The phonics debate

[DadDude]

Do you think the age at which children learn reading affects the type of learning best suited to them?

In other words, might it be the case that babies and toddlers can learn better with the whole word method than older kids can?  Maybe, I wish we had studies of this.  But I see some (not all) mommies here and on TeachYourBabyToRead (Yahoo group) complaining that their children are stuck with the words they've memorized.  If they had learned the phonetic code through the whole word method, then they would not be limited to the words they'd memorized.

I taught my son to read as he was acquiring language because to me it made sense. Reading is language and it is almost like teaching language through another sense. Since I don't try to introduce grammatical concepts to my son in a logical order but through everyday experience I assumed the rules of phonics to be the same.

Again, I am not saying you're wrong--I don't know--but off hand, I don't know why the analogy holds.  It's one thing to learn the grammar of a language; that's crucial to being able to understand the meaning of the language in the first place.  It's another thing to learn phonics by induction; as many children taught the whole word way have demonstrated, it is possible to learn to read (at least, at a rudimentary level) without being able to decode new words phonetically.  Besides, while getting meaning from grammatically structured language is 100% natural in the sense that our brains are "wired" for this, learning how to sound out words from their spelling is not at all natural.  Writing and reading are relatively recent inventions (evolutionarily speaking) and, I assume, did not affect our evolutionary development.  It is a very rare child who cannot understand spoken language after a few years.  But it is not at all rare for a child who has been exposed to a lot of written language not to be able to read.

Previously I have said that I taught my son phonics, however I should correct that. When I really think about it I taught him his alphabet, not the sounds the letters make.

Simply teaching him the sounds the letters make is only the very first of many steps, by the way.

Yet he reads words I have not taught him, he doesn't appear to sound them out - at least not out loud - but there is a momentary deciphering look on his face.

I wonder if a child who is slowing down in their language acquisition would not then find it harder to decipher the phonics code by themselves?
 

That would be my guess (if I understand you right).  In other words, a child who is generally slow in language learning would also be slower to decipher the phonics code by himself.  But I think it is really a crapshoot, as they say--some slow kids pick up phonics right away, and some very bright kids don't get it except after careful explanation.

[TmS]

Interesting....

I think that it comes down to the brain's ability to decipher codes - not just grammar or phonics but even maths. It is an argument (well debate) I have had with people for many years.

People will say they are bad at maths but at a very deep level if they were bad at maths they would not be able to function. Catching a ball, crossing the road in traffic, overtaking another car. All these things require the subconscious brain to do quite high level mathematics extremely quickly. Much of this subconscious maths is learned in early development and hence we are unaware of the processes. So perhaps it is not that they are bad at maths at all but that their conscious brain is bad at maths. I have always believed this to be the methods in which maths was taught.


Richard Feynman (maths and physics extraordinaire and general all round genius) was horrified at the methods taught to teach children maths and felt these methods contributed to so many children struggling. He believed they should be able to work the rules out, use varying methods of approaching the same problem etc. Instead of the closed and rigid way maths has been taught in the last few generations.

I believe the brain to have the ability to memorize the words bug, bed, big and work out what sound 'b' makes because, well it's obvious and babies' brains are geared up to this kind of deciphering particularly in the first few years.

Having said that if you don't expose a child to enough examples of the same letters making the same sounds etc it will not be possible for them to make these connections as they don't have enough information to come to any sort of conclusion about anything.

When you come right down to it there haven't been enough studies on whether children can truly decipher these codes, because too many people are still funny about teaching children at all let alone experimenting with the methods of teaching children. There is no way my son would be part of an experiment that denied exposure to phonics - what if they were wrong???

I personally will explore every avenue of learning I can expose my child to as I don't think it will hurt him, but not teaching one could. I am a big believer of teaching through exposure and guiding students to conclusions rather than telling them as I believe a self-drawn conclusion to have more "stick". I have always found students who could tell me their own corrections could also make those corrections much more easily.

