Whole Language Vs. Phonics:
Whole Language Leaves Some Children Hopelessly Behind
(ARTICLE WRITTEN BY DR. CHARLES SCHWARZBECK for Scripps Howard News Service)
Sam, 7, sits in his first grade classroom and tries hard to copy the words beginning with 'm' from the blackborard. It is "M Week."
He looks up at a "man" and copies the m. Then, he looks up again and copies a. He looks up a third time and copies n.
For a moment, he is pleased that he has copied his first word. Then he looks over at his friend, Daniel, and sees he has copied three words.
Sam squeezes his pencil with his whole hand and presses hard as he copies "mop," letter by letter. HE writes the o beneath the line. As he tries to erase, his paper develops a small hole.
He looks discouraged and lays his head down on his desk, still working on "mop."
Later, his reading attempts show that he hasn't developed much since kindergarten. His class, learning with state-of-the-art, whole language approach, is reading sentences containing only two, three and four letter words. They are reading about a family's ski holiday. Most of the children are interested and motivated.
But, Sam reads "ski" as "saw" and later "sat" as "saw." He cannot really read; most of his class can. Sam's eyes travel all over the page, then to the classmate who is reading, and then back to scan the page some more. When called upon, he guesses and loses his place. His teacher tells him "good try" and "You read 'saw' and 'see' very well."
Later, she explained that 'self-esteem is fragile at this age. I try to talk about what they do correctly. Positive reinforcement is a key. It supports our whole language approach."
Sam shows all the hallmarks of Early Academic Failure---a condition that can form the basis of repeated failure and years of underachievement. He showed normal preacademic and social developments in preschool. By the middle of first grade, however, he is struggling with learning language in ways that are different and more severe than his classmates.
Sam is still unable to copy tow or three-letter combinations. He approaches writing words from the standpoint of unrelated, single letter steps. This is a laborious, frustrating task. At the basis of his frustration is difficulty with language memory. He cannot remember combinations of letters.
Another characteristic of Early Academic Failure children is delay of failure to progress from logographic reading to alphabetic reading, by the middle of first grade.
Sam shows us that "rug," "rob" and "rat" are all understood to be "rat." He keys on the first consonant that he sees. By now, however, young readers should be keying on vowels: first on long vowels, and subsequently on short vowels. Sam, like most Early Academic Failure children, cannot reliably recall letter sounds.
Many specialists agree that Early Academic Failure children, when given a specialized language learning approach, can over come their frightening start. Yet, they contend, a number of factors esentially ignore the Early Academic Failure child's struggle until it is too late.
Teachers follow the philosophy of maintaining "the least restrictive environment." Consistent with "whole language" approaches, children are encouraged to enjoy their readings and writing experiences. Tasks that focus on phonetic mechanics and alphabet rules are discouraged. Children's spelling errors and decoding mechanics are not emphasized. Teachers often maintain that self-confidence and enjoyment in learning should be the priorities.
In contrast, critics maintain that whole language training is responsible for overlooking reading and spelling mechanics and for ignoring the needs of Early Academic Failure children.
It may be that maintaining a least restrictive environment ignores the struggles of the Early Academic Failure child, and allows the language acquisition problems to worsen.
Quite often, teachers and schools are not equipped to try to re-mediate children's learning problems until second or third grade. As it seems that Early Academic Failure first graders specifically require alphabetic stage, phonetic skill training, or an approach that empahsizes visual matching and visual memory, schools should be equipped with specially trained teachers to identify and teach these at-risk youngsters.
Experience shows that Early Academic Failure children, when identified by first grade, respond quickly and dramatically to multi-sensory, developmentally directed, individualized training.
This extra expense and learning resource is considerably less than years of remediation and special help that is needed by older children, after they were overlooked as first graders.
Sam, 7, sits in his first grade classroom and tries hard to copy the words beginning with 'm' from the blackborard. It is "M Week."
He looks up at a "man" and copies the m. Then, he looks up again and copies a. He looks up a third time and copies n.
For a moment, he is pleased that he has copied his first word. Then he looks over at his friend, Daniel, and sees he has copied three words.
Sam squeezes his pencil with his whole hand and presses hard as he copies "mop," letter by letter. HE writes the o beneath the line. As he tries to erase, his paper develops a small hole.
He looks discouraged and lays his head down on his desk, still working on "mop."
Later, his reading attempts show that he hasn't developed much since kindergarten. His class, learning with state-of-the-art, whole language approach, is reading sentences containing only two, three and four letter words. They are reading about a family's ski holiday. Most of the children are interested and motivated.
But, Sam reads "ski" as "saw" and later "sat" as "saw." He cannot really read; most of his class can. Sam's eyes travel all over the page, then to the classmate who is reading, and then back to scan the page some more. When called upon, he guesses and loses his place. His teacher tells him "good try" and "You read 'saw' and 'see' very well."
Later, she explained that 'self-esteem is fragile at this age. I try to talk about what they do correctly. Positive reinforcement is a key. It supports our whole language approach."
Sam shows all the hallmarks of Early Academic Failure---a condition that can form the basis of repeated failure and years of underachievement. He showed normal preacademic and social developments in preschool. By the middle of first grade, however, he is struggling with learning language in ways that are different and more severe than his classmates.
Sam is still unable to copy tow or three-letter combinations. He approaches writing words from the standpoint of unrelated, single letter steps. This is a laborious, frustrating task. At the basis of his frustration is difficulty with language memory. He cannot remember combinations of letters.
Another characteristic of Early Academic Failure children is delay of failure to progress from logographic reading to alphabetic reading, by the middle of first grade.
Sam shows us that "rug," "rob" and "rat" are all understood to be "rat." He keys on the first consonant that he sees. By now, however, young readers should be keying on vowels: first on long vowels, and subsequently on short vowels. Sam, like most Early Academic Failure children, cannot reliably recall letter sounds.
Many specialists agree that Early Academic Failure children, when given a specialized language learning approach, can over come their frightening start. Yet, they contend, a number of factors esentially ignore the Early Academic Failure child's struggle until it is too late.
Teachers follow the philosophy of maintaining "the least restrictive environment." Consistent with "whole language" approaches, children are encouraged to enjoy their readings and writing experiences. Tasks that focus on phonetic mechanics and alphabet rules are discouraged. Children's spelling errors and decoding mechanics are not emphasized. Teachers often maintain that self-confidence and enjoyment in learning should be the priorities.
In contrast, critics maintain that whole language training is responsible for overlooking reading and spelling mechanics and for ignoring the needs of Early Academic Failure children.
It may be that maintaining a least restrictive environment ignores the struggles of the Early Academic Failure child, and allows the language acquisition problems to worsen.
Quite often, teachers and schools are not equipped to try to re-mediate children's learning problems until second or third grade. As it seems that Early Academic Failure first graders specifically require alphabetic stage, phonetic skill training, or an approach that empahsizes visual matching and visual memory, schools should be equipped with specially trained teachers to identify and teach these at-risk youngsters.
Experience shows that Early Academic Failure children, when identified by first grade, respond quickly and dramatically to multi-sensory, developmentally directed, individualized training.
This extra expense and learning resource is considerably less than years of remediation and special help that is needed by older children, after they were overlooked as first graders.
