Difference b/t phonics & linguistic approach to teaching reading?

[alisoncooks]

I've been eye-balling this book that a friend of mine is using:

http://books.google.com/books/about/Let_s_Read.html?id=G2fTPICCTEsC

 

It says it's a linguistic approach to teaching reading. Is that different than a phonics approach, and if so -- how?

 

Thanks!

[ElizabethB]

The word lists can be used in a phonics manner, but Barnhart and Bloomfield came from more of a whole word/sight word meaning/comprehension camp. However, the linguistic analysis and structure of the program makes it very easy to use to teach using phonics.

 

Here is some more information from the publisher:

 

Let’s Read not only teaches users to read English based on spelling patterns but simultaneously reduces the emphasis on pronunciation to teach letter sounds, making it useful for bilingual and nonnative English speakers as well. Parents, reading teachers, tutors, as well as ESL teachers and adult literacy instructors will be interested in the second edition of Let’s Read.

 

The new addition also supposedly has more sight words and introduces them earlier than the old edition, but I have not seen it. I have seen the old edition.

[ElizabethB]

Here is more information for you, from page 1551 of Geraldine E. Rodgers' "History of Beginning Reading,"

 

Bloomfield was adamantly opposed to real, sounding-and-blending synthetic phonics. His method was “linguistic,” teaching children to read from whole words and their sounds. Yet, when his materials, organized by the sound patterns in whole words, fall into the hands of most teachers, most probably instinctively would teach real phonics, just as many 1916-1930 teachers must have done with supplementary materials like those on Winston’s 1918 Code 3 phony phonics texts. It is interesting that even Rudolf Flesch, in his 1955 Why Johnny Can’t Read, misunderstood Bloomfield’s intent and thought he backed real phonics.

 

When I first saw the book, I also thought it was phonics based, but the explanation about how to use it is more whole word based. (This quote is about the old edition by Bloomfield and Barnhart.)

Edited July 8, 2012 by ElizabethB

[forty-two]

I'm using Bloomfield's book with dd6, and I really like it :).

 

Philosophically, it's an interesting mix. It's firmly based around the alphabetic principle, and very against teaching words as whole entities - words are built from phonemes, and should be taught that way. Yet he's very against teaching phonemes in isolation. So he teaches them indirectly. It's whole word, but whole word carefully designed so kids intuit the proper letter-phoneme connections and rules governing them - lots of focused practice making fine distinctions, I.e. big, bin; bin, din; big, bag - plus he tests understanding via having them read all possible syllable combinations, including nonsense ones.

 

I toyed with doing it as written - R has a phenomenal visual memory, but despite knowing her letters and sounds since she was two, she just could not blend at all (she didn't crack it until just a few months ago). For a while when she was 3-4 we swore she could read, because she'd look at written stuff and correctly divine the meaning, but wrt reading-as-decoding - which is my been-properly-indoctrinated-by-phonics-advocates :tongue_smilie: definition of reading - she was a total non-reader. She could recognize words she learned to spell - she loves to write, and asks me to spell things for her, which I do in an SWR think-to-spell way instead of just telling her - but phonemic awareness was lagging a lot for her age. And I worried that by insisting on teaching reading by a strict sounds-to-letters approach - where she'd been stuck on blending for literally years - I was holding her back. Because I knew if I'd taught her by sight, she'd have taken off, and I worried some I was shortchanging her, and Bloomfield's approach made sense to me and seemed like a good middle ground - taught via the alphabetic principle, but in a way more suited to R's strengths.

 

However, I became convinced, through research and first-hand experience, that blending was an important skill, and so I use his reading passages, but have R sound them out and blend to figure out new combinations. He introduces new combinations slowly at the beginning, with lots of practice, and dd6 really needed that. Despite knowing all the letter sounds, blending is hard for her, and she gets tired and frustrated with too much variety. So practicing to fluency on limited letter combos (but with reasonable variety of practice material - she doesn't like repetition) before adding just a bit more new material has been just what she needed. After spending three months or so on the first five lessons (which I started as soon as she had a blending breakthrough, around 5.5), something clicked, and she's getting it a lot faster, is excited about learning the next combo :). Still need the slow intro of new material, and all the practice material, but she doesn't need to repeat the lesson as many times to achieve fluency - twice through does it.

