Aus: 'Call off the reading wars, phonics wins: study'
Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 11:59 am
Jordan Baker writes about a newly published study (Anne Castles, Kathleen Rastle, Kate Nation) in the Sydney Morning Herald:
https://www.smh.com.au/education/call-o ... 4zkx8.html
https://www.smh.com.au/education/call-o ... 4zkx8.html
Call off the reading wars, phonics wins: study
By Jordan Baker
12 June 2018
Phonics is essential in the early stages of learning to read but sight words have their place too, according to a new study that aims to end the reading wars.
The study, which involved Sydney's Macquarie University, found many educators were "biased" against phonics because they worried it led to children reading robotically, without comprehending what was on the page.
Yet phonics gave children the key to translating a printed word into its spoken form. Once they were exposed to words multiple times and began to recognise them, the focus could move to comprehension, the study found.
"What we want to say is stop the reading wars," said Professor Anne Castles of Macquarie University.