By the way I completely agree with you that Phonics should be taught, but I also think it should be taught in conjunction with the other methods and once again through guided exposure allowing the child to draw their own conclusions from what they have been presented.

[2010BEBES]

I can not believe this thread is going to be  years old almost next month.
It is so exense that i am really confused.
I read carefully tatianna's explanation why she would not use Phonics to her kids and most of the others agree that it is not whole word or phonics and it dependes on the age your kid is and how much he/she is reading.

Commenting on TmS quote:

Interesting....
...
By the way I completely agree with you that Phonics should be taught, but I also think it should be taught in conjunction with the other methods and once again through guided exposure allowing the child to draw their own conclusions from what they have been presented.

I think Phonics is not really 'taught' to children (especially starting babies). While viewing words using whole word approach, they will deduct phonics rules and so it will not be taught in that sense.

[TmS]

Yes, exposure is what I mean.

I like to feed information in and let the brain do the computing and I believe if the information is put in at the right time then the child can draw the conclusions for themselves, if it is left too late then perhaps phonics need to be "taught"

[2010BEBES]

I certainly agree and that is why maybe tatianna said she do not 'teach' phonics because he expose childre with whole word at an early age and they assimilate phonics rules by themselves. That is a benefit of reading atn an early age.

[DadDude]

I certainly agree and that is why maybe tatianna said she do not 'teach' phonics because he expose childre with whole word at an early age and they assimilate phonics rules by themselves. That is a benefit of reading atn an early age.

But consider two slightly different methods:

(1) The Doman method, in which words are presented in conceptual groupings (e.g., things found in the house, musical instruments, farm animals).

(2) Something similar to the Doman method, except that the words are presented in phonetic groupings (with the first group including "short A" CVC words like cat, bat, bag, hag, ham, Sam).

If you use method (2), you're doing something very much like what Doman recommends, but you're making it much easier for the child to infer the rules.

[TmS]

Yes, exactly. I didn't go as far as to make it quite that simple but I did often introduce similar words or point out similar words. Bee & Knee spring to mind. Makes sense to give an earlier chance of making the connection.

[2010BEBES]

You are right, it seems to be easier if your present words for your child to understand the rules by himself.

[Tanikit]

I started his thread a long while back but have only just read some of the later replies. How have my own feelings changed on the phonics issue?

I do not believe that in English where the language is made up of 5 different languages and where words are regualrly "stolen/borrowed" from other languages that either approach alone will work unless we decide to teach our children a good many languages before teaching reading.

When we teach children to speak we teach them using the whole word approach - no one says "ba, ba ba" to a baby to teach them to speak - we just say words and they figure it out. So that by the time a baby is saying its first words even if incorrectly it is saying something that MEANS something. Since reading is about deriving meaning from text, it follows that whole words are what give meaning "c" means nothing and nor does "a" or "t" but CAT means something.

And this is why I prefer to start with a whole word/s and then teach the phonics from the few words my child already knows and then to extend it to words she does not know. My other reason for this is that I have bought two books that show how to teach more explicit phonics - The ordinary parents guide to teaching reading and Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons. Both are great books and I have got a lot out of them that has helped me, BUT the phonics stories that accompany the lessons are very often rubbish - they have little meaning for my child and the words are put on the page to follow rules rather than to tell a story.

This is not what reading is about for me- I want a story or instruction or something that means something - I don't want it to be about lists of words or see how clever someone can be to make a story with a certain phonics rule. My daughter will not read phonics teaching books even though she can - she wants books with proper sentences that have meaning  and for that I had to teach whole words and then when I come across new words I teach them to her with phonics.

Yes I may do explicit phonics eventually - there are rules that are hard to teach just by finding words in context and she may need more practice, but for now she can do first grade phonics despite minimal teaching and she can sight read a huge amount of words (mstly dolch words) so she is prettyset for reading basic books and I hope to have her up to a second grade level soon if she is up to it. But mostly I want her to enjoy the whole process.

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