Hello Terry,

Thank you very much for your observation.  I have long held the belief that 
phonics instruction is relevant for people who are neither native speakers 
of English nor users of the Roman alphabet, just as much as for those who 
are, if not more so.  However I had been rather a lone voice in this 
opinion, e.g. at TEFL conferences.

Of course reading involves the recognition of letters, as well as the 
translation of letters/graphemes into sounds/phonemes, and I profoundly 
disagree with Andres' statement "There are people who learn better visually 
while others learn better through sounds".  On the contrary, effective 
reading requires both visual and auditory pathways in the brain*.  For 
ESL/EFL, the visual pathway for recognition of the Roman alphabet, and the 
auditory path for the sound/phonemes of English, have to be trained.  Also 
the skills of segmentation and blending are required, but these may have 
been learnt with another alphabet and spoken language, so it is possible 
these skills are transferable.  These skills certainly have to be learnt for 
somebody brought up on a non-alphabetic language like Chinese.

The use of systematic phonics seems to cover all these requirements.  That 
is my main thesis.  You seem to be supporting it.

Kind regards,

John

*  Reading by blind people is a special case, where a tactile pathway may 
substitute for a visual pathway.  Reading by deaf people is another special 
case - there is no easy way to learn to read for somebody who is profoundly 
deaf from birth.  Fortunately hearing aids and cochlear implants can help 
almost all congenitally deaf people to develop auditory pathways, sufficient 
for speaking and listening, and these pathways can then be used in learning 
to read.

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: "Terry Said" <said at ameritech.net>
To: "The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List" 
<englishlanguage at nifl.gov>
Cc: "Debbie Hepplewhite" <debbie at syntheticphonics.com>; 
<focusonbasics at nifl.gov>; "John Rack" <jrack at dyslexia-inst.org.uk>; "The 
Learning Disabilities Discussion List" <learningdisabilities at dev.nifl.gov>
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 11:06 PM
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 774] Re: one-size-fits-all methodology



> However, as an ESL teacher I must remind people that

> students who are changing alphabets (ex: students

> whose first language alphabet is Arabic) may exhibit

> what appear to be learning disabilities (and for some

> time), but really just not know the alphabet, or not

> know it well enough and quickly enough to read much in

> English. I find that teaching phonics to this group of

> students as well as some other ESL students is very

> helpful to them. Of course, after they are able to

> decode words quickly, they still have to work on

> higher order reading skills, but without the ability

> to decode words automatically higher order reading

> skills are really out of reach.

>

> Terry Pruett-Said

> ESL instructo

> Macomb Community College

> Warren, Michigan

>

>

>

>

> --- "Muro, Andres" <amuro5 at epcc.edu> wrote:

>

>> Hi John:

>>

>> Just to clarify:

>>

>> The first article is not research. It is a tool that

>> explain how to teach phonics written by those that

>> actually support phonics. The second article is

>> research and suggests the teaching of phonics to

>> dyslexics. I agree that it is ok to teach phonics to

>> a certain group of dyslexics, while not to others.

>> dyslexia may affect the visual pathways and the

>> auditory pathways and many other pathways to reading

>> comprehension. In non-dyslexics where all the

>> pahtwyas are working, an ecclectic approach is the

>> best, since normal readers will use both pathways.

>> See Frank Smith (Understanding Reading), the most

>> comprehensive and well researched book on reading

>> published to date. In people with dyslexia, the best

>> approach requires reading diagnosis. The two extreme

>> forms of dyselxia associated with visual and hearing

>> pathways are blindness and deafness. a blind person

>> will never learn to read associating sounds to

>> visual clues. He will require to connect sounds to

>> tactile clues. so in this case phonics and touching

>> will be the only alternative. For a deaf person, the

>> only way to learn to read is by associating images

>> to things. so, phonics will not work.

>>

>> While these two forms are extreme, the model

>> applies. there are people who learn better visually

>> while others learn better through sounds. an

>> ecclectic approach provides both opportunities. The

>> limitation of phonics, however, is not that it can't

>> teach people to sound words. It is that the

>> difficulty with most people is not to how to sound

>> and spell words. there are tools to overcome this

>> barrier. the problem is how to make meaning out of

>> complex texts. the NAAL (2003) shows that most

>> adults in the US can read simple words and

>> sentences. The barrier is with making sense of

>> complex tests. Example. Most adults will be able to

>> understand:

>>

>> the dog chases the cat.

>> the cat plays with a ball

>> my dad cooks dinner.

