As a children's book author and once upon a time writer in residence, my experience is that when teaching reading, including teaching phonics, there's much too much focus on teaching as direct instruction or conditioning and far too little on discovery, voice and the quality of what kids are learning to read, which is also fundamental for developing writing skills.
Natalie’s article seems to bemoan that phonics isn't being taught explicitly. My experience is that's the name of the game these days, and it makes reading instruction intolerably boring.
My impression is that the research on teaching phonics in relationship to learning to read Is based on poor science. Doesn’t it merely show that good readers know phonics. This doesn't document how they learned phonics. It doesn’t say learning phonics through direct instruction is better than through reading good stories and poems, not does it suggest the best way for phonics to be learned for a given student group.
I thought the "Balanced Approach" unfortunately was disparaged long ago, and it seems it's being used as a straw person here because guess what—the direct phonics approach that is the latest cool aid is not improving reading skills or scores.
The articles argument that we that readers don’t first use word context and other cues before phonics is peculiar at best; context and meaning are true cues as surely as phonics and that the sky is blue!!
So what the heck is going on here? Perhaps different people learn to read in different ways, and what's most important is that we see learning to read as a process of discovery for some and that others may benefit from more direct instruction, while still others will benefit from a language experience approach—especially one that uses word processing to make writing public and thereby part of a social interaction. Oh, and let’s not forget the importance of great literature to inspire literacy!
Absolutely agree Natalie! Thank you.
As a children's book author and once upon a time writer in residence, my experience is that when teaching reading, including teaching phonics, there's much too much focus on teaching as direct instruction or conditioning and far too little on discovery, voice and the quality of what kids are learning to read, which is also fundamental for developing writing skills.
Natalie’s article seems to bemoan that phonics isn't being taught explicitly. My experience is that's the name of the game these days, and it makes reading instruction intolerably boring.
My impression is that the research on teaching phonics in relationship to learning to read Is based on poor science. Doesn’t it merely show that good readers know phonics. This doesn't document how they learned phonics. It doesn’t say learning phonics through direct instruction is better than through reading good stories and poems, not does it suggest the best way for phonics to be learned for a given student group.
I thought the "Balanced Approach" unfortunately was disparaged long ago, and it seems it's being used as a straw person here because guess what—the direct phonics approach that is the latest cool aid is not improving reading skills or scores.
The articles argument that we that readers don’t first use word context and other cues before phonics is peculiar at best; context and meaning are true cues as surely as phonics and that the sky is blue!!
So what the heck is going on here? Perhaps different people learn to read in different ways, and what's most important is that we see learning to read as a process of discovery for some and that others may benefit from more direct instruction, while still others will benefit from a language experience approach—especially one that uses word processing to make writing public and thereby part of a social interaction. Oh, and let’s not forget the importance of great literature to inspire literacy!
Thanks. An interesting read - particularly as a NZ born educator working in the UK.