WHOLE CLASS ARCHIVE

ksbarber
I am probably in a different category than most of my classmates in that I am a true proponent of the Phonics method of learning the Alphabet and reading. I started school in first=grade at the age of seven in 1959 in a Catholic Parochial school and we were taught with Phonics. We were taught to "sound out the letters" if we had difficulty with q word. Later when I became the mother of two daughters, the oldest took quickly to the whole-word recognition they were teaching because she pretty much memorized the words with a photographic memory and was able to read books at a young age because she simply memorized what she had heard me say. They placed her in a gifted class by 2nd grade. The second daughter was totally lost, and I went over the phonics method with her myself and tried to help her with spelling, but spelling was very hard for her. So no one method fits all students. Most can get the "whole word recognition" of "cat", "dog" and "the", but the more letters you add to a word, the more valuable knowing how to "sound it out can be".

I also was amazed when reading a TIME Article on line from 1955, Education: Why Johnny Can't Read" to learn that Phonics only came back into fashion in the late 1950s after they had started using whole word recognition in the 1930s and realized it was not working. The quote from the TIME article (Monday, March 14, 1955) opening reads:
When Best selling Author Rudolf Flesch (The Art of Plain Talk) offered to give a friend's twelve-year-old son "remedial reading", Flesch discovered that the boy was not slow or maladjusted; he had merely been' exposed to ordinary American school.'"

In another article dated Friday, 11 February, 2011, entitled "Why Johnny STILL Can't Read" by Sam Blumenfeld, he addresses the fact that in the 1930s they there out the alphabetic-phonics method, in which one sounds out words, and replaced it with the new "sight-whole word" or "look-say method. on page two of the article he mentioned a 1944 LIFE Magazine article on the epidemic of dyslexia in American children, and mentions the case of a little girl with an I.Q. of 118 who was examined for Dyslexia. After tests, doctors concluded she needed thyroid treatments, removal of tonsils and adenoids, exercises for eye muscles, but no one suggested trying to teach her using Phonics. So sad hat the school system thinks every student can learn to read the same exact way.
ksbarber
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ksbarber
After watching the Youtube video of William Brozo on Boys and Literature discussing the slump in achievement and interest in boys from about 4th grade up to High School, I was reminded about some points I have learned in some of my other recent education classes, especially those teaching English as a Second Language. The reading materials used need to be of interest and relevant to the learner. Bozo says the Department of Education's obsession with standards can drive boys further away from an interest in reading. Their range of texts is limited. I think in teaching all students in this age group, phonics is important, but also making the reading and class literacy assignment of interest make a world of difference. Bozo gave an example of a teacher that let kids bring in rap lyrics (cleaned up) and then got to write their own rap lyrics. It was suggested in a video that followed that boys like books that make them laugh and appeal to a sense of adventure. I was introduced to a series of books last summer by my eleven-year-old granddaughter based on the character "Captain Underpants". I had never heard of the books, but I read through the series with her last summer and I see why it made her age group want to read. Allowing that pre-teen to teenage age group read such things as comic books, graphics novels, mythology and even game character backstories, can enhance their interest but also help them learn to read more fluidly.

The Boys and Literature video with Brozo brought up some points that I found interesting. As a person who did not enjoy engaging in reading during school, I thought that the idea of drawing upon outside interest and connecting them back to literature and reading was a great idea. During my school years, I had to read so many books that I did not find applicable to my life or my interests and it made reading more of a task and not an engaging activity. If more education programs today tried to tie in the text that they may be required to teach into the students interests, I could see progress in literacy would be made for those student who may be unmotivated. Additionally, I did not find that there is a slump in motivation surprising at all. When you look back at elementary and middle school, 4th and 5th grade is when you go from reading fun fiction books that engage imagination to almost all text that only provides information. It's no wonder why kids lose the motivation to engage in reading and literature.

