Phonics and whole language, two types of reading instruction, have generated
much discussion and debate among educators and the general public. Phonics
advocates believe that children must know all the letters and sounds of the
alphabet before they begin reading. In contrast, whole language proponents feel
that literacy is an ongoing and "holistic process" best taught by
"immersion" in reading and writing.
Phonics Method
Phonetic reading
instruction applies the theory that children are taught
to dissect unfamiliar words into parts and then join the parts together to form
words. The phonics method begins by teaching the letters of the alphabet and
their corresponding sounds. By learning these letter-sound relationships the
student is provided with a decodingformula that can be applied
whenever they encounter an unfamiliar word.
Once the sounds are secure, children learn to take two letters ®
"at," for example, and add consonants to make several words, such as
"bat," "hat," and "rat." Phonics utilizes rules to
aid in sounding out words such as: "When two vowels go walking the first
one does the talking"? If a child encounters a word he/she doesn't
recognize, they are encouraged to sound it out and apply the rules they have
learned. Blends of sounds and endings, such as "ed," "ing,"
and "er" are introduced as the child moves on to more complicated
reading materials.
It has been argued by pro-ponents of phonics, "that the schools should
resume teaching kids to read by connecting the written word to its sound" (Lemann,
1997). They believe children should receive systematic instruction in the
alphabetical code—in how letters represent the 44 sounds of the English
language and how combinations of letters blend those sounds and string them
together. Children are then able to read, and to decode unfamiliar new words, by
sounding them out.
Becoming a Nation of Readers (1985), states that "children who are
taught phonics get off to a better start in learning to read than children who
are not taught phonics . . . "
A bipartisan majority of the state legislature voted to mandate that teachers
be trained in phonics. Pro-phonics bills are pending in many states, however,
Massachusetts and Texas both mandate phonics instruction in every public
school. Two major recent reports—one by a division of the National Academy of
Sciences, the other by the Learning First Alliance, which includes the top two
teachers’ unions and the national PTA—recommend phonics instruction. (Manzo,
1999).
The Whole Language Method
The whole language method focuses on reading aloud from children's
literature. Whole language learning is less focused on rules and
repetition than phonics. Rather, it stresses the flow and meaning of the text,
emphasizing reading for meaning and using language in ways that relate to the
students' own lives and cultures.
Whole language classrooms tend to teach the process of reading, while the
final product becomes secondary. The "sounding out" of words so
central to phonics is not used in whole language learning. Instead, children are
encouraged to decode each word such as traffic signs and cereal boxes through
its larger context. This approach also utilizes books with a predictable
outcome, such as "’The Gingerbread Man," to encourage children to
join the teacher in reading and speaking the text shown to them and composing
original stories. During a writing lesson, a teacher may assist the child find
the letters and sounds they may need to form words.
The Debate: Whole Language vs. Phonics
In recent years, the dominant approach to reading in schools and colleges has
stressed not phonics, but "whole language." The debates over phonics
and whole language came to be called "The Reading Wars" because of
their intensity but it’s important to understand that these debates have not
concerned how to teach reading. The question has been whether to teach reading
at all (Lemann, 1997).
"Whole-language theorists such as Kenneth Goodman believe that just
as children learn to speak naturally, by exposure to the speech of others,
so can they learn to read and write by exposure to literature and
"print-rich environments." Goodman, a professor emeritus at the
University of Arizona, says that parents and teachers should read to
children and encourage them "to experiment with reading and
writing," "to build on their natural tendency to make sense of the
world around them, including the print around them." Context cues will
help children make sense of words, a process Goodman has notoriously called
a "psycholinguistic guessing game."
Opposing such direct, systematic instruction, advocates of phonetics feel it
"discourages invention, creativity, and discovery, and thus violates the
child's natural development as a reader. Whole language teachers begin from the
premise that reading is "natural." They see learning to read as
analogous to learning to speak. . ." (Langa, Date Published,
Unknown)
Advocates of whole language method have had to defend their approach because
of declining test scores. Critics look to the philosophy and the failure of many
teachers to explain exactly how it translates into classroom practice. In a
March 17, 1999 news article entitled "Whole-Language Model Survives Despite
Swing Back to Basics", Kathleen Kennedy Manzo reports "whole language
has gotten a bad rap in a lot of respects," and has unfairly taken the
blame for poor reading achievement."
Teachers who have practiced the whole language method have the experience,
knowledge, or resources necessary to implement it. However, they are at a loss
to explain to parents and policymakers: how they teach this reading skill; why
spelling is not emphasized with beginning learners; and whether there was any
research that supported what they were doing. Where phonics was included in
instruction, critics contend, it is not taught as explicitly as research
suggests it should be. Ms. Manzo’s also reports. . .
"[S]ome teachers thought whole language meant abandoning phonics and
putting learning into the hands of children with minimal supervision. . .
Defining whole language as an abandonment of phonics and sensible classroom
management presents a caricature of the whole-language classroom"
Building up a written vocabulary is hard enough. For most of this century,
American children are introduced to fewer and fewer words per year because of
the prevailing method of whole-word memorization cannot accommodate more.
Whole language makes it more difficult because children are supposed to start
out reading "quality children’s literature" rather than readers
designed to acquaint them with everyday words. Ramesh Ponnuru believes:
"No one method of teaching reading will work for all children. But
research as well as logic and historical experience suggest that instruction
in phonics works better than whole language—both in fostering literacy and
in getting kids to understand and enjoy their reading, which comes more
easily when kids are not stumbling over every other word. Another research
finding is that the best readers rely least on the contextual guesswork
recommended by whole language. . ."
Whole Language Phonics
In the past, reading was taught separately from grammar, spelling, and
writing. In fact, little emphasis was placed on writing in the elementary school
curriculum. Instructors relied on special books for teaching reading to young
children. Today, most teachers employ a combination of phonics and whole
language methods in the early elementary classroom. By combining quality
literature with information about letters and sounds, children have the
disposition to read and the tools they need to become proficient readers and
writers.
A balance, phonics plus such components of whole language as reading good
books to children, paying attention to how they are reading, having books around
them, etc. may contribute to resolving the "great debate" about
learning to read. Phonics-based reading programs tend to build better
pronunciation and word recognition. The phonics formulas can be applied again
and again, and will help a child with spelling far more than the memorization
and guesswork of whole language. If only taught phonetically, however, a child
may have difficulty understanding the full meaning of a text, due to the
constant breaking down of words into parts. Phonics critics also state that
"the rules and rote learning it entails are stifling and may cause children
to develop the attitude that reading is a chore" (Weaver, Published Date
Unknown)
Whole language learning is thought to provide a better understanding of the
text, and a more interesting and creative approach to reading. However, whole
language learning may come at the expense of accuracy and correctness. A child
might be awarded high marks for "overall language use," even if he or
she has misspelled many words.
A child may tend to fall into the categories of either visual or auditory
learners. Visual learners, on the one hand, are more likely to benefit from the
whole language approach since their strength is in recognizing words and word
sequences that they have seen before. On the other hand, auditory students learn
what they hear — so they rely more on phonetics.
After thinking more about whole language vs. phonics, I suggest the
following: To say that whole language is better than phonics or visa versa is
wrong. The different strengths that each method offers, suggest that a mixed
approach for each child will probably be most beneficial. One cannot isolate one
from the other.
SOURCES
'Fighting Words' National Review 51 No. 8 34 + S 13 1999
'The Great Debate' Michelle A. Langa, M.P.A., C.A.S.; Pubishing Date
Unknown
'Publishers Fume Over Phonics Redefinition in Texas': Education Week,
