The Consequences of How Kids Learn to Read
Catherine M. Gaza
Which model is more literally to help children become skillful decoders? That last question is particularly provocative because it raises the possibility that Whole Language beside being more consistent with a philosophically commitment to active learning is also the best phonics program,there is, in other words of Jerome Harste of Indiana University. Why? Because its easier to decode a word when you already know what it means. By insisting that meaning should come before skills. Whole language isn't just more enjoyable but also more effective.
A meaning first approach is particularly sensible when the language being learned is English. The English language is very hard to learn phonetically because so many letters have more than one possible sound. If you see a g followed by an e,there are five possible pronunciations hard g, long large (gear) hard g,short e(get) soft g silent e ( George). You don't know how the letters sound until you know the word of which they're a part. Of course,you can try to memorize all the letters combinations but their usefulness is severely limited by all the exceptions.
Remember "When two Vowels go walking,the first one does the talking"? This guide isn't even certain or achieve. In his infamous pro- phonics tract in 1950s,Rudolph Flesch declared Teach the child what each letter stands for and he can read to which one educator replied that someone relying solely on that method wouldn't even be able to read to cover of Flesch's book.
To the unique difficulties of English add the unique limits of young children. It's hard for a five or six year old to learn abstractly and that's precisely what's installed by a phonics based approached skills are moved from context and learned as abstract ruled. To a behavioral theorist it may seem logical in principle to start with the pieces and put them together,moving from phonemes to words to sentence to stories. In the real world,though it's far more natural and effective for the whole to come before the part.
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The author is SST - III at Betis National High School