A phonics enthusiast recently tried to claim that decoding and encoding were just another form of phonics.  Wrong.  Decoding and encoding are not a form of phonics, nor are they used just with phonics.  Phonics does use decoding and encoding, but so does vowel clustering and many other teaching methods.  Trust me, the fact that we have been able to use vowel clustering to move children up 4 grade levels in reading in one year has absolutely nothing to do with phonics rules.  Most of the children who come to my reading clinics are failing because of whole language and phonics.  I teach many children to read who have failed with phonics, balanced literacy, and whole language.  Fortunately, vowel clustering succeeds where phonics fails. 

Let’s define terms: 

• Phonics from Foorman and colleagues: “Most [standard phonics] programs teach from the traditional perspective of grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence rules…. phonic lessons consist of instruction in initial and final sounds of consonants; short and long vowel sounds; consonant blends (e.g., cr-, srp-,-nd); consonant digraphs (e.g., ch, th, ng); silent consonants (e.g., wr, kn, -mb); and syllabication.” (Foorman et al., 2003, p. 619).

 

• Decoding: From Reading Horizons: “Decoding is the process of translating print into speech by rapidly matching a letter or combination of letters (graphemes) to their sounds (phonemes) and recognizing the patterns that make syllables and words.”

 

• Encoding: Louisa Moates shows that encoding is the exact opposite of decoding.  Encoding uses individual sounds or phonemes to build words.  Decoding and encoding are important because they are the foundation upon which reading is based.  (Louisa Moates, 1998). 

 
The methods that we use to teach children to decode and encode can determine whether a child succeeds or fails in learning to read.  The question then is:  what is the best way to teach decoding and encoding? As Reading Rockets explains:
 
“Phonics is the understanding that there is a predictable relationship between the sounds of spoken language, and the letters and spellings that represent those sounds in written language. Successful decoding occurs when a student uses his or her knowledge of letter-sound relationships to accurately read a word.”
 
Phonics teaches letter-sound relationships, but phonics teaches that letter sound relationships are predictable; therefore; phonics produces a rule to predict when this letter-sound relationship will evolve.  Unfortunately, letter-sound relationships are not always predictable and do not adhere to phonics rules; therefore, we end up with a long list of exceptions to the rules. 

• I recently had the pleasure of speaking with a person who is nearing retirement.  This is a very successful person.  While discussing retirement plans, my husband offered to loan a book that he had found particularly helpful.  This very successful craftsman said, “I can’t read; I can only read very easy-to-read books.”  He then went on to explain that he had been in a pullout program at school from third grade to ninth grade that taught phonics.  Obviously, it failed.
• A 15-year-old student was brought to my reading clinic because the school had said, “she could never learn to read.”  In middle school, she was given coloring book pages and shuffled off to the corner of the classroom.  The school was using “balanced literacy” in the classroom, and the student had received one-on-one tutoring in systematic phonics from early elementary school to middle school.  Again, obviously, phonics failed.  I taught the student to read in 3 ½ years using vowel clustering.
• A very smart third grader was brought to my reading clinic.  The student could not even read at the beginning kindergarten level.  The student’s parents were college-educated and had even paid for private systematic phonics tutoring.  Balanced literacy from the classroom, pullout small group phonics instruction during school, and even private one-on-one systematic phonics instruction failed to teach this student how to read.  Again, I taught the student to read in one year with vowel clustering.

These are just three examples, I have many others, but these three examples show the failure of phonics across approximately a 60-year period of time.  Two of the methods used “systematic phonics.”  These are real people, and we owe these people and thousands more a teaching method that will not fail them.  Systematic phonics is not that method. 
 
Why?
 
