Reading & Other Learning Disabilities

Many myths surround phonemic awareness and phonics. These myths hurt children, especially children at risk for or with reading disabilities. By understanding the better scholarship about phonemic awareness and phonics, you may be able to protect children from harm.

The quotations below summarize much of the better scholarship. If you’re involved in making decisions about phonemic awareness or phonics, we suggest that you study these quotations, review the sources, and, if appropriate, share these quotations with others.

• Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken words. [It does not involve seeing letters and connecting them with sounds.] Before children learn to read print, they need to become aware of how the sounds in words work. They must understand that words are made up of speech sounds, or phonemes. (NIFL, 2003, p. 2)
• Phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of success in learning to read…. On learning that phonemic awareness is such an important concept, some people have concluded that it is all we need to worry about in preparing children to read. Phonemic awareness training programs have been developed and mandated for every child, every day for 30-40 minutes, when only 18 hours of phonemic awareness has been found to be necessary over a school year. This would be 10 minutes a day. (Cunningham, 2003, p. 67)
• Our concern is that in some classrooms phonemic awareness instruction will replace other crucial areas of instruction. Phonemic awareness supports reading development only if it is part of a broader program that includes—among other things—development of students’ vocabulary, syntax, comprehension, strategic reading abilities, decoding strategies, and writing across all content areas. (Yopp & Yopp, 2000, p. 142, in Cunningham, 2003, p. 67)
• Students who are unsuccessful in reading words that are unfamiliar to them may also struggle with poor phonemic awareness skills. This is especially problematic for adolescent readers with dyslexia and those who encounter many words that are new to them as they read content-area texts [such as science books].  (NIFL, 2007, p. 5)
• [Exemplary phonics instruction] builds on a foundation of phonemic awareness…. Phonemic awareness and early phonics instruction go hand in hand. (Caldwell & Leslie, 2005, p. 53)
• It is generally best to begin teaching letter sounds after students have demonstrated phonemic awareness … and have learned some common sight words….   While it is possible to teach letter-sound association in isolation from real words and real text, students make better sense of how to use letter sounds if real words and real text are used. (Duffy, 2003, p. 176)
• A variety of published phonics programs have been touted as the “cure-all” for everyone’s reading problems. Enthusiasm for these programs has lasted just long enough for everyone to relearn the fact that thoughtful reading requires much more than just the ability to quickly decode words…. The most effective literacy frameworks include a variety of instruction and activities that provide children with a balanced literacy diet. (Cunningham, 2003, p. 66)
• Children need to spend most of their reading/language arts time actually reading and writing. Without many opportunities to apply what they are learning about phonics, children will not become fluent readers or writers. Comprehension instruction and the development of prior knowledge, meaning vocabulary, and oral language are necessary components of a balanced reading program that will produce thoughtful readers…. Every activity should include opportunities for children to apply what they are learning to reading and/or writing new words. (Cunningham, 2003, p. 71)
• Systematic and explicit phonics instruction is more effective than non-systematic or no phonics instruction…. The hallmark of programs of systematic phonics instruction is the direct teaching of a set of letter-sound relationships in a clearly defined sequence. (NIFL, 2003, p. 13)
• Any kind of well-organized and efficient phonics instruction is generally better than little or no phonics instruction that leaves learning phonics to chance! …. There are several types of good phonics instruction…; no research base supports the superiority of any one particular type. (Cunningham, 2003, p. 71)
• Struggling with phonics negatively affects students’ reading comprehension skills, vocabulary knowledge, and reading fluency. Adolescents with weak phonics skills lack effective strategies for decoding unknown multi-syllabic words. Even words used by students when conversing with others can be the same words these students are unable to sound out when presented with the words in print. As a result, these words remain unknown to them in print. (NIFL, 2007, p. 5).
• Systematic and explicit phonics instruction is particularly beneficial for children who are having difficulty learning to read and who are at risk for developing future reading problems. Systematic phonics instruction is significantly more effective than non-systematic or no phonics instruction in helping to prevent reading difficulties among at-risk students and in helping children overcome reading difficulties. (NIFL, 2003, p. 15)
• Programs should acknowledge that systematic phonics instruction is a means to an end. Some phonics programs focus primarily on teaching children a large number of letter-sound relationships. These programs often do not allot enough instructional time to help children learn how to put this knowledge to use in reading actual words, sentences, and texts. Although children need to be taught the major consonant and vowel letter-sound relationships, they also need ample reading and writing activities that allow them to practice using this knowledge. (NIFL, 2003, p. 15)
• No more than 25 percent of total instructional reading/language arts time [should] be spent on phonics instruction and practice. Applied to a 30-minute intervention period, this means 7.5 minutes. … The rest of the time should be spent reading poetry and stories that contain the phonic elements being taught, and writing. (Caldwell & Leslie, 2005, p. 53)
• Systematic phonics instruction by itself may not be enough to significantly improve the overall reading and spelling performance of readers beyond first grade. The effects of phonics instruction on students in second through sixth grades are limited to improving their word reading and oral text reading skills. The effects do not extend to spelling and reading comprehension. For these students, it is important to emphasize reading fluency and comprehension. In addition, these students also require explicit spelling instruction to improve their spelling. (NIFL, 2003, p. 18)
• Approximately two years of phonics instruction is sufficient for most students. (NIFL, 2003, p. 18)

More information about phonemic awareness and phonics is found in Thomas G. Gunning’s Assessing and Correcting Reading and Writing Difficulties, in our postings of 10/15/09, 10/17/09, 11/17/09, and throughout our book, Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds.

Resources

Caldwell, J. S., & Leslie, L. (2005). Intervention Strategies to Follow Informal Reading Inventory Assessment. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Cunningham, P. M. (2003). What research says about teaching phonics.  In L. Mandel Morrow, L. Gambrell, & M. Pressley (Eds.), Best Practices in Literacy Instruction (2^nd ed.) (pp. 65-85). New York: The Guilford Press.

Duffy. G. G. (2003). Explaining Reading. New York: The Guilford Press.

Gunning, T. G. (2002). Assessing and Correcting Reading and Writing Difficulties (2nd ed.) Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

National Institute for Literacy (NIFL; 2003). Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read (2^nd ed.). Retrieved 11/18/09, from www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading

National Institute for Literacy (NIFL; 2007). What Content-Area Teachers Should Know about Adolescent Literacy. Retrieved 11/18/09, from www.nifl.gov.

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