Should We Teach Phonics to Remedial Readers?
Many teachers were trained in the notion that phonics skills are best learned implicitly in the context of authentic literature. Although is certainly true that a majority of students can probably learn essential decoding skills in this manner, it is also true that explicit phonics training is a more efficient method of instruction. More importantly, it has become increasingly sure in a unified body of research that a certain percentage of students do not learn to read through implicit phonics training. So, yes we should teach phonics to remedial readers.
Phonics involves pronouncing and blending the speech sounds (phonemes) when they are represented by the alphabetic symbols (spellings). Phonics instruction means to teach how to pronounce sounds and words from their spellings. There are about 43 common speech sounds (phonemes) in English and these are represented by about 89 common spellings.
Phonics is not phonemic awareness, which involves the ability to identify and manipulate the speech sounds. It is not spelling, because it does not apply the sounds to the alphabetic symbols.
Why is phonics instruction important and can remedial readers learn phonics?
Reading is not a developmentally acquired skill that naturally derives from phonics. Phonics instruction, using the most common sound-spelling relationships, is the most efficient and effective approach for many children (Adams, 1988; Stanovich, 1986; Foorman, Francis, Novy, & Liberman 1991). New research shows that phonics-based instruction can actually change brain activity in adults with dyslexia, resulting in significant improvements in reading (Flowers, 2004).
Which method of phonics instruction works best?
Research-based explicit, systematic phonics instruction works quickly and efficiently to “fill in the gaps” as determined by diagnostic phonics assessments. Reliable whole-class assessments have recently been developed to enable remedial reading teachers to isolate the phonetic elements that individual students need to master. Based upon this data, teachers can form small groups to remediate each phonetic element.
What about English-language Learners?
Specific speech sounds differ among languages, making phonics and phonics acquisition more challenging for English-language Learners (ELLs). ELL research findings are consistent with primary language research findings in that both phonics and phonics instruction clearly benefit ELL reading development. Furthermore, there is no evidence that phonics and phonics instruction in English needs to be delayed until a certain level of English oral language proficiency is achieved.
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