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The Reading Wars: Who Is Who?

Have you ever heard of the reading wars? As a parent, maybe you are lost in the theoretical debate on how to teach reading. There are two main theories or strategies on how to teach reading. The two main theories are called whole language and phonics. Within each theory there is a whole host of methodologies. Some of the more famous methodologies are Reading Recovery, Open Court, Orton Gillingham and Lindamood Bell.

Whole language allows students to use pictures, context and sight recognition to read words. Whole language often works with affluent (I’m talking middle-class or upper-class students with a college educated mom) students who already have a wide repertoire of low-frequency vocabulary words in their lexicon. However, if the student does not become an avid reader, they may be at risk for becoming poor spellers. Sometimes students who are taught with the whole language method, fool their teachers into thinking they are reading. But in reality, they are looking at the pictures and using guesswork.

Phonics is a methodology that teaches students phonemes and the most common sight words. Every phonics program also has a sight word list, because not every word in the English language follows phonetic patterns. However, most words do. Simply teaching 44 phonemes to students allows them to make incredible gains in their reading accuracy. The phonemes need to be taught systematically and practiced extensively. Haphazard phonics programs are not effective. However, phonics programs that teach phonemes in an organized methodical fashion are incredibly effective. Later, students taught with a systematic phonics methodology will be good spellers and readers. Eventually, students will transition from decoding to reading words by sight; this is a natural process. 

Children’s Book Review: National Geographic 125 True Stories of Amazing Animals

This is one of my favorite children's books. Many of my students read fiction. While I am a lover of fiction, I also value allowing children to explore the world. I find teachers assign a lot of fiction books for homework. Yet, I have never heard of a teacher who balances fiction with nonfiction. Reading nonfiction is incredibly important because nonfiction develops student’s vocabulary outside of fictional stories. After all, later on the students will have to be successful in biology, history, chemistry, and physics courses. Why not develop their vocabularies in these topic areas early on?

National Geographic 125 True Stories of Amazing Animals is a fun nonfiction book that teaches readers about animals. I must admit the book is even entertaining to many adults, including myself. In this book, readers learn about the eccentricities of animals, like a bison that lives with a human family and thinks it's human. Or a cat that steals gloves. Or a bird that scared a burglar out of the house. Here, children learn about the potential of animals, including their unique physical capabilities (like heightened senses), their intelligence, their ability to feel emotions, and their crafty ways of solving problems. Readers can learn that animals have many talents. Some of which are shocking.

National Geographic 125 True Stories of Amazing Animals is also an excellent read to familiarize students with the different types of animals. For example, they can learn about orangutans, goats, otters, thornback rays, bison and other animals readers may not be very familiar with. The book is also packed with adorable pictures that help readers visualize the animal heroes of every true story. Readers get to indulge in seeing some humorous pictures like a bison standing inside a man's kitchen, while the man reads the paper. If you pick up a copy of National Geographic 125 True Stories of Amazing Animals, tell me what you think.

Learn to Read Letter Sounds: Continuous vs. Stop Sounds

A B C

What are continuous sounds? Why are they important? Continuous sounds are sounds we can hold. “M” is a continuous sound, because we can elongate this phoneme: “Mmmmmmmm.” Continuous sounds contrast with stop sounds. Stop sounds are phonemes we can’t hold. “C” is an example of a stop sound. We can’t hold “C.”

When you’re working with beginning readers, continuous sounds are extremely valuable. They allow students to hold the sound until they figure out the next sound, thereby creating a blend.  A student can say, “mmmmmaaaaaannnnnnn” for “man.” But for a word like “dog,” they are forced to stop the first and last sound: “doooooog.” “D” and “G” are stop sounds. Sometimes students (and teachers) forget to clip stop sounds. Instead of “d,” they say “du.” Instead of “g,” they say “gu.” This can cause confusion. A student may say “duogu” for dog. After the student reads “duogu” they, unsurprisingly, can’t figure out that the word is actually “dog.”

To allow a smooth transition from phoneme to phoneme, allow beginning readers to start with continuous sounds. This will make early reading a friendlier, easier process. I suggest starting with the following sounds: “m, n, s, a.” All of these are continuous sounds. Thus, “m, n, s, a” allow readers to blend easily.

Check out my youtube videos at B Marker:

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Learn to Read: Letter Sounds by B. Marker

3 Tips for Vocabulary Development

1)   READ A LOT- There is no better way to develop vocabulary than to read widely and extensively. Often times, we see people advocate easy tricks for people to gain large swaths of words in their lexicon. However, vocabulary development takes time, persistence and dedication. If you want to engage in vocabulary development activities, commit to reading every day. Decide to read 30 minutes to an hour every day. Keep a record of the amount of time you read on your calendar. Also, create a book list so you can see how many books you’re reading per year. Studies have shown that humans need to be exposed to a word over 40 times in different contexts to master the usage of that word. Hence, it's important to read a lot to have exposure to low-frequency words.

2)   READ ACROSS GENRES- Every discourse community has their own word bank: discourse communities tend to use a select amount of words. If you want to develop your vocabulary on the economy, pick up articles on GDP, share prices, the Federal Reserve…etc. Generally, people are interested in developing their vocabularies across genres. If this is true for you, make sure you're reading a wide range of subjects like literature, history, science, mythology, and economics. While I am a lover of literature, I don't recommend only reading fiction. Read other genres too. Be wary of teachers who only assign fiction for homework. Be sure your student always has a nonfiction book they're reading. Learning about volcanoes, whales, tigers, plants, major historical figures, historical events, ancient civilizations and other nonfiction areas can be loads of fun.

3)   CREATE A WORD LIST- Have your students keep a diary or word list with them to jot down words they need to learn. Many teachers have vocabulary quizzes every Friday. Be cautious of giving too many words. Studies have shown that we can only learn 4 to 8 words per week. If you're working with elementary school students, 3-5 new vocabulary words per week would be a great place to start. If you're working with middle or high school students, 6-8 words would be a great place to start. Make sure you're always reviewing previous words. For example, if you have four new words that week, tell your students to practice all previous vocabulary word lists. Test them on the four new ones, but pick two old words at random (for a total of six words). Do this every week. This will give students motivation to study all the old word lists. Review is key. We don't learn words after we memorize them once. We learn words after repeated exposure over a long period of time.

Learn to Read: A Phonemic Awareness Activity

Phonemic awareness activities are important to teach students how to read. If you are working with a struggling reader, you may notice that the student also struggles with segmenting and blending sounds. There are a variety of phonemic awareness activities. The following is one where the teacher segments the word. The student then has to figure out what the word is.  The student listens to each phoneme the teacher says and blends them together to create a word. Here is the phonemic awareness activity:

Teacher: /b/ /a/ /t/

Student: Bat

Teacher: /M/ /e/ /l/

Student: Mel

Teacher: /f/ /o/ /g/

Student: fog

Teacher: /b/ /u/ /s/

Student: bus

Teacher: /n/ /a/ /b/

Student: nab

Notice how the words contain different phonemes. Don’t follow “cat” with “bat,” because the last two phonemes of these words are the same. Thus, the student does not have to engage. They are memorizing “at” if “cat” and “bat” are in order. Vary the sound patterns to ensure the student is really building phonemic awareness. To make the activity extra challenging, incorporate infrequent words like “nab.” If you incorporate infrequent words, you reduce the chances that the student is guessing.

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