Phonics vs. Whole Language
bea...@mbi.org
vs. whole language teaching methods for reading education in early elementary
schools. I have a child who is having trouble with the school's largely whole
language approach (we are assured they teach phonics too, but there is little
evidence that it is very much of a priority.
Thanks,
Dan Beacom
bea...@mbi.org
David L. Hanson
Here are a series of quotations from books which discuss the
vast public illiteracy foisted upon us by the public schools
using reading instruction methods which don't work and which
damage children. These faulty methods include the look-say-
whole-word-whole-language mumbo jumbo that educationists
promote.
From Why Johnny Still Can't Read by Rudolf Flesch (page 1):
"I said in my book [Why Johnny Can't Read] that phonics-first worked
splendidly and should be used in all schools, while look-and-say
was wretchedly poor and should be abandoned at once.
Unfortunately my advice fell on deaf ears. With heart-breaking
slowness, phonics first crept into some 15 percent of our schools,
but an estimated 85 percent of them still stick to old,
discredited look-and-say.
The results of this mass miseducation have been disastrous.
America is rapidly sinking into a morass of ignorance. The
official statistics are appalling."
From Why Johnny Still Can't Read by Rudolf Flesch (page 155):
"All I can say to American parents is, Follow the example of those
enlightened Israeli fathers and mothers. Foil the system. Stamp out
the disease before you child gets infected. Teach your child at
home before he enters a school that follows the look-and-say method."
From The New Illiterates by Samuel L. Blumenfeld (page 24):
"Thus, despite two authorative books, plus other books as well on
the subject,and the overwhelming evidence of the serious damage
the whole-word method is doing to the national intellect, 75
percent of our schoolchildren are still being taught to read via
the whole-word method. In a period of about twelve years, only
25 percent of the public schools have returned to the alphabetic
principle. If we understand what this means in statistical terms,
we can see that the literacy disaster will be with us not just for
another twenty years, but well into the twenty-first century,
unless something is done about it soon and on a large scale."
[NOTE: It is too late; this book was written in 1973.]
From The New Illiterates by Samuel L. Blumenfeld (page 31):
"There is probably no way more calculated to confuse, discourage,
and finally frustrate a child than teaching him to "read" via
the whole-word method. Not only does this method not teach
the child to read, but it places almost insurmountable obstacles
to his ever learning to read. The amazing thing is not how many
children fail to learn how to read by this method, but how many
manage to circumvent the method and learn to read despite it."
From The Blumenfeld Education Letter, February 1991:
"The fundamental flaw in whole language instruction philosophy
is that it teaches children to read English as if it were an
ideographic writing system like Chinese instead of an alphabetic
sound-symbol system. We know now from years of experience and
observation that imposing an ideographic teaching technique on
an alphabetic writing system can cause reading disability through
symbolic confusion. In fact, it can cause the symptons of
dyslexia.
...
In fact, at close inspection we discover that whole-language
methodology is not so very different from the look-say,
whole-word teaching methods that have been in use since the
early 1930s when look-say was first introduced in the schools.
...
[Discussing whole language]
But the kind of reading instruction then given the children
is the same kind of sight vocabulary, look-and-guess,
meaning-emphasis instruction, with some incidental phonics,
that has brought America to its present literacy crisis.
...
Where will it end? The whole-language fad will run its course,
leaving in its wake millions of disabled readers. And who will
be blamed? Why, the children, of course."
From The Blumenfeld Education Letter, August 1993:
"In other words, while 72% of the students in the public schools of
North Carolina were becoming educationally dyslexic, only 16% in the
private school in Florida were becoming educationally dyslexic. The
public schools in North Carolina were using a holistic reading instruction
program, while the private school in Florida was using an alphabetics-
phonics program.
Miller's tests prove beyond a doubt that the kind of dyxlexia that afflicts
millions of chldren in American public schools is the direct result of
the teaching methods being used, and that the only way to prevent
educational dyslexia is to teach children to read by intensive, systematic
phonics so that they develop the necessary phonetic reflex.
...
There can be no doubt that Miller's more recent findings not only confirm
the validity of his reding assessment methods, but are providing irrefutable
evidence that the reading instruction methods being used in the public
schools are causing far greater academic damage among even the brightest
students than any of us could have imagined.
...
He [Ed Miller] is the only researcher in America who, without the help
of any government agency or private grant, has proven that dyslexia is
being artificially created in our public schools to the great detriment
of American children. The question is: why are those in positions of
responsibility so reluctant to even consider, let alone investigate,
the possibility that it is the teaching methods that are causing such
widespread dyslexia and not something instrinsically wrong with the
children."
Signature follows:
"Jesus saith unto him, I am THE way, THE truth, and THE life; NO MAN cometh
unto the Father BUT BY ME." John 14:6
David L. Hanson Internet --> dlha...@amoco.com
Any opinions expressed are my own!
David Gonda
A personal anecdote, for what its worth...
I was reading several grades above my level when I was in 1st grade via
what I assume would correspond to a whole language approach (as a child I
could memorize anything I saw once).
Nevertheless, believe it or not, I still *vividly* remember the moment when
I realized there was such a thing as "phonics." The word was "fast." The
realization that those little things called letters corresponded to sounds
that could be put together to make spoken words just floored me (my parents
had never told me this; I was reading just fine, so why bother?) I felt
like I had been let in on a Great Secret. I was ecstatic!
So, based on my personal experience (and assuming my brain isn't oddly
wired :-) ) I'm inclined to agree with the view that phonics is a superior
way for a child to approach reading.
Just my $ 0.02...
--
David Gonda
Yale University
Dept of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
david...@qm.yale.edu
[the opinions above, which are mine, are only mine, and belong to me]
James Drummond
[snip]
>
>Whole Language is a term applied to an ever-growing body of research
>and knowledge in the fields of Cognitive and Psycho Linguistics as
>well as Language Acquisition Theory....It is not a program.....not is
>it an instructional strategy...nor is it 'using core lit'...nor is it
>really even an educational approach.....it is a (w)holistic
>understanding of Learning as informed by research in the
>aforementioned fields.....
>
>Phonics, in a Literacy program driven by a Whole Language
>understanding of language learning, does have a place...As Regie
>Routman explains it in her book Invitations (Heinemann
>Press).....(and I'm paraphrasing here)....Phonics is one of the three
>sisters which support a student's making of meaning from written
>text...the other two being Grammar and Syntax......Phonics is a
>terrific tool for attacking new vocabulary....As a method of
>'teaching' reading however....it is...I feel...(and this is based on
>personal experience as well as 10+ years of teaching
>experience)....most often truly successful only with those students
>who don't really need it...Those for whom reading as a skill is
>fairly easily acquired....As a tool upon which to exclusively rely,
This is interesting. If phonics is only effective for those who need
it least then why is it used almost exclusively for remedial reading
classes in schools and for adult literacy classes. These are the
very people who more "normal" methods of teaching reading have failed.
Phonics is and should only be thought of as a method of decoding
written words to spoken words. It is the inablility to do this by many
of todays students which impedes their learning. Most people have a
spoken vocabulary which is quite large. They can understand many things
if you talk to them. Phonics gives people the ability to say the
word, and presto, they then can realize that they know what the word
means. Then they can move forward with the grammar and syntax, which
are used for comprehending what was written. It is silly to impede a childs
learning because it is boring to teach phonics. It should only take a
year at about 15-20 minutes a day to cover all the rules of phonics and
most of the exceptions. (yes there are exceptions, so what) After that year
then you can work on building vocabulary, understanding grammar, etc.
Why I guess you could then spend a little time on some of the exceptions to
the rules.
>however, phonics is entirely too limited and exception-ridden, (When
>2 vowels go walking, the first one dOOOOOes the talking?) to be
>effective.....
>
>
James Drummond
Drum...@avpvx1.ncifcrf.gov
These are my opinions and not those of my employer or other
individuals who may be reading this!!
A L Woulf
: If you're going to respond to a question in which 'Whole Language' is
: referenced, it would be advisable not to rely on quotes pertaining
: largely to 'look-see' and 'whole word', neither of which is, either
: in letter or in spirit, the same as 'Whole Language'...
O.K. Let me see if I can clarify what "whole language" (and perhaps
a some other techo-babble) means, at least in the U.S. If "whole
language" means something different in another English speaking
country, perhaps someone from there could post.
In the U.S. "whole language" is a term for comprehensive language
instruction. It suggests teaching reading as part of an integrated
whole, with exercises in reading, writing, speaking and listening
working together to effect language development in primary school children.
If the outcomes were not so tragic, this would be a good joke. However
plausible such a scheme might seem "on paper", public education in the
U.S. is nowhere near capable of such an undertaking.
What U.S. whole language instruction consists of in practice is a harried
teacher and a frustrated class of 30 - 45 primary school children
struggling through an incomprehensible reader for about an hour each day.
The reason the texts are incomprehensible to children is that the stories
in them have been chosen for political correctness and literary merit as
viewed by adults. The contain language children cannot understand, much
less read, and themes so alien children could not relate to them even if
they could understand the words.
Some teachers have tried *reading the readers to the children* but this
does not work because the children will not pay attention and the
teachers cannot maintain order. Instead the children are sent home each
day with long lists of "vocabulary" or "spelling" words to prepare
them for the next day's "reading".
During their "reading" hour the children are called on to attempt to
pronounce the words they have memorized in the order in which they appear in
the text. Needless to say the children are painfully slow and
inaccurate at this. Once the clock has brought a merciful end to their
struggles for one day, the teacher hands out the list of words for
the next.
Because the words they are asked to memorize are used so infrequently,
most children soon forget them. Even if the children have
been taught to decode words phonetically, they cannot do this with the
words in their texts because they are too difficult. As a result they
soon forget how to decode phonetically also and are left with no other
recourse except to guess or skip, which most of them learn to do very well.
Parents do not know what is going on because the schools will not send
home the readers (claiming they are expensive and in short supply). They
realize the children don't seem to have much interest in reading, but
they don't know why. When told their children won't read because they
*can't*, the parents are astounded. They have spent many hours helping
the children learn words and have no idea why they no longer recognize them.
The "whole language" approach to reading instruction should not be
confused with the "whole word" or "look-say". The latter method relied on
sight word recognition also, but the words were familiar, limited in
number and repeated often. As a result children could learn to read
accurately and with understanding. If they found the texts too tedious,
they could check out interesting books from libraries and use the sight
words they had learned to decode them.
There is also the "phonics first" approach which some netters have
advocated. With phonics first children are taught very few sight words
and are given phonetic readers with controlled vocabularies rich in
phonically regular words. The words in each story are selected to reinforce
the phonics rules the children have been taught up to that point.
Phonics first has not been especially successful in U.S. public schools
because most children who experience difficulty learning to read
have trouble with the phonetic approach also. What happens is that
when the class is ready to move on to the next phonic rule, the slow
children haven't yet mastered the previous one. And a set of half-learned
phonic rules are even more useless that a set of half-learned sight words.
"Post-literacy" means the era that is being rapidly ushered in by public
education in the U.S.
(Al) wo...@crl.com
Samuel R. Kaplan
David Gonda <david...@qm.yale.edu> wrote:
>In article <beacom.4...@mbi.org>, bea...@mbi.org wrote:
>
>> I'd like some input from parents and teachers concerning the use of phonics
>> vs. whole language teaching methods for reading education in early elementary
>> schools. I have a child who is having trouble with the school's largely whole
>> language approach (we are assured they teach phonics too, but there is little
>> evidence that it is very much of a priority.
>
>A personal anecdote, for what its worth...
>
>I was reading several grades above my level when I was in 1st grade via
>what I assume would correspond to a whole language approach (as a child I
>could memorize anything I saw once).
>
>Nevertheless, believe it or not, I still *vividly* remember the moment when
>I realized there was such a thing as "phonics." The word was "fast." The
>realization that those little things called letters corresponded to sounds
>that could be put together to make spoken words just floored me (my parents
>had never told me this; I was reading just fine, so why bother?) I felt
>like I had been let in on a Great Secret. I was ecstatic!
