What you are describing sounds like the concept of building phonemic awareness.  Understanding the correspondence between sounds and symbols allows students to decode unfamiliar words.  With practice, these unfamiliar words develop into the student's sight vocabulary which ultimately facilitates fluency.  In the past, discrepancies in educational practice arose between those in favor of phonics instruction and those in favor of a more holistic approach-- the whole language method.  Discrepancies took place as professionals assumed that these methods of instruction had to exist independently of one another.  However, if one ascribes to the balanced literacy approach, the assumption is made that these seemingly opposing points of view are actually complimentary.  Reading cannot take place without comprehension and understanding.  So while building phonemic awareness is essential for decoding unfamiliar words, comprehension is highly dependent upon vocabulary development and contextual analysis.  Simply put, emerging and developing readers need exposure to both phonemic awareness and more holistic approaches to reading instruction.

Lance J. Baxter
Assistant Professor
Daytona Beach Community College


>>> "Elizabeth K.i" <juliette at inebraska.com> 03/03/08 9:13 PM >>>

I have been reading these posts with interest.

My background is in elementary education. I was never interested in adult 
education until about 7 years ago when I was taking my recertification 
classes the subject came up as a part of another class. The upshot of that 
was that I began volunteering with Proliteracy. From the beginning I felt 
a calling for this work that I have never felt at any other time in my 
life.  My first student, a man of 45 who only was reading at a third grade 
level when we began, was a huge part of that.

Since this was not my original field of study I have done a lot of 
reading, listening to other educators, and applying those things in my own 
experience.  One area seems to have conflicting sides and it is this one I 
wish to ask this group about.

There is a body of literature and practice that says the sound/symbol 
correspondence has been presented in reverse for many years.  The most 
common viewpoint is that sounds are assigned to certain symbols, and 
students must learn this association.       The other viewpoint is this: 
Sounds were present and being produced by human beings from the dawn of 
time. At some point symbols were assigned to represent these sounds. 
Proponents of this stance feel that saying sounds are assigned to symbols 
is backwards and more difficult. They go so far as to say that teaching 
that way is the reason such a large percentage of students have reading 
problems, especially as the difficulty level of the reading material 
increases.

I would really like some feedback on this. both from the perspectives of 
theory and actual practice in your classrooms and tutoring situations.
I would also, from those who espouse to the second viewpoint, like to know 
some sources of application and how to teach using this method since I 
have found very little of this in my exploration of the subject.

  Thanks!

Liz


  > > The most common problem in learning how to read is difficulty 
in > matching a sound to a symbol--commonly called a phonological deficit.

> This has been extensively documented, and the regions of the brain

> which do not make the necessary connections seem to be understood, too.



Liz K.
On the banks of the Mighty Mississippi River, Davenport,IA/Quad cities
~~~~~~
"Giving of ourselves is the way we change the world at the end of our
fingertips."--Author Unknown
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