Phonics vs. whole language?
Like other issues of education, educators and theorists debate and analyze methods of reading instruction. They judge methods and curricula not only by their efficacy but also by their appropriateness and ease. Throughout the history of education these methods and curricula have changed, shifted, and transformed. Currently, though, there are two front-runners in the debate—phonics and whole language. Popular belief is that these curricula are diametrically opposed. Researchers of effective reading instruction assert the opposite, saying that “an artificial, simplistic dichotomy” has no reality in the discussion of phonics and whole language (Dahl & Scharer, 2000, ¶43). The purpose of this research paper is to compare these two seemingly different curricula in the realm of reading instruction, to determine their individual levels of appropriateness, and to decide which, if either, is ultimately more appropriate in the school setting.
Phonics Defined
What is phonics? The word “phonics” comes from the Greek word for sound and is defined by the Webster’s II New Collegiate Dictionary as the “use of elementary phonetics in the teaching of reading.” The Britannica Student Encyclopedia says, “phonics is translating parts of written words into the sounds they represent.” From these two definitions of phonics, one can deduce that it is a method of segmentation, visual and auditory recognition, and decoding. Phonics is the vehicle by which learners begin to understand the individual sounds, or phonemes, of a word. The sounds—there are about 45 in the English language—are the basic building blocks of language, and mastery of them ensures success in future reading attempts (Hempenstall, 1997, ¶16). Educators use phonics at several levels of reading instruction, including early childhood, remediation, and adult literacy. In an article about Dorothy Strickland’s book Teaching Phonics Today: A Primer for Educators, Linda Starr (1999) quotes Strickland: “Historically, those who have denounced poor reading achievement in the United States have turned to phonics as a solution” (qtd. in Starr, 1999, ¶2). Phonics is, indeed, a solution, for its basic principle of breaking words into parts allows the reader to approach any new word with confidence, assuming that he has learned all of the written sounds successfully. Phonics is used in both in...
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...s in diverse classroom settings” (Dahl & Scharer, 2000, ¶52). Based upon the data set forth in this paper, a system of balanced instruction seems to be the most beneficial route for reading instruction. Students should learn about the relationships between letters and sounds through both traditional instruction and on the spot direction. They should be encouraged to express themselves through writing and educators should give feedback and constructive criticism about their mistakes as well as their creativity. Diane Weaver Dunne (2000) tells us “there is no magic bullet that can teach all children how to read” (¶ 1). As such, educators should individualize instruction to reach all learners, and reading and writing should take place in every area of the curriculum. The problem in this debate lies not in the direct opposition of whole language to phonics but in the misconceptions of both camps.
1 The whole language camp seems to be split on this issue: “Some Whole Language
theorists still believe that any emphasis on phonics is unfruitful, or even harmful—
‘The rules of phonics are to complex…and too unreliable…to be useful’”(Smith qtd. in
Hempenstall, ¶ 58).
The DeFord Theoretical Orientation to Reading Profile, developed in 1985 by Diane DeFord, is a way to measure the philosophy and belief systems associated with instructional practices in the beginning of reading. The three systems include phonics, skills, and whole language (Vacca et al 2006). The bottom-up beliefs systems, associated with Behaviorism, place emphasis on letters, letter-sound relationships, and the understanding that the student, in order to comprehend the selection, must recognize each word in a text. There is importance placed on decoding, and skills are taught in a systematic and sequential format.
First off, in terms of education in grades K through 3 it seems that students are introduced to the basic concepts of learning, reading, and writing. For example, young children begin to comprehend the sounds of speech in terms of being able to read while also practicing how to correctly write common words used in everyday language. Furthe...
Reading is an integral aspect of succession in life and is required to complete the simplest of tasks. Therefore the teaching of reading, which in England is done mainly through a programme of systematic synthetic phonics, is of great importance in all primary schools. The word phonics, “describes the letters or symbols used to encode a language’s spoken components” (Venezky, 1999. Cited in Mesmer and Griffith, 2006) and the “importance of systematic phonics instruction in relation to the teaching of reading has been increasingly recognised by English-speaking countries” (Wyse and Goswami, 2008). This is most likely due to as Venezky (1999) states, because English as a language is made up of an alphabetic code.
The article “Hands-on and Kinesthetic Activities for Teaching Phonological Awareness” is the study of language being composed of sounds and sounds that can be manipulated. Phonics is one of the primary building blocks of reading and learning. Phonics teaches children to listen more carefully to the sounds that make up each word. The study was performed in two before school programs, both with students in primary grades. The study contained 1 object box and 5 environmental print card games. The environmental game cards consisted of the Stepping Stone Game, Syllabication Object box, Vowel-Change Word Family, The Four-Letter Long Vowel Silent-e Words, and Sorting Words by Vowel Sound Game. This article I chose to write about was written by Audrey C. Rule, Jolene Dockstader, and Roger A. Stewart. The article provided 3 table graphs, 5 examples of Phonics Games, and 6 pages of the data collected to better account for how the experiment played out. This article was published in the Early Childhood Education Journal, which really proved to me that it was an excellent way to learn more about Hands- on Learning and Kinesthetic Activities.