>
>So, based on my personal experience (and assuming my brain isn't oddly
>wired :-) ) I'm inclined to agree with the view that phonics is a superior
>way for a child to approach reading.
Fortunately, however, we do not have to choose between one and the
other. They are both strategies, among others, for deciphering words
for the purpose of reading them. Indeed, we don't sound out the word
"go" or "the"--we read them globally. Now, if we are faced with a new
and long word, we might approach it phonetically. Furthermore, as
your anecdote illustrates, some of us are more adept with one or the
other method. The bottom line is for more children to read, so we
need not fit them to the Procrustean bed of phonics or of whole
language, but can teach them alternative reading strategies.
--
*************************************************************************
Sam Kaplan 804 982 5819
University of Virginia 804 982 5524 FAX
Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service kap...@virginia.edu
Herman Rubin
>In article <david_gonda-...@dkgonda.med.yale.edu>,
>David Gonda <david...@qm.yale.edu> wrote:
>>In article <beacom.4...@mbi.org>, bea...@mbi.org wrote:
...................
>Fortunately, however, we do not have to choose between one and the
>other. They are both strategies, among others, for deciphering words
>for the purpose of reading them. Indeed, we don't sound out the word
>"go" or "the"--we read them globally.
Possibly on words that common, but even this is not totally clear. One
of the reasons originally given for going to the whole word method was
that good readers even take in several words at one. This argument
confuses the input channel with the processing. It is extremely doubtful
that enough third-of-a-line phrases are memorized to read that way.
Now, if we are faced with a new
>and long word, we might approach it phonetically. Furthermore, as
>your anecdote illustrates, some of us are more adept with one or the
>other method. The bottom line is for more children to read, so we
>need not fit them to the Procrustean bed of phonics or of whole
>language, but can teach them alternative reading strategies.
I believe that anyone starting with phonics will necessarily form
a mental list of exceptions and mental strategies for processing
letter groups and short words. This is the easy way, to add on
to an existing structure. However, the one started on the whole
word method has no structure to build on; the entire structure
must be created anew. A child who can deduce phonics from the
whole word method should be considered as a candidate for a
researcher already.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hru...@stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
bea...@mbi.org
>Fortunately, however, we do not have to choose between one and the
>other. They are both strategies, among others, for deciphering words
>for the purpose of reading them. Indeed, we don't sound out the word
>"go" or "the"--we read them globally. Now, if we are faced with a new
>and long word, we might approach it phonetically. Furthermore, as
>your anecdote illustrates, some of us are more adept with one or the
>other method. The bottom line is for more children to read, so we
>need not fit them to the Procrustean bed of phonics or of whole
>language, but can teach them alternative reading strategies.
>--
>*************************************************************************
>Sam Kaplan 804 982 5819
>University of Virginia 804 982 5524 FAX
>Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service kap...@virginia.edu
In general, I agree. However, many parents have had experience with educators
giving only lip service to phonics--even when it is apparent that the child is
not benefitting from the other approach. Sometimes it seems there is a
philosophy which must served ahead of the needs of the individuals.
There is a similar abandonment of computational skills (for calculator
reliance) in math. I think its great children are being taught in a way which
prepares them for higher math concepts (I've seen what is essentially algebra
at the 1st grade level). BUT as a scientist I cannot stress enough how
valuable good computational skills are in my everyday experience. The quick
ability to know if information makes sense from a numerical standpoint (by
good computational skill) is of great aid. I am likening computation as tool
to be more effective with numbers as phonics are a tool to be more effective
with words.
David L. Hanson
In article <2us447$m...@crl.crl.com> wo...@crl.com (A L Woulf) writes:
snip,snip
>Phonics first has not been especially successful in U.S. public schools
>because most children who experience difficulty learning to read
>have trouble with the phonetic approach also. What happens is that
>when the class is ready to move on to the next phonic rule, the slow
>children haven't yet mastered the previous one. And a set of half-learned
>phonic rules are even more useless that a set of half-learned sight words.
I was right with you until we get to this paragraph. We taught our two sons,
one-on-one, how to read using traditional phonics when they were each 5 years
old. So we have not taught a whole classroom of people but we found that the
letter sounds ("rules" to me implies something more than a letter sound
relationship) were learned very quickly. After about 3 months of daily
work, our sons could sound out just about anything you put in front of them.
And as you so aptly explained, they could read with understanding all their
speaking vocabulary.
It certainly seems to me that it would be a small minority of normal
intelligence children in a classroom would have problems reading by the
traditional phonics method. My reading on phonics instruction indicates
it is only when you teach the look-say-whole-word-whole-language-holistic
mumble jumble method or combine that faulty method with fake phonics that
illiterate children will be the result. ("Fake" phonics are what the
educationists are actually using when they try to pacify parents and others in
their community because of the vast number of illiterates coming out of
the State schools. One of their big lies is "we use all methods". You either
do traditional phonics or you do a failed method; you can't do both.)
Signature follows:
"For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He
taketh the wise in their own craftiness." 1 Cor 3:19
SINEQUAN0N
Drummond) writes:
:This is interesting. If phonics is only effective for those who
need
:it least then why is it used almost exclusively for remedial reading
:classes in schools and for adult literacy classes. These are the
:very people who more "normal" methods of teaching reading have
failed.
Actually, phonics has used almost exlusively for remedial reading
classes for programs such as Chapter I, and has a very poor track
record of success...If you would take a look at alternatives, such as
Reading Recovery, which is based on the research of Marie Clay in New
Zealand, is used nationwide as an early intervention for Grade 1
non-readers, and has an 80% success rate when tracked longitudinally,
you would see that phonics are used exactly as I mentioned in my
previous post...as a support system but nowhere near as an exclusive
measure.....
As far as adult literacy programs are concerned...adult nonreaders
bring with them an entirely different set of circumstances than do
not yet reading children....Though they may be illiterate in terms of
reading and writing, their exposure to vocabulary, grammar, and
syntax through immersion in the language of daily living is much more
extensive than that of children....Consequently, utilizing phonics in
a more prominent role can sometimes be appropriate with adult
nonreaders, as their other support systems are somewhat more
developed..
David L. Hanson
The Phyllis Schlafley Report, March 1994:
How Reading is Not Taught
According to government statistics, half of the American people are
very poor readers, and two-thirds of schol children are not meeting
average literacy goals. But aren't things getting better since we
hear so much about reforming the public schools?
No, the schools are not going to do any better job of teaching reading
next year, or the year after, because most public schools simply do not
teach children the skill of reading. They just teach children to guess
at the words.
...
Guessing, predicting, looking at pictures, skipping, and memorizing a few
dozen words are NOT reading. They are very bad habits. The child who is
trained in such bad habits is guaranteed to be a poor and inaccurate reader.
Yet, most public schools use this guessing process with all first-graders.
It's called the "Whole Language" system, which is just the trendy new name
for the old, discredited word-guesssing method called "whole word,"
"look-and-say," or "sight word." Reading by the word-guessing method is
part and parcel of Outcome-based Education, the fad that is sweeping the
country today.
Under Whole Language, the child memorizes a few dozen frequently used words,
and then thinks he is reding because all his school books are written with
a controlled vocabulary comprising only those few words. But he will
never be able to read the great and good books written in the English
language, such as the Bible and Shakespeare.
The average five-year-old has a speaking vocabulary of many thousands of
words. In an educated home, the five-year-old may understand as many as
25,000 spoken words. It's a crime to put the child in a classroom and
give him books that teach him only a couple hundred words. However,
if you teach him to sound out the letters and syllables - the phonics
method - he will soon be able to read his entire oral vocabulary.
End of quote from Mrs. Schlafly's newsletter
======================================================================
I have further evidence of this whole language fraud on audio tape.
Marva Collins, who became so disgusted with the Chicago Public schools where
she once worked, started one or more private schools in the worst areas
of Chicago. These children who could not learn by the faulty whole language
method are thriving after being taught to read by traditional phonics.
It is a crime!
David L. Hanson
Naperville,IL
"For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He
taketh th wise in their own craftiness." 1 Cor 3:19
Trindel Maine
This anecdote from David Gonda seemed a perfect opening for
my observations on the sight reading/phonics wars;
>A personal anecdote, for what its worth...
>I was reading several grades above my level when I was in 1st grade via
>what I assume would correspond to a whole language approach (as a child I
>could memorize anything I saw once).
>Nevertheless, believe it or not, I still *vividly* remember the moment when
>I realized there was such a thing as "phonics." The word was "fast." The
>realization that those little things called letters corresponded to sounds
>that could be put together to make spoken words just floored me (my parents
>had never told me this; I was reading just fine, so why bother?) I felt
>like I had been let in on a Great Secret. I was ecstatic!
>So, based on my personal experience (and assuming my brain isn't oddly
>wired :-) ) I'm inclined to agree with the view that phonics is a superior
>way for a child to approach reading.
>Just my $ 0.02...
--
>David Gonda
David's experiences sound much like the way my eldest son
(now 14) learned to read, but I put a somewhat different
interpretation on it. My son started learning to read at
age 2, and was reading at a high 3rd grade level when he
entered kindergarten. Being a strong believer in phonics,
I kept trying to teach him some in those 2 through 5 years
with absolutely no success. He could easily memorize a
couple of new words a day and retain them. I'm sure his
reading vocabulary at age 5 was in excess of a 1000 words
but he didn't seem to comprehend even the simplest phonics
concepts. Then sometime during that 6th year all at once
the light came on and he became instantly responsive to the
rules of phonics and picked up all the standard ones in about
a month. I'm seeing a similar tendency in my now 3 year old,
of primarily learning to read by sight memory and rejecting
my attempts to teach phonics (no I don't push). The conclusion
I reached is that kids at some point reach a developmental
level when they are ready for the logic of phonics. Before
that point sight reading works best and after that point,
phonics is indeed the powerful tool that the 'phonics advocates'
claim it is. However at least in my 1st child, I saw no
evidence that learning sight reading first in anyway hurt him,
rather I beleive his large memorized reading vocabulary gave
him a rich testing ground for the phonics rules and allowed
him to master them quickly. In any event he is a skilled and
heavy reader now.
I strongly believe that kids develop at different rates. Since
it appears that my son was generally ahead of most kids his age,
it seems likely that most 1st and even 2nd grade teachers would have
both a significant number of kids that had not hit that 'ready
for phonics' stage yet and of those that are ready to go for it
now. While I tend to prefer some ability grouping, at least
in the diverse classes that are commonly seen I think a 1st or
2nd grade teacher would have to use a mixed sight reading/phonics
approach in order to reach both sets of kids. The only alternative
would be something along the Waldorf school lines of waiting
until more like 7 to teach reading.
By the way at least as the teachers use the term 'whole language
teaching' around here it has nothing to do with whether phonics or
sight reading is used. It mostly seems to distiguish between
using real books by real authors (whole language) as opposed
to those awful basal readers with their carefully controlled
vocabularies written by seemingly brain dead and unnamed hacks.
As such I'm all for it.
Trindel Maine
t...@ra.dfrf.nasa.gov
af...@orion.alaska.edu
Phonics as the sole means of reading instruction works for some
kids, and it can be made to work on some others (such as your
children, who were given no other alternatives). To force
phonics upon all kids as the only way to read is as criminal as
forcing any other single method. Some kids taught via phonics
only or phonics first become "word callers" who can read aloud
beautifully but have no idea what they are reading.
I believe the research is clear: we read using a variety of
strategies. Phonics is only one of four clearly-defined methods
of decoding text.
Every year I poll my classes (gifted kids grades two
through six) about how they learned to read. The answer I get
most often: "I don't know." With probing, these kids say they
learned to read at an early age "sitting on grandma's lap" or
"with my sister" or "on the couch with mom" or "with my friend
down the block"; they learned to read by having someone read to
them while they followed along in the text. Word-attack skills
were developed naturally and were not forced upon them. Not a
single kid yet--and I've polled hundreds--has said he learned to
read using phonics. In fact, when they get into kindergarten and
the teachers try to force phonics upon them, they grow to hate
it.
