Combining whole word method and phonics?

[lovelee]

On Friday my son's tacher sent home the Friday lewsletter that mentioned they will be bringing home a book two nights a week and we are suppose to

"read the story and point under each word as you read it". This is how your child will be shown to read: one to one matching. Soon your child will begin reading to you."

Well that is definitley whole word method! I honestly thought schools didn't teach this anymore and it was only phonics. Is it possible they combine the two (although there was no mention of it)?

I e-mailed the teacher, but she's not the greatest about getting right back to you...

[aussiemum]

Yes, whole word method is common in Australia. I don't like it, tbh, but fortunately our kids' school also combines whole word with phonics. They don't talk about phonics much, because whole word is trendy right now, but they are definitely teaching phonics.

In class, kids are taught letter-sounds, & they learn motions to make as they say the sound. FOr example, 'S' is 'ssssss', & the kids move their arms in a swirling snake-like motion as they say it. 'E' is 'eee-eeee-eee' like a squeeky-mouse sound, & the kids make a whisker motion next to their mouths as they say it, iykwim.

Also, they bring home a card with 4 words on it to memorise (whole word), & once they have mastered those words, they get another card with 4 more words to work on, & so on. Four nights a week each child brings home a book that has text at their reading level (or just about). Parents are asked to read with their children every night, & we sign off as each book is read. My kids have developed into good readers under this program, but to be fair DH & I also explain about the English language & phonics as we read with them. We encourage them to 'sound it out' & if they aren't getting it, or have made a logical (but incorrect, 'cuz English can be so illogical) error, we tell them the word & very briefly explain the phonics & go on with the text.

At age 8 DD doesn't really need any direction when she is reading- occasionally she will ask if she doesn't know the meaning or pronunciation of a word. She's really into CS Lewis right now, so some words are hard for her. DS (6 in a few weeks) just amazes me with how much he is 'getting' now. Just today he was sitting on my lap as I read at MDC. I can't remember where I was browsing, but he sounded out the word 'tantrum' & pointed to it on the screen. 'The', 'and', 'of', & such are old-hat to him, of course.

Phonics has been a huge part of my kids learning to read- whether they teach it in school or not. Whole word is okay, combined with phonics it can be powerful, ime. HTH.

[lauren]

Our school definitely seemed to combine the two. I hope the teacher will get back to you soon. I would usually ignore that direction to point to each word, because I didn't feel it was helpful to my particular children. Do what you think works and let them do it their way at school!

[Mirzam]

This is so called balanced approach to reading which supposdedly incorporates phonics and sight words. The problem seems to be that teachers don't teach the phonics component very well. You might like to read this research paper which shows just this:

Whole Language Lives On: The Illusion of “Balanced” Reading Instruction by Louisa Cook Moats

http://www.edexcellence.net/doc/moats.pdf

Whole language is still very much in use in US schools, especially it seems more alternative schools like the one my DD attended (Alfie Kohn would love it ). She unfortunately is a victim of the "balanced" reading method and I am now having to do over basic phonics instruction otherwise she is going to have trouble. This is one of the reasons I am now homeschooling her. Rather than doing what the teacher asks, or in addition, I would get a traditional phonics program like Alpha Phonics or Turbo Reader and do that with him. I am using Turbo reader with DD and also my 6 yo DS who goes to a different school and is first taught synthetic phonics. I actually gave DS's teacher (this is a new, alternative, very small private school, but they are very open to parent's opinions in regard to curriculum) a copy of the above paper, but she had already decided to start with a strong phonics base -- she had done her research!.

You might be interested in this article I posted below on how UK schools are no longer going to teach reading by whole language; they are going back to traditional phonics.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../npupils08.xml

There will be no more lists of "whole words" that children must learn at the age of four or five and no more books to teach them to recognise "by sight" a single word such as "big".

Instead they will learn to decode simple words by sounding out and recognising the 44 main letter-sound relationships, leaving them more time to learn to identify trickier, non-standard spellings.