Phonological awareness and its role in beginning reading has the potential to confound supporters at both extremes of the whole language vs. phonics "debate" over reading instruction. Regardless of instructional technique, phonological awareness is an essential element for reading progress (Griffith and Olson, 1992). In another study, Griffith et al. (1992) found that children with high phonemic awareness outperformed those with low phonemic awareness on all literacy measures, whether they were taught using a whole language approach or traditional basal instruction. Whole language advocates need to admit that not all children develop this necessary ability simply through immersion in a print-rich environment, and that some children will need direct instruction in phonological awareness. "Phonics first" supporters (and perhaps even "phonics only" supporters) need to admit that teaching students letter-sound correspondences is meaningless if the students do not have a solid visual familiarity with the individual letters and if they do not understand that the sounds (which can be complex, shifting, and notoriously rule-breaking) paired with those letters are what make up words (Adams, 1990).
What is needed, and what many practitioners probably already actually implement, is a balanced approach to reading instruction--an approach that combines the language- and literature-rich activities associated with whole language activities aimed at enhancing meaning, understanding, and the love of language with explicit teaching of skills as needed to develop fluency associated with proficient readers. Honig (1996) offers a review of reading research supporting such a balanced approach and presents detailed guidelines on how to integrate whole language principles with the necessary foundation reading skills.
2 comments:
I don't get this:
"Phonics first" supporters (and perhaps even "phonics only" supporters) need to admit that teaching students letter-sound correspondences is meaningless if the students do not have a solid visual familiarity with the individual letters and if they do not understand that the sounds (which can be complex, shifting, and notoriously rule-breaking) paired with those letters are what make up words (Adams, 1990)."
I don't see the full reference to Adams but are you saying Adams says that phonics proponents are NOT phoneme proponents? I had thought that phonemes were the sound chunks that make up words, not just individual letters.
If what I just wrote is correct, I have never read or heard a phonic proponent that doesn't also believe in phonemes.
Thank you dickey45. REAL phonics teachers have always taught phonemics as an intergral part of a REAL phonics program. The catch is that without a thorough understanding of phonics, and a reasonable hierarchy of skills to follow, a teacher can screw up the phonemics. For example, I teach 'ow' as a long vowel, and teach the combo again later as a mediated v'ow'el.
It is in the best interest of education poobahs to make things so complicated and new, and to set up bogus arguments on bogus assumptions. It's rather like the Whole Lang scam. Ironically, this same bunch can now make more dollars writing instruction books for a generation of teachers raised on WL. Researchers seem to be validating what REAL phonics teachers have known all along. However, they have brought us credibility - something we MERE phonics teachers have been unable to do on our own.
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