This study investigates the viability of using a phonics programme for Primary One students
who are studying at a National Type Chinese School in Sarawak, Malaysia. Jolly Phonics is
a Synthetic Phonics Programme that is used to address common reading problems. In this
study, Primary One students who learn Mandarin as their main language in school, while
learning English and Malay Languages at the same time. The phonics consists of teaching
reading with five skills, namely learning the letter sounds, letter formation, blending, segmenting
and tricky words. 39 students participated in the study. Two groups were formed to
compare performances between those who used the phonic programme and those who attended
the regular English classes. Data was collected on pre and post-test achievements for
both the experimental and control group. Findings revealed that the phonics programme did
not significantly impact the students’ reading ability when compared with performances of
those who attended regular lessons which used existing methods of teaching reading skills for
English language learning at the Chinese medium school.