Phonics Foot Draggers

Change is hard in education, as in other professions. That’s why too many teachers still cling to the so-called whole language method of reading instruction, even though the approach--which assumes children will pick up reading if exposed to a rich reading environment--has rightly fallen from favor as the primary method of instruction. The holdouts lost their argument years ago, when student reading scores in Los Angeles and the rest of the state slid to the bottom of the national barrel.

Scientific research on how children learn to read supports the primacy of explicit, step-by-step phonics instruction, which teaches the relationship between letters and sounds.

In spite of that, intransigent support for whole language continues in schools and in college teaching programs. It also continues in defiance of new state and school district policies.

Cal State Chancellor Charles Reed, for example, is having to insist that education professors stress phonics in courses for reading teachers, regardless of their beliefs.

Los Angeles schools chief Ruben Zacarias, a strong adherent of phonics, discovered the gap between policy and practice in his district when a teacher who helped craft the state’s rigorous new language arts framework complained about the incorporation of many whole language practices in new teacher training materials used to help primary students who fall behind in learning to read. These are the students most in need of an intensive phonics-based approach. Instead, the materials developed by district reading specialists included student exercises using whole language methods that have been discarded from state curriculum guidelines. The superintendent needs to find out how this happened and put a stop to the wrongheaded defiance it exhibits. Otherwise his authority will be at risk.

The training materials will be overhauled to stress phonics, but they had already been used with 2,500 teachers who are preparing to bring second-and-third-grade pupils up to grade level. Their mission is important because children who cannot read competently by the end of third grade risk failure throughout their academic careers.

Teachers rather naturally tend to stick with what they believe succeeds. During California’s whole language fad, many veterans closed their classroom doors and continued to incorporate phonics into their reading lessons, to the benefit of their students.

It is understandable that some teachers believe in themselves over expert guidance that keeps changing. But on this issue, the evidence is overwhelming. Phonics is the foundation of reading instruction and teachers, especially those with responsibility for developing instructional materials, must get on board or get out of the way.