Systematic Phonics vs. Whole Word reading
A program of systematic phonics instruction carefully selects a set of letter-sound relationships and then organizes these relationships into a logical instructional sequence. By contrast, non-phonics programs tend to focus on memorizing groups of leveled, grade-appropriate words.
Achieve Now students learn clusters of words in “families” that follow the same pattern, allowing them to grasp key phonetic rules. Non-phonics programs typically introduce students to groups of unrelated words.
SYSTEMATIC PHONICS PROGRAM:
STUDENTS LEARN WORDS THAT FOLLOW THE SAME PATTERN (HERE WITH THE SHORT "A" SOUND).
NON-PHONICS PROGRAM:
STUDENTS MEMORIZE UNRELATED GROUPS OF WORDS FEATURING MULTIPLE VOWEL SOUNDS.
The importance of decoding
In a systematic phonics program, students learn to translate print into speech by quickly applying the patterns found in the English language's letter-sound relationships. This process, known as decoding, is a cardinal feature of all skilled reading. Students in systematic phonics programs hone decoding skills by reading texts featuring controlled vocabulary, wherein at least 95% of the words can be independently decoded based on prior instruction.
In non-phonics programs, students read texts with an uncontrolled vocabulary, where newly introduced words don't adhere to a similar, already-learned pattern. Students with undeveloped decoding skills must rely on "cueing systems" such as memorization, picture cues, or contextual guessing. Statistics show these systems to be unreliable:
“The whole word method may serve a student adequately up to about second grade. But failure to acquire and use efficient decoding skills will begin to take a toll on reading comprehension by grade 3.”
-Jeanne Chall, Founder, Harvard Reading Laboratory
87% of the words in the English language can be decoded using the letter-sound patterns phonics teaches.
Only about 25% of words in English can be predicted using context.
Content words—nouns, main verbs, adjectives and adverbs—can be predicted from context only about 10% of the time.
As students' texts become less patterned and repetitious, and contain fewer supplementary pictures, those who rely on these low-percentage systems increasingly find themselves unable to adapt. Their progress levels off and they begin to fall behind their peers who have been given explicit phonics instruction.