This article provides the rationale for introducing a phonics screening check in Australian schools, detailed explanations of its development, implementation, and result in English schools, and also recommendations for a phonic screening in Australia. Furthermore, the author has attempted to research and document a method that is believed can improve Australian children literacy level and their reading ability not only nationally but also internationally. By implementing the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check and demonstrate how systematic phonics is being taught across the country and in individual schools, it is believed that it can improve teaching methods. The article makes an exceptional initiation to implement new education policy scheme in Australia. Despite there was a lot of research in this teaching method, seeing the result and evaluation in the implantation in Australia will add new knowledge on this
Balanced Literacy is an approach for teaching literacy that is widely used in classrooms across the country. It involves several methods of teaching and learning reading and writing, whole class instruction directed by the teacher with independent work in reading, writing, and oral language. By integrating a variety of approaches, a balance is achieved in which students learning to understand text (from a whole language approach) as well as how to read text (from a phonics approach). Effective phonics instruction focuses children's attention on noticing the letter/sound patterns in initial consonants and consonant clusters and in rimes.
As indicated by Ziegler and Goswami (2005), reading is the process of understanding and making sense of speech or written down thoughts. The initial goal of reading is to gain access to the meaning of sentences. To achieve reading student must learn the letters used by their society for representing speech or thoughts as series of visual symbols and they also found that the critical characteristic to develop reading depends on phonological consciousness. Ziegler and Goswami (2005) focused on the psycholinguistic grain size theory, reading acquisition and...
During adolescence, I began reading and writing through a fundamental learning program called, "Hooked on Phonics." This program consisted of long hours spent reading short novels and writing elementary phrases which were commonly taught in the second and third grade. With the motto, "Improve your child's reading and writing skills in just four weeks!" I was bound to become the next Mark Twain. The method of this course specialized in the improvements of word acquisition rates as well as reading speed; however, it lacked in the area of teaching comprehension. At a young age, I was instilled with the dire need to be highly educated and although I was unable to experience a fun and adventurous childhood like many other children, I am grateful for being raised with a greater knowledge and wisdom than that ingrained in many.
The FLaRE (Florida Literacy and Reading Excellence) Center has published a professional paper entitled “Phonemic Awareness” of which I will be presenting a critical review. Phonemic awareness is one of the five essential components of reading identified by the National reading Panel (Learning Point Associates, 2004). Phonemic awareness can be defined as a person’s understanding that each word we speak is comprised of individual sounds called phonemes and that these sounds can be blended to form different words (Learning Point Associates, 2004). The article was intended to give a synopsis of phonemic awareness and the vital role it plays in a literacy program. I found the article to be very clear and concise presenting valuable tactics that can be applied in the classroom.
Reading is a complex process that’s difficult to explain linearly. A student’s reading capabilities begin development long before entering the school setting and largely start with exposure (Solley, 2014). The first remnants of what children are able to do in terms of reading are built from their parents and other people and object around them as they’re read to, spoken to, and taken from place to place to see new things (Solley, 2014). As kids are exposed to more and more their noises quickly turn into intentional comprehensible messages and their scribbling begins to take the form of legible text as they attempt to mimic the language(s) they’re exposed to daily.
Wyse, D. and Goswami, U. (2008) Synthetic phonics and the teaching of reading, British Educational Research Journal, 34 (6), pp.691-710
As a teacher, you need to encourage all attempts at reading, writing, speaking, and allowing children to experience the different functions and use of literacy activity (The Access Center, n.d.). Moreover, it is crucial for educators to understand phonological awareness and phonics; know what constitutes good children’s literature and how to use it; know children who need additional assistance with beginning reading and writing (Cunningham et al, 2004 as cited in McLachlan et al, 2013, p. 112). Educators also need to plan effective activities to assist children experience reading aloud, listening to other children read aloud, listening to tape recordings, and videotapes so children have opportunities to integrate and extend their literacy knowledge (The Access Center, n.d.). Morrow (1990 as cited in The Access Center, n.d.) notes that classroom with greater teacher facilitation promote literacy behaviours, so it is educators’ role to provide literacy rich
Phonological awareness and phonics are closely connected in teaching young children, firstly we need to understand what phonics is. Phonics is a method of the teaching smallest unit of sound in the English language, not only repressed by one letter but also between patterns and sound-letter relationship. Phonics is the sound that
Reading and writing is a key part of everyone’s life. There has been some encouraging levels of reading development in primary school assessments. According to the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy report (2015), 95.5% of students achieve at or above the national minimum standard of reading. It is important to know effective ways to teach reading so children can become active problem solvers to enable them to read for meaning or for fun. Over the years, there has been a big amount of research into the most effective ways to teach reading skills to students. There are some systematically taught key skills and strategies that help achieve these levels of reading. Some of these skills include phonological awareness, phonemic awareness,
Language, according to Owens (2012, p. 6), “can be defined as a socially shared code or conventional system for representing concepts through the use of arbitrary symbols and rule-governed combinations of those symbols”. Language is thought to be a complex system; however, it can be broken down into three different components. These three components consist of content, form, and use. Within these three components, language has five main components which includes semantics, morphology, phonology, syntax, and pragmatics (Owens, 2012, p. 18).