What is the RRF?

The RRF is an organisation dedicated to campaigning for better teaching of reading in the English language. This website has something to offer everyone who is interested in the teaching of reading.

Members include people from a wide range of backgrounds with a variety of experiences. They have all been convinced by evidence that a method known as synthetic phonics is the most effective for teaching everyone to read.

A method known as synthetic phonics is the most effective for teaching everyone to read.

Since 2014, partly as a result of RRF campaigning, all local-authority-maintained schools in England must use synthetic phonics for the initial teaching of reading. This is a huge achievement.

However, there is still a lot to be done. All over the world, wherever children and older students are taught to read in the English language, there is a lack of understanding about synthetic phonics. In England contradictory and less effective methods are being promoted by many literacy and intervention organisations for helping young children who have fallen behind their peers.

Teaching Reading

The way children are taught is crucial to their success in learning to read. They all need knowledge of the alphabetic code and the skills of blending sounds for reading and segmenting the spoken word for spelling – whether they learn to read easily or find it difficult.

All children need knowledge of the alphabetic code and the skills of blending sounds for reading and segmenting the spoken word for spelling – whether they learn to read easily or find it difficult.

For too long now the teaching of reading has been affected by the idea that children should learn by discovery and “incidental” phonics teaching, leading to the rejection of systematic, explicit phonics instruction. This idea is deeply ingrained in education and still has a powerful influence on how reading is taught, despite having no scientific validity.

The RRF

January 2017