When it came to searching for information about Johnny Can't Read, I seemed to find a lot of articles that were celebrating the books 50th or 60th anniversary. These articles gave some information about how the phonics method that the book was based on is still used today, but most of the information provided was the authors opinion on the technique. I was more interested on facts or data that supports the claims made in the text that phonics is a better method the teach reading that the whole word reading. It makes sense that whole word reading would be more beneficial when trying to understand the meaning of a word, but when it comes to learning how to read, phonics and taking the time to sound out the word in pieces would make it easier to learn new words. The phonics method is what I was taught in school when I was younger and I haven't in my experience see the whole word reading in use. Is this whole word technique outdated or is it still attempted to be taught in school, not only in the U.S. but in other parts of the world as well?

I tried to do the same thing and look back at if I was taught to read by phonics or looking at whole words. What I can recall is learning to read by phonics and then after a while we tried to read using whole words. Also that is a really good point when it comes to testing. If some kids aren't taught to read by phonics, then it would be unfairly biased to test these kids with phonics subtests. I think we should take that into consideration when testing kids and maybe ask the parents or teachers for information about how the child was taught to read.

In my elementary school experience we got to choose the books we read which did a great job of providing entry points. This allowed each student to not only read what they were interested in but on their reading level (you were to choose books within a personal range provided from a reading quiz). However this just merely delayed the reading slump until middle school when we no longer had choices. At some point, however, students need to build a stamina to read material they did not choose, but perhaps some aspect of freedom should always be maintained.

The timeline of reading instruction and assessment has a lot of swings back and forth. Note Bill Brozo's point about the Reading Wars. What else is here? Jennie's point is interesting that she wasn't aware of there being different approaches to reading instruction. Brianne's connection to the assessment questions that can raise... What else? What about the tone? What's not being talked about?

Wait... just saw Caroline's post on the Readings thread: Interesting points--culture, image, discourse, testing, motivation.

Through my little brothers I feel like I have really seen this phenomena of boys having a lack of interest in reading. In my family my sister and I are the oldest and we have two little brothers. Both girls always showed an interest in reading and stories, where as our brothers would always want to wander off to do something more active. The only books that could catch and hold their attention were Captain Underpants, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and the Lightning Thief series. In the Brozo video he really harped on finding an entry point text. I read almost the exact same thing when I read an article titled Why Johnny Won't Read (School Library Journal, Michael Sullivan, August 1, 2004). Both resources pointed to a need to get boys interested at a young age. From my own observations with my brothers, It is easy to catch the boys attention with a book with any sort of adventure or outlandish plot. The problem is holding on to that interest once it had sparked.

A problem that is pointed out in the Johnny article is that teachers will suggest books that are focused toward a female audience. This puts the idea in students' minds that these more feeling based books are acceptable literature, but action, adventure, and fantasy books are less acceptable. Going back to the idea of entry point texts, these fantasy books can be what sparks an interest in reading for all young students. I still feel like the fantasy lit course that I took in high school was the best class I could possibly take to encourage my desire to read. This was because we were given a choice of books that interested us, instead of being restricted to the necessary, though often dry, greats of literature. I wonder wether the way most summer reading is done, where there is one required book, then a list of books to choose from, would be a good way to encourage reading in the classroom?

I was taught the phonics method - as I feel most of us were to some extent as kids - but then once you got the basics we all learned certain rules better when applied with words; Charlemagne is one you can't simply use with the phonics method, for example, and would just have to learn through experience and repetition. It seems like once we reach 3rd grade we learn - or are expected to learn - via whole words as we should know general phnics such as the 'ch' sound or what have you.

And this is where I think IQ/Achievement testing comes in. Because the expectation is we learn the phonics method as little kids, it's why we have those certain subtests on the DIBELS or whatever that specifically target if we know them. So I think it's combination of the two; we need the basics to have a good ground work of reading, but as with many things experience - by way of the whole word method - teaches nuances and advanced examples/techniques the basics alone can't accomplish.