Heated arguments over which is better — phonics or the whole language/balanced approach — have come to be known as The Reading Wars.
Following each new major battle in this seemingly endless war, the winning side’s classroom practice comes into vogue. But regardless of which side is in ascendance, it soon becomes apparent — again — that too many children are still struggling with reading, some completely failing.
So soon, the other side counters again. Usually citing recent research, they call for changing to a modified version of their old strategy. If their arguments are loud and convincing enough, practice swings back to their method.
Repeated Swings of The Pendulum
This back and forth in the reading war has also come to be know as swings of the pendulum, in which the entire classroom practice swings from “back to basics” to whatever the current name is for a more experiential approach to learning, in general.
Witnessing these pendulum swings over the decades, many have become wary. I am one of them, and so I have absolutely no interest in getting involved. Proponents of the Language Experience Approach (LEA) usually stay out of these arguments.*
But occasionally we have no choice, for someone directly challenges what we’re doing. So I’ve written this page to help you think through some of the issues involved, in case you’re challenged about using Key Words.
It’s Not Whether Phonics — It’s How and When To Treat Phonics
At this point, if a challenge comes at all, it’s likely to be someone from the phonics camp, admonishing you to follow science. They would be claiming that neuroscience research informs us that all children should approach reading by first memorizing a multitude of sound/letter relationships (i.e., phonics).
So before we consider that, let’s be clear: Key Words includes a strong phonics component. The child begins to absorb phonics by watching and listening as someone writes their first Key Word. Later they help determine the letters needed to spell their words. Then they continue to absorb the more complex connections while spelling as they write independently.
In addition, in group sessions apart from Key Words, they experiment with phonemic awareness. There, they identify and play with the sounds they hear in words they speak. See Distinguishing Sounds & Integrating Phonics.
So the issue is not whether to incorporate phonics, but how and when it should be done.
The Latest Pendulum Swing: Phonics First
A review of neuroscience research, published in Reading Research Quarterly, cautions, “(M)uch more research on decoding processes . . . is needed before profound implications for instruction can be expected.” (Emphasis mine.)
Yet despite that caution, the argument from advocates of “phonics first” goes something like this: Recent neuroscience research shows the brain is not “wired” for reading. This means reading — unlike speech — is not a natural process. Therefore, we must train the child to read. It’s not something they can acquire naturally, as they did with speech.
Combining two assumptions — the child must be trained to read and phonics is the critical skill, they conclude phonics must come first for all children.
Running into someone who firmly believes this is like running into a buzz saw. They admonish that anyone not approaching reading by first memorizing phonics is “not following science.”
But neuroscience research findings are not meant to be prescriptive, and we look next at why this is so.
The Role of Research
Well-designed research into the inner workings of human beings unearths but small pieces of a vast and complex puzzle. That puzzle might someday explain how and why we human beings operate as we do, but we’re not there yet.
Such research gives us clues about how the brain works. These clues help explain practitioners’ observations, clarify our thinking, and give us ideas for strategies that might help. But it’s not advisable to use findings as prescriptions.
For serious researchers will tell you that studies are necessarily designed within certain parameters. These restrictions necessarily limit findings, and uncontrolled variables may have muddied results. Therefore, researchers virtually always suggest areas for further research before conclusions can be drawn.
Using findings as prescriptions might very well lead us astray, as appears to be the case with the current swing toward “phonics first for all children.”
Where Phonics Fits
Phonics first advocates point to studies showing that when giving phonics instruction to a child who’s struggled with other practices, that child finally learns to read. From this, they claim that virtually all reading problems stem from a failure to begin with phonics. Thus, they draw the conclusion that all children should begin with phonics.
But that’s like saying that when a child has a sore throat, giving an antibiotic cures them. So this indicates sore throats are caused by lack of antibiotics and therefore, we should be giving them to all children before they go out into the world.
But antibiotics can have negative side effects, such as killing the “good bacteria” in the intestine. And so, too, starting with phonics — especially with children not coming from a print-rich environment — can confuse the child, causing them to lose confidence with print.