Phonics works for some kids some of the time. Other methods work
better for other kids at other times. In my experience, phonics
is not the best way to begin teaching reading to highly
intelligent kids.
==================================================================
Don H. Bowden, M.Ed. AF...@orion.alaska.edu | We've already gone
Gifted Program, Anchorage School District | from fish to Gish;
Computer Instructor, School of Education, | We're trying to get
University of Alaska Anchorage | a brain to Duane.
==================================================================
Alberto Moreira
>In article <Cs60...@ncifcrf.gov>, drum...@ncifcrf.gov (James
>Drummond) writes:
>
>:This is interesting. If phonics is only effective for those who
>need
>:it least then why is it used almost exclusively for remedial reading
>:classes in schools and for adult literacy classes. These are the
>:very people who more "normal" methods of teaching reading have
>failed.
>
>Actually, phonics has used almost exlusively for remedial reading
>classes for programs such as Chapter I, and has a very poor track
>record of success..
I'm a native latin language speaker and therefore I come
from a world where phonics rules - latin languages tend
to be written by and large the way they're spoken.
I taught my two children to read in English using phonics,
and they both could read - in English - before they started
going to school.
_alberto_
Golda Bernstein
Subject: Re: Phonics vs. Whole Language
Newsgroups: misc.education
In-Reply-To: <1994Jun30...@orion.alaska.edu>
References: <dlhanson.3...@amoco.com> <2ur1l8$n...@search01.news.aol.com> <2us447$m...@crl.crl.com> <dlhanson.3...@amoco.com>
Organization: Utah Valley State College, Orem, Utah
Cc:
Bcc:
In article <1994Jun30...@orion.alaska.edu> you write:
>
>Phonics as the sole means of reading instruction works for some
>kids, and it can be made to work on some others (such as your
>children, who were given no other alternatives). To force
>phonics upon all kids as the only way to read is as criminal as
>forcing any other single method. Some kids taught via phonics
>only or phonics first become "word callers" who can read aloud
>beautifully but have no idea what they are reading.
>
>I believe the research is clear: we read using a variety of
>strategies. Phonics is only one of four clearly-defined methods
>of decoding text.
So far, I agree with you 100%...
>were developed naturally and were not forced upon them. Not a
>single kid yet--and I've polled hundreds--has said he learned to
>read using phonics. In fact, when they get into kindergarten and
>the teachers try to force phonics upon them, they grow to hate
>it.
>
>Phonics works for some kids some of the time. Other methods work
>better for other kids at other times. In my experience, phonics
>is not the best way to begin teaching reading to highly
>intelligent kids.
You obviously haven't polled many dyslexics, many of whom are VERY
intelligent but who tend to learn much better using a phonics -based
method. I am not trying to say phonics is a "better" or "worse" method,
but for some it is the best method! And those who learn best by phonics
certainly do not deserve to be categorized as "not highly intelligent".
In my opinion more teachers need to keep an open mind and not label kids
as "dunces" (which you did not do, but others in this newsgroup have) as
an excuse for not teaching them. I have seen this happen to many kids with
very high potential if they are taught at their level with a method that is
effective for them. Any teacher who wants to focus only on what he/she
considers the "brilliant" or "highly intelligent" kids is doing a great
disservice to the others who may be just as intelligent AND motivated with
the right approach.
I could say much more on this subject but I think that is enough.
Golda Bernstein
Artisoft Support Engineering
(602) 690 3778
(602) 690 3720 Fax
gbe...@artisoft.com
Dave Mankins
>
> In article <1994Jun30...@orion.alaska.edu> you write:
> >
> >Phonics works for some kids some of the time. Other methods work
> >better for other kids at other times. In my experience, phonics
> >is not the best way to begin teaching reading to highly
> >intelligent kids.
>
> You obviously haven't polled many dyslexics, many of whom are VERY
> intelligent but who tend to learn much better using a phonics -based
> method.
It turns out there is a class of people who amount to auditory dyslexics ---
they can sight-read well, but phonics throws them for a loop, and trying to
imposing phonics on them can actually *harm* their reading ability.
Marilyn Adams' _Learning to read_ (MIT Press), reports a study comparing
teaching methods. Both are equally successful and equally unsuccessful.
What matters most is whether kids arrive at school knowing what a book *is*
(they contain stories, you turn pages in sequential order, that sort of
knowledge).
If there aren't any books in the home, kids are going to have a rough time
learning to read, no matter what technique is used, because they won't
the importance of it (particularly not with those horrid basal readers!).
If there *are* books in the home, and parents demonstrate that reading is
important, then it will be hard to hold kids back. They'll learn to read
exactly as they learned to speak.
As the per-capita book consumption in the US is about 2 books a year
(well, it was in the mid-70s, I've no idea what it is now) are declining
literacy rates any surprise?
Green Eric L
Whole Language is a term applied to an ever-growing body of research
and knowledge in the fields of Cognitive and Psycho Linguistics as
well as Language Acquisition Theory....It is not a program.....not is
Sigh. I've seen that "research" (I've been an education grad student,
remember). And that "knowledge". The "research" consists of case studies
(i.e., pretty much useless), and the "knowledge" consists of the
opinions of various "reading experts." In the meantime, the good sense
and good research of someone like Jeanne Chall is totally ignored by
the "whole language" groupies. (I suggest checking out her book _The
Reading Gap_, which, true, was a correlational study rather than an
experimental study, but which did establish a clear correlation between
a varied reading program with a strong phonics decoding component and
reading performance).
really even an educational approach.....it is a (w)holistic
understanding of Learning as informed by research in the
aforementioned fields.....
It is a "wholistic mangling of learning", in my opinion as informed by
research in the aforementioned fields. If you weren't so busy
Believing in the Whole Language Religion, you'd see that the cognitive
theories underlying the whole religion are a bunch of bull,
unsupported by any direct experimental research and primarily
propogated as a matter of faith.
As far as phonics goes: I don't think that anybody advocates total
reliance upon phonics. However, I have had reasonable success in
taking "non-readers" and getting them up to speed, and phonics is an
important component of what I do (we do a lot of "wholistic" reading,
too, as well as a bit of language experience and a lot of that dreaded
P-word, PRACTICE, both of phonics skills and Dolch sight words, both
in context and out of context). Of course, the theoretical background
that I use to inform what I do is totally at odds with the fuzzy
"cognitive" theories that the "whole language" folks use to justify
their doings (I am, as some may have noticed, a radical/Skinnerian
behaviorist).
Given my attachment to Direct Instruction, I doubt anybody will call me
a "whole language" teacher anytime soon. All I'll note is that the
Whole Language folks seem to have taken a small subset of what constitutes
effective reading instruction and turned it into the big ball of wax
of reading instruction, with the rest of what constitutes effective
reading instruction relegated to a minor supporting role. In many cases,
I suggest that a bit more Direct Instruction would do both the kids and the
teacher a great favor.
--
Eric Lee Green e...@usl.edu (318) 984-1820
P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509
Green Eric L
The Phyllis Schlafley Report, March 1994:
...
Under Whole Language, the child memorizes a few dozen frequently used words,
and then thinks he is reding because all his school books are written with
a controlled vocabulary comprising only those few words. But he will
...
Err, the whole point of "whole language" is that you do *NOT* use
school books. You use "authentic" books, or "trade" books. That is, you
use "real" books like you'd find in a children's library or in a children's
bookstore. The "whole language" folks HATE "controlled vocabulary" readers.
They believe that students can only learn how to read when they're exposed
to "real" language with real words.
In other words, Ms. Schlafley is full of s***. Usual for her, though.
I'd suggest that you not use her for a source anymore. It discredits the
rest of your argument (note that I am "pro-phonics", so I'm not saying
this as a whole language groupie trying to get your goat).
BTW, it's not the books that are the problem with whole language. I
personally agree with the decision to use "real" books, and do so
whenever possible. The problem is that the whole language folks
believe that children somehow "absorb" reading knowledge just by the
act of reading. They confuse learning a skill with practicing that
skill. They're throwbacks to the wild and crazy days of the 60's when
people like John Holt believed that if you tossed a dozen kids into a
room with a toybox full of books, the kids would teach themselves how
to read just by playing with the books. In a way, the whole language
folks are the ultimate "whole word" folks... except they believe in
large vocabularies (real books) rather than in restricted
vocabularies.
Marva Collins, who became so disgusted with the Chicago Public schools where
she once worked, started one or more private schools in the worst areas
of Chicago. These children who could not learn by the faulty whole language
method are thriving after being taught to read by traditional phonics.
Err, I've read her books. She decries whole WORD. She has never experienced
"whole language", and never mentions it in her books (she started her school
before the term "whole language" was invented). I'll note that the "whole
language" people would tend to say that Marva Collins is a little bit of
a "whole language" teacher, in that she uses a lot of "authentic works" --
like Shakespeare, and the Bible. That's another one of my problems with
the "whole language" groupies... every time you do something that they've
decided is "good", they try to co-opt you (but wait -- Marva makes her
students memorize and recite poems! Definitely *NOT* whole language!).
It is a crime!
Truthfully. But you won't solve it by spreading lies. The facts about
whole language are sufficient to brand it as inadequate for meeting
the needs of many children. Many children need direct instruction
rather than an indirect "experiential" approach to learning. But when
people like you come in and spout obvious misinformation to an informed
audience, you taint the entire anti-whole-language crowd. It can make
otherwise sensible people believe that all opponents of whole language
are idiots and liars who don't know what they're talking about.
LBGL...@miamiu.bitnet
ding. A strong emphasis is being placed on the whole language approach because
it tackles many goals at once. For those students with multiple language dif
ficulties, it aids in strenghening understanding of grammatical structures, voc
abulary, opposites, etc., as well as reading. It is not a plan it is a theory.
If we can do an activity, realate it to a book, strengthen communication skil
ls (vocab, pragmatics such as turn taking, use of vocal intonation to deliver m
eaning, etc.), in an enjoyable manner more learning will take place. Since boo
ks are used, we hope to encourage literacy.
For encountering new words, I agree the phonic approach is appropriate. I ca
n't tell you how many times I've been told to "sound it out." There is an emph
asis placed on phonics, however if one can tackle more than one bird with a sto
ne, why not?
James Drummond
>In article <2uuh3d$j...@search01.news.aol.com> sineq...@aol.com (SINEQUAN0N) writes:
>>In article <Cs60...@ncifcrf.gov>, drum...@ncifcrf.gov (James
>>Drummond) writes:
>>
>>:This is interesting. If phonics is only effective for those who
>>need
>>:it least then why is it used almost exclusively for remedial reading
>>:classes in schools and for adult literacy classes. These are the
>>:very people who more "normal" methods of teaching reading have
>>failed.
>>
>>Actually, phonics has used almost exlusively for remedial reading
>>classes for programs such as Chapter I, and has a very poor track
>>record of success..
>
Well for one thing the remedial classes have to un-teach word guessing
before the student can effectively use phonics. I don't have experience
teaching remedial classes at public schools. I do however have experience
at teaching adult literacy classes. You would be surprised who they let
teach those classes, all kinds of totally non-certified teachers.
Of course all they use in the adult literacy classes is phonics.
Amazingly enough, if you can get the adult student to show up (most of them
are there for a condition of parole, some are there voluntarily) virtually
all of them will learn how to read. This occurs within a few months. People
go from not knowing the alphabet to reading at a 3rd or 4th grade level.
> I'm a native latin language speaker and therefore I come
> from a world where phonics rules - latin languages tend
> to be written by and large the way they're spoken.
>
> I taught my two children to read in English using phonics,
> and they both could read - in English - before they started
> going to school.
>
>
>
> _alberto_
>
>
Alberto, you shouldn't do this. Are you a certified teacher? I certainly
hope so. Only professionals can teach people to read. Don't you know this
That was a little satire for the humor-impaired!
