Science of Reading vs. Whole Language War Rages On; Students Lose
Johnathon stared at me. I stared back at him. With no words spoken between us, we communicated with only our eyes; my tutoring student and I locked in a battle of wills that we were both determined to win.
I began to ask him a series of questions. First, I asked Johnathan if he could identify all the letters and the letter sounds in the word. He could only identify the basic sounds but not the more advanced phonics sounds.
Then, I asked him to identify the vowels and the sounds that each vowel makes. I got a stare again. I asked the mental question, “Why don’t you know the vowels and the sounds? Johnathan’s eyes seemed to say, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
At the beginning of my teaching career, teaching phonics became second nature for me. I also had plenty of experience using basal reading programs purchased by various school districts. I guess you could say that teaching children to read became a ritual, a daily habit in which I grew very comfortable. It was during this time that the phonics versus whole language debate gained momentum. I had no idea how highly contested this issue was and still is for that matter.
