My 3rd Graders were eager to learn and practice personal responsibility. It's empowering. 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.
Notions of rightness and wrongness do set up intrinsic disputes. In my classroom, I stood ready to assert sovereignty, of course, because disputes do create advocates and adversaries. Disputes are a manageable dynamic within relationships and societies that are free. We can agree to disagree even as we insist on having a voice and a vote.
Within the education industry, for instance, the so-called "reading wars" initially caused allegiances for either Whole-Word Sight Memory methods with little focus on Phonics or visa versa. I was trained and required to teach both schemes. The rich literature of my Whole Language curriculum was far better than fat-cat-sat stories, but I always held a biased conviction that phonics was too important to ignore. For decades now, outside of employment my calling remains to scrutinize phonics.
I have come to realize that wrongheadedness occurs every time we allow alphabet letters to dominate. Period. An errant mind-set manifests before we begin to influence others through mandated teaching. We know what we know. If we think it and believe it, we will say out loud (for instance) that letters make speech sounds. What does this letter say? What is this letter's sound? Do you know letter-sounds? This is the wrong approach.
Speech sounds are heard in spoken language. Letters are seen in written language. Hearing and seeing will always dance together, yet one modality will take the lead in our direct instruction, and it will be obvious. Whichever modality is FIRST called into service determines that lesson's logic. Each parent, tutor, and teacher must decide how it goes.
Fair warning!! It is even possible that pure sound-based Phonemic Awareness activities can be corrupted if organized alphabetically with an intent to teach letter-sounds. This site exposes incompatibilities between sight-based ABC Logic and the other path of sounds-based VC Logic with one's knowledge of mapped English speech sound units. See MAPS tab.
ABC LOGIC (aka Phonics) teaches the sounds of Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg etc.
ABC Logic is conventional wisdom, opposed to Whole Word memory. ABC Logic is complicated; phonics has ABC jargon and many rules. ABC Logic is promoted by scientific research. ABC Logic is always organized around alphabet letters and "letter-sounds." ABC Logic requires learners to sound-out what is on the page: Seen. Read. Said.
VC LOGIC (aka HSSR) teaches Vowels and Consonants as sounds-to-be-spelled. Sound-spellings!
VC Logic is an outlier. VC Logic is intrinsically sensible, yet unproven. VC Logic is always organized around speech sounds, mapped V01 through C39. VC Logic requires learners to spell-out what is spoken: Heard. Said. Spelled. Read. HSSR
VC Logic works best when relevant vocabulary is taught ahead of time: WordsAhead WA
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.
Notions of rightness and wrongness do set up intrinsic disputes. In my classroom, I stood ready to assert sovereignty, of course, because disputes do create advocates and adversaries. Disputes are a manageable dynamic within relationships and societies that are free. We can agree to disagree even as we insist on having a voice and a vote.
Within the education industry, for instance, the so-called "reading wars" initially caused allegiances for either Whole-Word Sight Memory methods with little focus on Phonics or visa versa. I was trained and required to teach both schemes. The rich literature of my Whole Language curriculum was far better than fat-cat-sat stories, but I always held a biased conviction that phonics was too important to ignore. For decades now, outside of employment my calling remains to scrutinize phonics.
I have come to realize that wrongheadedness occurs every time we allow alphabet letters to dominate. Period. An errant mind-set manifests before we begin to influence others through mandated teaching. We know what we know. If we think it and believe it, we will say out loud (for instance) that letters make speech sounds. What does this letter say? What is this letter's sound? Do you know letter-sounds? This is the wrong approach.
Speech sounds are heard in spoken language. Letters are seen in written language. Hearing and seeing will always dance together, yet one modality will take the lead in our direct instruction, and it will be obvious. Whichever modality is FIRST called into service determines that lesson's logic. Each parent, tutor, and teacher must decide how it goes.
Fair warning!! It is even possible that pure sound-based Phonemic Awareness activities can be corrupted if organized alphabetically with an intent to teach letter-sounds. This site exposes incompatibilities between sight-based ABC Logic and the other path of sounds-based VC Logic with one's knowledge of mapped English speech sound units. See MAPS tab.
ABC LOGIC (aka Phonics) teaches the sounds of Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg etc.
ABC Logic is conventional wisdom, opposed to Whole Word memory. ABC Logic is complicated; phonics has ABC jargon and many rules. ABC Logic is promoted by scientific research. ABC Logic is always organized around alphabet letters and "letter-sounds." ABC Logic requires learners to sound-out what is on the page: Seen. Read. Said.
VC LOGIC (aka HSSR) teaches Vowels and Consonants as sounds-to-be-spelled. Sound-spellings!
VC Logic is an outlier. VC Logic is intrinsically sensible, yet unproven. VC Logic is always organized around speech sounds, mapped V01 through C39. VC Logic requires learners to spell-out what is spoken: Heard. Said. Spelled. Read. HSSR
VC Logic works best when relevant vocabulary is taught ahead of time: WordsAhead WA
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