We are currently teaching our almost 4yr old to read, because he asked us to.
When he gets the urge to learn a new phonics rule we teach it to him. He
usually picks it up on the first or second attempt. Each attempt usually lasts
about 5 minutes. He can read and UNDERSTAND just about any three letter word
in the english language, without any pictures even!!!!
James Drummond
Drum...@avpvx1.ncifcrf.gov
These are my opinions!
>
>
>
>
>
James Drummond
>In article <dlhanson.3...@amoco.com>, dlha...@amoco.com (David L. Hanson) writes:
>>
>> In article <2us447$m...@crl.crl.com> wo...@crl.com (A L Woulf) writes:
>>
>> snip,snip
>>
>>>Phonics first has not been especially successful in U.S. public schools
>>>because most children who experience difficulty learning to read
Real intensive phonics first is used in such a small minority of U.S.
public schools that I would have a hard time believing this statement is
anything other than a fantasy.
>>>have trouble with the phonetic approach also. What happens is that
>>>when the class is ready to move on to the next phonic rule, the slow
>>>children haven't yet mastered the previous one. And a set of half-learned
>>>phonic rules are even more useless that a set of half-learned sight words.
So someone (my newreader makes it hard to figure out) thinks a set of
half-learned sight words is worth something?
[snip]
>
>Phonics as the sole means of reading instruction works for some
>kids, and it can be made to work on some others (such as your
>children, who were given no other alternatives). To force
>phonics upon all kids as the only way to read is as criminal as
>forcing any other single method. Some kids taught via phonics
>only or phonics first become "word callers" who can read aloud
>beautifully but have no idea what they are reading.
Nobody ever said that understanding phonics would make you understand
what you read. They are two very distinct things. However the "word
caller" is at a distinct advantage over the "word memorizer". If the word
caller hits the word "hippopotamus", he can say "teacher, what does this
word, hippopotamus mean?" While the word memorizer can only say, "teacher
what does this big word that starts with H mean?" Also the word caller
can look up a word like hippoptamus in the dictionary and know that they
have found the word (without pictures even!!!). The word caller can do
this without ever having seen the word on the printed page. The word memorizer
might be able to get to the H's in the dictionary, but only because they
have accidentally picked up a little phonics (i.e. that Hippo' starts with
the HHHHHH sound).
>
>I believe the research is clear: we read using a variety of
>strategies. Phonics is only one of four clearly-defined methods
>of decoding text.
Phonics is about teaching beginning readers to decode text. Certainly
we experienced readers use whole-word, whole-language, whole-(fad of today)
methods of decoding text. I have been reading extensively for 30 years.
I would think something was wrong with me if I hadn't memorized most of
the common words I read. But when I come to a word I have never seen,
guess what I do to read it. Can you say phonics?
>Every year I poll my classes (gifted kids grades two
>through six) about how they learned to read. The answer I get
>most often: "I don't know." With probing, these kids say they
>learned to read at an early age "sitting on grandma's lap" or
>"with my sister" or "on the couch with mom" or "with my friend
>down the block"; they learned to read by having someone read to
>them while they followed along in the text. Word-attack skills
>were developed naturally and were not forced upon them. Not a
>single kid yet--and I've polled hundreds--has said he learned to
>read using phonics. In fact, when they get into kindergarten and
>the teachers try to force phonics upon them, they grow to hate
>it.
As an interesting experiment, why don't you see how many of your gifted
students actually understand phonics, despite not actually being taught
them. My guess is that if you present words to them which are unusual
(but phonetic, no fair using the exceptions) and you are sure they
haven't seen I will bet they understand most of the rules of phonics and
can pronounce them. If they can't, then I contend that they are not
that good of a reader.
Note: of course there are exceptions to the phonics rules. There are a
limited number of one syllable words ("one" is an example) which do not
follow phonetic rules. The vast majority of multi-syllabic words which
do not follow phonetic rules do so only in one syllable. If you insist
on memorizing words as if the english language were hieroglyphics than focus
on these word only. Teach 44 rules of phonics. (even the slowest learner
will only take about 2 years) Now the student can read every word in the
english language. Let's see, give 2 years for phonics rules (very liberal)
another year or even two to memorize a few words that don't fit the
phonetic rules, and presto, the vast majority of students will now be able
to read virtually any word in the english language. The child has just
finished fourth grade. Is this the case with whole-(whatever) teaching?
>
>Phonics works for some kids some of the time. Other methods work
>better for other kids at other times. In my experience, phonics
>is not the best way to begin teaching reading to highly
>intelligent kids.
But as I said above, I'll bet most of your gifted kids intuitively understand
phonics because they are gifted.
SINEQUAN0N
elg...@ucs.usl.edu (Green Eric L) writes:
:Sigh. I've seen that "research" (I've been an education grad
student,
:remember).
I've been...and still am....a graduate ed instructor in Language
Acquisition Theory.....
And that "knowledge". The "research" consists of case studies
:(i.e., pretty much useless), and the "knowledge" consists of the
:opinions of various "reading experts."
Interesting that you are so quick to dismiss as mere 'reading
experts' individuals like Noam Chomsky, Stephen Krashen, James
Cummins, and Tracy Terrell.....
:the "whole language" groupies....[...]....If you weren't so busy
:Believing in the Whole Language Religion, you'd see that the
cognitive
:theories underlying the whole religion are a bunch of bull,
:unsupported by any direct experimental research and primarily
:propogated as a matter of faith.
You know, I don't even want to spend the time responding to your post
in terms of countering your opinions with mine (as it were)..
I just think it's really so interesting how emotional and defensive
and kind of vindictive and accusatory you become when faced with a
body of knowledge and people who have considered that knowledge and
allowed it to inform or drive their educational philosophy....
David L. Hanson
traditional phonics is using the word lists (in the order presented) in the
back of Why Johnny Can't Read. In the Fall 1993 issue of Practical
Home Schooling magazine, Alphaphonics is rated as the best of 8 phonics
programs reviewed. The best multimedia phonics program was Sing, Spell
Read & Write.
Hooked on Phonics was rated extremely low. The author starts out
the review of Hooked on Phonics with "This program is a disaster. A
disgrace. Oh, yes, it's widely advertised. But it does NOT do the job of
teaching phonics to children - or adults, for that matter."
Sources and prices for the two top rated traditional phonics programs:
Sing. Spell, Read and Write $150 (for ages 5-8)
International Learning Systems
1-800-321-TEACH
AlphaPhonics $28 (for ages 6 to adult)
Paradigm Co.
P.O.Box 45161
Boise, ID 83711
1-208-343-3790
I am not connected any way with either of these companies. We used the
word lists in the back of Why Johnny Can't Read to teach our sons (now 11
and 13) to read when they were 5 years old. They are both excellent readers.
Jeannie Eller's address and phone:
Jeannie Eller
POBox 4944
Cave Creek, AZ 85331
1-800-READ593
=======================================================
Overall Ratings of Regular Phonics Programs from 1993 Fall Practical
Homeschooling magazine:
name age rating cost phone number
============ ====== ====== ======= ==================
AlphaPhonics 6-adult 5 $24.95 1-208-343-3790
Ball-Stick-Bird 2-8 4 $155.05 1-516-331-9164
Easy Reading Kit 5-12 2 $19.95
Gift of Reading 6-12 3.5 $55 1-210-828-5179
Literacy Primer 7-12 3 $38.50 1-407-668-1232
Phonics for
Reading&Spelling 6-12 3 $49.95 1-214-681-1728
Teach Yr. Child 5-8 1 $18
Total Reading 6-13 4 $130
Overall Ratings of Multimedia Phonics Programs:
Name age rating cost phone
=============== ==== ======== ===== =====================
Sing,Spell, Read 5-8 5 $150 1-800-321-TEACH
&Write
Play 'N Talk 5-8 4.5 $250 1-800-472-7525
Hooked on Phonics Adult * $199.95 1-800-ABC-DEFG
Miss Mary's
SuperPhonics 5-8 3 $149.95 1-800-765-5511
Home Run Reading 5-8 4 $129.95 1-800-292-1357
Notes:
Ratings explanation-
5 - Near perfection
4 - Superior
3 - Good
2 - Fair
1 - Poor
* - Not Recommended
Cost does not include shipping.
==================================================================
"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God ..."
Don_Pettengill
: Interesting that you are so quick to dismiss as mere 'reading
: experts' individuals like Noam Chomsky, Stephen Krashen, James
: Cummins, and Tracy Terrell.....
I don't know any of these people - well, I've heard of Chomsky and read
some. And I'm no education expert. I would not presume to tell anyone
how to teach kids to read. Neither, however, would I have much faith in
teaching theory as espoused by college professors and others who have
rarely - if ever - seen the inside of an elementary classroom. I would
warrant that a few months working with and observing an expert teacher,
will shed more light on the whole topic of reading instruction, than a
decade of hot air from the ivory towers of academe.
: I just think it's really so interesting how emotional and defensive
: and kind of vindictive and accusatory you become when faced with a
: body of knowledge and people who have considered that knowledge and
: allowed it to inform or drive their educational philosophy....
We're not talking about philosophy here; we're talking about the most
effective way to teach an essential skill to our children.
Chomsky, indeed - how many kids has *he* taught to read? Any thinking
person should rightfully be very sceptical of claims of superior
knowledge from those who have spent none of their lives doing, and all
of them telling.
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach,
teach in teacher training college". Or so goes the old saying. Not
fair to master teachers, surely; but more than fair to many teachers,
and perhaps even generous to the majority of those in the schools of
education.
As for Chomsky, I am open to correction, in the event that someone has
knowledge of the good work he has been doing with the illiterati, over
the years :-)
regards,
donp
--
________________________________________________________________________
Don Pettengill E-mail: do...@hpcvitf.cv.hp.com
Hewlett Packard IJBU, 3U-R3 Telephone: (503)750-5369
1040 North Circle Boulevard Fax: (503)750-3306
Corvallis, Oregon 97330-4200
________________________________________________________________________
Alberto Moreira
>In article <1994Jun30....@kpc.com> a...@kpc.com (Alberto Moreira) writes:
>>In article <2uuh3d$j...@search01.news.aol.com> sineq...@aol.com (SINEQUAN0N) writes:
>>>In article <Cs60...@ncifcrf.gov>, drum...@ncifcrf.gov (James
>>>Drummond) writes:
>>>
>Alberto, you shouldn't do this. Are you a certified teacher? I certainly
>hope so. Only professionals can teach people to read. Don't you know this
Pity this got here garbled somehow. What you mean by certified ?
Bureaucracy-validated ?
>That was a little satire for the humor-impaired!
>We are currently teaching our almost 4yr old to read, because he asked us to.
>When he gets the urge to learn a new phonics rule we teach it to him. He
>usually picks it up on the first or second attempt. Each attempt usually lasts
>about 5 minutes. He can read and UNDERSTAND just about any three letter word
>in the english language, without any pictures even!!!!
Good for you, keep the good work. There's no teacher like one's
own parents.
_alberto_
Henry Demone
teachers who were VERY committed to whole language. My wife and I ere very concerned
but took a wait and see approach. Frankly, she learned to read well and quickly. On the
other hand our second child, a boy, who is equally bright has ALOT of difficulty with
whole language. He just didn't get it. My wife got an after school tutor who stressed
phonics. He learned quickly, and today reads just as well as his sister at that age.
My observation is that children learn differently, and there is no "right answer" that
applies to everyone. If the teacher can recognize the different learning styles and is
not dogmatic, that would be the best. However that seems to be too much to ask and
the parents have to see what is best for their child.
Regards,
SINEQUAN0N
(Don_Pettengill) writes:
::Neither, however, would I have much faith in
::teaching theory as espoused by college professors and others who
have
::rarely - if ever - seen the inside of an elementary classroom
FYI Don, in addition to teaching Grad Ed Language Acquisition Theory,
I have 10+ years of experience with my day job, which happens to be
teaching literacy and numeracy skills to Limited English Proficient
students in urban Los Angeles.......As well as 4 years experience
teaching English As A Second Language to adults who are, in many
instances, illiterate in their primary language as well as English.
