Teaching Kids How to Read: 'Sound it Out' May Not Be the Best Method

There are a lot of other published studies that agree with the New Zealand university studies: Researchers have consistently reported that students who have heavy phonics programs only do better on tests in which they pronounce lists of words presented in a list. Heavy phonics makes no significant contribution on tests in which children have to understand what they read. I've reviewed all this research in a paper, "Does Intensive Decoding Instruction Contribute to Reading Comprehension?" published in Reading Magazine.

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Correct citation for my paper, mentioned in previous post, reviewing research on heavy phonics: Krashen, S. 2009. Does Intensive Decoding Instruction Contribute to Reading Comprehension? Knowledge Quest 37 (4): 72-74, 2009

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However... our own National Reading Panel report states...
The meta-analysis revealed that systematic phonics instruction produces significant benefits for students in kindergarten through 6th grade and for children having difficulty learning to read. The ability to read and spell words was enhanced in kindergartners who received systematic beginning phonics instruction. First graders who were taught phonics systematically were better able to decode and spell, and they showed significant improvement in their ability to comprehend text. Older children receiving phonics instruction were better able to decode and spell words and to read text orally, but their comprehension of text was not significantly improved.

Systematic synthetic phonics instruction (see sidebar for definition) had a positive and significant effect on disabled readers’ reading skills. These children improved substantially in their ability to read words and showed significant, albeit small, gains in their ability to process text as a result of systematic synthetic phonics instruction. This type of phonics instruction benefits both students with learning disabilities and low-achieving students who are not disabled. Moreover, systematic synthetic phonics instruction was significantly more effective in improving low socioeconomic status (SES) children’s alphabetic knowledge and word reading skills than instructional approaches that were less focused on these initial reading skills.

Across all grade levels, systematic phonics instruction improved the ability of good readers to spell. The impact was strongest for kindergartners and decreased in later grades. For poor readers, the impact of phonics instruction on spelling was small, perhaps reflecting the consistent finding that disabled readers have trouble learning to spell.

Now as to whether phonemic awareness and phonics have been acquired naturally, as Dr. Krashen would suggest, or via explicit systematic instruction as the National Reading Panel has found, the question remains as to what to do with our students who have not acquired the code. Advocates of the whole language approach (New Zealand has always been the hub) would suggest more of the same-more and more free voluntary reading. I would suggest independent reading at properly assessed word recognition levels coupled with targeted phonemic awareness and phonics practice in the areas of relative deficits as indicated by diagnostic assessments. penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/free-elareading-assessments/diagnostic assessments. Both reading and reading instruction have their place and phonics is simply one component of that instruction.

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"Kids come in to this class at different times of the year and at different levels...It would be impossible to use a blanket approach and teach them all the same thing at the same time." There it is. NO ONE approach to teaching young ones will work for everyone. My daughter and I are both visual learners who work best one way; my son the musician is very auditory. He picked up phonics much faster than my daughter. Relying only on phonics would have crippled me as a reader. I'm also a great speller, because I'm an dedicated reader. As a reading specialist, I firmly believe in a balanced approach to teaching reading; then as students' strengths reveal themselves, working TO those strengths.

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Phonics are extremely important and stopping after the first few weeks would screw them up far worse!

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I'm a reading specialist who has taught hundreds of kids to read. Phonics is a help, but nothing works better than a strong sight vocabulary. Parents can take ownership to this by reading to their children and pointing out new words DAILY.

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