Phonics, conversation or school English: where should we start?

Phonics, conversation and school English each do something different

Phonics builds the connection between letters and sounds, so a child can read words she has never seen before. Conversation builds listening and speaking through real back-and-forth. School English support helps a child understand and retain what she is currently being taught.

It helps to think of these as three tools with different jobs, rather than ranking one above the others.

First, see where the child actually stops

Reading can be split into turning print into sound (word reading) and understanding meaning and flow (comprehension). England’s Reading Framework organises early reading around those two dimensions. Where a child stops decides what helps.

This table is a home-level guide, not a diagnosis of any learning difficulty. If reading difficulty is strong and persistent, talk to the school or a specialist.

Choosing based on your child's current profile

Find the row closest to your child's current situation as a starting reference.

When the long way round is actually the effective route

Adding phonics for a child who is already confident speaking can feel like a detour, since it temporarily eats into conversation time. But the reading ability it builds often eases the load of vocabulary study and school English later on.

Likewise, starting writing practice for a confident speaker can look like a step backward at first, since the gap shows up quickly. But turning what she can already say into written form builds a skill that carries directly into school English.

How to decide when it's genuinely unclear

When it's hard to choose, the more useful question is what is actually causing the most trouble right now: keeping up in class, confidence speaking, or reading itself.

If it still isn't clear, a trial lesson is a reasonable way to try something and adjust based on how she actually responds.

What each approach develops, and what it does not

How to read the evidence

The Education Endowment Foundation's Toolkit entry on phonics describes phonics as consistently effective in helping younger pupils master the basics of reading, and its entry on oral language interventions stresses learning through interaction. That research mainly concerns children learning to read in their first language, so it does not transfer directly to a child learning English as a foreign language in Japan. We use it only to support the idea that sound-letter knowledge and real interaction build different skills.

The US Department of Education’s practice guide for kindergarten to grade 3 makes four recommendations: awareness of speech sounds and how they link to letters, decoding words, reading connected text daily, and teaching academic language including vocabulary. It rates the first two as strong evidence and the language recommendation as minimal evidence. The implication is that neither phonics alone nor conversation alone completes reading.

In Japan, the Ministry of Education’s course of study sets the aim for grades 3 and 4 foreign language activities as becoming familiar with the sounds and basic expressions of a foreign language. How English is handled differs by grade and school, so check what your child’s school expects as well.

Related articles and tutors

See what to prioritise first in primary English, when Japanese support helps and how to choose a tutor who fits. Tutors who teach elementary-age students include Hannah, Dayun and Maya; see also English for beginners and school English support.