So you needn't be labeling my thoughts and opinions as mere
::hot air from the ivory towers of academe.
as I do know whereof I speak.
PS If you dont know who Stephen Krashen, James Cummins, and Tracy
Terrell are, than I think your opinion on the phonics/whole language
debate could use a little informing....
Green Eric L
:Sigh. I've seen that "research" (I've been an education grad
student,
:remember).
I've been...and still am....a graduate ed instructor in Language
Acquisition Theory.....
Yup. Does that mean you have a vested interest in some particular
language acquisition theory? I certainly don't.
Interesting that you are so quick to dismiss as mere 'reading
experts' individuals like Noam Chomsky, Stephen Krashen, James
Cummins, and Tracy Terrell.....
Good names all. Only one I've actually read (vs. read about) is
Noam Chomsky. Interesting theories, interesting data, but you can
draw far different conclusions from the data by coming at it from
a different direction. If you're willing to get a little "radical" with
behaviorist theory you can pretty much snatch it all and have it
fit snug as a bug in the rug.
I just think it's really so interesting how emotional and defensive
and kind of vindictive and accusatory you become when faced with a
body of knowledge and people who have considered that knowledge and
allowed it to inform or drive their educational philosophy....
I think we know far less than we think we do, and if we allow pure
theory rather than empirical comparitive research to run our
educational establishments, we run the risk of having an incomplete or
just plain WRONG theory cripple a generation of children. I think we've
already seen much of that happen with the ongoing cycles of educational
fads each fueled by its own "body of knowledge" which purports to be
the truth. What has happened is that far too many children have been
recieving an education which is inconsistent from year to year (e.g.
whole word in 1st and 2nd grade, phonics in 3rd grade, whole language
in 4th grade, back to "traditional" basals in 5th grade ...), and
far too many children have not had their needs met because a particular
ideology ruled out the techniques that would work with those particular
children. Ideally I'd like to see teachers using a lot of the activities
of "whole language"... and a lot of the activities of "traditional phonics"
and "language experience" and "direct instruction" and "sight word
acquisition" and everything else they can toss into their tool bag.
Let what is effective float to the top. A pragmatic approach is the only
real choice when we know less than we think we do.
Bottom line: when ideology wins, children lose.
Melinda Meahan
David L. Hanson <dlha...@amoco.com> wrote:
>The least expensive way and least fancy way to teach a child
>traditional phonics is using the word lists (in the order presented) in the
>back of Why Johnny Can't Read. In the Fall 1993 issue of Practical
I am currently using those Hegge-Kirk phonics drills as spelling
lessons for my daughter. Her spelling is improving. The book
was in our library, and I <whispering> copied off the drills because
we couldn't keep the book long enough for her to go through them.
(Actually, I think this does fall within fair use guidelines according
to the Chicago Manual of Style, because the book is no longer in print.)
>programs reviewed. The best multimedia phonics program was Sing, Spell
>Read & Write.
We used SSR&W and were very pleased with it, although I dropped their
handwriting in favor of BJU precursive, using the same words that
SSR&W has you use.
>Sing. Spell, Read and Write $150 (for ages 5-8)
They also have a program for preteens and up called "Winning!"
using the same method, but they have more appealing-to-older-
people tunes. They also have a section in the program where you
learn to fill out job applications, and other useful things
like that.
>AlphaPhonics $28 (for ages 6 to adult)
I also own a copy of Alphaphonics. I used it as a very slow
paced method with my 4-year-old who taught himself how to read,
needed the daily practice, but wasn't ready for the intensive
writing of SSR&W. Although I have to admit that the handwriting
exercises in SSR&W certainly seemed to reinforce the lessons each
day.
>I am not connected any way with either of these companies. We used the
Neither am I, other than having purchased and/or used their materials
with good success.
>Overall Ratings of Regular Phonics Programs from 1993 Fall Practical
>Homeschooling magazine:
I'm glad to see that they didn't put Writing Road to Reading on it.
I have heard from everybody who uses it that it is the most boring
thing they have ever had to use.
Green Eric L
> A strong emphasis is being placed on the whole language approach
> because it tackles many goals at once. For those students with
> of grammatical structures, vocabulary, opposites, etc., as well as
> reading. It is not a plan it is a theory.
I think you just hit on a major problem: LANGUAGE DIFFICULTIES. In my
opinion, it is useless to attempt to teach a child to read if he has
difficulty forming complete sentences and does not understand complete
sentences that he hears. Children with seriously limited vocabularies
have similar difficulties. In both cases, we need serious intervention
before we attempt instruction. I suspect that most of the problems of
our inner city schools stem from these difficulties... how on earth
can you expect a child to understand what he reads if he doesn't even
know the language that he's reading? It'd be like me phonetically
reading a Spanish tome -- yeah, I can sound out Spanish just fine, but
what does it say? I have only the foggiest notion. My total Spanish
vocabulary is a couple hundred words, and my knowledge of Spanish
grammar is mostly limited to the present tense.
I have rarely had difficulty teaching a child how to sound out words.
Teaching reading comprehension, however, is a different story. Many
kids don't understand the story when you read it TO them, much less
when they "read" it themselves. Many inner city 1st graders are
reaching school nowdays with a vocabulary of a couple hundred words
and grammar mostly limited to present tense sentence fragmants... it
peeves me that teachers are blamed for inability to teach these kids
complex subject matter, when these kids don't even know the language!
The point, I guess, is that the "language" part of the phrase "whole
language" is very important, even if the way many "whole language"
teachers attempt to teach reading is clearly ineffective. Decoding
skills are easily taught in a systematic manner and SHOULD be taught
in a systematic manner. That doesn't address the issue of comprehension,
of course -- but to a great extent comprehension depends on language
skills, not on reading skills. If you can understand something when you
hear it, usually you can understand something when you read it. Many
of the activities of "whole language" ARE useful for improving children's
language skills... but we shouldn't thus toss out systematic decoding
instruction too.
A L Woulf
Eric, I can believe that you have had a fair amount of success in teaching
children how to read because you are willing to put in the extra time and
effort to try to make sure it happens, but there are several
misconceptions here that are going to get in your way.
*All* children who can understand spoken language can also learn to
read. And *all* children who can hear can also be taught to decode a
phonetic language phonetically. However, children vary greatly in their
ability to learn to decode and comprehend generally and in their ability
to learn phonetic decoding particularly.
The more a classroom teacher learns about individual differences and how
to cope with them, the better a job he is going to do especially when it
comes to reading instruction. A child's *intelligence* has little or
nothing to do with how easily he learns phonetic decoding. I have seen
mentally handicapped children who learned to do it very well and gifted
children who couldn't do it at all.
Comprehension is a problem for many children. But there are a
number of different causes of poor comprehension and they need to be
dealt with differently. Children who are inaccurate lose meaning
because they misread key words, e.g. skipping a word like *not*.
Children who have not learned to recognize enough words by sight will
have difficulty because they have to invest so much time and effort puzzling
out the words. Some children can decode quickly and easily, but have
never learned to think and decode at the same time, i.e. they can
understand when read to and you can understand what they read to
you, but they cannot understand when they read to themselves. And as
you observed, children who do not know the meaning of the words
are unlikely to understand the passage even if they decode it correctly.
It would be nice if language impaired children could have the problem
fixed before they were asked to learn to read, *but there are no
resources to do this with*. ESL and Special Ed are in even worse shape
than mainstream public education. What you overlook is the possibility
that learning to read can help fix the the children's language problems.
If children cannot understand the materials they are being asked to read
then they must be given reading materials they can understand. Ask the
children to dictate and then have them to read what you write down.
Expand their vocabularies by teaching them the words for things important
to them. Teach them to write their own sentences with the words they
have learned. And have the children share and read each others work.
No classroom teacher should be expected to do all this by himself.
Disadvantaged children need individual help from adult volunteers. Ask
for volunteers and learn to use them effectively. If your district does
not have a classroom volunteer program, then let me know by e-mail
and I will help you try to start one.
(Al) wo...@crl.com
James Drummond
>In article <94181.0952...@MIAMIU.BITNET> <LBGL...@MIAMIU.BITNET> writes:
>
>I have rarely had difficulty teaching a child how to sound out words.
>Teaching reading comprehension, however, is a different story. Many
Yes, this seemes to be what most people are finding hard to grasp
Phonics has nothing to do with comprehension. It is strictly for decoding
the written word back into speech. If your oral vocabulary is only
a few hundred words than all the memorized sight words in the world
are not going to help you. Neither is phonics. However, if your spoken
vocabulary is quite extensive, what would you rather do, learn 26 letters
of the alphabet plus 44 phonics rules, or memorize the one million words
in the english language?
[snip]>
>The point, I guess, is that the "language" part of the phrase "whole
>language" is very important, even if the way many "whole language"
>teachers attempt to teach reading is clearly ineffective. Decoding
>skills are easily taught in a systematic manner and SHOULD be taught
>in a systematic manner. That doesn't address the issue of comprehension,
>of course -- but to a great extent comprehension depends on language
>skills, not on reading skills. If you can understand something when you
>hear it, usually you can understand something when you read it. Many
>of the activities of "whole language" ARE useful for improving children's
>language skills... but we shouldn't thus toss out systematic decoding
>instruction too.
Absolutely!
A L Woulf
: I'd like some input from parents and teachers concerning the use of phonics
: schools. I have a child who is having trouble with the school's largely whole
: language approach (we are assured they teach phonics too, but there is little
: evidence that it is very much of a priority.
No, it isn't much of a priority. The phonics (when they are taught) are
presented as a separate subject, which has little or no connection with
actual READING. The whole language texts -- Houghton Mifflin are the key
ones used in California -- use works which are OF INTEREST to a
particular age level, but not necessarily written at that LEVEL. For
example, when our children were young, we read them Stuart Little and The
Magic Tollbooth. They enjoyed both books. However, asking them to read
the books ON THEIR OWN would have been impossible.
We have found (from reading students we work with) that what happens is
that the students who can memorize easily do fairly well. A lot of
students, however, quickly "plateau" on sight words and cannot learn new
ones because they have no tools of word attack skills. So we see 6th and
7th graders whose sight word vocabulary is down at 4th grade level.
As you know, educational "theories" go in cycles. Right now, we are in
the middle of a "whole language" swing of the pendulum. There are signs
that the cycle might be reaching an apogee. Recently, the State of
California had to send out a memo to school districts assuring them that
phonics IS an important and intrinsic part of reading instruction --
apparently teachers had been so earnestly teaching "whole language" that
phonics were ignored and parents were complaining.
I think one of the problems is that phonics can be overdone to the point
of making reading simply a decoding exercise, and the whole language
philosophy was in response to this.
Connie Woulf
wo...@crl.com
Herman Rubin
>bea...@mbi.org wrote:
>: I'd like some input from parents and teachers concerning the use of phonics
>: vs. whole language teaching methods for reading education in early elementary
>: schools. I have a child who is having trouble with the school's largely whole
>: language approach (we are assured they teach phonics too, but there is little
>: evidence that it is very much of a priority.
>
>No, it isn't much of a priority. The phonics (when they are taught) are
>presented as a separate subject, which has little or no connection with
>actual READING. The whole language texts -- Houghton Mifflin are the key
>ones used in California -- use works which are OF INTEREST to a
>particular age level, but not necessarily written at that LEVEL. For
>example, when our children were young, we read them Stuart Little and The
>Magic Tollbooth. They enjoyed both books. However, asking them to read
>the books ON THEIR OWN would have been impossible.
The phonics books I have seen, and which were used to teach our children,
had reading in them; not only were the syllables taught, but they were
embedded in words. Also, one can use books like the above; with phonics,
the child gets to read such fairly quickly. It is only necessary to avoid
sesquipedalian words, and even not all of those.
