How to Tell Real from Phony Phonics?
By Samuel Blumenfeld
Printed in Practical Homeschooling #40, 2001.
A lot of parents these days are concerned about how their children are being taught to read in school. And so they ask the teacher, "Are you teaching phonics?" Virtually every primary school teacher in America will say, "Yes, we do teach phonics," after which the parent will go home satisfied and reassured that his or her child will be taught phonics. But, unfortunately, the parent has asked the wrong question. The question that should be asked is, "Do you teach a sight vocabulary?" And again virtually every teacher will answer yes.
What that answer means is that that teacher's philosophy of reading instruction is based on a whole-word approach and that when phonics is taught in that context it is taught as "phonetic clues" along with picture clues, configuration clues, and context clues.
A child who is taught real phonics does not need all of those "clues" in order to read. Real phonics helps a child develop a phonetic reflex, an automatic ability to translate letters into sounds and the ability to see the phonetic structure of a word.
However, when a child is taught a sight vocabulary, he or she is being forced to look at printed words as whole configurations, like Chinese characters.
Suppose you were asked to memorize 100 Chinese characters. How would you go about doing it? You would try to remember something about each character's shape that would remind you of its meaning.
Kids Don't Discover Phonics When Taught Sight Words
The idea that a child will acquire a knowledge of phonics on his own after having been taught to read holistically is false. It doesn't happen, because the child has developed a holistic reflex, the automatic habit of looking at all words by their whole configurations. In fact, the holistic reflex is an obstacle to seeing a word's phonetic structure. And that is why it sometimes takes years to convert a disabled holistic reader into a fluent phonetic reader.
A study was done in Chicago in 1912 to determine what strategies children who have not received phonics instruction use to attempt to read. Here are some of its conclusions:
"The comments and questions, as well as the misreadings, seem to show that children learn to read words by the trial and error method. It may be the length of the word, the initial letter, the final letter, a characteristic letter, the position of the word in the sentence, or even the blackness of the type that serves as the cue. . . . There is no evidence in any of the cases studied that the child works out a system by which he learns to recognize the words. That he does not work out phonics by himself comes out quite clearly in the transposition test. Furthermore, only once did a child divide a word even into its syllables." ("Learning to Read," Josephine Bowden, Elem. Sch. Teacher, Vol. 12.)
Phony Phonics = "Clues"
So that's what children do in trying to memorize sight words. The teacher will teach some letter sounds, generally initial or final consonant sounds, in order to give the child some clue as to what the word means. Thus, if the word begins with an h as in horse, it couldn't be salami which begins with an s. These are phonetic clues, or phonetic information, as opposed to true phonics instruction.
You can't develop a phonetic reflex with just phonetic information. That information may or may not be used by the student. It is not automatic, and requires effort by the student. That is why so much of the phonetic information children get in whole-word instruction is useless. The reader will prefer to rely on context, for teachers are pleased when a child reads dad for father or pony for horse. So much for phonetic clues.
Holistic readers are easy to spot. They generally don't like to read, but when they do, they leave out words that are there, put in words that aren't there, truncate words, guess at words, misread words.
Real Phonics, Not Dribs & Drabs
Real phonics is intensive, systematic phonics taught prior to reading whole words. Phony phonics is "phonetic clues," provided in the context of a whole-word reading program.
If you want to convert a holistic reader into a phonetic reader, use an intensive phonics system such as mine. Teach your child the entire phonetic system: the consonants, the short vowel sounds, digraphs, diphthongs, etc. Then have him apply his new phonetic knowledge to reading text. Have him read aloud to you. Stop him when he makes a typical holistic error, and have him reread the sentence until he becomes aware of the error he has made. Have him write down all of the new words he has learned, dividing them into syllables so that he can see the phonetic structure of the word and can sound it out. In time, your child will replace his holistic habits with a phonetic reflex. With patience and love your child will be able to achieve success.
marinewife929
California |
I totally agree with the content of this article. Ever since my son started Kindergarten last year, I was opposed to Sight Words. I felt it was not the true and correct way to teach kids to read. I felt that Sight Words were enabling him to read correctly. He has become sight word dependant. Giving him a false sense of being a good reader. As I listen to him read now..I find after reading this article that he is definately a Holistic reader. I try to undo the damage by teaching him what his school isn't....that all words make sounds and various letter combinations together make certian word sounds.
Now he is in the first grade and I feel like I'm battling the California Public Education System in regards to his promotion and success. The fate of our children is not good. Phonics is key to becoming a great reader and now the education system has taken this out of the curriculum. "What ever happened to Phonics being taught in school???
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| Sun Apr 6, 2008 5:42 PM |
oneofthegirls
Louisiana |
My girls were NOT taught phonics in public school, and later on this became clear when we were reading together. We had to go back and reteach them the basics of phonics so that they could grasp reading, it was very frustrating. A friend of mine is a teacher and said that as teachers in the public system their hands were 'tied' on this subject. They knew that the present system was not working, but because funding had been dumped into the new curriculum- they could not switch back to phonics.
My nephew is currently in 1st grade and already has come home with 100 words that he must know by sight..he CAN'T sound them out- or even hesitate -he must instantly call them out. My sister says that he is not doing phonics of any kind. This is crazy.
I taught at a christian private school, and many times we were complemented on the children that would come from our school- the level of learning that they obtained. I think in part, it was because they had a good basics of phonics and reading scores were higher. Reading is the key for doing well in all subjects.
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| Sun Oct 5, 2008 8:44 AM |
easyhomeschooling
Nebraska |
Many, MANY years ago I remember using Dr. Blumenfeld's book to teach my eldest daughter, Jessica, to read. I had a white board and would sometimes copy the letters and combinations to that, but other times we would just sit and go through the book. While visiting my sister once, my 4 year old daughter began reading to them. She had audited Jessica's class. BTW, that daughter, Zephi, self taught herself advanced math before, and graduated at age 16. 
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| Sun Oct 5, 2008 1:07 PM |
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