The article titled fah-niks (phonics), in the November 2001 Better Homes and Gardens magazine, suggests phonics is the "in" way of teaching reading, as opposed to the whole language approach which was introduced several years ago. Children learn to read by seeing a word's meaning in context with the whole language approach. The phonics approach begins with letter sounds which blend into words. The article states that California performed poorly on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in Reading tests because the children were not taught phonics. Children do not learn how to read the same way. Some children do not understand the phonics concept of letters having sounds, blending together to create words. Other children do benefit from learning phonics. Educators need to expose students to not only phonics, but the whole language approach as well. If children in classrooms are exposed to different learning strategies, one of the teaching methods will click in a child's mind. Narrowing down the classroom to one approach to teach reading is not the way to reach each child individually. In my classroom, the four and five year old students are to be able to recognize all letters, capital and lower case, as well as cursive. They are also expected to be able to know all of the phonics sounds and be able to read. I am given a strict curriculum, which is not developmentally appropriate for their age, and does not have different teaching approaches. I have to figure out which child learns best from games, which child understands the concept of letters, sounds, and words by asking questions and coming up with their own answers. None of my students are on the same reading level or learn the same way. We cannot expect one form of curriculum, whether it is phonics or whole language, to help all children in California to read.
