Reply to Why was Balanced Literacy so popular for so long?

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[quote=Anonymous]I'm paywalled from the NYT article but this article from earlier this year is a good explainer on how balanced literacy gained popularity and then abruptly lost it:

https://time.com/6205084/phonics-science-of-reading-teachers/

One takeaway I have from reading about the reading wars, as a parent of a pretty new reader, is that kids really do need both explicit phonics instruction but "whole language" approaches (read alongs, talking about stories, examining context, etc.) to become strong readers, but while parents can do a pretty good job of contributing to the latter part, schools and teachers are much better situated to teach phonics.

If teachers just focus on the whole language piece, that leaves parents to fill in the gaps with phonics. But teaching phonics is actually a learned skill and most parents aren't good at it. I know because I tried to do it with varying success during Covid when it was clear my DD needed help with it because she hated Zoom school and would not pay attention during phonics instruction via Zoom (I do not blame her, that is not a good way for a kindergartener to learn). But it's freaking hard! First, you have to learn a lot of the phonics rules that you basically forgot years ago once you became a fluent reader. Also, you have to learn how to teach it to a 5 year old. I'm not an ECE teacher, I am good at talking to my kid about all kinds of things but I don't have any training on how to break down a relatively technical instruction for that age group. I muddled through and I know it helped some, but it was nothing compared to what an actual trained teacher with experience can do with phonics, as I learned once my child returned to in-person school.

But reading to my kid, talking about books and ideas, discussing context? I'm great at that. We read all kinds of books, we find different ways to talk about them, it's a bonding time for us and it just fits right into our life. I'm not saying I don't want teachers to do that portion at all, I'm just saying that if they can only do so much of it, I have the rest more than covered at home. But phonics? Kids should learn that in school from a teacher trained to teach it, because it's actually not that easy to teach. And kids are at school all day anyway! The idea that for years kids were being taught phonics via home supplementing while they spent the day doing read alongs and "whole language" practice? It's really dumb and I'm glad that era is over.[/quote]

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