>We have found (from reading students we work with) that what happens is
>that the students who can memorize easily do fairly well. A lot of
>students, however, quickly "plateau" on sight words and cannot learn new
>ones because they have no tools of word attack skills. So we see 6th and
>7th graders whose sight word vocabulary is down at 4th grade level.
>
>As you know, educational "theories" go in cycles. Right now, we are in
>the middle of a "whole language" swing of the pendulum. There are signs
>that the cycle might be reaching an apogee. Recently, the State of
>California had to send out a memo to school districts assuring them that
>phonics IS an important and intrinsic part of reading instruction --
>apparently teachers had been so earnestly teaching "whole language" that
>phonics were ignored and parents were complaining.
There has been NO major use of phonics since the change came about 1940.
Children can go quickly from even initial phonics to read many of the words
in the books which have been read to them, and from a moderate involvement,
to the point where they will ask about words which do not fit the rules
they have learned.
>I think one of the problems is that phonics can be overdone to the point
>of making reading simply a decoding exercise, and the whole language
>philosophy was in response to this.
If one teaches language, there is, of course, more. There is grammatical
structure, which it seems children pick up around the age of three.
This greatly increases vocabulary, by a FACTOR of around three or four.
This bent on looking for similarity of structure can be greatly
encouraged, or can be highly suppressed.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hru...@stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
Green Eric L
*All* children who can understand spoken language can also learn to
read.
Agreed.
And *all* children who can hear can also be taught to decode a
phonetic language phonetically.
Also agreed.
However, children vary greatly in their
ability to learn to decode and comprehend generally and in their ability
to learn phonetic decoding particularly.
To a certain extent agreed, but only to a certain extent. Some kids
seem to be "naturals", and a very few kids have trouble with what I
call "ear training", i.e., they don't hear the sounds that letters
make in words. There's been a little bit of research in that area
(e.g. the Lindamoods), but little of it reaches classroom teachers or
special ed teachers, and none of it has been turned into a viable
classroom program for overworked teachers. For the rest, some form of
systematic decoding instruction (including phonics) seems to work quite
well.
comes to reading instruction. A child's *intelligence* has little or
nothing to do with how easily he learns phonetic decoding. I have seen
True. I worked with a quite gifted young man once, large vocabulary,
quick on the ball, who simply couldn't get the hang of this "letter
sounds" stuff. On the other hand, attempting to teach him via the
whole word method just wasn't working. He only managed to get to about
mid 2nd grade level that way. Even common words often tripped him up.
He couldn't remember them when he saw them, even if he'd correctly
read them just a few minutes before. He was always asking me how to
spell "was", for example.
Comprehension is a problem for many children. But there are a
True. But in my experience most teachers know what needs to be done to
foster comprehension. Standard primer-based reading programs generally
include a wide variety of comprehension activities of varying utility.
Of course, if a kid can't decode, comprehension instruction isn't
going to get much result :-(.
It would be nice if language impaired children could have the problem
fixed before they were asked to learn to read, *but there are no
resources to do this with*.
I suggest that there ARE resources to do this, but they aren't being
moved into the school environment. For example, one school in
inner-city Houston obtained good results with DISTAR in the early
grades back in the early '80s. Administrations changed, and suddenly
they could not get any monies to buy DISTAR materials. Instead, they
were forced to use a reading program aimed at middle class kids, a
reading program adopted because of the district reading supervisor's
particular philosophy (which was a relative of "whole language", I
forget what it was now). Reading scores plumetted. Finally local
control of schooling was implemented, and the school was allowed to
buy their own materials rather than have outsiders force materials on
them. They bought two different reading programs which complement each
other perfectly -- DISTAR, and a program by I think it was
Houghton/Mifflen which emphasized children's literature and language
experience. DISTAR is extremely structured phonics decoding
instruction, while the children's literature part let the kids use
those skills on "real" books in an interesting way while learning
comprehension strategies in the process.
If children cannot understand the materials they are being asked to read
then they must be given reading materials they can understand. Ask the
children to dictate and then have them to read what you write down.
Expand their vocabularies by teaching them the words for things important
to them. Teach them to write their own sentences with the words they
have learned.
I've done all of this. It works -- for kids with minor language difficulties.
Other kids really need what amounts to an extended kindergarten experience.
No classroom teacher should be expected to do all this by himself.
Disadvantaged children need individual help from adult volunteers. Ask
for volunteers and learn to use them effectively. If your district does
not have a classroom volunteer program, then let me know by e-mail
and I will help you try to start one.
I teach high school math nowdays, though I once taught a
self-contained behavior classroom (special ed). I still spend a fair
amount of time volunteering outside the schools though. With one local
program for first-time juvenile offenders, part of their sentence is
that they come for tutoring. I'm currently teaching three children how
to read in that program, including one 6th grader who cannot read even
pre-primer materials. So I'm starting with scratch with him. All of
these kids, however, have no difficulty "hearing" sounds and have
fairly normal language and intelligence. In my opinion, it's only a
matter of time... for the most part, these kids can't read because a)
often their reading instruction was poor-quality, b) when they had
their initial contact with reading instruction, they did not have the
vocabulary or general maturity to benefit from it, and c) for most of
them, their behavior meant they spent more time in the office than in
the classroom. Can't learn much in the office.
Part of the solution, then, has to also be a new approach to managing
classroom behavior that'll keep them on task and working hard. There
do exist systematic approaches for teaching that are useful here --
e.g., younger kids love the positive reinforcement approach used in
DISTAR, with all the clapping and shouting. The problem is that little
of what we know about behavior management of children has been
packaged into something of use to teachers. About the only exception
is "Assertive Discipline", but in my opinion "Assertive Discipline"
is rather mediocre... the only good point of the program is that it is
pre-packaged in a way that makes it easy for teachers to use.
To summarize:
1) Systematic instruction in decoding is worthwhile for the majority
of children (i.e. children who are neither gifted nor seriously language-
handicapped).
2) Effective reading instruction includes a variety of resources,
activities, and techniques.
3) Many times school districts spend all their money on one "secret
weapon" rather than allowing individual schools and teachers to obtain
the materials of most use to their particular situation, resulting
in what APPEARS to be a "lack of resources",
4) Some children would benefit from time to gain language and real-life
experience prior to trying to teach them how to read,
5) We need new techniques for dealing with "problem" children,
techniques which do not interfere with the child's education while
preserving the rights of other children.
Lizabeth Larson-Shidler
professor (Dr. Michael Newman) and the text we are using (CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE
AND LEARNING, Second Edition, by Judith Wells Lindfors, Prentice-Hall
Publishers), phonics is the worst way to teach reading. Some of their points
(very abbreviated):
1. Children learn spoken language basically by being immersed in it. They
also are born with an innate propensity for language (Noam Chomsky' Language
Acquisition Device, or LAD) and will spontaneously learn language when
socialization is available (deaf children will use a type of sign language,
even when not exposed to ASL). Since written language is language (just the
form of it is different), it should be taught in immersion (again, how can the
deaf learn to read when phonics are meaningless to them without language
immersion?).
2. Many children find that learning language is neither appealing nor
fun when they are learning meaningless (to them) sounds combinations and rules
of grammar. This is also supported by child development psychologists such as
Piaget who believe that abstract thought (formal operational stage) occurs from
roughly the age of 7 or 8 until about age 11 to 13.
3. Children who show the following behaviors are in the process of teaching
themselves reading through whole language: "reading" books themselves (my
daughter picks up books and tells me she will "read" them to me), "writing"
letters (ask a child to write versus draw and they produce different looking
symbols).
While these are obviously gross simplifications, I thought they were
interesting and I would like to see more. I am only familiar with phonics by
which my brother learned and I later learned, but I was a spontaneous reader
and cannot remember "learning" to read--only that it occurred before I was in
school.
Another thing that seems evident is that these views tie in with other
currently popular studies that kids who are read to learn to read first and
more often become life-long readers.
If anyone has other experiences (I start in the classroom later in the program
and will not probably teach K-2), I would love to hear them.
YMMV on this as with everything.
Liz
Don_Pettengill
: I am a graduate student in elementary education and according to my linguistics
: professor (Dr. Michael Newman) and the text we are using (CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE
: AND LEARNING, Second Edition, by Judith Wells Lindfors, Prentice-Hall
: Publishers), phonics is the worst way to teach reading. Some of their points
: (very abbreviated):
<theoretical points unquoted for brevity>
The essence of a scientific method lies in the early and frequent
verification of hypotheses by experimental results. Now, a few thousand
years ago, the Greeks had many and varied hypotheses regarding, for
example, gravity, or fire, or astronomy. So eminent were the proponents
of these notions of "how things worked", that no one dared to question
the basic ideas for many centuries.
The points you quoted sound attractive. Chomsky for sure is "eminent".
So perhaps those theories should be taken seriously. But here, the
schools of education go off the track completely, by asserting that they
now know what is the "best" way to teach reading, without waiting first
for well-controlled studies that show their claims to be true. As far
as I know, *there aren't any*. And if there are, why are not
whole-language advocates flooding this news string with verifiable data?
That is why, when we are all talking "whole language vs phonics vs
<wahetever>", all we ever seem to do is talk in circles: there is no
believeable data to support any of the claims made. All we have to go
on are bald assertions and various personal experiences.
According to most of the teachers who post here, there is no single
"right" way to teach anything, let alone something as fundamental as
reading. Although teachers have neither the time nor the resources to
conduct well-controlled "studies", perhaps we would be far better off
listening to them in this matter. It is undeniable that both "whole
language" and "phonics" work very well for some children, and poorly for
others; at least, that is what the personal experiences of posters seem
to indicate. It is also very likely, in my experience, that for many
children, a gifted teacher will do well with either approach.
What, then is the fuss about "phonics" really about? It is about the
way in which educrats are ramming particular reading methodologies down
teachers' and parents' throats, without any objective data showing
benefit to the children affected, and without permitting diversity of
methods according to the needs of individual children, and the personal
skills and preferences of the teachers.
Any engineer or scientist who operated in such a way, would not last
long. He or she would be an object of professional ridicule in very
short order; but the educational establishment has the advantage that
they control also the flow of information on the efficacy of teaching
methods - and they simply bury the dead bodies of failed theories, or
stop collecting data in ways which might show them to be wrong in any
manner. There is no equivalent of the single catastrophic event, such
as an airplane going down, that highlights failures in an unambiguous
way. The establishment goes to great lengths to avoid objective
measurement of the results of their efforts; that is why, for example,
we don't use foreign science and math tests, despite the fact the these
subjects vary little with national origin :-)
I am extremely suspicious of any establishment that appears unwilling to
allow its performance to be measured. Others have noticed that such
unwillingness is evident in many schools and school districts; and
recently a posting here indicated that some state departments of
education will not release test results for schools and school
districts, absent extraordinary coercion.
Based on the above, my first instinct is to ignore the educrats on this
issue. Find a good teacher and work with him or her on the child's
reading; and/or see for myself what works best with my child. I see no
reason why commercial "phonics" kits should not be tried, and if they
seem to work well, then why not? Avoid teachers/schools/districts that
seem intent on "doing it *their* way", when that way appears not to work
with your particular child. And, finally, never assume that "the
experts know best". Sometimes they do; and sometimes they don't.
James Drummond
>I am a graduate student in elementary education and according to my linguistics
>professor (Dr. Michael Newman) and the text we are using (CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE
>AND LEARNING, Second Edition, by Judith Wells Lindfors, Prentice-Hall
>Publishers), phonics is the worst way to teach reading. Some of their points
>(very abbreviated):
> 1. Children learn spoken language basically by being immersed in it. They
>also are born with an innate propensity for language (Noam Chomsky' Language
>Acquisition Device, or LAD) and will spontaneously learn language when
>socialization is available (deaf children will use a type of sign language,
>even when not exposed to ASL). Since written language is language (just the
>form of it is different), it should be taught in immersion (again, how can the
>deaf learn to read when phonics are meaningless to them without language
>immersion?).
