Topic: Purpose and Limitations of Phonics Instruction as It Relates

to Teaching Reading

 Reading programs today have become so full of variety that

kindergarten and first grade students must look forward to reading

and reading instruction more than ever. Children in kindergarten are

learning the alphabet through song, dance, and making their own

alphabet books. They are learning phonemes and syllabication through

clapping or chanting. They are learning sound relationships through

alliteration, tongue twisters, onsets, and rimes.

 Phonics is the system of instruction used to teach children the

connection between letters and sounds (Snow et al., 1998)

 The main goal of such instruction is to help children figure out the

alphabetic system of written English and become comfortable with that

system as they become readers. (Lyon, 1998).

 Research suggests that systematic phonics approaches are more

effective than non-systematic approaches, children should be provided

with systematic phonics instruction as part of a balanced reading

program.

- What is Systematic Phonics Instruction? Phonics is a method of

instruction that teaches students correspondences between

graphemes in written language and phonemes in spoken language

and how to use these correspondences to read and spell words.

 In order for children to be able to link their knowledge of spoken

language to their knowledge of written language, they must master

the alphabetic code, that is, the system of grapheme-phoneme

correspondences that links the spellings of words to their

pronunciations.

 Phonics instruction teaches beginning readers the alphabetic code and

how to use this knowledge to read words. In systematic phonics

programs, a planned set of phonics elements is taught sequentially.

The set includes not only the major correspondences between

consonant letters and sounds but also short and long vowel letters and

sounds, and vowel and consonant digraphs (e.g., oi, ea, sh, th). It also

may include blends of letter-sounds that form larger subunits in words.

The larger units taught might include onsets (consonants that precede

vowels, such as “j” in jump or “st” in stop) and rimes (i.e., the vowel

and following consonants such as “ump” in jump and “op” in stop)

Phonics Instruction

 Phonics instruction is different from phonemic awareness instruction

 Several different approaches have been used to teach phonics

systematically (Aukerman, 1971, 1984; Harris & Hodges, 1995)

 These include synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, embedded phonics,

analogy phonics, onset-rime phonics, and phonics through spelling. These

approaches differ in several respects

 Synthetic phonics - programs use a part-to-whole approach that teaches

children to convert graphemes into phonemes (e.g., to pronounce each letter

in stop, /s/-/t/-/a/-/p/) and then to blend the phonemes into a recognizable

word

 Analytic phonics - uses a whole-to-part approach that avoids having children

pronounce sounds in isolation to figure out words. Rather children are taught

to analyze letter-sound relations once the word is identified. For example, a

teacher might write the letter P followed by several words, put, pig, play,

pet. She would help students read the words and recognize that they all

begin with the same sound that is associated with P.

 Phonics through-spelling programs - teach children to segment and write the

phonemes in words.

 Phonics in context teaches children to use letter-sound correspondences

along with context cues to identify unfamiliar words they encounter in text.

 Analogy phonics teaches children to use parts of written words they already

know to identify new words. For example, they are taught a set of key words

that are posted

on the wall (e.g., tent, make, pig) and then are taught to use these words to

decode unfamiliar words by segmenting the shared rime and blending it with

the new onset (e.g., rent, bake, jig).

 Purpose and Limitation

 The goal of phonics is not that children be able to state the "rules" governing

letter-sound relationships. Rather, the purpose is to get across the alphabetic

principle, the principle that there are systematic relationships between letters

and sounds.

 Phonics ought to be conceived as a technique for getting children off to a fast

start in mapping the relationships between letters and sounds. It follows that

phonics instruction should aim to teach only the most important and regular

of letter-to-sound relationships, because this is the sort of instruction that

will most directly lay bare the alphabetic principle. Once the basic

relationships have been taught, the best way to get children to refine and

extend their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences is through repeated

opportunities to read.

 Jeanne Chall’s (1967) comprehensive review of beginning reading instruction

covering studies up to the mid1960’s, Learning to Read: The Great Debate.

Her basic finding was that early and systematic instruction in phonics led to

better achievement in reading than later and less systematic phonics

instruction

 Phonics instruction is considered particularly beneficial to children with

reading problems. Studies indicate that students with reading disability (RD)

have exceptional difficulty decoding words (Rack, Snowling, & Olson, 1992).

 The impact of phonics instruction on reading was significantly greater in the

early grades (kindergarten and first grade) when phonics was the method

used to start children out than in the later grades (2nd through 6th grades)
 after children had made some progress in reading presumably with another

method.

 The contribution of phonics instruction is text reading. Systematic phonics

instruction was found to boost spelling skill in younger but not older

students.

 Phonics instruction helps kindergartners and first graders acquire the

alphabetic knowledge they need to begin learning to spell.

 Phonics instruction failed to boost spelling among readers above first grade.
 Reference:

 Ehri, L. C., Nunes, S. R., Stahl, S. A., & Willows, D. M. (2001). Systematic

Phonics Instruction Helps Students Learn to Read: Evidence from the

National Reading Panel’s Meta-Analysis. Review of Educational Research,

71(3), 393–447. doi:10.3102/00346543071003393

 Adams, M. J. (1994). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print.

MIT press.

 Aukerman, R. C. (1972). Approaches to beginning reading.

 Harris, T. L., & Hodges, R. E. (1995). The literacy dictionary: The vocabulary

of reading and writing. Order Department, International Reading Association,

800 Barksdale Road, PO Box 8139, Newark, DE 19714-8139 (Book No. 138:

$25 members, $35 nonmembers)..

 Chall, J. S. (1983). Learning to read: The great debate. McGraw-Hill.

 Rack, J. P., Snowling, M. J., & Olson, R. K. (1992). The nonword reading

deficit in developmental dyslexia: A review. Reading Research Quarterly, 29-

53.