Instead, the counter argument for the analogy would be to capitalize on the innate capabilities nature provides for the child to develop a strong immune system. This would be a healthy diet, clean air and water, and a secure, loving environment. With that, the child is likely to have a strong immune system that fights off infections naturally. And if that’s not quite enough, we give them a brief dose of antibiotics.
That’s not a perfect analogy, but close. Applied to reading/writing, it means capitalizing on how a child learns naturally. Again, as Montessori discovered — by absorbing information. This by immersing them in print in a way that makes sense to and interests them. And this means playing with distinguishing the sounds in speech and then integrating phonics into the writing process, as needed for spelling. Then when armed with enough phonetic connections, using phonics to “sounding out” unfamiliar words while reading.
Memorizing Phonics Ahead of Time Is Not Necessary and Can Cause Problems
Evidence abounds that memorizing phonics is just not necessary. Some children learn to read on their own at home, with no phonics instruction. Many of you reading this learned to read without memorizing phonics ahead of time. As explained in Why Writing First?, I believe struggling depends on whether or not a child comes from a print-rich home environment. And if not, Key Words is an easy way to make up that deficit.
Further, ignoring the child’s natural gifts and coming at reading artificially can create problems, for two reasons:
1) Again, starting with phonics can actually confuse some children, causing them to lose confidence. Memorizing sound/letter relationships is a daunting task, especially in English, with its 44 different sounds and the multitude of variations for spelling them.
Some children, not realizing what print is for, are overwhelmed by having to memorize the bits and pieces of something completely foreign to them. Imagine being a child who’s never been read to or seen anyone writing notes. They find themselves in a room where an adult expects them to memorize a lot of sounds that match these new things called “letters.” And some of the other kids seem to know what these letters are.
These “other kids,” coming from print rich environments, can overcome being introduced to reading in this way. But many children cannot, and that’s a lot of the reason the pendulum keeps swinging.
Then think of that same child who knows nothing of print, but does know how to talk. I can tell you from experience that seeing how their own “talk” looks written down is a pleasant experience for them. Instead of being frightened of it, or overwhelmed by it as they watch as you write — and they’re fascinated to find letters strung together make sense! They take their own word, written on a sturdy card, with them and play with it or draw a picture about it. That same string of letters — that “Key Word” — actually conjures up the same picture in their mind — day after day.
With all this — it sinks in: Printed words are nothing more than “talk written down.” And I can “read” them!
As they watch you make different strings of letters connected to different mind pictures, day after day — hearing the names and/or sounds of each letter as you write — something else happens. They soon begin to absorb the sound/symbol connections. And they begin to learn to write for themselves.
2) Focusing on phonics narrows outcomes. Sitting down with a book and “decoding” it, as if it were a puzzle, interferes with making meaning out of it. For as my old mentor, Jeannette Veatch used to say, there’s way more to reading than “barking at print.”
Yes, there’s more to reading than phonics. And researchers at Cambridge University are looking at what more there might be.
We Don’t Know All That Goes Into Reading
Among other things, the following passage, from Cambridge University, makes clear there is “something more” to reading than sounding out words.
“Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.”
I’ve seen anecdotal evidence of another “something more.” In my classroom, before a child could read, we would write — on a long, narrow strip of paper — a sentence they had dictated. Then they cut between the words, scrambled them and reassembled the sentence. These non-readers occasionally liked to show me –in a self-satisfied way — that they could turn all the words over, and reassemble them correctly — by the length of the pieces!
No one actually knows, for certain, all the other strategies a reader employs, just as we don’t know exactly how we speak — or how we learned to speak. It would help if we keep that in mind, as we pass through this current pendulum swing.
Watch The Child and Aim For Broad Outcomes
The best place to look for prescriptions is to the child and how they learn, on their own. We should study practices where virtually all children are successful — with broad outcomes. We can and should expect a young child to write and read fluently, with comprehension, pleasure and ease — and to love doing it. I’ve seen this happen virtually effortlessly — with children from a vast difference in how print-rich their early home environment was.
For more about these issues, see Why Writing First? and Personalized Curriculum. This is not to say I have it all figured out — no one has. But these discussions might help, should you find yourself drawn into the reading wars.
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* LEA teachers tend to be very devoted to their approach. Also, it takes very few special materials. So there are no large publishing companies developing products, thus few, if any, promoting the practice.