My 3rd Graders were eager to learn and practice personal responsibility for their own empowerment. A pivotal mantra in our classroom was "WHEN THINGS GO WRONG, DON'T GO ALONG." Choices have consequences.
This site is the same call to action. I urge Leaders of Learning to consider evidence and choose to not go along when things go wrong. Use your own truth as your defense; perceive the dichotomy, then achieve the fix.
This site is not about the existing debate within the education industry, the so-called "reading wars" causing allegiances for either Whole-Word Sight Memory methods with little focus on Phonics or visa versa. Like many of you, I was trained and required to teach both of those schemes. I decided for myself the rich literature of my Whole Language curriculum was far better than fat-cat-sat stories, but I also held a biased conviction that Phonics was too important to ignore.
For decades now outside of employment, my calling has been to scrutinize my cherished Phonics. As a result, this site seeks to show how wrongheadedness occurs whenever we allow alphabet letters to dominate. Period. Our errant mind-set will manifest before we even begin to influence others through our teaching. If we think something and believe it, we will say it out loud: Let's sound it out. Letters make sounds. What does this letter say? What is this letter's sound? This wrong.
Hear speech sounds in spoken language. See letters in written language. HEARING and SEEING will always dance together, yet one modality must take the lead in direct instruction according to logic we employ. Our logic will be obvious according to whichever modality we first call into service. Each parent, tutor, and teacher must decide.
Fair warning!! Even sounds-based Phonemic Awareness activities become corrupted when alphabetically organized intending to teach letter-sounds. Understand incompatibilities between sight-based thinking vs. sounds-based.
ABC LOGIC (Phonics) teaches Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg etc. Letter-sounds!
ABC Logic requires learners to sound-out what is on the page: Seen–Read–Said. ABC Logic is always organized around alphabet letters and "letter-sounds." While Whole Word memory simply sees-says, phonics teaches letter rules with letter-based jargon. ABC Logic is the current conventional wisdom, used by scientific researchers.
VC LOGIC (HSSR) teaches Vowels and Consonants as sounds-to-be-spelled. Sound-spellings!
VC Logic is intrinsically sensible, yet remains an unproven outlier. VC Logic organizes thinking around speech sounds, mapped V01 through C39; no letter-based attributions. Learners spell-out what is spoken: Heard–Said–Spelled–Read (HSSR).
WordsAhead (WA) teaches relevant vocabulary, ahead of time.
Notions of rightness and wrongness will set up intrinsic disputes. In my classroom, I stood ready to assert sovereignty, of course, because disputes do create advocates and adversaries. Disputes are manageable dynamics within all free relationships and societies. Freedom is precious. Let's agree to disagree even as we insist on giving voice and vote.
This site is the same call to action. I urge Leaders of Learning to consider evidence and choose to not go along when things go wrong. Use your own truth as your defense; perceive the dichotomy, then achieve the fix.
This site is not about the existing debate within the education industry, the so-called "reading wars" causing allegiances for either Whole-Word Sight Memory methods with little focus on Phonics or visa versa. Like many of you, I was trained and required to teach both of those schemes. I decided for myself the rich literature of my Whole Language curriculum was far better than fat-cat-sat stories, but I also held a biased conviction that Phonics was too important to ignore.
For decades now outside of employment, my calling has been to scrutinize my cherished Phonics. As a result, this site seeks to show how wrongheadedness occurs whenever we allow alphabet letters to dominate. Period. Our errant mind-set will manifest before we even begin to influence others through our teaching. If we think something and believe it, we will say it out loud: Let's sound it out. Letters make sounds. What does this letter say? What is this letter's sound? This wrong.
Hear speech sounds in spoken language. See letters in written language. HEARING and SEEING will always dance together, yet one modality must take the lead in direct instruction according to logic we employ. Our logic will be obvious according to whichever modality we first call into service. Each parent, tutor, and teacher must decide.
Fair warning!! Even sounds-based Phonemic Awareness activities become corrupted when alphabetically organized intending to teach letter-sounds. Understand incompatibilities between sight-based thinking vs. sounds-based.
ABC LOGIC (Phonics) teaches Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg etc. Letter-sounds!
ABC Logic requires learners to sound-out what is on the page: Seen–Read–Said. ABC Logic is always organized around alphabet letters and "letter-sounds." While Whole Word memory simply sees-says, phonics teaches letter rules with letter-based jargon. ABC Logic is the current conventional wisdom, used by scientific researchers.
VC LOGIC (HSSR) teaches Vowels and Consonants as sounds-to-be-spelled. Sound-spellings!
VC Logic is intrinsically sensible, yet remains an unproven outlier. VC Logic organizes thinking around speech sounds, mapped V01 through C39; no letter-based attributions. Learners spell-out what is spoken: Heard–Said–Spelled–Read (HSSR).
WordsAhead (WA) teaches relevant vocabulary, ahead of time.
Notions of rightness and wrongness will set up intrinsic disputes. In my classroom, I stood ready to assert sovereignty, of course, because disputes do create advocates and adversaries. Disputes are manageable dynamics within all free relationships and societies. Freedom is precious. Let's agree to disagree even as we insist on giving voice and vote.
ABC Logic: LOOK!!
VC Logic: LISTEN!!
ABC Logic: Graphemes predominate
VC Logic: Phonemes predominate
ABC Logic: "Sound them out!" requires parsing letter-units
VC Logic: "Spell them out!" requires parsing sound-units
ABC Logic: Letter names for sounds: Short-A, B-Sound, Hard-C...
VC Logic: Vowels and Consonants are mapped and numbered V01–C39
ABC Logic: Decode... See+Say
VC Logic: Encode... Hear+Spell
ABC Logic: Pronounceable letter sequences
VC Logic: Spellable sound sequences
ABC Logic: Letter-Sound relationships
VC Logic: Sound-Spelling relationships
ABC Logic: Fluency comes from memorizing "sight words" and ABC-Phonics
VC Logic: Fluency comes from understanding speech-to-text
ABC Logic: Spellings evoke pronunciations
VC Logic: Pronunciations evoke spellings
ABC Logic: Letter-sounds. Skipping. Guessing.
VC Logic: Speech sounds. Heard, said, spelled, read... ahead of time.
More information about speech sounds at WordsAhead.com
VC Logic: LISTEN!!
ABC Logic: Graphemes predominate
VC Logic: Phonemes predominate
ABC Logic: "Sound them out!" requires parsing letter-units
VC Logic: "Spell them out!" requires parsing sound-units
ABC Logic: Letter names for sounds: Short-A, B-Sound, Hard-C...
VC Logic: Vowels and Consonants are mapped and numbered V01–C39
ABC Logic: Decode... See+Say
VC Logic: Encode... Hear+Spell
ABC Logic: Pronounceable letter sequences
VC Logic: Spellable sound sequences
ABC Logic: Letter-Sound relationships
VC Logic: Sound-Spelling relationships
ABC Logic: Fluency comes from memorizing "sight words" and ABC-Phonics
VC Logic: Fluency comes from understanding speech-to-text
ABC Logic: Spellings evoke pronunciations
VC Logic: Pronunciations evoke spellings
ABC Logic: Letter-sounds. Skipping. Guessing.
VC Logic: Speech sounds. Heard, said, spelled, read... ahead of time.
More information about speech sounds at WordsAhead.com