 

And I've noticed some issues with reversals and not reading from left-to-right that I *never* would have seen if I'd not kept plugging at the blending. She's known her letters for *years*, and I only just realized she couldn't tell the difference between b, d, and g - she'd consistently get them wrong on the first try, but quickly try again and get it right. I didn't make the connection till I was teaching dd3.5 how to make letters with her hands, and we were working on b and d and not only did dd3.5 not get the difference, dd6 didn't either :svengo:. I'd correct her by saying "the ball comes first", meaning make it with your left hand, and dd6 would obediently make the ball with her right hand *before* making the stick with her left hand :001_huh:. So we started practicing - whenever she got it wrong on the first go, I started having her make the letter with her hands, and now she is starting to truly get it :). She is just so intuitive that she can see what you are trying to get at and compensate accordingly without showing any sign of it.

 

Which is why the emphasis on fine discrimination in Bloomfield has been so very good for her - she loves to guess, does so at the drop of a hat (thank goodness she never had someone *teaching* her to do that) - but then gets tripped up on those discrimination exercises. Forces her to actually *look* at the letters, learn how to take them one at a time - something that does *not* come natural to her. (Yes, I could make them myself - and I've added a few on b/d/g - but it's nice to have them already done.)

 

(Wrt my firsthand experience, I learned to read through straight up sight words, successfully intuiting most connections, although no rules - my visual memory's good enough that I was a natural speller. Never learned to blend, and that has made learning a foreign language very, very, very hard for me, as I cannot read a word, even in my head, if I can't pronounce it. I've spent literally years on learning the Greek and Hebrew alphabets - learning the sound-symbol correspondence was easy, but learning to blend and read actual words (and segment words into syllables), was really, really, really hard. I finally cracked it this past week - I'm quite giddy with excitement at *finally* being able to progress in my Greek studies :), and have been studying every spare moment. My mom has the same issue, only worse - she cannot sound things out at all, cannot use a dictionary pronunciation guide at all - and I'm fairly sure dd6 has some level of the same issue, too. Blending took a *long* time for her to crack, but given my experience trying to learn to blend as an adult, I'm glad I kept at it. Actually, I think my teaching her to read phonetically is what finally broke me through my blending block. And I have a lot more understanding of just how *tiring* it is to learn to blend - I could only practice for 15min or so before it was just too much - gave me more sympathy for R and how she must feel - blending's hard work!)

Edited July 8, 2012 by forty-two

[alisoncooks]

Wow, thanks for the detailed replies.

I'll definitely keep thinking on it...

[nono]

However, the linguistic analysis and structure of the program makes it very easy to use to teach using phonics.

 

I don't think you are alone in that sentiment. :) I think I came to find the book from an offhand comment of John Holt's that was basically, "Don't read the book. Use the lessons." My dd LOVES it, and I make comprehension questions up from the stories. I'll be using it with my younger too.

 

I may also have the older edition (if not--What a lousy binding job as mine's whole spine is cracked and pages separated!). What I found very helpful for my dd* is that the font in Let's Read was quite easy for her to pick up on a page, v. say, OPGTR.

 

Anyway, HTH!

 

*She was presenting as dyslexic for awhile, but apparently is dealing with scotopic issues.

[forty-two]

I think I have the older edition, too - printed in the 70s iirc, but is hardcover and holding up well.

 

My edition, at least, is not remotely visually appealing enough for my dd (plus she doesn't do well with too many words on one page), so I've been typing up the lessons, giving them pretty borders :), exporting them as pdfs, and putting them on my kindle. Takes about 15min per lesson, once I got the template made, and is working very well - dd6 likes reading on the kindle. Not sure how long I'm going to keep it up, but at least through the first 36 lessons (we are on lesson 12 atm).

Edited July 8, 2012 by forty-two

[nono]

My edition, at least, is not remotely visually appealing enough for my dd (plus she doesn't do well with too many words on one page), so I've been typing up the lessons, giving them pretty borders :), exporting them as pdfs, and putting them on my kindle. Takes about 15min per lesson, once I got the template made, and is working very well - dd6 likes reading on the kindle. Not sure how long I'm going to keep it up, but at least through the first 36 lessons (we are on lesson 12 atm).

 

You are a good Mom! :)