Pedagogy

Phonics, being a very contentious field in literacy teaching is regarded by many teachers-practitioners as a crucial tool in improving pupils written content. As one teacher said, the integration of phonics and handwriting had decreased reversals and poor letter formation which contributed to greater written content (What Teachers Say). Another first grade teacher argued that the combination of phonics and writing is crucial in enhancing childrens sensitiveness to language as a synthesis of letters and sounds (Teacher A). Hence, as teachers experience suggests, phonics may be integrated with writing, reading and other courses to the advantage of comprehensive children development.

There exist two basic camps of phonics practitioners and scholars, advocating different approaches to phonics. The first camp advocates, what can be labeled unsystematic approach, while the second promotes systematic approach, focusing on integration of different types of emergent language programs in one framework, including writing and reading.

As part of the systematic approach, some authors argue that students who were taught with the integrated alphabet instructions recorded reduced letter and sound formation errors (Massengil and Sundberg, 2006). But there are those, who argue that the whole language approach lies in its insistence on the print-rich environment which is aimed at stimulating the childs desire to read, while the strength of the skills approaches lies in its value of explicit instruction of the sound-symbol relationships.

Proceeding from the described methodological divisions in language learning, present literature review provides analysis of different approaches in teaching phonics to the emergent learners, based on major recent studies. First, the analysis of literature is provided, secondly, the summary and conclusion are made.

Different Methods of Teaching Phonics to Emergent Learners

There exist several approaches to phonics programs in theory and practice, which should be outlined.
National Institute of Literacy in its brochure, titled Put Reading First, names several approaches to phonics, which may be attributed either to systematic or non-systematic frameworks The list is the following 1.Synthetic phonics 2. Analytic phonics 3. Analogy-based phonics 4. Phonics through spelling 5.Embedded phonics 6. Onset-rime phonics instruction (National Institute of Literacy, 18).

Unsystematic framework is best explicated by so-called embedded approach, which presupposes that Children are taught letter-sound relationships during the reading of connected text. (Since children encounter different letter-sound relationships as they read, this approach is not systematic or explicit.) (National Institute of Literacy, 18).

In general, The National Literacy Strategy did recommend a mixed approach which encompassed phonics instruction elements, but it has been argued that this approach may confuse the young children instead phonics should be the main method of identifying words when they are taught. The basic objective of early literacy in school is to help students master difficulties, stemming from linking words and phonemes. This, of course, requires systematic approach, including the knowledge of alphabetic system, vocabulary, phonetics etc.

The proponents of systematic approach argue that it is more effective in terms of enhancing childrens subconscious mechanisms of learning language.

For instance, according to Ehri, Nunes, Stahl, and Willows (2006), systematic phonics assisted the children to learn in a better way compared to the control group instructions including the whole language approaches.  In a nutshell, the systematic phonics instructional approach proved to be effective and therefore should be implemented in literacy programs to teach the beginners besides remediating and preventing difficulties.

Chall (2007) concurred with Ehri et al. (2006) that systematic phonics instruction enables the children to register faster progress compared to the unsystematic phonics.  In this case systematic implies a structured and organized teaching program instead of an approach where phonics may be introduced occasionally and incidentally. Chall (2007) reviewed relevant literature and established that phonics is very essential for the successful acquisition of reading instruction.  The emphasis on the systematic alphabetic code was more effective compared to the use of basal reading series which mainly focused on the reading for meaning. He concluded that alphabetic code coupled with good teaching led to successful reading with regard to fluency and understanding development.  Camilli, Vargas and Yurecko (2003)  carried out a meta-analysis using 38 studies including an additional three having phonemic awareness outcomes and concluded that the systematic phonics have a significant advantage over the  less systematic instructions of phonics though this cannot be prioritized over the other influences that may occur on the reading skills.

On the other hand, the proponents of embedded or integrated phonics argue that pupils to be successful in reading and speaking skills acquisition should be properly instructed on language phonetic rules, while reading and writing within the programs of whole language learning. In such an approach teachers often combine different elements of phonics, focusing on whole language learning. For instance, Adams advocates a reading program that should include developing various language sub-skills. Such an approach, being a part of non-systematic framework is often called balanced literacy (Adams, 1990).

In the same vein, Massengill and Sundberg (2006) argue that an integrated alphabetic approach which simultaneously teaches the sounds and formations of letters is far much better. They have documented the effect this approach had on the first graders in Midwest suburb and in a post-kindergarten inner city summer school.  Their results show that the students who were taught with the integrated alphabet instructions recorded reduced letter and sound formation errors.  They also advocated the simultaneous use of handwriting and phonics.  The findings from this study support the need and value of utilizing a methodology which combines letter formations and letter sounds via the neurologically integrated system.

