Back to Basics? You Mean--Just Keep Doing The Same Thing?
The shabby state of reading in our nation is nothing new. Government figures consistently show approximately 40 percent of bright, capable children have trouble in learning to read. Each times these sorts of figures are published there is the call to "go back to basics." Behind this advice, is the firm, but unfounded, belief that way back, our country was in fine shape with literacy and that the current failure is based on having deviated from the practices of those older days.
Admittedly, for a couple of brief periods in our history, some other forms of reading instructions were attempted. One was whole word teaching (where children were to learn whole words rather than sounds); another was whole language teaching (where children were to read whole books right from the start). These efforts were even more unsuccessful than the phonics instruction they were designed to replace and their tenure was brief. So for almost the entire history of our country, phonics has held sway. Hence, the call to "go back to basics" is essentially a plea to continue doing what we have been doing for generations.
The reasons why the basics don't work are easy to identify if you spend some time looking at what children are offered. Major holes pervade the system. To take but one example, let's consider a group of words that permeate our language. These are the "little words" such as was, who, he, they, of, what, were, do. For phonics instructors, these words are 'renegades' that fail to 'obey' the rules. If the words chose to be reasonable, was might be spelled as wuz, who as hoo, he as hee, they as thay, of as uv and so on. So minimal time is spent teaching them.
The lack of attention is justified by telling children that these words have no meaning; indeed, they are often encouraged to skip over them. If we follow that advice, it means that the sentence you just read would be experienced as: lack attention justify tell children words meaning encourage skip. Were your agenda to be a lack of comprehension, you would be well on your way.
Not only are the words deemed to be meaningless, they are also deemed to be rare--that is, their total number is minute relative to the range of all other words. After all, why spend time on things that are so exceptional?
Except not these exceptions. In fact, about 100 of these little words make up 50% or more of any page of print -regardless of whether the book is for a first grader or a college student. This small, seemingly insignificant set of words actually forms the backbone of language. Without them, we simply cannot create meaningful sentences. That's why they represent practically every other word we read--or write. Failure to provide children with adequate training in this realm seriously compromises their chances for success. Comparable difficulties exist in every other one of the six essential skills required for reading.
It was understandable that educators a couple of centuries back failed to take account of the many skills underlying literacy. The knowledge base was simply not there. Nowadays, there is no such excuse. The advances in cognitive science, linguistics and related realms provide a gold mine of resources. Yet for the most part, they have been ignored as children continue to be confronted with out-of-date programs that breed unconscionable rates of failure. For the health of our children and our nation, it is time for reading instruction to enter the 21st century. That is why Phonics Plus Five has been created. It is designed to go "beyond the basics" and provide children with the full range of skills they need to become truly competent readers and writers.
