositions, explicit instruction, practice and review, students blend from part to whole in each lesson, students segment from whole to part to whole in each lesson (phonemic awareness + phonics), comprehensive instruction to build knowledge and automaticity in grapheme-phoneme correspondences).

We followed the research on phonemic awareness and phonics being best taught together, which is why students blend and segment in every lesson with print. Syllables and rhyme are additional, to meet the phonological awareness content descriptions in VC2.

We followed the research on fluency being the critical bridge to comprehension and have built in a range of fluency techniques to provide variety and deliberate practice. Fluency techniques incorporated are partner (shared and repeated) reading, choral reading, and echo reading.

We followed the research or guidance on time allocation, as limited as it is. It seems that 20-30 minutes of phonics instruction is sufficient for most students in F-2. It seems that 10-15 minutes of handwriting instruction is sufficient for most students until mid-primary. It seems that 10-15 minutes of fluency instruction is sufficient for most students. Experts seem to think about 30 minutes per day on comprehension (within a 2-hour block) is about right, and about an hour a day on writing (but this includes spelling, handwriting and sentences/grammar as well as creating texts) is about right, which means if we are going to consistently spend enough time on comprehension and writing, we probably need to read rich and complex texts, write sentences, and create texts in subjects other than English too. As I wrote above, I think we can significantly increase the time spent on reading comprehension and writing texts once students have mastered foundational skills.

Are these lessons too long and too rushed? How long might you expect young children to sit and engage as a whole group?

Young students can generally engage in a phonics lesson for 20-30 minutes as they are highly interactive. Students are responding orally, in written form on white boards, and by coming up to help the teacher read and spell words on the board as well. This will be school and student dependent and I’m sure teachers will adjust accordingly. Students then complete handwriting tasks for short periods and fluency tasks for short periods.

The lessons, which have been tested in lots of schools, don’t seem to be too long or too rushed. Students also have opportunities to practice over several connected lessons. No lesson is an isolated learning experience.

Activities jump from syllables to phonemes. 

Naomi wrote: “Clapping syllables is a whole-word awareness task, immediately followed by phoneme-level analysis requiring segmentation into individual sounds. This shift from recognising larger spoken chunks to identifying separate sounds demands a significant cognitive leap that would even confuse adults. 

Cognitive Load Theory emphasises the need for clear, step-by-step scaffolding over rapid shifts. Additionally, the National Reading Panel found that phonemic awareness instruction is most effective when focused and not overloaded with multiple overlapping tasks.”

As mentioned above, syllable and rhyme activities are including in some of the Foundation lesson plans to meet the VC2 English phonological awareness content description requirements. These tasks do not have a significant time commitment or focus across the Foundation curriculum, and at times they are used as a quick lesson warm-up.

My experience is that students (and adults) are well able to move from syllable-based to sound-based tasks if the learning objectives are clear, and they have the conceptual knowledge and clear instructions. These are separate tasks with separate instructions. This is really common practice in all sorts of literacy lessons and curricula/programs.

These lessons follow a ‘spray and pray’ approach.

“…treating all students the same regardless of ability. For example, the high-frequency word ‘at’ appears in Lesson 1 as new content for all students. What happens if some children can already recognise and read this word?”

There are a couple of things to unpack here. As mentioned earlier, differentiation really needs to be done at the school and class level as we trust teachers to modify this curriculum for their students. We do provide general guidance and cover key considerations in the implementation guidance and webinars.

In terms of the example of ‘at’, while students (perhaps quite a few, perhaps none) may be able to read this word, they are far less likely to have spelled this word before or practiced the letter formation in words and sentences. The word reading component is just one part of the lesson, so there should still be some new learning for students who may know this word, but we also know a bit of over-learning (automaticity/fluency) doesn’t hurt students, and there should be a nod to the VTLM 2.0 here too, which speaks about mastery.

It is certainly a challenge in the first term of Foundation, when students do arrive with varying levels of word reading proficiency. Again, we would expect teachers and schools to respond as they see fit in their context, but hold in mind that the spelling, handwriting and sentence generation components of a lesson are likely to be new learning for most students, even those who come to school with a large sight word vocabulary.

Fluency without meaning?

