I’ve been reviewing my posts from the 1990s in a newgroup called misc.education the last few days. It has been interesting to read the discussions about reading back then. That was the heyday of the “reading wars” and people could get pretty wound up. It was all about phonics vs. whole language.
My plan is for a blog post about why I decided to jump onto the phonics bandwagon after coming out of college riding the whole language band wagon. The latter because that is what I was taught in college.
It is going to take some work to get that post written so I thought I’d share this one in the meantime because it shows the power of the phonograms, which I like to think of as phonics on steroids.
This discussion is from 1997 and was titled The Reading Wars in California — The Atlantic. I had been teaching the phonograms for a few years at this point in my teaching career.
A couple comments first:
- I was not a “phonics-only” teacher but answered anyway.
- There are a few words I wasn’t able to explain. For two of them I refer you to explanations by Denise Eide from The Logic of English.
- We didn’t call it “the science of reading” back then, but that’s really what it was.
Here is the post from Reuel Nash:
Here’s another article in the Atlantic Magazine on reading. Specifically, it traces Bill Honig’s involvement in the politics that are going on right now with the legislature effectively removing any funding for any reading program that isn’t phonics. Why is the legislature micromanaging curriculum?
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97nov/read.htm (no longer valid)
You can see one of the bills referred to in the Atlantic article at:
http://reality.sgi.com/csp/pathways21/#ca_leg (no longer valid)
For you “phonics-only” folks out there, consider the following list of words. Which phonics rules are supposed to get my daughter to decipher and understand these? I started the list while reading with my 2nd grade daughter and noticing that most of the words she has trouble with are “exceptions” to the phonics rules that I learned in 1st grade.
be
go
hi
me
no
so
to
we
bear
bolt
else
give
gone
grey
head
into
mind
mold
move
once
said
shoe
some
tear — rhymes with hair
they
very
went
wild
blind
build
climb
death
eight
false
—
Reuel Nash
——————————————–
My response:
I’ll take a shot at explaining the rules for some of the words you listed below.
be through we – a, e, o, u usually say their long sounds at the end of a syllable.
hi- English words don’t end with “i”. This is really an abbreviation for hello as far as I’m concerned.
bear, head, death, tear – the ea is the second sound for the phonogram “ea”.
bolt, mold, wild, climb, blind – vowels i and o may say their long sounds when followed by two consonants.
else, gone, some – These are the fifth rule for silent final e (no job e)
give, move – English word do not end with v so we have a silent final e (second rule of silent final e)
grey – long a is the second sound of the phonogram “ey”.
into – The “o” sound is the third sound of the letter o.
once – This one is tough. I can’t tell you why one and once start with a “w” sound. The “c” says its second sound though because the “e” makes it. (third rule of silent final e)
2024 update—Go to 7 minutes in this video from Denise for an explanation of once. L129 Foundations Spelling Analysis (youtube.com)
said – I teach my first graders to pronounce this with the long a sound because of the “ai.” After doing this they easily figure out that the word is read the way we always say it. Only takes a few times and they read it as expected.
eight – I teach “eigh” as long a, four letter a. I would use the long a symbol there if my keyboard would to it. We actually say, “A, four letter a.”
went – I’m not sure what your problem is with this unless you are using the short i sound rather than the short e sound that should be used.
very – Again, I don’t see your problem here. Use the short e sound. The “y” often says “e” at the end of a word.
shoe, build – I’m afraid I don’t know what to tell you here. Children just must learn some sight words.
2024 update—Go to 6 minutes in this video from Denise for an explanation of build. Still nothing for shoe, sorry. L136 Foundations Spelling Analysis (youtube.com)
Feel free to post another list. I’ll take it to my first graders and we can go through the list together and get back with you. It is a little early in the year for them to know all the rules I listed above but they know many of them already. If you want to know where this comes from, let me know.
Mark Boline
Nov 10, 1997