In fact whole language did not replace phonics. Phonics

In fact whole language did not replace phonics. Phonics mostly disappeared from the curriculum in America’s schools long before whole language came on the scene. It was replaced by a “look see” approach to individual words that was extended to whole books in whole language. And the phonics instruction included in the basal readers and in whole language is far from systematic. . While students get some exposure to initial consonant sounds, short and long vowel sounds and consonant blends, they do not learn, unless they teach themselves, how to sound out long words. Few of their teachers have this skill either.

A more systematic approach has been adopted in a new mathematics curriculum developed by a team of teachers. The basal series of readers will eventually produce a more systematic, but not phonicsbased, approach to teaching reading.

If the school system has any real interest in giving phonics a true test, it needs to take an entirely different approach. A phonics based textbook series needs to be available at least through fourth grade. A group of teachers needs to be trained in its use. And parents should be given the choice of having their students in the classes with that system or one. based on basal readers or even whole language. The parents would make that choice in when their children are in kindergarten or first grade, and the student would remain in classrooms with the selected method being used through fourth grade. At the end of four years it should be possible to tell if that approach produces the desired result.

Switching the whole school from one system to another may eventually produce improved results on the reading part of the Literacy Passport Test, but it will not provide real answers to whether or not phonics provides the key to improved reading and writing.