More Reading Dinosaurs
By Maryann Manning

Isolatedphonicatops – another reading dinosaur makes the Extinct Practices list.

Even if you have only taught for a short time, you've probably reflected upon your teaching and know there are changes you want to make. Our reason for knowing change is necessary often arises from recognizing that a particular practice was a waste of time for students and there was no increase in student learning. The longer we teach, the more practices we find must be discarded. Keep in mind that perhaps the most prominent characteristic of a good teacher is the need for change and the discovery of practices that work best for you. Three dinosaurs that didn't help me develop good readers were Isolatedphonicatops, Sightwordopus and Nonsensewordodon.

Isolatedphonicatops
When I began teaching, I tried so hard to teach isolated phonics because I believed the professors and supervisors who told me that good reading teachers taught students to sound out words by learning rules. I remember assigning phonics lessons to students and when it came time to correct the exercises, I had to look at the answers in the teacher's manual because I couldn't figure them out myself. I was lost as to why certain rules applied to particular words.

When I taught summer school, I was told by my supervisors that these students just needed more knowledge of vowels. I drove home each day wondering why I wasn't successful teaching short vowel sounds. I thought some of the problem was that I had learned to read without memorizing phonics rules because my mother and grandmother had taught me before I attended school. Let the truth be known that I actually learned about phonic rules when I taught my first undergraduate reading class at the University of Nebraska. I'll never forget how hard I worked to memorize the difference between a digraph and a diphthong and even learned the meaning of a schwa.

I couldn't figure out why I seemed to be able to help my students read when I used real books and strategies like cooking activities and readers' theater. I found that using language experience stories for emergent readers and reading self-selected books with daily conferences helped me develop readers much more than any isolated phonics lessons ever did. I also learned that the phonics knowledge that made sense to my students was best developed through writing. I began teaching phonics as part of my spelling classes and that made much more sense. I seldom saw a student refer to any of what he or she knew about phonics in reading, but instead used context to figure out words.

Useful phonics
I've since learned that knowing about a digraph and a diphthong is good knowledge for a teacher. Phonics rules are very useful in the teaching of spelling when students are in second grade and above. When using these rules, spelling makes sense because it is part to whole. I've also learned something very valuable to tell my students: You can almost always trust a long vowel, but only a few short vowels can be trusted. I stand by that advice in my teaching today.

Yes, I teach phonics, but I don't teach it in isolation. I use interactive writing (daily news type of activities), masking during shared reading and lots of writing to develop the knowledge that students need about phonics. I'm sorry I spent so many years feeling incompetent as a reading teacher because I couldn't find a student who was helped by the schwa.

Sightwordopus
When I think back to the multitude of little cards with single words on them that I made at my kitchen table, I laugh. I even sent flashcards home with my students and told parents to make them as well. I was the Flashcard Queen because I thought the knowledge of sight words in isolation was valuable. That was also when I thought that reading was a word-by-word process. I wasn't focused on the comprehension of text; I only wanted my students to memorize the word on the card and say it instantly. I now realize that many of my students were not thinking about the meaning of connected text, but were only thinking about the pronunciation of the individual words.

I don't believe in flashcards like I used to but I do think there is one practice with individual words or phrases that is valuable. I recommend the practice of writing and reading sentences and short stories with students, cutting the text into words and phrases and asking them to reassemble the text. I found that if students generate the text, they usually have more interest in figuring out the order of the text.

Nonsensewordodon
In my first reading courses way back when, I was taught that there was never a place for nonsense words. The reading of nonsense words belongs to the philosophy that reading is simply sounding out words. Graphophonics is just one of the cueing systems that a reader uses. We also want students to use semantics and syntax. I find it interesting that many students who are really readers have so much trouble when asked to read nonsense words because they are trying to make a real word. Parents call and ask me what they can do to help their child who is reading become more proficient at nonsense words. I tell them that they should be happy their child is looking for meaning and to try to ignore the inability to pronounce nonsense words. I also assure the parent that the teaching and testing of nonsense words doesn't remain in the curriculum long. The real reader will be valued in the end.

Looking for meaning
There are many teaching strategies that focus on meaning and have taken the place of the three word-level dinosaurs. Shared reading, guided reading, independent reading or text, and so many more, all support readers as they look for meaning. I learned to trust myself and value my observations of student learning, even if they were in conflict with what I learned from my professors or what I was told by my systems supervisor. This method is the true way to ensure that these reading dinosaurs remain extinct and that other methods that should be taken out of practice are quickly identified.

Maryann Manning is on the faculty of the School of Education, the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

March, 2007, Vol.37, No.6