General Principle
Fantastic Phonics has achieved excellent results when implemented in the manner outlined in the research done by USAid in 2008-10. Because NGOs make considerable investments in their literacy projects, we provide support to help ensure that the program continues to succeed, wherever it is implemented.
This helps the program maintain its integrity and remain a trusted, proven resource.
A few simple rules
• Fantastic Phonics program is protected by copyright laws. It provides a free license to registered NGO's and charities. It is not 'open source' material. This means you cannot make changes to the program, or re-use the program in other publications, or remove the Fantastic Phonics copyright details.
• You cannot sell or derive commercial gain from Fantastic Phonics.
• If used in research documents Fantastic Phonics must be acknowledged for it's contribution to the research and fully referenced.
• We require 6 month progress updates of the program with reports and photos of teaching and students reading Fantastic Phonics books. A report of 500 words is sufficient.
• We will need to know if a commercial program is used and if there is a conflict in methodology. Fantastic Phonics can work with you to replace the commercial system with a free system. Running multiple systems does not produce the results we expect, and we would encourage you to choose one or the other. Please check with us if unsure.
• You cannot pass the program to another NGO, organisation or government, or permit them to operate under your license. If another organisation or government wants the program, they must seek their own license.
Training
• Fantastic Phonics is responsible for training. Smaller NGOs may not be able to fund training, and we will support them where we can.
Fantastic Phonics team will train teachers on the implementation of Fantastic Phonics. Larger NGOs, who will be making a considerable investment in the project, will need to consider teacher training.
For successful implementation of Fantastic Phonics, based on the USAID research, teacher training is essential.
Sight Reading
Research has been conducted into the effects of sight reading over the last 40 years, and has conclusively demonstrated that it has been unsuccessful.
Many teachers have adopted "sight-reading" as the main reading strategy for children (and adults) as this was the method taught. This is changing as research results become available and teachers are being taught a phonics based system.
• Matching pictures with words are techniques of sight reading. When the pictures have gone and the text becomes more complex it is discovered the child cannot read. This can be after they have been at school for 2-3 years. The results are devastating for the student.
• The student has no skills or strategy to work out the meaning of a word they have not seen before. Every new word they meet, they must ask someone "what does that word mean?". Vocabulary acquisition grinds to a halt, because unknown words cannot be "decoded" simply by looking at them.
Fantastic Phonics
Fantastic Phonics has incorporated the main criteria for successful acquisition of reading skills as identified in 30 years of research by the US-based National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Fantastic Phonics teaches a step by step approach to phonological awareness, identifying phonemes and graphphemes, blending and decoding skills with 48 'sound-letter' relationships.
These are lifelong skills and need to be taught in a systematic and explicit approach, which include reading, writing, spelling and comprehension.
• Fantastic Phonics enables a student to 'sound out' an unknown word, then blend it into a word found in the students vocabulary as they develop their knowledge and understanding of the English language.
• In this way, they are employing multiple senses and cognitive ability to develop their reading skills.
• Once this skill is mastered, there is no limitation to the development of reading ability. Students move into 'independent reading' where they are able to read increasingly complex language, unassisted.