Phonics? Whole Word? Both? What’s Best?

Many people who teach children with dyslexia will be quick to respond that phonics, specifically Orton-Gillingham based phonics, is the only way to effectively teach reading.  It is effective in the long term, which is backed by multiple studies, but I don’t believe it is the only way.  I was trained in an Orton-Gillingham methodology which I then used with my eldest daughter and then more loosely with my second daughter.  It was a very long and painful process for all of us, and we all disliked it. (Note: Some of the Orton-Gillingham based programs available today are far more fun and interesting than the program we used 15 years ago!) It did get us over some hurdles and I believe that in the long term it did help, but I also don’t believe that phonics is the only answer.  I think there is value in using a whole words approach in conjunction with phonics instruction.

First and foremost, most people will readily agree that English is not a phonetic language.  Period.  It is such a melting pot of so many other languages, it is impossible for a set of rules to govern all pronunciation.  Sometimes there seem to be more words that are exceptions to a rule, than there are words that follow the rule itself.  Don’t forget about words that are identical in spelling, but different in pronunciation and meaning depending on the context of the sentence, for example tear (to rip) and tear (water from the eye).  I feel that we are doing children a great disservice if we only teach them phonics and don’t address these other issues. My children were (and are) endlessly frustrated by all these exceptions.  It was difficult enough for them to learn the rule in the first place, let alone deal with all the exceptions.  In fact, my one daughter recently told me that she couldn’t remember any of the phonics rules we had learned years ago, and even when she was able to recite them perfectly as a child, they never made any sense to her.  Keep in mind, this is the perspective of one child, and many children do find learning phonics rules to be very helpful.  One size does not fit all!

My other issue with teaching only phonics is the length of time it takes for a dyslexic child to remember enough sounds, string them together, and then decode words one painful word at a time.  In the early months, there is a lot of effort required and very little reward.  The letters and sounds simply don’t stick in their memories very well (more on that in an upcoming post).  Very quickly the child is demotivated, frustrated, and begins to believe that they are “stupid” or “dumb” because they can’t consistently sound out words yet, but their friends are starting to string sentences together.  I used whole word to get my kids started reading with very simple books.  We used the old Dick and Jane** books, which were created to teach reading with the whole word methodology.  They have been republished in recent years.  With a limited number of words in each book, we worked on learning to sight-read the whole words, and they could recognize most of the words before we opened the first book.  This gave them early success in reading.  They could read a book.  It gave them a very important sense of accomplishment.  I would reinforce that they could read, and the only difference between what they could read and what I could read was the number of words that I knew.  We just needed to work on more words.  From there, we added more words to progress through the Dick and Jane** books, and at the same time started phonics “for spelling” in conjunction with printed and cursive writing.  Of course, phonics also eventually gave them the capacity for a broader range of words to read.  Be forewarned, the Dick and Jane** books are products of the 50’s and 60’s and reflect society’s values and social structure of that time.  We used those differences to spur discussions about how society has changed.  Not everyone will be comfortable with that.  I’m sure there are other whole word based readers out there, but this just happens to be the one I’m familiar with.

All fluid readers have hundreds or thousands of words they can read without sounding out the letters.  Over time, they no longer needed to sound them out, they just automatically switched to sight-reading the whole word.  This gives them speed and fluidity when reading.  Many people with dyslexia do not reach this level of skill in their reading.  They are still sounding out words in their head, even words they have seen hundreds of times because the same letters come in so many different combinations and they don’t get enough focused repetition to make individual combinations slip into recognized whole words.  This makes them slower readers who find reading tiring.  In my opinion, giving children with dyslexia a decent vocabulary of whole words they know by sight goes a long way to giving them ease, speed, and fluency in their reading, and when combined with phonics instruction they will also develop the ability to decode those words they haven’t yet learned by sight.

It isn’t difficult to begin teaching your child sight words to supplement their phonics instruction in school.  There are dozens of lists on the internet of the 100, 200, or 300 most commonly used words in the English language.  Start there.  Or purchase some early readers like Dick and Jane** that are whole word based.  Teach them the words, then transition to the books and continue to expand their vocabulary.  My next post will give you some practical ways you can begin teaching whole words to your child.

** As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases