My Relationship With Phonics True Confessions of a Veteran Teacher
- Andrea
- Feb 22, 2015
- 4 min read
You can say phonics and I have been through a lot together over the years. We have history. Phonics has been an unconditional friend to me, one I can neglect for years at a time only to be welcomed back at any time with no questions asked.
Our relationship began back in the 1960’s. The Vietnam War was raging and social change was going forward at lightening speed. It was the time of Woodstock and Flower Power. (Well for me maybe Banana Splits cartoons and the Brady Bunch.) I learned how to read back in those days, although I’m not really sure exactly when or how.
Not much happened between us in the 70’s. Things just went along. I grew taller, survived junior high and high school and went off to college. Then came the crazy 80’s. I was a new college grad with a bright future and a great “perm”. I started teaching in an urban New York City public school and was reintroduced to my old friend, Phonics. Our introduction came in the way of a blue covered Modern Curriculum Press second grade phonics workbook. Each day my thirty plus second graders and I looked at simply drawn pictures and recited the words that went along. Together we chanted the beginning, middle or ending sounds for those words and my students dutifully wrote the corresponding letters in their best pencil print below the drawings. Some of my students became readers and some did not.
The late 80’s found me newly married and living and teaching in the suburbs. I taught first grade and found myself in classes of no more than 25 English-speaking, mostly white middle class children. It was the era of whole language and my curriculum director was adamant that we throw away our phonics books in favor of the “natural approach”. It seemed that children in New Zealand could read better than American children and they didn’t have phonics workbooks over there. Some of my students became readers and some did not.
The 90’s gave me a break from teaching full time while I raised three children and worked part-time as an adult English as a second language teacher and early childhood special education teacher. I read to my children everyday, and the two eldest became readers with little effort.
As my third child entered pre-school in the new millennium, I gave up my adult teaching job to focus more on my career as a special education teacher. I followed the same reading and parenting regimen and by the age of four, this bright verbal little girl wasn’t learning her letters and sounds. I increased her exposure to books, restricted her television exposure to mostly Sesame Street and waited for the “light bulb” to go off. By age five she entered kindergarten and could barely name the letters in her name. Her teachers weren’t concerned, after all she was one of the youngest in the class and we lived in a community where not all of the children attended pre-school or spoke English before starting kindergarten. She wasn’t the only student who didn’t know her letters and sounds.
In 2003 my sweet little girl turned six and we moved to a new state and new school system. I started substitute teaching and was later hired as a part-time special educator for fully included students. I discovered the Wilson Reading Program and signed up for the three-day overview. At the same time my then first grader wasn’t getting the hang of reading and I was called into school. I assured her teacher that I would work with her at home and hoped my three days of training would equip me with the tools I needed to help my daughter read. (I later finished Wilson Level I certification and am currently working on Level II) By the end of first grade as well as participation in the schools extra reading program, it was evident that my daughter needed to be tested. It was later determined she had a learning disability and was therefore not going to be able to learn how to read without significant help. It turned out she needed phonics instruction beyond what was being offered in her classroom. I discovering the same thing with many of the students I worked with, although certainly not all of them. It was then my relationship with phonics was forever established.
I’m happy to say my little girl is a senior in high school and has been accepted to a great college! She’s worked really hard over the years and has had a steady dose of phonics first through Project Read, then Wilson and eventually working on her own, strengthening her relationship with letters and sounds as a way to communicate with her friends on Facebook.
My experience has taught me that some children are able to learn the letters and sounds with little direct instruction, but some are not. Phonics has helped me teach many children (although not all) to read over the years. I definitely don’t claim phonics is the magic bullet that solves all reading problems. It isn’t and I will talk more about that in the future. But for the students who need it there is no substitution.
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The web is a great place to start if you’re interested in learning more about the role of phonics in reading instruction. If you haven’t checked out Reading Rockets, it’s a great place to start.
You will find an abundance of literature and activities, particularly for younger students.
(*If you visit the site, you should also search for articles by Louisa Moats and Carol Tolman)
For those who either teacher or parent older students, I found the link below on the Reading Rockets site.
Other great phonics resources:
For younger students
For older students
I found this site recently. It’s from South Australia, but there are some nice free resources appropriate for older students. The group is part of the International Dyslexia Association. Some of the language and spellings are a bit different.
What to look for to determine if a child needs help developing phonics skills.
Again, I find no need to re-invent the wheel! Click on yet another helpful link from the readingrockets.org site!
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