Phonics is a teaching method that helps children learn sound-symbol correspondences in alphabetic languages, like English. It gives them a good chance of pronouncing words correctly, even if there is no one-to-one relationship between sounds and symbols. Whole language is another approach that focuses on language in context, recognizing whole words and creative spelling. Combining phonics and whole language can be beneficial for language education. Adults recognize words based on context, and misspellings should not prevent them from expressing themselves in writing.
Reading and writing in alphabetic languages depend on sound-symbol correspondences, that is, on the relationships between letters and sounds. One of the main ways to unravel the mysteries of reading and writing for children is phonics, a teaching method that teaches these correspondences and uses them to help students in both these areas.
In English, there is no one-to-one relationship between sounds and symbols. Each sound can be spelled by more than one symbol or group of symbols, and a single symbol or group of symbols can signal different sounds, depending on the context. Phonics gives students a statistically good chance of pronouncing a word in a way that matches what they know or is close enough for other clues, such as context, to figure it out.
Phonics programs typically start with sounds for individual letters and then teach them connected into words. Often the material is artificial, with pages of, say, three-letter words that all have a “short a” sound, and no narrative context or connection. However, playing the sounds together for the letters h, a — short in this context since it is followed by a consonant, et, will probably produce something identical or very close to an acceptable pronunciation for hat. Note that we cannot make too fine a point of many pronunciations, due to regional differences in dialect. A student who recognizes that the word hat corresponds to the thing you put on your head and can pronounce it intelligibly while reading is doing well.
Entire language is the name of another pedagogical approach, where the focus is on the language in context. Students are more likely to be asked to recognize whole words in the context of real language situations, whether it be signage, household items or storybooks. They can also be asked to write down their thoughts as best they can, using ‘creative’ spelling, which is typically used as the core of lessons on correct spelling of words chosen by the child, so that spelling lessons are personalized .
Some people understand phonetics as a component of the whole language, while other people understand them as diametrically opposed pedagogies. There are good reasons to combine the two, including explicit teaching of sound-symbol correspondences with the opportunity to see and use language in context. And there are good reasons to allow students to first express themselves in writing that they are perfect and then show them phonic rules that will help others understand their communications.
Consider these two points. First, the thing is that adult English-savvy speakers don’t phonetically read every word they see: Words like stop on a stop sign are recognized by their setup and context, just the points that the whole language makes. Secondly, unless an adult is an exceptional human being or has very little opportunity to express himself in written language, he is likely to misspell words from time to time. This does not and must not prevent adults from expressing themselves in writing, and the same can be said of children. This advocates a combination of phonetics and linguistic approaches as the best language education.
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