[senco-forum] Reading and phonics

Phil

I am happy to confirm that I believe that it is possible for about 80% to learn to read by the socalled 'whole word' method which I call the 'natural' method only in order to set it apart from the 'whole word' approach and any other ideas that have become associated with that concept.   I do believe that reading is similar to speaking but no, I do not believe that learning to read is similar to learning to speak.  I was not in fact aware that this was a whole language premise.  I think the waters are already sufficiently muddy.   I do not believe in the clear cut dichotomy of either 'phonics' or 'whole word' that has bedevilled this debate for decades.  

I have described in some detail, the process of the 'natural' method of learning to read and conceded that its principal shortcoming is the fact that it only works for about 80% of the population.  I have described it because I believe that it is the process by which millions of us in learned to read but (and this is very important)   I do not support its use as a general method of teaching children to read.    Do our visual memories not hold visual images of  countless millions of irrelevant objects? and is it not reasonable to assume that it also holds the images of a few thousand words which can form a permanent decoding reference library for all those very occasional words we come across in our reading? 

Those who are very keen to see SP imposed on all children in all schools are well aware of this process although they are reluctant to concede that it exists. This is why they are keen for children to be taught SP before the natural process of assimilating a sight vocabulary begins but, like it or not, the process takes place even during SP sessions and is in fact a part of that very process. This is why I regard the notion that the phonics and whole word are two separate and independent methods as nonsense.

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Eddie C.