Essay Example on A balanced approach to teaching phonics is the best Method

A balanced approach to teaching phonics is the best method of instruction I believe that the ability to decode a word is an invaluable skill Likewise I also believe that we need to support a love for reading To do both we need to encourage a combination of approaches As educators we know that our students learn best through various ways In my experience most of the schools that I have worked in have taken this approach In order to reach all students teachers use many methods of instruction when teaching reading and phonics Teachers use the whole word approach by teaching site words reading mentor texts and modeling writing At the same time teachers are also using phonics to teach decoding and spelling skills In the late 1960s we learn that the government funded a study to analyze the different methods for teaching phonics In the text it says According to Bond and Dykstra 1967 1997 directors of the project no approach is so distinctly better in all situations and respects than the others that it should be considered the one best method and the one to be used exclusively This study was conducted to end the debate about which method of instruction was the best however there were no statistical findings to prove one was better than another With any approach you will have students who succeed and those who do not It is our job as educators to recognize when one strategy is not working for our students and differentiate the learning As we continue to look at phonics and the way we teach reading I hope that we are able to find more resources that will aid in differentiation and early interventions 

B Describe and discuss factors related to the issues in the readings that contribute to reading or writing success IRA 1 1 C For the past five decades phonics has been a leading topic of discussion and debate in education Before the mid 1930s teachers used phonics as a primary means to teach reading Teachers taught phonics through a mechanistic phonics approach which required students to learn strict rules and procedure for sounding out words In the last half of the decade scholars banned phonics According to Beery 1949 phonics instruction was outdated and intrinsically wrong By the 1940s teachers no longer taught phonics in school and began using a whole word approach This teacher led practice taught words through memorization By the 1950s phonics was slowly making a return Teachers used the whole word approach to influence the way they taught phonics Teachers taught whole words by providing an oral language context and having students look at the printed word on the chalkboard Thus they presented the words and discussed their meanings to encourage readers to remember the word in meaningful oral context In 1955 Rudolf Flesh published a book that recognized that children were not learning strategies for analyzing unfamiliar words However even with the popularity of the book teachers continued to use the whole word approach During the 1960s basal readers included a manual for analytical phonics instruction This method of instruction relied on students knowing many words by sight Students analyzed the relationships between known words and words with similar patterns There were some reading programs however that began including instruction using a linguistic phonics system This approach had students look at patterns within words By the late 1960s many people wanted a change in the way schools taught phonics The First Grade Studies were conducted to see which approach was best however there were no differences in the outcomes 

At around the same time Chall published a book called Learning to Read The Grade Debate She stated that systematic phonics produced better readers and spellers Teachers then began teaching using varied approaches The behaviorist viewpoint influenced the way teachers taught phonics in the 1970s This view broke reading instruction into smaller subskills Workbooks that tracked these skills became popular At the time there were some teachers that chose to teach using a synthetic approach Students learned letter sound relationships then how to blend the sounds to decode new words Very little reading was happening in the classroom because of the heavy focus on phonics instruction The Language Experience Approach was one method used that did not believe in the instruction of letter sound relationships This approach allowed children to dictate stories to their teachers who would in turn use these stories to teach their students to read During the 1980s and 1990s Whole Language became the leading approach This method of teaching went back to the philosophy that reading would develop naturally through a meaning making process Whole Language assumed that phonics would occur naturally as the students read and shared stories together After the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 grants became available for schools to purchase programs that put a heavy focus on phonics first These structured programs were met with some resistance Today schools are using a more conceptualized approach Teachers are able to differentiate their instruction based on their students D Connect and apply readings to empathy fair mindedness and ethics in literacy instruction and professional behavior IRA 1 3