As a teacher deeply interested in SoR and evidence-based learning, I find the greatest challenge is keeping up with the rapidly shifting landscape of literacy research. It seems to me that we are now in the era of "Phonics Wars". How much phonics? What kind of phonics programs? What approach is most successful?
We have the O-G group, like Wilson, Barton, UFLI, and 95%. Pros for this group is the systematic and explicit teaching that spirals phonics skills, with the early lessons focusing on the most stable vowel and consonant spelling patterns, and it can be easy for teachers to learn because lessons are step by step. Cons are that it doesn't work with all struggling learners, can get bogged down in making a student do multiple repeats of a lesson, and doesn't include much morphological or etymological instruction for students or teachers.
Then we have linguistic phonics that focuses on sounds first. Pros for this group is the streamlined approach to multiple spellings of a sound, begins with how students in different regions pronounce something, so it's not reliant on a single pronunciation, and emphasis on real text application rather than decodables. Cons are that learning all variations at once can lead to cognitive overload for struggling students. I've found that they have great difficulty applying what they learn to spelling.
Syllabication goes with pronunciation ra * bbit, but rab * bit signals that the first <a> is short and helps in pronunciation and in understanding why consonants are doubled. I watched an EBLI video where the instructor showed how to help students pronounce multi-syllabic words by blending each piece and putting the pieces together. However, she already had the word divided into syllables and if a phoneme was mispronounced, such as saying a short <o> when it should be a long <o>, she would tell them the sound to say. There was no explanation of why the word was divided that way or why the pronunciation should be a long vowel vs. a short vowel. Lastly, not much emphasis in morphology or etymology.
Finally, we have Structured Word Inquiry with a tight focus on morphology and etymology. Pros are that it teachers the meaning and structure of English words, that spelling and meaning tends to be consistent while pronunciations may change, and that English is predictable when meaning and history of word development is understood. I think it also provides the greatest growth in vocabulary. Cons are that it is very word based, with no clear explanation of how to apply it to connected text. Because the proponents insist on inquiry, it will, in my opinion, never be adopted by schools because you can't have 3 or 4 first grade classes learning different things, then getting mixed into 3 or 4 second grade classes who may or may not repeat what they learned in first grade. Also, the proponents sometimes, in my opinion, end up in the weeds trying to distinguish every single prefix, base, and suffix. It's also a lot to expect teachers to know all of the bound Greek and Latin bases without some clear curricula.
These pros and cons are just off the top of my head. I've been learning and using all of these systems for several years now. I use aspects of each one when teaching how English spelling and pronunciation works. I hope that at some point research will show how these approaches can be melded together into a cohesive program that includes all aspects of literacy, not just decoding and encoding.
Many teachers don’t know the difference between Print to Speech phonics and Speech to Print phonics. The Spelltalk list serve discusses this. I recently read “the case for Linguistic Phonics” and can send you a copy. I think the OG approach turned so many struggling readers around, we didn’t know there were options .
As a teacher deeply interested in SoR and evidence-based learning, I find the greatest challenge is keeping up with the rapidly shifting landscape of literacy research. It seems to me that we are now in the era of "Phonics Wars". How much phonics? What kind of phonics programs? What approach is most successful?
We have the O-G group, like Wilson, Barton, UFLI, and 95%. Pros for this group is the systematic and explicit teaching that spirals phonics skills, with the early lessons focusing on the most stable vowel and consonant spelling patterns, and it can be easy for teachers to learn because lessons are step by step. Cons are that it doesn't work with all struggling learners, can get bogged down in making a student do multiple repeats of a lesson, and doesn't include much morphological or etymological instruction for students or teachers.
Then we have linguistic phonics that focuses on sounds first. Pros for this group is the streamlined approach to multiple spellings of a sound, begins with how students in different regions pronounce something, so it's not reliant on a single pronunciation, and emphasis on real text application rather than decodables. Cons are that learning all variations at once can lead to cognitive overload for struggling students. I've found that they have great difficulty applying what they learn to spelling.
Syllabication goes with pronunciation ra * bbit, but rab * bit signals that the first <a> is short and helps in pronunciation and in understanding why consonants are doubled. I watched an EBLI video where the instructor showed how to help students pronounce multi-syllabic words by blending each piece and putting the pieces together. However, she already had the word divided into syllables and if a phoneme was mispronounced, such as saying a short <o> when it should be a long <o>, she would tell them the sound to say. There was no explanation of why the word was divided that way or why the pronunciation should be a long vowel vs. a short vowel. Lastly, not much emphasis in morphology or etymology.
Finally, we have Structured Word Inquiry with a tight focus on morphology and etymology. Pros are that it teachers the meaning and structure of English words, that spelling and meaning tends to be consistent while pronunciations may change, and that English is predictable when meaning and history of word development is understood. I think it also provides the greatest growth in vocabulary. Cons are that it is very word based, with no clear explanation of how to apply it to connected text. Because the proponents insist on inquiry, it will, in my opinion, never be adopted by schools because you can't have 3 or 4 first grade classes learning different things, then getting mixed into 3 or 4 second grade classes who may or may not repeat what they learned in first grade. Also, the proponents sometimes, in my opinion, end up in the weeds trying to distinguish every single prefix, base, and suffix. It's also a lot to expect teachers to know all of the bound Greek and Latin bases without some clear curricula.
These pros and cons are just off the top of my head. I've been learning and using all of these systems for several years now. I use aspects of each one when teaching how English spelling and pronunciation works. I hope that at some point research will show how these approaches can be melded together into a cohesive program that includes all aspects of literacy, not just decoding and encoding.
Valiant mission!! Praying for endurance.
So. Excited. For. This.
Many teachers don’t know the difference between Print to Speech phonics and Speech to Print phonics. The Spelltalk list serve discusses this. I recently read “the case for Linguistic Phonics” and can send you a copy. I think the OG approach turned so many struggling readers around, we didn’t know there were options .
I think you are right that much of the field is still coming to realize that there are alternatives to OG-style phonics.