Being a proficient reader has an impact on a student’s entire education. Teaching students to read effectively is the work not only of early-childhood educators but also senior-secondary school educators.
That said, and after a lifetime of involvement with public education, it seems curious to me that the debate about how best to teach reading has never been fully resolved.
Essentially, the discussion, which does become quite pointed at times, has always been about the relative value of a phonics-based approach versus what used to be called a “whole language” approach — now referred to as “balanced literacy.”
Phonics-based reading instruction is a methodology for teaching young children to read and spell words. The child learns to sound out the letter combinations in a word. The phonics approach attempts to break written language down into small and simple components.
“Balanced literacy,” on the other hand, is a literature-based method of teaching children to read by recognizing words as whole pieces of language in books kids enjoy reading.
It is a methodology that integrates a variety of literacy instruction, all of which is aimed at guiding students towards proficient and lifelong reading.
Proponents of the “balanced literacy” approach believe that language should not be broken down into letters and combinations of letters and “decoded.”
“Balanced literacy” recognizes that learning to read is more encompassing in the sense that language is a complete system of making meaning, with words functioning in relation to each other in the context of a sentence.
So far so good, but the decades-old debate all but exploded last week when Lucy Calkins, an education professor and leading “balanced literacy” exponent, announced that she had re-written her curriculum to include a fuller embrace of phonics and a commercial program called the “science of reading.”
For years, a Calkins-inspired classroom saw teachers reading aloud from children’s literature. Students then chose books that fit their interests and ability. The focus was more on stories — theme, character, plot — and less on sounding out words phonetically.
However, in 2018, Calkins developed a Units of Study for teaching phonics. Before that, her instructional materials had largely ignored phonics.
Units of Study has been a commercial success for Calkins, which has led to further academic criticism of her revised approach.
So what do we know about how to start kids off on the long journey to adult literacy competence?
While the “how” of learning to read is still something of a mystery, what we do know, according to reading researchers like Regie Routman, is that between the ages of four and nine, from pre-kindergarten to upper elementary years, a child will have to master some 100 phonics rules, learn to recognize 3,000 words with just a glance, and develop a comfortable reading speed approaching 100 words a minute.
As if that is not challenging enough, the child must also must learn to combine words on the page with a half-dozen squiggles called punctuation into something — a voice or image in his mind — that gives back meaning.
“Teaching kids to read is not an either-or,” says Routman. “Becoming a reader requires both decoding and fluency and comprehension and lots of reading of self-chosen books.”
So let’s detour around all the academic arguments (and rivalries) about the best way to teach reading and get straight to the first, best and most influential teachers of reading — parents or other trusted adults, like grandparents.
At least on this all the leading reading researchers agree: Early reading experiences with trusted adults are what most effectively prepare children for the benefits of formal literacy instruction.
Parents who introduce their children to books provide a head start in school, especially through the K-3 years.
Involvement with reading at home has been found to have significant positive influences, not only on reading achievement and language comprehension but also on expressive language skills — the child’s ability to formulate and express his/her thoughts fluently.
Parental involvement in their child’s reading has been found to be a more powerful force than all other family background variables, including family size and the level of parental education.
Leading researchers also agree that reading for enjoyment is more important for children’s educational success than any other single factor.
As former U.S. president Barack Obama put it, “reading is the gateway for children that makes all other learning possible.”
Geoff Johnson is a former superintendent of schools.
