WHY did schools stop teaching phonics?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For all of you with young kids, you are now in a return swing to phonics. Yes, schools did stop teaching phonics and focused on "whole language" for many years. Your anecdote does not make you an education expert. Do a little research (and also be grateful that folks are recognizing that many children need phonics).

Never claimed to be an education expert. But OP is claiming that schools are not currently teaching phonics. They are.

[Anonymous]

Phonics only work with some kids. Others are visual and phonics are a disaster for them.

[Anonymous]

Corruption. MoCo cut a deal with Pearson Educational Testing to create their own curriculum - and stayed with it for 9 years, even though they knew it stunk. (Curriculum 2.0) No oversight. No bench research. No success. More than half of children in the county now read below grade level. Hmmm wonder why...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They didn't. It's a urban myth propagated by companies selling programs to "fix" dyslexia. Your school teaches phonics.

Some actually don’t. I’m a teacher and I’ve seen schools that don’t. Part of the problem is Lucy Calkins Units of Study used to completely leave it out and many schools only use her for ELA (reading and writing). I guess in 2017 she started selling a phonics component. I have seen some schools use Lucy and then do phonics separately with Fundations. A lot of older kids in this country truly never got phonics instruction which is critical in k-2nd. Now these kids come to high school struggling to read and especially to write. Whole language was a trend for a while I guess and then balanced literacy came to combine whole language and phonics instruction. But Lucy Calkins used to call her curriculum balanced literacy and it very obviously left out any phonics prior to 2017.

Every school is different so PP can’t say that all schools teach phonics. Trust me- I’ve worked in schools that don’t and don’t want it taught. I think most are starting to slowly realize it’s necessary though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They didn't. It's a urban myth propagated by companies selling programs to "fix" dyslexia. Your school teaches phonics.

Some actually don’t. I’m a teacher and I’ve seen schools that don’t. Part of the problem is Lucy Calkins Units of Study used to completely leave it out and many schools only use her for ELA (reading and writing). I guess in 2017 she started selling a phonics component. I have seen some schools use Lucy and then do phonics separately with Fundations. A lot of older kids in this country truly never got phonics instruction which is critical in k-2nd. Now these kids come to high school struggling to read and especially to write. Whole language was a trend for a while I guess and then balanced literacy came to combine whole language and phonics instruction. But Lucy Calkins used to call her curriculum balanced literacy and it very obviously left out any phonics prior to 2017.

Every school is different so PP can’t say that all schools teach phonics. Trust me- I’ve worked in schools that don’t and don’t want it taught. I think most are starting to slowly realize it’s necessary though.

The Fountas & Pinnel curriculum is another source of balanced literacy curriculum. The government actually had a huge reading panel that determined whole language was less effective that direct, structured instruction and then the whole language curriculum publishers tacked on a bit of phonics and rebranded as “balanced literacy”.

But there is a philosophical issue of constructivism. Many topics are best learned through student exploration and discovery. Whole language folks generalized from the way humans learn to speak, to how they learn to read. Unfortunately, the 2 are not analogous in terms of brain processes at all. Text and mathematics are both relatively modern inventions and so require direct, systematic instruction to master the basics.

Humans can absolutely engage in stories before they are able to read and write. But somehow the whole language folks extrapolated to we shouldn’t bore children by explicitly teaching them the sounds of the letters and the rules of how they work together.

If you are interested in learning more, use the term “Science of Reading” there is a lot of cross-discipline integration supporting structured instruction and it is more than just phonics. It starts with phonemic awareness and continues through morphology.

[Anonymous]

They teach it. I sit next to the computer daily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is an honest question. I read these forums and there is a ton of complaining about the new style of teaching kids to read that doesn't require phonics. No one ever talks about why this switch happened and I am very curious to know what the thinking is behind it. I've even googled the topic and get a bunch of articles about how the new style works poorly, but still no explanation of why it's being used. I have an infant so I haven't experienced this yet as a parent and it does seem like a very bizarre change.

See the parts I bolded.

We teach phonics. It is more of the balanced literacy approach a PP mentioned. It isn't taught the same way it was when I was in elementary school (whole class, phonics worksheets, drill), because not every student has the same need or learns the same way. It's more work for the teachers, but the instruction is not "one size fits all". Phonics is covered during Writer's Workshop in small groups, through individual tasks, word study, writing conferences, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an honest question. I read these forums and there is a ton of complaining about the new style of teaching kids to read that doesn't require phonics. No one ever talks about why this switch happened and I am very curious to know what the thinking is behind it. I've even googled the topic and get a bunch of articles about how the new style works poorly, but still no explanation of why it's being used. I have an infant so I haven't experienced this yet as a parent and it does seem like a very bizarre change.

