Several years ago, during the height of the balanced literacy controversy in New York City, I wrote about the different approaches to reading. With some more years of research and hands-on experience, I would like to revisit this integral topic: How do children learn to read?
Basically, there are three approaches to teaching children how to read: phonics, whole language, and balanced literacy. Let’s examine each one to understand the full benefits and disadvantages of each.
PHONICS
What is phonics?
Phonics is the system of relationships between letters and sounds in a language. When a kindergartener learns that the letter B has the sound of /b/ and a second-grader learns that “tion” sounds like /shun/, they are learning phonics.
What are the benefits and drawbacks?
Learning phonics will help your students learn to read and spell. Written language can be compared to a code, so knowing the sounds of letters and letter combinations will help your students decode words as they read. Knowing phonics will also help your students know which letters to use as they write words.
If students do not master the different phonemes, they will be unable to attain fluency, comprehension, higher vocabulary, or appropriate spelling (four essential skills developed in later levels of reading). When the rest of the class moves onto these later skills, your child might be lost if he has not mastered the phonemes appropriate for each grade level.
In addition, the National Reading Panel, composed of experts in fields of literacy was asked by the United States Congress to examine the research on the teaching of reading. What they found had important implications for phonics: they determined the phonics is an essential ingredient in beginning reading instruction and without systematic and explicit phonics instruction, students will significantly lag behind their peers. Interestingly, the panel also found that phonics most benefits children who are experiencing difficulty learning to read.
Children who learn phonics will, however, need to master many of the sounds before they can read whole sentences. This can be frustrating and discouraging to early readers.
WHOLE LANGUAGE
What is whole language instruction?
As opposed to learning different sounds in order to piece together full words, the whole language system believes in immediately attracting children to reading by giving them an early grasp of printed language through a “sight” vocabulary of memorized words and phrases.
What are the benefits and drawbacks?
These memorized words give students a sense of accomplishment when they open simple books and are able to read whole sentences. One drawback of the whole language system, however, is that students are not provided with the skills to decode new words that they encounter. Unlike phonics learners, whole language learners continue to need experienced readers to teach them new words.
BALANCED LITERACY
The Balanced Literacy program is based heavily on the whole language approach. Robert Kolker in New York magazine explained that Balanced Literacy “operates on the presumption that breaking down words distracts kids, even discourages them, from growing up to become devoted readers. Instead, students in a Balanced Literacy program get their pick of books almost right away—real books, not Dick and Jane readers, with narratives that are meant to speak to what kids relate to, whether it’s dogs or baseball or friendship or baby sisters.” This approach, therefore, rejects textbooks and traditional grammar drills and instead stocks classroom with age appropriate books.
School Chancellor Joel Klein justified his support for the Balanced Literacy by revealing that the only reason he did well in school and became a federal prosecutor, was because an elementary school gave him a book about baseball. When he read that book and enjoyed it, it inspired him to continue to read and succeed in school. With that in mind, he implemented the Balanced Literacy program in nearly all of New York City’s 743 elementary schools.
Balanced Literacy and Controversy
One obvious benefit of Balanced Literacy is students’ immediate love of reading. In contrast, there are many who argue that in the long run Balanced Literacy is not the most effective way to teach students to read.
Detractors from the Balanced Literacy program point out that the system has no set curriculum and operates on a teacher-by-teacher basis. In May 2004, in the English Journal, Greg Hamilton from Columbia University points out that the program only works when there is a multitude of in-service support for teachers. In schools where there are lead teachers, principals who monitor teachers’ progress, and consistent training, the Balanced Literacy program has been succeeding.