Hi Rochelle,

Have you not heard of the "reading wars"?  There is much at stake, for 
people in the educational establishment, for teachers, for the children and 
for the country.  In the UK we have 40% of the workforce unable to read 
satisfactorily.  This represents perhaps £10 billion loss to the economy, 
about 1% of GDP.  The social cost of illiteracy must be far more, with at 
least 20% of the population feeling that they are failures.  I expect the 
situation is the same for other countries who have been teaching whole 
language for decades.

For a background to the wars, see 
http://www.readingstore.com/RollCallofCombatants.htm.  This gives a very 
clear background to the reading wars, and divides experts into two camps.  I 
think this is probably US biased.  But you can see why there is so much 
fervour!

Here in the UK we have had reading wars, but it looks as if synthetic 
phonics is the winner, now that the government have done, in effect, a 
U-turn from the National Literacy Strategy dominated by whole language 
thinking.

At last the scientific evidence is being recognised by the establishment. 
Let us hope the same thing happens in the US and elsewhere.  (BTW, the 
importance of recognising scientific evidence is crucial not only to 
education but for the survival of the human race.  There is overwhelming 
evidence that the future of civilisation is in desperate peril from global 
warming, due to CO2 emission.  Listen to James Lovelock who has looked at 
the evidence: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/starttheweek.shtml.)

Cheers from Chiswick,

John

P.S.  I came to this debate as a scientist by training, and read about it 
from the Scientific American - see March 2002 "How Should Reading be 
Taught?".

John Nissen
Cloudworld Ltd - http://www.cloudworld.co.uk
maker of the assistive reader, WordAloud.
Try WordAloud with synthetic phonics:
http://www.cloudworld.co.uk/teaching-synthetic-phonics.htm
Tel: +44 208 742 3170  Fax: +44 208 742 0202
Email: info at cloudworld.co.uk



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: RKenyon721 at aol.com
  To: learningdisabilities at nifl.gov
  Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 5:56 PM
  Subject: [LearningDisabilities] Phonics vs. Whole Language


  Hello all,

  With all the different topics that have been discussed on this list, 
certainly the "Phonics vs. Whole Language" topic brings out the most 
controversy, excitement, and fervor among subscribers.  I am interested to 
hear why this is the case.  Any thoughts on why this discussion brings out 
such emotion?

  If you are interested, remember that you can look back into the archives 
to find all messages that have been posted.  Archives can be found at:
  http://www.nifl.gov/lincs/discussions/list_archives.html

  Rochelle


  Rochelle Kenyon, Moderator
  National Institute for Literacy Learning Disabilities Discussion List
  RKenyon721 at aol.com



------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  ----------------------------------------------------
  National Institute for Literacy
  Learning Disabilities mailing list
  LearningDisabilities at nifl.gov
  To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to 
http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/learningdisabilities