M10: Phonics Instruction
Look back at p.195 in Chapter 8 (Wright, 2019). This is about phonemic awareness and phonics instruction for English Language Learners (Box 8.1). Phonics instruction is a part of reading, but HOW much and HOW is highly controversial.
What follows are some of the key points made in the field.
Skills-Based Advocates Claim:
- Students need phonemic awareness training to be able to hear and distinguish between phonemes before they can learn to read.
- Teachers need extensive phonemic awareness training.
- This training usually is a scripted program following a rigid scope and sequence and includes phonemic awareness activities such as: rhyming, initial sound recognition, blending, segmentation, substitution, and other drills.
- As students become “phonemically aware,” they need phonics instruction to match phonemes to graphemes (letters) in order to decode (sound out) words.
Criticism of Scripted Phonemic Awareness Training for ELs:
- ELs may not get much out of the drills, especially if they are manipulating the sounds of words they don’t know.
- ELs may have great difficulty with drills using phonemes that do not exist in their native language.
- These drills can be very frustrating for ELs.
- Instructional time could be much better spent on more meaningful literacy activities.
Criticisms of Scripted Phonics Programs for all students:
- There are too many phonics' rules.
- There are too many exceptions to phonics' rules.
- Phonics instruction isolated from authentic texts is not beneficial and is a waste of time for students who acquired the target letter-sound correspondence naturally.
- Lessons are much longer than needed.
- Other activities could help them acquire the target sound more naturally.
- Phonics texts or “books” are too contrived to focus on particular letters and sounds.
- The books and lessons feel unnatural.
- They lack the appeal of authentic children’s books which motivate reading.
- Instructional time would be much better spent teaching phonics and other reading skills within the meaningful context of authentic literature.
So, how DO we support phonemic awareness in our classrooms for ELs? This Q&A from the Reading Rockets website Links to an external site.provides some answers.
Dr. Timothy Shanahan's (literacy expert) response:
- Teach phonemic awareness and phonics to beginning English readers no matter what their language background or how much literacy they have. (If you are teaching kids to read in their home language first, then teach the decoding for that language, and provide additional instruction as needed when the transition takes place).
- If students can already read in the home language, you should be able to reduce the amount of phonics that is needed to the extent that there is overlap between the two languages.
- If students are phonemically aware in their home language, you shouldn’t have to do as much with that (though there can be a benefit from focusing on those English sounds that may be unfamiliar).
- Finally, second-language students in U.S. schools often underperform in reading. That means they may require some kind of intervention to give them extra targeted teaching. Many schools rightfully provide special interventions that target skills like phonemic awareness and phonics.
However, just because a reader is struggling doesn’t automatically mean the problem is with decoding. That is especially true for these second language learners. They, too often, are assigned to extra decoding work even when their decoding skills are adequate. For them, the extra focus should be on developing their English language.
OK, great. SO what does that look like? It looks like all the things we have talked about! Incorporating phonics instruction in an authentic way through meaningful activities. Read the link on the next page for an example of phonics instruction with older students.