Academic and emotional health warning from Miss Emma, The Reading Whisperer www.wiringbrains.com

1. But let us not make the mistake of now throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Much of WHY whole language was introduced has merit, as the focus is on MEANING.
The ‘how to get there’ process just wasn’t solid enough.
But there are huge issues with relying on ‘Phonics’ as well. Be very careful when
choosing a ‘phonics program’. Most of those will fail up to 8 in your class as well, as we all
jolly well know! What matters when looking at a program, is ‘how far will each student travel’
Not just the gifted kids but the students with learning differences eg Dyslexia, Autism, ADHD, an II..
“The links between literacy, the ability to read and write the printed word, school performance,
self-esteem and adult life chances have been widely documented … poor literacy skills are associated
with generally lower education, employment, health and social outcomes as well as being linked to high
rates of welfare dependence and teenage parenting.” (Centre for Community Child Health, 2004).
What does EVERY student need, to be ABLE to learn to read with
fluency and comprehension, and to spell anything with confidence
(and know if it ‘looks right)
Phonemic Awareness.
Skills Acquisition Process for All Brains.
Wiring Brains for Reading, Writing and Spelling
Phase 1 - Oral Language and Phonemic Awareness
Poor PA? Not yet ready for print, however old the student.
Phase 2 - Code Mapping with Speedy, Fluency Comprehension
Learning to read - chapter book level- to ‘talk on paper’ inc high
level authentic spelling skills. (No Look, Cover, Write, Say.)
Phase 3 - Literacy Teaching (No longer learning to read and spell)
Phonemic awareness is a term used to describe one’s ability to perceive the identities and order of sounds within
spoken words. Can they identifiy 4 speech sounds when they say the word ‘box’ or 3 in the word ‘house’?
In the absence of adequate phonemic awareness, the reader must rely heavily on context cues (guessing at words) and
on visual memory for the correct letters in the correct sequence in order to recognize words and interact with print.
The use of these strategies alone generally results in independent reading levels significantly below intellectual
potential.
EEimates of the number of individuals who have difficulty perceiving the sounds in words (phonemic awareness) range
from 10-33 percent of the population.U nderdeveloped phonemic awareness occurs randomly in the population
without apparent linkage to race, sex, education or intelligence Students with limited phonemic awareness will have
trouble acquiring the alphabetic principle, which in turn will limit their ability to decode words (Blachman, 1991) and
will not benefit from phonics (Juel, Griffith, Gough, 1986).
A long line of research now agrees that phonemic awareness is the best predictor of the ease of early reading
acquisition, better than IQ, vocabulary, and listening comprehension. (Stanovich, 1993-94) WiringBrains.com
Academic Emotional Health Warning
So why keep using them....? Why dumb down Australians?
The UK Government explicitly banned this system in 2006.
http://nifdi.org/news-latest-2/blog-hempenstall/402-the-three-cueing-system-in-reading-will-it-ever-go-away
Almost half of Australians between 15 and 74 are
functionally illiterate’.
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Chapter6102008
Australia and New Zealand languish at the
bottom of English-speaking nations in the 2011
Progress in International Reading Literacy Study
(PIRLS)
https://www.cis.org.au/images/stories/policy-magazine/2013-spring/29-3-13-jennifer-buckingham.pdf