Teaching reading: whole language and phonics

"Phonics" emphasizes the alphabetic principle – the idea that letters represent the sounds of speech, and that there are systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken words, which is specific to the alphabetic writing system Children learn letter sounds (b = the first sound in "bat" and "ball") first and then blend them (bl = the first two sounds in "blue") to form words. Children also learn how to segment and chunk letter sounds together in order to blend them to form words (trap = /t/, /r/, /a/, /p/ or /tr/, /ap/).

"Whole language" is a method of teaching reading that emphasizes literature and text comprehension. Students are taught to use critical thinking strategies and to use context to "guess" words that they do not recognize. In the younger grades, children use invented spelling to write their own stories.

Both instructional methods use elements that are emphasized in the other; the differences between the methods are largely related to what is emphasized and the sequence of skill instruction.

Free materials for teaching reading, including lessons with aspects of both phonics and whole language can be found at this Pinterest Board which has been created by Nationally Certified Teachers: http://pinterest.com/annegardner4/national-board-certified-teachers-nbpts-nbcts-offe/

Phonics

Main article: Phonics

Phonics is seen to be an improvement used method of learning the approximate sounds represented by letters (b=buh) first and then blending them with other sounds (bl=bluh) to decode and encode words in written form. This newer method attempts to eliminate the extraneous "uh" sounds which were unavoidable in the older method. Children also learn strategies to figure out words they don't know.

Phonics is considered an "analytical" approach where students analyze the letters, letter combinations and syllables in a word; in an effort to "decode" (1) the speech-sounds represented by the letters and (2) the meaning of the text. The advantage of phonics is that, especially for students who come to schools with large English vocabularies, it enables students to decode or "sound-out" a word they have in their speaking vocabulary.

Phonics proponents led by Rudolf Flesch in his book Why Johnny Can't Read attacked the whole word approach because (1) it did not get students into reading children's stories that did not have carefully controlled vocabularies and (2) it theoretically required the students to memorize every word as a whole.

Phonics advocates focus their efforts on the primary grades and emphasize the importance of students having phonemic awareness, that is an understanding of the alphabetic principle that the spelling of words relates to how they sound when spoken.

A problem with teaching the reading of English with this analytical approach is that English words do not have a one-to-one speech-sound to symbol relationship. If they did have a one-to-one relationship, reading would be easier. In general, with a few common exceptions, the consonants do have a one-to-one speech-sound to symbol relationship but the vowels do not. For instance the letter "a" represents one sound in the word "say", a second sound in "at", a third sound in "any", a fourth sound in "are", a fifth sound in "all", a sixth sound in "about", a seventh sound in "father", an eighth sound in "orange", and a ninth sound (silence) in "bread". The speech-sounds are sometimes influenced by (a) the letters surrounding the target vowel, (b) by the sentence containing the word and (c) the stress, or lack thereof, given to the syllable containing the letter.

Almost any combination of three letters with a central "a" can reasonably be pronounced in a number of different ways. For instance the "a" in "pag" could be pronounced as in "page" (long "a"), "pageant" (short "a"), creepage (short "i") or decoupage (short "o" as in "dot"). It therefore follows that beginning students will have a difficult time picking the appropriate sound when sounding-out words which are not in their speaking vocabularies.

Fortunately, most readers quickly develop a subconscious word sense which helps them fluently pick the right sound based on the structure of the word and how that structure is related to other similar words they know.

Some very common words do not fully follow common phonic patterns, so those words have to be memorized. Some books refer to these words as "sight words", but it is probably better to refer to them as "memory words" because some books refer to sight words as those words which are so common they do not have to be analyzed or "sounded-out". It does not seem like a good idea to have "sight-words" mean two different things when "memory-words" is available.

The many homonyms in English such as to, too, and two create difficulties for students, even at the university level in regard to spelling.

Drawbacks:

Whole language

Main article: Whole language

Whole language is a currently controversial approach to teaching reading that is based on constructivist learning theory and ethnographic studies of students in classrooms. With whole language, teachers are expected to provide a literacy rich environment for their students and to combine speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Whole language teachers emphasize the meaning of texts over the sounds of letters, and phonics instruction becomes just one component of the whole language classroom. Whole language is considered a "top down" approach where the reader constructs a personal meaning for a text based on using their prior knowledge to interpret the meaning of what they are reading.

Drawbacks:

Students who come from "high literacy" households—where young children are read bedtime stories on a regular basis, there are lots of children's books, and adults read regularly—tend to learn to read well regardless of the teaching approach used. These students tend to enter school with large vocabularies and reading readiness skills (and sometimes they already can read).

Students from "low literacy" households are not exposed much to reading in their homes and tend to have smaller vocabularies. They may speak non-standard dialects of English such as African American Vernacular English and can be unmotivated students, especially if they see teachers as enemies trying to change how they speak and act, in other words their language and culture. It can be argued that a standard phonics approach might be unsuccessful for these students. Whole language approaches encourage teachers to find reading material that reflects these students' language and culture. Using culturally relevant material within classrooms may assist to engage these students in their reading. In addition, knowing students and how they learn will assist as topics of interest can be incorporated into their reading material for added motivation.

Publishing basal reading textbooks is a multimillion dollar industry that responds to the demands of purchasers. Two populous states, California and Texas, do statewide adoptions of textbooks, and whatever they want in their textbooks, publishers tend to supply. Currently publishers are including systematic phonics instruction, more classic and popular children's literature, and whole language activities. This compromise generally goes under the rubric of a "balanced approach" to teaching reading. Advocates of balanced reading instruction should supplement a school's adopted reading program with materials that reflect the experiential background and interests of their students.

Various approaches to reading presume that students learn differently. The phonics emphasis in reading draws heavily from behaviorist learning theory that is associated with the work of the Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner while the whole language emphasis draws from cognitivist learning theory and the work of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky.

Behaviorist learning theory is based on studies of animal behaviors where animals such as pigeons learned to do tasks when they received rewards and extinguished (stopped) behaviors that were not rewarded or were punished. Most of us can point to things we continue to do because we are rewarded for doing them. Rewards can be the pay we get for jobs we do, desired recognition like "A" grades for doing excellent school work, and praise from our friends when they like what we are doing. Likewise, we can point to things we stopped doing because we were not rewarded or were punished for them. Behaviorist learning theory tends to look at extrinsic rewards like money, grades, and gold stars rather than intrinsic rewards like feeling good about successfully accomplishing a difficult task.

Cognitivist learning theory is based on the idea that children learn by connecting new knowledge to previously learned knowledge. The term is a building metaphor that includes students using scaffolding to organize new information. If children cannot connect new knowledge to old knowledge in a meaningful way, they may with difficulty memorize it (rote learning), but they will not have a real understanding of what they are learning.

Vygotsky identified a "zone of proximal development" where children can learn new things that are a little above their current understanding with the help of more knowledgeable peers or adults. This new knowledge is incorporated into their existing knowledge base.

See also

References

  1. ↑ McGuinness, Diane. A Prototype for Teaching the English Alphabet Code Reading Reform Foundation Newsletter (49)

Related Resources

External links

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