[Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: ILA on phonics

[David P. Reinking]

I agree with Jim Hoffman.  There is a longer list of questions and concerns about the Blevins piece and the conflict of interest concerns are clearly troublesome.  But a close reading of his piece reveals a recommendation that mitigates the many questionable ones.  Here is the quoted recommendatiion:

“Students progress at a much faster rate in phonics when the bulk of instructional time is spent on applying the skills to authentic reading and writing experiences.”  And earlier in the piece he says that word meaning should be half of the time spent on phonics.

So, for example, let’s say that “bulk” of instructional time means 70% (authentic reading and writing).  Half of the remaining 30% would be word meaning (15%) and half explicit teaching/assessment of phonics and activities such as word sorts (15%).  Thus, on average, for every hour of reading instruction, approximately 9 minutes would be devoted to phonics (teaching, assessing, and activities like word sorts).  To me, that makes some of the other questionable recommendations somewhat less disconcerting and puts phonics instruction into a more reasonable instructional context.  And, a citation in favor of this piece is essentially a recommendation that phonics instruction receive proportionately little time in early reading instruction.   On the other hand, it takes a close reading to find that recommendation.

David Reinking
Adjunct Professor of Education
University of Georgia
Dept. of Language and Literacy Education
David.Reinking @uga.edu
http://www.davidreinking.info<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com_-3Furl-3Dhttp-253A-252F-252Fwww.davidreinking.info-252F-26data-3D01-257C01-257Clg40-2540txstate.edu-257Cd43f2d8241584a0ca81608d50aa7b5c9-257Cb19c134a14c94d4caf65c420f94c8cbb-257C0-26sdata-3Dji-252FNnlYJBKtAbG0lEfttgJUZxsi6BinXvN1OaPMm5Uc-253D-26reserved-3D0&d=DwMFAg&c=Ngd-ta5yRYsqeUsEDgxhcqsYYY1Xs5ogLxWPA_2Wlc4&r=gUnMZ3Xw_juA4Q4q8MsCC_IKO_x_v_mImmv8TQcuKAs&m=UedHPeoTlZDAK_Y35nsdvaZ1tvfVsAXM3l43vQNlACI&s=5qWqgpYErOqlfng1rqjL41TgwAGTYZ6oMB15g45RwUc&e=>/
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From: <reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> on behalf of "Hoffman, James V" <jhoffman at austin.utexas.edu>
Date: Monday, July 22, 2019 at 7:06 PM
To: P Pearson <ppearson at berkeley.edu>
Cc: Brian Cambourne <bcambrn at uow.edu.au>, reading hall of fame <Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>, Shirley B Heath <sbheath at stanford.edu>, Diane Lapp <lapp at sdsu.edu>, Ken Goodman <kgoodman at u.arizona.edu>
Subject: [Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: ILA on phonics

[External Sender]

I’m with Brian on the critical work of the child encoding in writingthat can turn into useful strategies for decoding words in reading.

David, I think your list of questionable claims in the report is slim.   Exposure to explicit, systematic phonics instruction does no harm? What study has even asked this question? My fear in the “systematic” version of phonics is that it is scripted and removes the responsibility from teachers to make instructional decisions that are needed in all contexts.

Also, you might wan to consider the ira position paper on phonics published in 1997.  https://www.literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/where-we-stand/phonics-position-statement.pdf

thanks jim




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