5/17/2023 0 Comments Coyote pronunciationSystematic intensive phonics for all students is as harmful (and misleading) as providing beginning readers with no phonics strategies for their developing journey to comprehension and critical reading. The reasonable and practical middle-basic phonics (see here and here)-is often ignored as a result of this laziness. The lazy phonics debate tends to work at the extremes-a nonsensical argument that all students need systematic phonics instruction before they can comprehend (phonics-first) couched in the false argument that some literacy scholars and teachers embrace zero phonics instruction (a mischaracterization of whole language and balanced literacy). None the less, I do value the role of phonics-the relationship among letters, letter clusters, words, and meaning in a systematic way-although I also recognize the limitations of phonics and rules in the grand scheme of reading for meaning. Asking other people is my go-to strategy even today, as I wander into my 60s. I also can’t really ever think of “sound it out” as a strategy for me when I encountered words I didn’t know. My education included the Dick and Jane approach of whole-word instruction however, I don’t really recall much about learning to read once I entered school except maybe boredom (concerning the lessons, I mean, because I adored my first-grade teacher, Ms. She taped index cards on objects around the house with words identifying those objects, and we read all the time. I can’t recall not being able to read, but I do know that my mother taught my sister and me to read well before entering formal schooling. ![]() This was during an era before kindergarten was common for all, and I also had the great fortune or being raised by a working-class stay-at-home mother who doted on my sister and me. ![]() I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract “I Believe,” R.E.M.īorn in 1961, I entered public school as a first grader in 1967.
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