>>

>> However, adults will have more difficulty with this

>> sort of sentence:

>>

>> while my dad was cooking dinner the dog was chasing

>> the cat that was playing with the ball.

>>

>> Of course, the more complicated and more information

>> loaded the sentence is, the more difficulty that

>> adults will have. You can look at Carol Chomsky's

>> research about this. Chomsky shows that exposure to

>> rich, complex and varied literature is the only way

>> to address this issue. So, adults don't have

>> problems decoding text, but making sense out of

>> complex sentences, and this is where schools are

>> failing.

>>

>> BTW, I did my research on "brain laterality and

>> language processing". It is available here:

>>

> http://digitalcommons.utep.edu/dissertations/AAIEP03063/

>>

>> Andres

>>

>>

>>

>>

>> ________________________________

>>

>> From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of

>> John Nissen

>> Sent: Wed 10/18/2006 3:21 PM

>> To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion

>> List

>> Cc: Debbie Hepplewhite; John Rack;

>> focusonbasics at nifl.gov; The Learning Disabilities

>> Discussion List

>> Subject: [EnglishLanguage 772] Re: one-size-fits-all

>> methodology

>>

>>

>>

>>

>>

>> Hello Sharon,

>>

>> Thank you for your reply, but I beg to differ with

>> you about the merits of

>> an eclectic approach.  Recent research on methods of

>> teaching reading points

>> to the importance of phonemic awareness and decoding

>> skills.  This research

>> is summarised here:

>>

> http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/publications/html/mcshane/chapter4.html

>> where systematic phonics is accepted as a

>> requirement.  Further research in

>> the UK suggests both that synthetic phonics

>> (including phonics through

>> spelling) is better than analytic phonics*, and that

>> a mixture of methods

>> (which we have had enshrined in the UK "National

>> Literacy Strategy") should

>> be avoided.

>>

>> The brain research shows that fluent readers employ

>> a certain parts of their

>> brain, whereas dyslexic readers use different parts.

>>  See for example the

>> Focus on Basics article

>> http://www.ncsall.net/?id=278 from 2001.   The

>> current theory is that intensive training in

>> phonemic awareness and decoding

>> skills can help the brain to develop those pathways

>> in the brain which allow

>> for fluent reading, even for people who may have a

>> genetic disposition to

>> dyslexia.

>>

>> Can you point to any research which claims to

>> demonstrate the superiority of

>> a mixed method approach?   Can you point to any

>> research that shows that

>> systematic phonics is inappropriate in certain

>> circumstances?

>>

>> Kind regards,

>>

>> John

>>

>> * P.S.  The apparent superiority of synthetic

>> phonics was disputed by

>> Torgerson et al, who were in turn rebuffed by

>> McGuinness in an authoritative

>> paper: http://www.rrf.org.uk/Torgersonarticle.pdf,

>> which should be

>> compulsory reading for anybody concerned in this

>> debate.

>>

>>

>> John Nissen

>> Cloudworld Ltd - http://www.cloudworld.co.uk

>> <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: "Sharon McKay" <smckay at cal.org>

>> To: "The Adult English Language Learners Discussion

>> List"

>> <englishlanguage at nifl.gov>

>> Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 9:26 PM

>> Subject: [EnglishLanguage 768] Re: one-size-fits-all

>> methodology

>>

>>

>> >I have to agree that a variety of instructional

>> practices should be

>> > available to address different learner needs with

>> respect to reading.

>> > If one size fit all, we would have marketed the

>> Great Reading Solution

>> > by now. Each new instructional strategy

>> contributes to the field but and

>> > eclectic approach to teaching reading is still the

>> best instruction we

>> > can offer.

>> >

>> > Consider our audience which may have first

>> literacy background in Roman,

>> > non-Roman or non-alphabetic characters.

>> > Our learners may be literate, semiliterate,

>> nonliterate or preliterate

>> > in first language.

>> > They could be very advanced in aural/oral language

>> acquisition and need

>> > help to connect this to literacy.

>> > They may be challenged in aural/oral language

>> acquisition and unable to

>> > use any verbal cues to assist in literacy.

>> > These differences don't include the myriad of

>> learnings styles and

>> > strategies that have been readily observable in

>> our students but not

>> > easily understood.  Brain research may yield many

>> secrets to reading in

>> > the future, but until then, we build what's best

>> for each situation.

>> >

>> > I look forward to hearing about any and all

>> successful reading

>> > strategies that you've tried in your classes.

>>

> === message truncated ===>

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