After our discussion over the readings that we had the other day I decided to look into phonics more. I was surprised to find an article that actually claimed the second. In the March 2004, volume 61 edition of EL educational leadership was an article written by Gay Ivey and Marianne Baker titled, “Phonics Instruction for Older students? Just say no”. Ivey and Baker argue, with supporting evidence that beyond the first grade phonics instruction does not help students become better readers. From reading this article I am finding that the use of phonics teaching is akin to that of grammar. Earlier in the year we discussed the decline grammar instruction has upon older readers and writers. We found that the use of isolated grammar teaching, such as sentence diagrams, actually decrees a student’s writing ability, Ivey and Baker sustain much of the same is true of phonics. Ivey and Baker state that as long as a student has sustained the reading level of a 3rd or 4th grader, even a 1st or 2nd, that returning to phonics teaching will not help them. Instead they encourage integrating the lessons into thing that the student is already reading. They suggest shadow reading, in which a teacher reads one sentence with a struggling student and then the student repeats the sentence. They found that this is more helpful for students that already understand basic word structure.
I can’t say how glad I am to of read this article. After our last discussion in class I was gun ho to try and find ways to incorporate phonics into a teaching curriculum which, in hindsight, would not have been effective with the grade level I would be teaching to, high school. Instead it seems that we once again see that in order for students to grasp concepts they must be able to have hands on experience while they try to internalize these concepts, and that hands on with reading and writing is a work that they are invested in accompanied with one on one or small group learning with the teacher.
Laura Elder
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar04/vol61/num06/Phonics-Instruction-for-Older-Students%C2%A2-Just-Say-No.aspx
I can’t say how glad I am to of read this article. After our last discussion in class I was gun ho to try and find ways to incorporate phonics into a teaching curriculum which, in hindsight, would not have been effective with the grade level I would be teaching to, high school. Instead it seems that we once again see that in order for students to grasp concepts they must be able to have hands on experience while they try to internalize these concepts, and that hands on with reading and writing is a work that they are invested in accompanied with one on one or small group learning with the teacher.
Laura Elder
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar04/vol61/num06/Phonics-Instruction-for-Older-Students%C2%A2-Just-Say-No.aspx