No one should say that one must learn phonics to learn to read. If they did
they would be ignoring the evidence of deaf children reading. The point is that
phonics is an extremely useful tool. Why deny this to children. I will say
again to you, you probably understand phonics whether you were explicitly or
implicitly taught the rules of phonics. I say why take a chance that a child
will figure it out on their own. Just teach it to them!!!
As for Noam Chomsky, I have only read a few exerpts from his books. He seems
like a really smart guy. I have a question though. If english is not phonetic
why do we use letters?
> 2. Many children find that learning language is neither appealing nor
>fun when they are learning meaningless (to them) sounds combinations and rules
>of grammar.
Granted that things that are "fun and appealing" are easier to learn, but come
on. Most phonics lessons take about 15 minutes a day. Yes it is dull drill, and I know this is not fashionable anymore, but it is sooooooo useful. Can't we
make the kids sit still for 15 minutes while we teach them something useful
Then they can go back to all the fun and appealing stuff!
>This is also supported by child development psychologists such as
>Piaget who believe that abstract thought (formal operational stage) occurs from
>roughly the age of 7 or 8 until about age 11 to 13.
> 3. Children who show the following behaviors are in the process of teaching
>themselves reading through whole language: "reading" books themselves (my
>daughter picks up books and tells me she will "read" them to me), "writing"
>letters (ask a child to write versus draw and they produce different looking
>symbols).
>
>While these are obviously gross simplifications, I thought they were
>interesting and I would like to see more. I am only familiar with phonics by
>which my brother learned and I later learned, but I was a spontaneous reader
>and cannot remember "learning" to read--only that it occurred before I was in
>school.
Again, phonics just makes it easier for most people to learn to read.
Why should we limit them to everything but phonics, which is apparently
what is going on in schools these days. Just ask your typical underachiever
how to sound a word they have not seen.
>
>Another thing that seems evident is that these views tie in with other
>currently popular studies that kids who are read to learn to read first and
>more often become life-long readers.
>
>If anyone has other experiences (I start in the classroom later in the program
>and will not probably teach K-2), I would love to hear them.
>
>YMMV on this as with everything.
>Liz
James Drummond
Herman Rubin
>professor (Dr. Michael Newman) and the text we are using (CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE
>AND LEARNING, Second Edition, by Judith Wells Lindfors, Prentice-Hall
>Publishers), phonics is the worst way to teach reading. Some of their points
>(very abbreviated):
> 1. Children learn spoken language basically by being immersed in it. They
>also are born with an innate propensity for language (Noam Chomsky' Language
>Acquisition Device, or LAD) and will spontaneously learn language when
>socialization is available (deaf children will use a type of sign language,
>even when not exposed to ASL). Since written language is language (just the
>form of it is different), it should be taught in immersion (again, how can the
>deaf learn to read when phonics are meaningless to them without language
>immersion?).
Children learn language the way they do because there is no other way.
This does not necessarily mean that it is a good way to learn language.
Also, it is now known that children learn grammar early.
The idea that an aspect of language can only be learned by immersion
means that years can be required to teach what can be learned in days.
BTW, one of the things which Alexander Graham Bell did was to develop
a method of writing sounds so that a deaf person could look at the
symbols and know what physical actions to take to produce the sounds.
This seems to be the total opposite of the immersion approach. This
was his profession; teacher of the deaf.
> 2. Many children find that learning language is neither appealing nor
>fun when they are learning meaningless (to them) sounds combinations and rules
>of grammar. This is also supported by child development psychologists such as
>Piaget who believe that abstract thought (formal operational stage) occurs from
>roughly the age of 7 or 8 until about age 11 to 13.
As I have stated before, I would much prefer to teach the fundamental
abstract ideas in mathematics to kindergarteners or first graders.
The notion of variable is particularly easy to learn at that stage.
It seems difficult to teach it to adults, including teachers of high
school algebra, who are supposed to teach it to their students.
Abstract structure is no different from the formal rules of a game.
An abstract structure is NOT the abstraction of examples, but is
usually something quite simple and logical, especially if this type
of mental outlook is learned early.
> 3. Children who show the following behaviors are in the process of teaching
>themselves reading through whole language: "reading" books themselves (my
>daughter picks up books and tells me she will "read" them to me), "writing"
>letters (ask a child to write versus draw and they produce different looking
>symbols).
>
>While these are obviously gross simplifications, I thought they were
>interesting and I would like to see more. I am only familiar with phonics by
>which my brother learned and I later learned, but I was a spontaneous reader
>and cannot remember "learning" to read--only that it occurred before I was in
>school.
>
>Another thing that seems evident is that these views tie in with other
>currently popular studies that kids who are read to learn to read first and
>more often become life-long readers.
>
>If anyone has other experiences (I start in the classroom later in the program
>and will not probably teach K-2), I would love to hear them.
We taught our children to read with phonics BEFORE the schools could do
their damage. Our son was reading adult material before starting school.
Our daughter was not so quick, but she was a full reader before starting
school. Learning to read by phonics does not mean that only syllables
are to be read.
bea...@mbi.org
week ago. I have been collecting the newsgroup and Email responses and hope
to collate soon. All of the views have been very informative (on both sides).
I have chosen to include Don P.'s contribution because I feel it is closest
to my own opinion. I too am a scientist who deals in objective proof. Just
because a theory is sound and consistent with itself does not necessarily mean
that it is correct-Especially when it comes to the behavior of human beings.
My three oldest children will be entering 4th, 3rd, and 1st grade in the fall.
The 4th grader was a spontaneous reader in kindergarten, the 3rd grader is
still struggling, the 1st grader will (I think) become a more or less
spontaneous reader very soon (readily identifies sounds/letters, etc.). It
was in reference to our 3rd grader that I wrote my original post. We will
soon be starting a phonics program at home (probably Alphaphonics, we have
friends who home school). This has been difficult for my wife and me because
we were both natural readers. He is a very bright boy (something of a math
whiz) but his brain seems wired differently than the rest of us. He has a
very competitive nature and would prefer not to play a game he can't master
quickly which has been part of his reading difficulty. I hope that phonics
gives him an opportunity to feel he is gaining mastery over reading so that he
will strongly desire to play the wonderful game of reading!
I was always one of the better students in class and everything came easy to
me. It took me a long time to realize that other's difficulties to pick
things up was not necessarily an indictment of stupidity. Some people grasp
things right away, some require lots of repetition to pick things up. I would
hope that educators come down off their theoretical horses and focus on
developing tools which can be emperically verified to work certain learning
styles. Hopefully, someday their will be a toolbox filled with tools, one
or more of which is appropriate for a particular child AND teachers who are
skilled and empowered to use the correct tools for each child.
Dan Beacom
Golda Bernstein
>
>I suggest that there ARE resources to do this, but they aren't being
>moved into the school environment. For example, one school in
>inner-city Houston obtained good results with DISTAR in the early
>grades back in the early '80s. Administrations changed, and suddenly
>they could not get any monies to buy DISTAR materials. Instead, they
>were forced to use a reading program aimed at middle class kids, a
>reading program adopted because of the district reading supervisor's
>particular philosophy (which was a relative of "whole language", I
>forget what it was now). Reading scores plumetted. Finally local
>control of schooling was implemented, and the school was allowed to
>buy their own materials rather than have outsiders force materials on
>them.
Hear, hear! That seems like a recurring theme in the recent articles
in this group, that too many schools & school districts are sticking
to a narrow educational philosophy at the expense of the kids.
In my (limited) experience, another instance of this philosophical stringency
that can really hurt kids is the insistence of teaching students at their
current grade level, regardless of their real skill level. So once Johnny
gets a bit behind, he is forever being taught two steps ahead of where he is,
making it extremely difficult for him to learn at all. Then by 8th or 9th
grade he is still at 2nd grade level in reading or math, NOT because he is
stupid but because he absolutely can't make headss or tails out of the 8th
grade material being put in front of him.
I've known really good teachers to say, "I know this kid needs 3rd-grade
math right now, but I could be fired for giving it to him in a 6th grade
classroom." Other teachers get defensive and try to "prove" the kid is on
the grade level where he is supposed to be, when obviously he is not. Later
on someone with an attitude like Mr Rubin of this newsgroup decides to assing
this kid to a program for mentally retarded, so that he won't "get in the way
of the brighter students", when actually all he needs is to be taught with
a good method at his level, and he can make several years progress very
quickly.
Has anyone else experienced this "double-whammy" of insisting that all students
be taught at their supposed grade level, then labelling them "stupid" if they
don't learn from such teaching?
>
[deleted stuff about some good reading instruction methods, such as having
the kids dictate stories and then read them]
>I've done all of this. It works -- for kids with minor language difficulties.
>Other kids really need what amounts to an extended kindergarten experience.
>
Amen! Do you have any brothers and sisters that also want to get into the
teaching business? We need more teachers - and administrators - like you.
>
>to read in that program, including one 6th grader who cannot read even
>pre-primer materials. So I'm starting with scratch with him. All of
>these kids, however, have no difficulty "hearing" sounds and have
>fairly normal language and intelligence. In my opinion, it's only a
>matter of time... for the most part, these kids can't read because a)
>often their reading instruction was poor-quality, b) when they had
>their initial contact with reading instruction, they did not have the
>vocabulary or general maturity to benefit from it, and c) for most of
>them, their behavior meant they spent more time in the office than in
>the classroom. Can't learn much in the office.
No, you can't - but with some kids, their "actin up" is partly in
response to an unmanageable classroom situation. I'm not trying
to excuse all disciplinary problems and I definitely don't want to
just "blame the teacher" - but if a kid is being taught by a method
or at a level that is wrong for him, he's going to be a lot more likely
to misbehave than if he could make sense out of what is going on.
So (a) and (b) lead to (c), which then continues the vicious cycle...
Note, a majority of our prison population can't read above the 5th-grade
level. Coincidence?
>
>Part of the solution, then, has to also be a new approach to managing
>classroom behavior that'll keep them on task and working hard. There
>do exist systematic approaches for teaching that are useful here --
>e.g., younger kids love the positive reinforcement approach used in
>DISTAR, with all the clapping and shouting. The problem is that little
Do you have the publisher info for DISTAR? I'd like to get a copy.
>
>To summarize:
> 1) Systematic instruction in decoding is worthwhile for the majority
>of children (i.e. children who are neither gifted nor seriously language-
>handicapped).
> 2) Effective reading instruction includes a variety of resources,
>activities, and techniques.
> 3) Many times school districts spend all their money on one "secret
>weapon" rather than allowing individual schools and teachers to obtain
>the materials of most use to their particular situation, resulting
>in what APPEARS to be a "lack of resources",
> 4) Some children would benefit from time to gain language and real-life
>experience prior to trying to teach them how to read,
> 5) We need new techniques for dealing with "problem" children,
>techniques which do not interfere with the child's education while
>preserving the rights of other children.
Does anyone know of good, effective & simple-to implement solutions for
some of these issues (i.e. DISTAR for #1, maybe some behavioral management
technique for #5..) I'd love to hear about solutions that work!
Golda Bernstein
Artisoft Support Engineering
602 690 3778
gbe...@artisoft.com
James Drummond
>I article <ELG9316.94...@c34.ucs.usl.edu> elg...@ucs.usl.edu (Green Eric L) writes:
>
>I've known really good teachers to say, "I know this kid needs 3rd-grade
>math right now, but I could be fired for giving it to him in a 6th grade
>classroom." Other teachers get defensive and try to "prove" the kid is on
>the grade level where he is supposed to be, when obviously he is not. Later
>on someone with an attitude like Mr Rubin of this newsgroup decides to assing
>this kid to a program for mentally retarded, so that he won't "get in the way
>of the brighter students", when actually all he needs is to be taught with
>a good method at his level, and he can make several years progress very
>quickly.
I am sure Herman Rubin doesn't need me to defend him, but I don't think this
is what he has been advocating. In fact he sounds to me like he is advocating
teaching kids (or anyone else) at their skill level and not grouping kids
into class because they are the same age. Perhaps he has not been as diplomatic
as you but I don't think Mr. Rubin would advocate calling kids stupid because
they can't keep up with the fastest kids in the class. What I would call stupid
is keeping the fastest and slowest kids in the same class so that neither gets
the time and attention that they deserve.