“These decodable texts align with phonics instruction but lack narrative value. How can students meaningfully engage with them?”

I take Naomi’s point here, but it is very hard to write a rich decodable text with narrative value when students can only read words with a few GPCs. Decodable texts are texts designed for decoding practice. That is, they are deliberately written to contain only the GPCs (and high frequency irregular words) students have been taught. Multiple opportunities to practise decoding while reading these phonetically controlled texts can support development of automatic word recognition and connected text fluency. They may support the development of vocabulary, language, and knowledge, although this is not their primary aim, and it is very hard to achieve, as I said, with limited code available. Decodable texts increase in complexity as students learn more sound-letter relationships. Students should still be encouraged to focus on word, sentence and text meaning when reading decodable texts. At the same time, in the second half of the literacy block, students should be experiencing a range of rich and complex texts via teacher read alouds and shared reading.

“Fluency is not just speed and accuracy but also expression, pacing, and comprehension. The lack of meaningful context in these choral reading tasks suggests students are practising letter and word recognition in isolation rather than developing expressive, purposeful reading.”

As I discussed above, we must separate out the components of fluency a bit. Accuracy and rate allow students to focus on meaning (they don’t guarantee it), but it is comprehension that allows us to read with expression. I often refer to expression as the cherry on top, and it seems that students who demonstrate good expression during oral reading tend to have the higher scores when reading silently on standardised tests of comprehension (e.g., Zimmerman et al., 2019). Expression a great indicator that every part of the system is working.

Novice readers usually read slowly and effortfully and that’s completely fine. They are building their accuracy and rate. There is often not a lot of bandwidth left to think deeply about meaning (when reading on their own, it is different when they are being read to), which isn’t a problem usually because they are reading texts with simple vocabulary and sentence structure. It’s not very reasonable to expect students in Foundation and even Year 1 to read with rich expression, because accuracy and rate are still under development. I do advocate for some basic comprehension questions (1-2) after the reading of any text, even if it is a simple sentence (e.g., Who was this sentence about?) to maintain a focus on meaning, which is the goal of reading.

Choral reading might seem effective, but research suggests otherwise. Shanahan (2024) argues that choral reading does not inherently improve fluency because it focuses on group reading without individualised pacing or comprehension engagement. Kuhn & Stahl (2003) found that fluency is best developed through repeated reading with feedback and discussion about meaning, rather than rote repetition of sentences.

This is not what Shanahan said. In the blogpost Naomi refers to, Shanahan said he supports the limited and purposeful use of choral reading, although the research base is limited, and we must be aware of the risks (e.g., not all students participating, not hearing the errors of some students unless we rove).

I completely agree that repeated reading has the strongest evidence base, but it is very time consuming and virtually impossible to achieve in a classroom (it’s perfect as an intervention). The very well researched repeated reading technique is technically 1:1, teacher with student, which is why its slightly modified cousins now exist (partner reading/paired reading, or paired repeated reading) which are 1:1, student and student. This is much easier to achieve in a classroom, even though it’s of course going to be less effective than teacher and student 1:1.

We embedded a range of fluency routines and techniques in Phonics Plus, and the rationales for their selection were purpose and variety. Partner repeated reading every day can be quite boring, and we wanted to achieve a balance of 1:1 student led routines and whole class collaborative routines, but also to provide scaffolded reading practice (e.g., in choral reading the teacher provides a strong model for students to follow as they start to apply sound and word level knowledge in connected text). The techniques in Phonics Plus include choral reading, partner reading (shared and repeated), and echo reading (again like choral reading, the evidence isn’t as strong as repeated reading, but there are a number of studies). There are other fluency techniques such as cloze reading, varied practice, and reader’s theatre schools can use too. All have their benefits and trade-offs. We want students reading connected text aloud, a lot, to build their fluency, and we have a range of techniques available to achieve this.

Emina is a lecturer, researcher, coach, consultant, and former Head of English. She has partnerships with Tasmanian and Victorian state education systems, including Lifting Literacy, Phonics Plus, Year 1 Phonics Check, and Victorian Academy of Teaching & Leadership programs. Emina advises VCAA, Ochre, and MACS. She also works directly with schools to enhance assessment, curriculum and instruction practices in English and literacy.