Despite the Battles, Both Approaches to the Teaching of Reading Share in Common the Knowledge That
The reading wars are back, reignited by radio journalist Emily Hanford of APM Reports, who in 2018 began arguing that too many schools are ignoring the scientific discipline of reading and failing to teach phonics. My news organization, The Hechinger Report, recognized the importance of Hanford's reporting and immediately republished a print version of the story.
The debate has elicited passions, vindication for proponents of phonics and distress for defenders of a so-called "balanced" approach to reading instruction. I've been obsessed with the renewed controversy over how to teach reading, consuming research and talking to scholars and educators. Every bit a journalist who regularly covers education enquiry, I wanted to boil downwardly the key points of what we know from the inquiry on reading and answer the big questions that people have been asking me.
1. Is phonics actually amend?
Yes, but proponents of phonics sometimes overstate how much more constructive it is to teach kids the sounds that messages make. "Phonics is marginally better," said Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an expert on the research in reading instruction. Dozens of studies show that students who receive explicit phonics instruction, on average, score college on reading assessments than students who oasis't been taught through phonics. But it's not a huge difference.
READ More: What do parents need to know about this research? How practice kids really learn how to read?
"The fact is that nigh kids can learn to read with niggling or no phonics," Shanahan said. Indeed, many kids figure out how to read on their own earlier reading pedagogy even begins at schoolhouse. Even so, a minority of students won't acquire to read without phonics and many students would read significantly worse without phonics.
The all-time argument for phonics is that no one is harmed past it and a large subset of students is helped by receiving explicit phonics pedagogy from kindergarten through 2nd class.
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Unfortunately, a flake of phonics on the wing isn't terribly effective. The best results happen when teachers use a ready phonics curriculum, typically 25 minutes a day, instead of making up their ain phonics lessons as they deem necessary. In an Didactics Week survey of early reading instruction published in January 2020, only 22 percent of kindergarten, first and 2d grade teachers said they believed phonics should be taught explicitly and systematically. Simply a whopping 68 per centum said they subscribe to an approach to reading instruction called balanced literacy.
2. What'south incorrect with balanced literacy?
The concept now called balanced literacy arose in the 1990s as a compromise between the two prevailing camps of reading instruction: phonics and what is known as whole language. Whole linguistic communication pedagogy is based on the philosophy that kids volition acquire to read naturally if yous expose them to a lot of books. Advocates believe it's ameliorate to devote instructional fourth dimension to the ideas and stories that are in the books rather than forcing kids to memorize the sounds that letters make. At the time, the thought of balanced literacy seemed likely to stop the debate by taking the best from each arroyo. But in practice, balanced literacy curricula frequently don't include a strong phonics program. Instead, I learned that these compromise curricula ofttimes retain 3 teaching strategies for which at that place isn't good research testify: cueing, contained reading time and leveled reading. Here'south a summary of the research on each of these.
Cueing. Hanford's radio documentary "At a Loss for Words" focused on debunking a pop teaching approach called the "three cueing system" that guides children to guess and wait for clues when they confront a new, unknown word. For instance, a kid might see a picture of an animal and guess that the word "horse" is "pony" in a sentence and and so check to confirm that the incorrect discussion, "pony," makes sense in the context of the other words. No research supports this teaching technique. Shanahan said the theory came from analyzing students' reading errors, not from studying what successful readers do, which is figuring out what the letters actually say.
Independent reading time. Kids who read more tend to score higher on reading assessments but research hasn't been particularly supportive of using classroom time for unstructured, independent reading. During independent time, teachers typically allow students to select their own books then that the pupil is motivated to read something that he or she wants to read. Only research shows larger learning gains — especially improved reading comprehension — when teachers are involved in volume selection, hold students accountable for getting the reading washed, guide a discussion almost the narrative or finish the volume with a writing assignment. Weaker readers, especially students who are however struggling to "decode" and read words fluently, frequently go frustrated and aren't able to accomplish much reading during independent reading time.
Leveled reading. A common feature in U.S. reading classes is to differentiate students past their reading level. Stronger readers get harder texts and weaker readers get easier texts. The theory is that students will get frustrated if they make likewise many errors in reading words or if the vocabulary is too difficult for them and they won't understand the story. Somewhen, as students' reading improves, they can move upwardly to harder texts. But reading research shows that students learn more when they're challenged by difficult texts. Teacher time may be better spent helping students build their vocabularies and content knowledge and so that students can tackle and understand texts that are appropriate for their course level. Learning requires effort and you don't acquire much with an easy text.
iii. What well-nigh memorizing sight words?
Kids "need other kinds of means to break the code besides phonics considering [English language is] not a phonetically friendly language," said Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the Learning Policy Institute and professor emeritus of pedagogy at Stanford University. "They also demand a whole lot of other things."
Some students need help with heart-tracking across and downwardly a page of text, for example.
A big question is the number of sight words. When phonics is tested caput-to-head against word memorization, phonics wins. But word memorization programs that as well teach phonics do well too.
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It's certainly possible to acquire to read through memorization. Every child in China learns Chinese characters this style because it's not a phonetic language. But information technology'southward harder. Many young children struggle to memorize. It takes a lot of repetition and the words are quickly forgotten.
Shanahan argues that one time kids accept a solid idea of decoding through phonics, they learn words very chop-chop.
"It's as if phonics is a kind of glue that allows words to be learned chop-chop," he said. "Trying to acquire lots of words by retentivity alone is but inefficient and overwhelming to some kids."
To be sure, in that location are a host of basic words that cannot be sounded out hands, such equally "the," "accept" and "would." Reading researchers say children should memorize these tricky ones as sight words — but non hundreds and hundreds of them, as some teachers enquire. Teachers should attempt to minimize the number of sight words to be memorized. For example, there's no point in having students memorize "green" as a sight discussion since it follows the phonics rules perfectly.
4. What virtually reading comprehension?
If you want kids to become keen readers, the kind who score well on comprehension tests in fourth grade and beyond, the well-nigh important things to teach may not exist taught in reading class at all.
"Over the long term, kids' reading achievement is driven substantially by whether they're getting access to the content, the scientific discipline and social studies and things about the earth," said Darling-Hammond, "because what yous empathize from what yous read depends on whether you can claw it to concepts and topics that you take some knowledge almost."
For years, educators have felt force per unit area to cut time for science, social studies and the arts in order to carve more fourth dimension for the nuts: reading, writing and math. That was misguided. Many children need explicit reading instruction to decode the letter of the alphabet symbols and read fluently merely reading comprehension can be developed throughout the school day. If one good thing can come from the latest round of the reading wars, I hope information technology volition be a "balanced" schedule.
Related: Testify increases for reading on paper instead of screens
It'south tricky for parents to know if a classroom is using evidence-based approaches for teaching reading. Explicit teaching of oral reading fluency, reading comprehension and writing isn't e'er visible. Classrooms don't need phonics charts and brusque lists of sight words festooned to the walls. Simply y'all can enquire if the teacher is using a set phonics curriculum in kindergarten through second class. If you see bins of books sorted into unlike reading levels, that's a sign that the school may not be instruction reading in a way that researchers say is grounded in scientific show. It's amend for all students to be working with high-quality texts that are appropriate for a educatee'southward grade. Shanahan too advises looking for a school that protects time for students to larn almost scientific discipline, social studies and the arts. For more details, read my colleague Jackie Mader's story on what research-based reading instruction looks like in the classroom.
This story well-nigh the reading wars was written by Jill Barshay and produced past The Hechinger Study, a nonprofit, independent news organisation focused on inequality and innovation in instruction. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
Source: https://hechingerreport.org/four-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-reading-wars/
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