>
>Has anyone else experienced this "double-whammy" of insisting that all students
>be taught at their supposed grade level, then labelling them "stupid" if they
>don't learn from such teaching?
This question is amazing? Has any one experienced this "double-whammy". Just
ask anyone who went to public school. We all experienced it. It is mandated
by the school system. If you ask me the school system should adopt a motto of
"Once behind, forever behind, Once ahead, Forever held back" Thats how it
was when I was in school.
For all the ready to flame out there, I am making a generalization, as most
are inclined to do on this list. The sad part is that it is true far too often.
James Drummond
Drum...@Avpvx1.ncifcrf.gov
These are my opinions!
James Drummond
>My three oldest children will be entering 4th, 3rd, and 1st grade in the fall.
> The 4th grader was a spontaneous reader in kindergarten, the 3rd grader is
>still struggling, the 1st grader will (I think) become a more or less
>spontaneous reader very soon (readily identifies sounds/letters, etc.). It
>was in reference to our 3rd grader that I wrote my original post. We will
>soon be starting a phonics program at home (probably Alphaphonics, we have
>friends who home school). This has been difficult for my wife and me because
>we were both natural readers. He is a very bright boy (something of a math
>whiz) but his brain seems wired differently than the rest of us. He has a
>very competitive nature and would prefer not to play a game he can't master
>quickly which has been part of his reading difficulty. I hope that phonics
>gives him an opportunity to feel he is gaining mastery over reading so that he
>will strongly desire to play the wonderful game of reading!
>
Let us know in a few months or a year how your 3rd grader is doing. We have
the alphaphonics, but haven't used it yet. We have been using the phonics
lessons from the back of Why Johnny Can't Read, by Flesch, for our 4yr old.
He has made it through the short vowel sounds very quickly, but now his
interest is waning. Well he is only 4, I guess he can wait a little bit
before he learns to read the paper.
A L Woulf
: Let us know in a few months or a year how your 3rd grader is doing. We have
: the alphaphonics, but haven't used it yet. We have been using the phonics
: lessons from the back of Why Johnny Can't Read, by Flesch, for our 4yr old.
: He has made it through the short vowel sounds very quickly, but now his
: interest is waning. Well he is only 4, I guess he can wait a little bit
: before he learns to read the paper.
It is not a good idea to try to teach systematic phonics to a
pre-schooler for reasons that you are beginning to find out. If you want
to avoid having your son forget the rules he has already learned and
having him be left with the impression that phonics is useless tedium as
well, then I would suggest you get plenty of Dr. Seuss books like, "One
Fish, Two Fish"; "Go Dog Go" and "Hop on Pop". Such books are designed for
young children and contain lots of phonetically regular words.
Don't force the reading and always ask if he would like to read to you or
you to him. Or you can alternate if that is his preference. Sit so that
you can both see the book. If you are doing the reading then stop once
and a while and ask you son to "help" by reading a word he knows by sight.
If he has elected to do the reading, then ask him to stop whenever he
gets to a word he *doesn't* know by sight. If this is more than once or
twice a page then you are past the frustration level; get an easier book
or stick to doing the reading until your son has learned more sight words.
When your son comes to a word he doesn't know, ask him to sound it out if
he has learned the rules for that word. Otherwise give it to him. Be
prepared to help with the sounding out process and be supportive. Phonics
can be tough at any age, and young children are apt to give up very
quickly. What you are trying to do is to get him to experience success
and appreciate the value of phonics. You will know you have accomplished
this when you son *asks* to be taught more rules.
(Al) wo...@crl.com
Ben Moreland
: I am a graduate student in elementary education and according to my linguistics
: professor (Dr. Michael Newman) and the text we are using (CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE
: AND LEARNING, Second Edition, by Judith Wells Lindfors, Prentice-Hall
: Publishers), phonics is the worst way to teach reading. Some of their points
: (very abbreviated):
: 1. Children learn spoken language basically by being immersed in it. They
: also are born with an innate propensity for language (Noam Chomsky' Language
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: Acquisition Device, or LAD) and will spontaneously learn language when
: even when not exposed to ASL). Since written language is language (just the
: form of it is different), it should be taught in immersion (again, how can the
: deaf learn to read when phonics are meaningless to them without language
: immersion?).
: 2. Many children find that learning language is neither appealing nor
: fun when they are learning meaningless (to them) sounds combinations and rules
: of grammar. This is also supported by child development psychologists such as
: Piaget who believe that abstract thought (formal operational stage) occurs from
: roughly the age of 7 or 8 until about age 11 to 13.
: 3. Children who show the following behaviors are in the process of teaching
: themselves reading through whole language: "reading" books themselves (my
: daughter picks up books and tells me she will "read" them to me), "writing"
: letters (ask a child to write versus draw and they produce different looking
: symbols).
--
Beware your assumptions. That is one of the primary problems with many
people who blindly follow "emminent" scholars. For example, no one
"knows" exactly how children learn, and there is no defacto proof
that children are born with an innate language facility. There are theories
on how children learn, and these theories are _supported_ by research
studies, but not _proven_ by them. Children supposedly begin learning
language in utero, and it is very likely that most (all) language even
after birth is meaningless sounds at first. Maybe they aren't having
fun, which may explain the unexplainable crying babies exhibit -
this language learning stuff is too hard. ;-)
My only point here is your post makes statements that appear to be
given as fact, when they are only theories. We must all be aware of
the initial _assumptions_ we make as we build our models of the world.
My .02.
ben father to Limo (3.5 yo)
p.115
Lizabeth Larson-Shidler
>>Publishers), phonics is the worst way to teach reading. Some of their points
>>(very abbreviated):
>> 1. Children learn spoken language basically by being immersed in it. The
y
>>also are born with an innate propensity for language (Noam Chomsky' Language
>>Acquisition Device, or LAD) and will spontaneously learn language when
>>socialization is available (deaf children will use a type of sign language,
>>even when not exposed to ASL). Since written language is language (just the
>>form of it is different), it should be taught in immersion (again, how can th
e
>>deaf learn to read when phonics are meaningless to them without language
>>immersion?).
>
>No one should say that one must learn phonics to learn to read. If they did
>they would be ignoring the evidence of deaf children reading. The point is th
at
>phonics is an extremely useful tool. Why deny this to children. I will say
>again to you, you probably understand phonics whether you were explicitly or
>implicitly taught the rules of phonics. I say why take a chance that a child
>will figure it out on their own. Just teach it to them!!!
>
>As for Noam Chomsky, I have only read a few exerpts from his books. He seems
>like a really smart guy. I have a question though. If english is not phonetic
>why do we use letters?
He has addressed that. Look at the following words: chef, choir, chose. We
spell not phonetically (says Chomsky), but based on the original language. The
word chef is French in origin. Ch is pronounced sh in France. Choir has its
roots in Greek. Ch is pronounced K in Greece (think of the Greek alphabet).
Chose is Germanic/Old English where ch is tch. The cases go on. Think about
the s sound in pets and flies. Or the ed past tense of spanked, treated and
slipped.
Thanks for the input.
Liz
James Drummond
Look at the word "smiley". It uses letters. It most certainly does not
look like this ":-)", even though both convey a similar meaning. The first
one is a phonetic representation of human speech, while the other is a
pictographic representation of human language, both are interpeted to mean
essentially the same thing when viewed on the page. This is why I think that
english is a phonetic language. Your examples are interesting though, but I
don't think they change anything. English borrows heavily from many sources.
Unlike languages like french, spanish, or italian, english never had a
national committee working to standardize the written as well as spoken
language. This committee or some descendant of it is still at work in France,
and occasionally makes the news as it tries to expunge a word from the
french language. What you do not point out in your examples, which gets to
the root of my original question about why do we have letters, is that all
of these words come from languages which use a phonetic alphabet.
Unfortuneately in these instances the pronounciation and spelling are at odds
with common english usage. In english, fortuneately or unfortuneatley, we
have no central committee to shape our language. Many if not most of the
accepted spelling and pronounciation came about through popular consensus
Most of what constitutes english can be traced to Samuel Johnsons dictionary
and perhaps Webster's, as you are perhaps indicating in your paragraph above.
The real point is that written english is very phonetic. There are more
exceptions, but these are primarily words borrowed from other phonetic
written languages, which have been spelled the way they are spelled more
due to popular consensus than anything else.
Since we are on the subject, is there an example of a written language which
uses letters, which is not phonetic?
[snip]
Thanks for responding so promptly!
James Drummond
Drum...@avpvx1.ncifcrf.gov
These are my opinions!
Trif
James Drummond <drum...@ncifcrf.gov> wrote:
>Granted that things that are "fun and appealing" are easier to learn, but come
>on. Most phonics lessons take about 15 minutes a day. Yes it is dull drill, and I know this is not fashionable anymore, but it is sooooooo useful. Can't we
>make the kids sit still for 15 minutes while we teach them something useful
>Then they can go back to all the fun and appealing stuff!
IMHO, there shouldn't be anything such as explicit phonics lessons. Phonics
should be taught as part of reading, not as a separate thing. Children
should be taught a small list of words by sight so that they have an
initial reading vocabulary, and then groups of phonetically similar words
introduced in simple stories. Much like the Dr. Seuss books that have
engaging stories that use repetitive sound-alike words. It is not necessary
to teach phonics by use of 15-minute dull drills. Phonics should be an
integral part of reading lessons.
Joni Rathbun
Two points to add to Mr. Green's list:
1) Reading aloud to children has been shown - time and time again -
to be the single most important factor in determining who will learn
to read (regardless of methods of instruction). That's a hint to me
that the debate here should start before "whole language vs phonics."
2) Reading Recovery Program.... No one has mentioned RR...
Anthea F Gupta
: In article <CsJ6K...@ncifcrf.gov>,
: James Drummond <drum...@ncifcrf.gov> wrote:
[various interesting things -- deleted]
And don't forget that "phonics" includes rhyming, strongly rythmic verse,
any kind of sound-play, any kind of music (especially music where each
syllable has only one note, as in many traditional children's songs).
These are all things that children enjoy and which teach them sound
awareness without overt teaching.
Anthea
_________________________________________________________________________
Anthea Fraser GUPTA
English Language & Literature
National University of Singapore
Kent Ridge e-mail: ellg...@leonis.nus.sg
Singapore 0511 telephone: (65) 772 3933
________________________________________________________________________
Inho Lee
I tend to agree with Trif on this. I think the dichotomy between
phonics and whole-language is a false one. It seems to me that
people who think phonics is the *only* way to teach reading are
taking one linguistic phenomenon, that of phonics, and trying to
make it THE language. Language is not only about sounds or letters.
It is about all of our ways of perceiving and thinking about the
world. Most notably, for people who can see, it is as much visual
as auditory. For the blind it is tactile as well. And there is
the richness of the sign language, visual mostly, for the deaf.
It is from these observations that one draws the conclusion of the
ontogeny of language. Language, in humans at least, appears to be
innate, and not only because some "expert" has said so.
I have no doubt that the understanding of phonics helps many children.
When I was learning English as a second language, I understood phonics
whithout ever having been taught or consciously thought of them as such.
It is not hard to figure out the phonics after learning a language for
a few weeks. Children will also do this by themselves, I believe, though
not as quickly as a teenager learning a second language. So, I just
started reading after being taught the basics of grammar. I used "phonics"
to sound out the words I had never seen--without, of course, being aware
that I was using phonics. And I also used what is referred to here as the
whole-language approach. It was slow going at first because I had to look
up just about every other word, but this approach has enabled me to achieve
a reasonable reading speed in English. Had I been forced to "sound out"
every single word in a book, I wouldn't have been able to get through
college, with the heavy reading laod even as a science major.
Language is not as simple as the "phonics." Please let us not reduce
what is cpmplex and rich into something so limiting.
Inho Lee Torin's dad in...@fangio.ucsc.edu