The government, through policy and standardised testing, shapes how reading is taught in English
primary schools. What appears to be unknown is the impact the regulatory guidance has had on
teachers’ understanding and perceptions of teaching reading. As a teacher, who has only recently left
the profession, my professional development took place during a period of heavy government
initiative and guidance. I entered the teaching profession as a newly qualified teacher (NQT) the same
year the NLS was rolled out to schools. For the entirety of my teaching career, the government has to
some extent guided what and how reading is taught in schools. Despite the government directives,
however, behind the closed door of my classroom there was room for agency and flexibility in my
teaching. I was not restricted to the structure of the National Literacy Strategy (1998), the use of a
phonics scheme, a basal reading scheme, educational resources to practice comprehension questions,
or following just the statutory guidance in the National Curriculum of the time. The practice in my
classroom was a rich learning environment that aligned with national and local requirements for
accountability purposes, but I used my professional judgement to make decisions on how the latest
statutory guidance could be implemented in my classroom. For example, I considered how to respond
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experience for my class (Jewett and Smith, 2003). The understandings teachers have and how
understandings are formed at a micro level are very seldom investigated, but essential to know if we
are to understand how teachers manage and implement policy and practice in their classrooms. If
Medwell et al. (1998) are correct in their evaluation that effective teachers do not merely follow
guidelines but are reflective individuals who make principled decisions informed by their practice, by
what they have read, and courses they have attended, then teachers’ understandings of their
classroom practices are potentially a undervalued source of knowledge about the teaching of reading.
Clark (2017) argues that the dictates of the DFE and Ofsted have put pressure on teachers to achieve
an increasing pass rate. The pressure to perform in line with extensive guidance from the government
on how to teach reading is having a major impact on practice in schools, as well as impacting on
teacher training (ibid.). According to Clark (2017), ‘This has removed the professional freedom for
teachers to adopt the approaches they think appropriate for individual children’ (p.11). A significant
question arises from Clark’s view, insofar as classroom teachers’ understandings of teaching reading
have received little academic attention. Therefore, it is difficult to know with any certainty the
approaches teachers adopt in their classroom and to what extent their professional freedom is
compromised.
From a review of the literature on teaching reading, it is apparent that a great deal has been
researched concerning policy, approaches and their impact. What emerged from the literature review
is that government intervention in the teaching of reading appears to have consistently increased.
The gradual increase of government control over what and how reading is taught in English primary
schools began with the 1997 Labour Government’s National Literacy Strategy (NLS) policy for teaching
English (Bryan, 2004). Although the NLS guidance was never statutory, Wrigley (2003) argued that the
policy was enforced through Ofsted, insofar as a school that did not adopt the NLS and was judged to
be failing would be put under significant pressure regarding results. The Coalition Government (2010)
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on phonics. The phonics screening check specifically tested children’s ability to use pure sounds,
phonemes, and although at the time it was not statutory guidance to use SSP, the government’s
funding for resources, training and a national test set a clear agenda for schools. Wrigley (2017)
suggests that the school funding and phonics check was not on whether to use phonics to teach
reading, but that the phonics check was instead specifically designed to promote the teaching of
systematic synthetic phonics. The implications for schools were that the results of the ‘light-touch
check’, as originally announced by the then Education Secretary Michael Gove, was to become part of
the data Ofsted would use to evaluate schools (Wrigley, 2017). Government intervention increased
further in 2014 with the release of the latest version of the National Curriculum making it statutory
that phonics should be taught to children first and discretely. Ivinson et al. (2017) argue that the
pressure placed on schools with high stakes testing results in a restrictive and impoverished
curriculum for children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Ball (2013) argues that teachers are inevitably the implementers and mediators of education
policy, with their autonomy restricted within an education system of attainment and accountability.
An interesting question that emerges from Ball’s argument is how teachers reconcile their
understandings of teaching reading while implementing national policy. If Wrigley (2017) is right in his
assumption that skilful teachers know how to combine various techniques to be effective teachers of
reading, based on their understandings, they will also have, as Medwell et al. (1998) suggest, the
ability to prioritise and balance policy with their understandings and perceptions of teaching reading.
Research to date has tended to focus on the implications of government policy, with some consensus
emerging on how reading should be taught, but less emphasis has been placed on what teachers
understand about the teaching of reading and how teachers receive and respond to policy. By
overlooking teachers’ understandings, a vital piece of knowledge on how to teach reading is missing.
As more and more time is taken over by statutory guidance on the teaching of reading, there is a
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and perceptions on the teaching of reading (Wrigley, 2017). Ball (2013) argues that government policy
is increasingly influential in education, with high levels of accountability placed on teachers, schools
and local authorities. The policies influencing the practice of teaching reading are built on isolated
reading skills, conflicting ideas, interests, and political agendas (Wrigley, 2017), and arguably place
artificial boundaries around what is understood about the teaching of reading. Against such a
backdrop it seems increasingly important to gain a clear picture of English primary school teachers’
understandings and perceptions of teaching reading. Three interesting questions emerge from this
literature review: What do teachers view as important in their teaching of reading? How do teachers
receive and respond to the influence of policy in their practice? Are the understandings the teachers
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