As with most philosophies, the teaching of reading is no different, there are arguments over what is the best way. I’m amazed that there are still those that teach “sight” reading or “whole word” methods, after its utter failure, documented in so many ways and sources. But there are other arguments that live on in the phonics camps themselves.
The arguments here tend to be over teaching letter names or sounds first, and whether to teach all the sounds of a letter at the same time, or only the most used sound at first. Having researched all this for about 15 years, and taught phonics for a few more than that, I’ve read and taught much of what is out there.
Some say the letter names should be taught first. Every child knows the “ABC” song, and you can’t keep them from learning it. No argument here, (as to the song will be picked up somewhere, whether you teach it or not,) but that has nothing to do with knowing what the letters look like or how to read. It’s just a catchy tune, easily memorized.
Some have said that it is insulting to assume the child is so stupid that they can’t make the connection, when after we teach them letter names, to tell them that isn’t the sound they make when we read. Perhaps I have dumber children than others, but I am not speaking from theory and “expert’s research” only here, rather from experience. I have 10 children, most of whom I have taught, or am in the process of teaching, or will teach to read. (The 2 youngest aren’t old enough, the 2 oldest I wasn’t their only teacher. The oldest picked it up naturally at home before going to school, then had school teaching, and reclarifying at home. The 2nd didn’t catch on at school, and was retaught when we brought them home.) So I have nowhere near the number of students taught as a classroom teacher, or linguistic expert, but I’ve taught I very wide spectrum of different types of learners.
My dd (that is now 20, #4) did have a big problem learning to read, from knowing the letter names first. (And I don’t consider her “dumb”.) She could not make that changeover from name to sound by age 6.5. She could not get it that f, l, m, x, s, etc. didn’t have the same sound /e/ (short e). I personally knew several other children (most from ps) that had similar problems when it came to blending letters into words, trying to use their names not sounds. So yes, my daughter, and others, are “too dumb to grasp that a letter has a name … and a different sound,” without anyone “insulting” or “assuming stupidity” on their part. Evidently this is no small problem with just a very few children (although they probably are the minority), because those that work with the many “unable to learn to read” children have come up with ways to help them over this, — and to avoid it in the first place. It was in talking to one of these “experts” (20+ yr. K and remedial reading teacher with a MA in learning disabilities) that I learned how to overcome this. The way to avoid it is teaching sound first. (Of course, I knew nothing of this before this experience.)
Neither they nor I are promoting never teaching letter names, just that the letter names are not necessary to learn to read, and can cause hinderances, in at least some children. The names have nothing to do with reading, only the sounds. The child already knows the sounds naturally. That is what he uses to speak. He learns the symbol for the sound to learn to read, not the name of a letter. This is what even Charlotte Mason (though she was not even a propenent of phonics) was saying when she talked about a child picking the sounds up naturally. That he would have his little letter blocks with a picture on them, and would see a book and a ‘b’ and would associate seeing the ‘b’ with the sound /b/ as the beginning sound of book. (Not ‘beee’, the letter name. He would only know that if someone TOLD him this, irrelevent at this point, information, apart from his natural learning of knowing what the spoken word “book” means, and relating it to seeing a picture of a book and seeing the symbol ‘b’.) Again, this is not hiding the names of the letters from the child. It is about teaching him the written symbols for the sounds he knows, so he will be able to read.
Although our language isn’t a perfect phonetic one (one letter per sound), in many ways due to the integration of other languages to make up ours, knowing a few other combination letter sounds and rules makes it fairly easy to “break the code” (which all written language is). Teaching sound (firm, strong, not shaky or defective) phonics, teaching the various sounds that the symbols respresent (i.e. the different spellings for the sounds), along with a few rules that tell you when to use each spelling, your child will learn to read – and spell pretty well, too.
Although it is said that our English language is highly irregular, when reading and spelling is taught this way 97-98% of it “follows the code”. When teaching letter names, and then a few inital sounds, then “whole word” reading – well, maybe they’ll catch on, maybe not. The odds are against them – even greater so for spelling correctly. Teach sound phonics, by teaching sounds!
P.S. As for the letter names, as we teach the 2nd sound for the vowels we tell them that even though the symbol represents a sound, it also has a name. None of the consonants’ names are the same as their sounds, but the vowels’ 2nd sounds are also their names. Once they already have (at least the primary) sounds down of each letter this is not nearly so confusing for these “dumb” kids. Teach them what’s important first, the incidentals later.
