Jolly Phonics: Helping children to read at an early age
THE rate of illiteracy in Sabah may come as a surprise to many but it is a reality especially in the rural areas, even in the 21st century.
However, one 25-year-old teacher is confident that more children will be able to read from an early age, owing to the method she has been applying in her classroom.
Jessica Rine Alphonius first discovered Jolly Phonics during her time with Jolly Learners, a company which runs Taska Jolly Learners and Tadika Jati, under the tutelage of its principal Creena Alison Wong.
A Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) graduate from the Penang Institute of Teacher Education (IPG Penang), Jessica received her first teaching posting at SK Pekan Pensiangan (K9) Limbawan in 2016.
By the end of her first year with the school, Jessica became the recipient of the Anugerah Guru LINUS (Literacy and Numeracy Screening) Terbaik 2016, for her work with her Primary One students.
When asked of her progress, Jessica shared that she managed to get her students to read simple English words in about four months with the application of the Jolly Phonics method, as opposed to what would usually take one to two years to achieve using the conventional way of teaching reading by syllable.
If Jolly Phonics is implemented into more classrooms, Jessica believes it would be possible to curb the issue of illiteracy.
“My hope is that this method will be known and adopted by more teachers, especially those who are teaching in kindergartens and primary schools, and those who are dealing with LINUS children.
“It’s a fun way of learning, and the children enjoy the method without even realising that through the songs, they are building up their vocabulary and at the same time learning how to read.
“In Jolly Phonics, we use stories, actions and songs to teach. I follow its systematic way of teaching, as it is very well thought out and easy to apply.
“All I have to do is follow that method to teach every day. I’ve been using this method for the past year that I’ve been teaching, and the results have been very encouraging.
“My students love it very much because in every lesson, they are able to remember the sounds that I teach and even when I ask them about it in the next lesson, they are able to recall what they had learned,” said Jessica.
She added that her fellow teachers also responded well to Jolly Phonics, especially after they saw the impact it had on the students.
“When I brought Jolly Phonics in, the other teachers were very happy and said it had been a long time since they heard music in their classroom.
“In the past, they tried to teach students using other methods, but with Jolly Phonics, the feedback I get is that they’re very happy to see the students’ response.
“The teachers’ expectations were that it would probably take a year or two for the students to be able to read, but I managed to speed up the process with Jolly Phonics.”
Jessica said the reason Jolly Phonics was so effective was because students were taught to recognise alphabets by sound, which made it easier for the sound to be applied when reading.
“Once the students know a few sounds, they can already start to read because it is arranged in a way that it’s very easy for them to pick up on, and they can read as many words as possible once they are able to identify the sound,” she said.
“I hope with this method, many teachers will apply Jolly Phonics in their classrooms so that more children can learn to read more effectively.”
Although Jolly Phonics has been around for almost 30 years, it is still not widely used in schools due to a number of factors, one of them being the lack of training.
Jessica said she had shared the method with colleagues and told them how to use it in the classroom, but none had followed suit.
She said it was because they had not been formally trained to apply the method effectively, which she believes is important to instil confidence in teachers to use Jolly Phonics.
Creena, who is also a Synthetic Phonics professional trainer, literacy and educational advisor, said teachers in other schools had tried implementing the method in the past when pilot projects were started in Sabah almost six years ago, to observe the effectiveness of Jolly Phonics.
“Initially, the aim of the pilot projects was with the LINUS children. We did the pilot projects in KK and Beaufort, and the latter has actually gotten very good results.
“I personally witnessed it because after training the teachers, a couple of months later they came back for a meeting and they shared how surprising it was that the children were able to learn how to read. The best part of it was that both the teachers and students enjoyed the process,” she said.
In May 2016, another Jolly Phonics pilot project under the initiation of then SK Sri Gaya headmaster Haji Abdul Gahni Hj Mohd Kassim was carried out in 12 preschools in Kota Kinabalu.
Then, in February this year, six preschools in Kota Belud were involved in a similar pilot project.
Creena added that even State Education Department director Datuk Maimunah Suhaibul was open to investigating Jolly Phonics and its efficacy, with research ongoing by Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).
“To assess how Jolly Phonics works in the government curriculum, a team of researchers from the UMS Faculty of Psychology and Education volunteered to conduct a study, headed by Dr Connie Shin.
“Together with Dr Connie, Dr Habibie Ibrahim and Datin Nik Zaitun Nik Mohamed will be conducting a pre- and posttraining study on whether or not Jolly Phonics is effective in government schools.
“If the research shows that it is effective, we are hoping that the government will absorb the programme into the school syllabi.
“This is the first time a study is being done, although Jolly Learning UK had previously sponsored 18 preschools around KK in the last two years,” she said.
Creena also said Jolly Phonics was more effective in teaching students to read in English compared to the usual ‘look and say’ method, because it was easier for students to identify sounds than to memorise spellings.
“When you teach sound and put sounds together, it makes sense, but when you teach children spelling, if they can’t remember, they can’t remember.
“The way we learned to read during our time was through the whole-word method, meaning the teachers would show us the whole word and get us to spell the word, so we would have to memorise the word as a whole.
“When this method is used, it would work on children whose strength is in memorising. However, if a child is not good in memorising, how will they be able to read?
“But if you were to teach students the sound of each letter, they would be able to apply it to all words.
“You have to tune the children’s listening skills to letter sounds, in order to enable them to put the sounds together in words to read.
“I believe this is why Jessica has such good results, because she is literally tuning the children’s listening skills to listen to the sounds in a word.
“This is also why we are able to see that the children in Pensiangan, who learned through the Jolly Phonics method, are able to read better and show better results in reading English compared to Bahasa Malaysia.
“Again, this is because reading in Bahasa is taught through syllables and not sound,” said Creena.
She however clarified that the Jolly Phonics method of teaching certainly works for Bahasa Malaysia as well, as it uses a multi-sensory approach which is very effective.
She maintained that Jolly Phonics should be used in schools widely, as it has proven to be effective even amongst rural students, thus could produce even better results for city children who are exposed to more English through the internet and television.
Creena also stressed that Jolly Phonics is not a method exclusive to preschools, kindergartens or even primary schools.
Anyone who wants to learn to speak better English, especially when it comes to pronunciation, should learn through Jolly Phonics, she said.
“Obviously, if we’re talking about our education system, then the best would be to start young so that at least by the time the students enter primary one, they are able to read and write.
“But even if you have children who are falling between the gaps and they are already in secondary school but are still unable to read, it’s not too late to start with Jolly Phonics. In fact, because they are older, they would be able to pick it up faster.
“Never feel that you are too old to learn. You should debunk the notion that this is a preschool thing and can only be used as such.
“Jolly Phonics is for anyone who cannot read. In fact, we did a project with the State Library a few years ago in Bundu Tuhan and we had a grandmother learning Jolly Phonics because she wanted to learn English. Age is definitely not the limit,” she added.