Foniks versus Whole Language

Did you learn to read phonetically or by sight (whole language) reading?   You may not know.  

There seems to be a battle between the phonics camp and the whole language camp—but which is the bet way to learn to read?  There are arguments for both sides, but my opinion is the sight-reading or whole language is the way to go.  Why?  Phonetics is based on a false premise… that there are actually consistent rules when dealing with English.   Is this were so, then we would be spelling it “fonetiks”.

If you want to read fast—you have to shift to sight-reading.   Yes, you will use “foniks” to “sound out” a word… then it gets filed into the brain into the sight-reading mechanism.

Here is some background on this battle—let me know which side you lean—

Proponents of phonics point to a purported decline in reading test scores in the 1990s that they saw as a result of whole language instruction and "scientific" studies that indicated phonics instruction produced better reading scores than other methods. Whole language advocates point to other reasons to explain those instances of declining reading scores such as students living in poverty and to ethnographic studies of students in classrooms to support their position. As shown in Figure 1, reading scores for students as reported by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress showed little change from 1992 to 2005.

Figure 1: National Assessment of Educational Progress 4th Grade Reading Scores 1992-2005

As education moved from the home into schools in the eighteenth century, textbooks were developed to teach reading. The McGuffey Readers were among the first of these. They consisted of a graded series of books that are now called a basal reading series. The first and secon d grade books were specially written to include stories that emphasized the sounds of letters in words, but the readers for older students were anthologies of stories drawn from a variety of sources. As well as helping teach reading, the McGuffey readers emphasized values like the rich helping the poor and being kind to animals. Teaching in the eighteenth century tended to be teacher-centered with students doing a lot of rote memorization.

At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the Progressive Education Movement pushed for instruction that focused more on the interests of students and what science was discovering about teaching and learning. More and more stories were included in basals that emphasized particular sounds or other targeted reading skills. These specially written stories with controlled vocabularies were often of little interest to students and did not include ethnic minority characters. In the 1950s the "Dick and Jane" readers published by Scott Foresman used a "whole word" approach to teaching reading where words were repeated on each page enough times that, according to behaviorist research, students could remember them.

Phonics proponents led by Rudolph Flesh in his 1955 book Why Johnny Can't Read attacked the whole word approach because it did not get students into reading children's stories that did not have carefully controlled vocabularies. Phonics advocates focus their efforts on the primary grades and emphasize the importance of students being able to sound out (read) words based on how they are spelled. A problem with English is that it does not have a one-to-one sound symbol relationship that would make reading much easier. The many homonyms in English such as to, too, and two create difficulties for students, even at the university level in regard to spelling.

While knowing basic phonetic rules helps students sound out words, other very common "outlaw words" still need to be memorized as sight words because they don't follow any but the most complicated rules. It is estimated about half the words in the English language cannot be pronounced correctly using commonly taught phonic rules. Other problems with phonics include the differing size of students' vocabularies and differing dialects of English that vary in their pronunciation rules

Phonics is considered a "bottom up" approach where students "decode" the meaning of a text. The advantage of phonics, especially for students who come to schools with large vocabularies, is that once students get the basics down, they can go to the library and read a wide variety of children's literature.

Whole language is a currently controversial approach to teaching reading that is based on constructivist learning theory and ethnographic studies of students in classrooms. It is particularly associated with the work of Ken and Yetta Goodman at the University of Arizona. With whole language, teachers are expected to provide a literacy rich environment for their students and to combine speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Whole language teachers emphasize the meaning of texts over the sounds of letters, and phonics instruction becomes just one component of the whole language classroom.

Whole language is considered a "top down" approach where the reader constructs a personal meaning for a text based on using their prior knowledge to interpret the meaning of what they are reading. Problems associated with whole language include a lack of structure that has been traditionally supplied by the scope and sequence, lessons and activities, and extensive graded literature found in basal readers. Whole language puts a heavy burden on teachers to develop their own curriculum.

So, where do you stand?  Whole Language or Phonics?

Phonics versus Whole Language

© Jon Reyhner, Northern Arizona University, Revised December 13, 2008