In Practice

Okay, (now you know it’s Alice writing) since there was a mixup with authorship, I wanted to say that this post will be from both Michaele and me whatever the credits come up with…This starts from an email I got from Michaele today about phonics based instruction, and the absurdities it can lead to. Here is that note:

Jake is 5 and learning to read.

He points at a picture in a zoo book and says,
‘Look Mama! It’s a frickin’ Elephant!’

Deep breath … ‘What did you call it?’

‘It’s a frickin’ Elephant, Mama!
It says so on the picture!’

and so it does …

‘A f r i c a n Elephant ‘

Alice: Hey Michaele, ya know, jokes like this are easy to make. Many will recognize the photo above as the “H” sound/spelling card from Open Court (hey, you can buy a set of these flashcards for only $24.81 and the wall cards are a steal at ~$150). Look at the picture on the card (you’re wondering what is that…a hyena?), it’s a hound! A kindergarten co-worker in Oakland used to joke that the kids, recognizing it as a dog (or dawg) and never hearing the term hound, would label it the “hadawg” card. It’s easy for grown ups to make jokes about it, what has really happened? What’s your perspective on this?

Michaele: My kindergarten students come to school with a variety of prior experiences and life skills. A child who has never smelled an orange or tasted one will still recognize “orange” when examining a pumpkin, or learning to identify one crayon from another, but will only comprehend the many meanings and connections to “orange” for future reference after s/he experiences the concept in a multitude of ways.

Several years ago, the whole-language versus phonics debate was mostly over invented spelling, which no one seemed to understand wasn’t the rule, but was rather an exercise of not penalizing students as they tried to learn and use letter sounds in the first place. Whole language, in the hands of good teachers, integrated phonics, memorization, language usage and student interest (and others, I’m sure), while in the hands of the inexperienced, not-so-good teachers or critics, it ended up on the receiving end of the blame game when students “couldn’t spell.” The predictable result was that teachers, parents, and administrators were again on the look out for what I like to call the “magic pill program.”

In my opinion, language acquisition doesn’t occur in the isolation of specific skills, but rather when children are immersed into the whole world of language, literacy, expression, and communication. Their voices, questions, mistakes, and continued language development should all be valued equally, and given the time and ALL resources available for individual mastery. Teachers who focus only on phonics or who endorse strict memorization of sight words deprive students who may not learn best by those methods. Knowing the sounds that letters make is essential to developing language and literacy, but students are not likely to learn all the rules, and all the ways that they are broken in one sitting. Perfect pronunciation or spelling does not equal comprehension.

Yep, I’m a whole language advocate, which means I’m a phonics-integrated advocate too. In my mind, phonics materials need to be culturally relevant, which a singular magic pill phonics program, game, or set of cards will never be. I’ve been able to use one phonics program with many of my Caucasian students living in each state to which I’ve traveled, but have also utilized “Athabaskan ABC” lessons while teaching in Alaska . In New Mexico , it was necessary for me to modify the Harcourt Brace phonics activities because my Hispanic/Latino students would see the “A…Apple” card and immediately substitute “A…manzana.” Before advocating for a strong phonics base, consider all of the E.L.L. students whose primary languages don’t have sound equivalents to the English alphabet, then try locating a curriculum kit that will solve all of your district’s worries. You probably won’t find one.

The frickin’ elephant is a funny joke easily emailed, and especially enjoyed by teachers in-the-know, but it’s the type of humor that gets us thinking after we’re done laughing…side splitting to migraine-inducing.

Alice: Well, here are some of my observations. This is a great program for getting most kids to a Basic level of proficiency, but because it stresses delivery of instruction, not students thinking or teaching them to do that. Under my state standards, they will never reach grade level proficiency for third grade or later. Also, as a former upper grade teacher, students often learned more decoding skills than thinking skills. Unfortunately, there is no fluency test as part of state testing. They have to read, and comprehend, not race through a passage. In addition, my Spanish speaking students would sometimes turn out to be champion decoders, but they had no idea what they were reading. They needed language and vocabulary development to understand what the heck they were reading so fast.

Next up, we’ll have Matthew Needleman, who has done a lot with Open Court (and other scripted programs) to bring in that higher order thinking. This is one of my favorite posts that he wrote which basically tells a first grade teacher, forget the pacing guide timing for teaching decoding/phonics, your first priority in scheduling is independent work time (centers/workshop) so you get to both higher-level thinking, and small groups (not just you in front of the class). I like that thinking. His post will be on the topic of effective delivery of instruction for English language learners (trust me the post in more interesting than I just made it sound).