Allor, Gansle and Denny (2006) demonstrate the utilization of curriculum based measurements particularly the DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills in the identification and evaluation of six kindergarten student progress who were experiencing difficulties with regard to phonemic awareness. A blending and segmentation intervention referred to as Stop and Go Game is personally implemented by the paraprofessional for an estimated time of 26 minutes every day for every student.  To evaluate the results of the intervention on the phoneme segmentation fluency, a multiple segmentation policy is carried out in the course of the study. The paraprofessional, while employing minimal training, provides the personalized phonemic awareness teaching instruction utilizing the specified intervention.  According to Allor et al. (2006) all students registered gains in the phoneme segmentation fluency, even most exceeding the set benchmarks.
Lesaux and Siegel (2003) carried out an investigation on the development of reading is a specifically children designed program who entered kindergarten. It was conducted in the Canadian school district in a longitudinal study which entailed 978 first graders.  The participants completed the experimental and standardized measures including, spelling, phonological processing, reading and memory. The school and classroom teachers provided the phonics instructions and interventions in 3-4 times every week for 20 minutes.  Training consisted of several literacy practices which encompassed a combination of activities which had an explicit emphasis on the sound-symbol relationship.  They found significant improvements in word spelling, rapid naming and arithmetic.

Center (2005) argues that systematic approaches are explicit in phonics teaching which makes them a necessary but not a sufficient condition for phonics teaching. Since reading essentially entails two complimentary and basic processes, learning how to unravel print and comprehending what the print implies, an integrated approach is mandatory. The assertion is in line with the key findings by Cowen (2003) synthesis of the six main studies on the approaches to beginning reading.  Pressley (2008) and Spiegel (2008) observes that the balanced literacy entails the combination of whole skills and languages instruction which creates instructions that is more than the sum of its constituents.

Summary

Present literature review located basic strengths and weaknesses of systematic and non-systematic (embedded or integrated) approach to phonics through analysis of studies, engaging in experimental testing of these methods and intra-discipline debate.

The basic strength of the whole language approach, as explicated by Massengill and Sundberg (2006),  Allor et al. (2006), Lesaux and Siegel (2003), Cowen (2003) etc. lies in its focus on print-rich social and learning environment, which itself is a stimulus for reading and speaking abilities development. The effectiveness of explicit instructions is shown by Massengill and Sundberg (2006) on the example of integrated alphabetic instructions, tested in Midwest elementary schools. The effectiveness of utilizing language games and explicit instructions is shown also by Allor et al. (2006).

The whole language approaches or the holistic approaches has been the predominant framework in the early learning and teaching  and they reflect the constructivist philosophy in learning, whereby the children are seen as being inherently self-regulating and inherently active who construct their own knowledge with little decoding instruction.

Moreover, key findings from this meta-analytic synthesis consistently indicate that systematic approaches are essentially more effective compared to the non-systematic approaches, particularly as far as children with reading difficulties are concerned. Therefore, as the analyzed literature suggests, it is necessary that such children are provided with instructions in phonics as part of the integrated and comprehensive reading programs, entailing meaning-centered approaches.

This implies that phonics should be taught to such children as a separate course, because as Ehri, Nunes, Stahl and Willows (2006) suggest, comprehensive phonics program activates different language and motor psychological functions, facilitating memorizing of language rules, phonetic patterns and enhancing reading skills for the emergent language learners. Such generalization implies that phonics as a comprehensive course should not be excluded from elementary language programs, but instead should be customized to individual educational purposes.

Conclusion

Present literature review found out that there exist two basic methodologies of teaching phonics to emergent language learners. They may be labeled as systematic and non-systematic approaches. However, as National Institute of Literacy suggests, there are various technique falling inside these two categories, but basic distinction between systematic and non-systematic approach may be formulated as follows systematic approach understands phonics as a necessary and autonomous discipline children should be taught to activate different language-learning abilities. On the other hand, non-systematic approach to teaching phonics contends that phonics instructions should be given incidentally during whole language learning practice.
Different in-field experiments and studies, conducted in elementary schools, suggest that in many cases systematic approach should be prioritized over non-systematic approach to achieve better language results for children. In our view, the most effective way of balancing the strengths and weaknesses of systematic and non-systematic approaches is cross-fertilization between them and customizing their use, depending on educational context and pupils language abilities.