See the parts I bolded.

We teach phonics. It is more of the balanced literacy approach a PP mentioned. It isn't taught the same way it was when I was in elementary school (whole class, phonics worksheets, drill), because not every student has the same need or learns the same way. It's more work for the teachers, but the instruction is not "one size fits all". Phonics is covered during Writer's Workshop in small groups, through individual tasks, word study, writing conferences, etc.

To be effective the phonics instruction has to be systematic- the Writer’s Workshop phonics doesn’t have a research-based scope and sequence. And it isn’t paired with decodable readers for targeted skill practice. Even Lucy Calkins has admitted her program needs rebalancing. It has been banned in several states.

[Anonymous]

My K'er has phonics every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does anything in education change?

Test scores are less than perfect. Someone in charge (who hasn't been in a classroom in years if ever) comes up with some program/methodology to try to fix it. Finds research to back up their desires. Forces everyone in their domain to implement this new change.

5 years later, test scores still aren't perfect, new person is in charge, so new program comes in.

I've taught for 10 years and this is my 3rd set of standards and curriculum.

This. Teacher here and this is it. Test scores don't improve fast enough so districts jump ship and buy the "next best thing" in order to show improvement. It doesn't necessarily mean it will. That's why people send their kids to Catholic schools. They stick with what works. My son's Catholic school phonics looks similar to what I did in public school in MD in the early 80s. If it ain't broke....

Plus the old school phonics programs are less expensive. The tiny budgets are likely what saved Catholic schools from much of the whole language disaster. But now there are generations of teachers coming out of schools who have never learned how to teach reading in a systemic way. The education professors have no incentive to improve their practices as many of them are selling/ advising on whole-language or balanced literacy textbooks themselves.

[Anonymous]

My kids school proudly proclaimed they did not teach phonics and I never saw any indication. My older kids had phonics. My siblings are in education and it’s a hot topic. It’s very school dependent. The pendulum is swinging back

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Phonics only work with some kids. Others are visual and phonics are a disaster for them.

Similarly, my kids are so thrown off by the pictures. Maybe it's our workbooks, but the pictures are so bad and don't match the stories well. I hide the pictures with a paper and the kids read better. When they stare at the pictures, my DD starts saying "kitten" instead of reading "cat". Or when they read the word "coat" and the guy in the picture doesn't have one on, they're just confused.

I love phonics, but for it to work, the kid needs to have a fantastic grasp on the English language. The kid will sound it out phonetically, but then change it at the last minute to what the English pronunciation is. Because English only follows phonics rules half the time (At most). Spanish is a much easier to learn, phonetic language. Few vs Sew, does vs goes, two vs to. English is a mess. So many kids don't have a great grasp on the English language by Kindergarten, and I think that's where the real failing is.

[Anonymous]

Google Lucy Calkins, she's ruined an entire generation of children's schooling.

[Anonymous]

I have an 11th grader who never learned phonics. The first time I told him to "sound it out" he looked at me like I asked him to lick the letters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Phonics only work with some kids. Others are visual and phonics are a disaster for them.

Similarly, my kids are so thrown off by the pictures. Maybe it's our workbooks, but the pictures are so bad and don't match the stories well. I hide the pictures with a paper and the kids read better. When they stare at the pictures, my DD starts saying "kitten" instead of reading "cat". Or when they read the word "coat" and the guy in the picture doesn't have one on, they're just confused.

I love phonics, but for it to work, the kid needs to have a fantastic grasp on the English language. The kid will sound it out phonetically, but then change it at the last minute to what the English pronunciation is. Because English only follows phonics rules half the time (At most). Spanish is a much easier to learn, phonetic language. Few vs Sew, does vs goes, two vs to. English is a mess. So many kids don't have a great grasp on the English language by Kindergarten, and I think that's where the real failing is.

The first rule of reading- keep your eyes on the letters! Try the purple challenge for a fun illustration. https://youtu.be/Lxx7hs0qdKQ


The “rules” of English will explain close to 85% of words. Most people don’t learn all of the necessary background. English has borrowed a lot of words from other languages so our system is more complicated that Spanish. But once you know the history of our language along with the more basic rules you are set for success. The concept of “schwa” alone explains so much variance between the written and spoken word.

(Schwa is when vowels don’t say their appropriate sound in an unaccented syllable. They instead have a short u or I sound. Some examples are the o in bacon, the a in slogan, the a in local.)