Phonics works against the brain instead of with the brain.  Louisa Moates (1998) explained that the manner in which phonics teaches decoding is one of its primary failings:
 
"One of the most fundamental flaws found in almost all phonics programs, including traditional ones, is that they teach the code backwards. That is, they go from letter to sound instead of from sound to letter…. The print-to-sound (conventional phonics) approach leaves gaps, invites confusion, and creates inefficiencies." (pp. 44–45)
 
As Dr. Sally Shaywitz (see Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003) explains, “Children do not learn to read by memorizing a word list.  Most children, especially those who struggle in reading, do not learn to read by memorizing phonics rules” (p. 78).  Some will say, “but she talks about systematic phonics in her book.”  Yes, she does, but she also clearly states that systematic phonics will not meet the needs of all struggling students. 
 
Let’s look at what the experts say:

• Jeanne Sternlicht Chall (1967) an advocate for systematic phonics, visited over 300 classrooms.  While she concluded that systematic phonics was superior to “look say” whole language in 90% of the classrooms, she also clearly stated and warned that a purely phonics approach would leave many students failing.
• Linnea C. Ehri studied 66 phonics vs. whole language groups and again found systematic phonics to be superior to whole language but also found that systematic phonics “did not help low achieving readers that included students with cognitive limitations” (Ehri 2001). 
• As the National Reading Panel (National Reading Panel, 2000)  clearly stated,  “…systematic phonics approaches are significantly more effective than non-phonics [whole language]…. However, phonics instruction failed to exert a significant impact on the reading performance of low-achieving readers in 2nd through 6th grades….” (p. 94).  Phonics simply does not work for many students. 
• In 2013, Tunmer and associates also stated from their research that Reading Recovery (often used to teach struggling students from the classroom) was also not effective with failing, struggling students.  As they stated, “Students with phonological difficulties did poorly [in Reading Recovery].” 
• Sebastian P. Suggate’s 2016 study compared 71 phonemic and phonics intervention groups and found that “… phonemic awareness interventions showed good maintenance of effect…. phonics and fluency interventions … phonics tended not to.”

 
In the past and in the present, many experts, even those who recommend systematic phonics, clearly state from their research that they are finding problems with systematic phonics.  I am not denying that phonics is better than whole language, but if we go back to phonics, even systematic phonics, it will sentence many struggling students to failure in reading. 
 
Struggling, at-risk students who are failing need more, and we have the ability to offer them more.  Phonics will not solve reading failure; a 63% nationwide failure rate should prove that.  Neuroimaging research in reading opens a whole new chapter in reading instruction.  No matter how enthusiastic you are about phonics, you can no longer cling to an outdated phonics system that allows students to fail when there are teaching methods available that can teach those same students how to read.
 
Let’s do more than just swap opinions.  Let’s go straight to the actual research.

• Neuroimaging research has changed how we view reading:  “Today scientists can actually watch the brain as it works to read; scientist can actually track the printed word as it is perceived as a visual icon and then transformed into the sounds (phonemes) of language and simultaneously interpreted from the meaning that is stored within the brain” (David A. Kilpatrick in Equipped for Reading Success, pp. 59-68).
• Reading is more than merely associating letters and sounds:  “In order to read, a child must ‘enter the language system;’ this means that the child must activate and use the brain circuits that are already in place for oral language…. Tens of thousands of neurons carrying the final phonological messages necessary for language…. Connect to form the resonating networks that make skilled reading possible…. “ (Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003, pp. 59-68).
• The new scientific understanding -- orthographic mapping:  “Until recently, almost everyone thought that we store words by having some type of visual image of every word we know….  Many teaching approaches presume this. We assume that if students see the words enough, they will learn them. This is not true…. I believe this assumption that we store words based on visual memory is a major reason why we have widespread reading difficulties in our country…. The big discovery regarding orthographic mapping is that this oral “filing system” is the foundation of the “filing system” we use for reading words. We have no “visual dictionary” for reading that runs alongside our oral dictionary. I suspect that the reason this idea was not obvious to researchers for the last 100 years is simple: speech is auditory and reading is visual. Because reading involves visual input, everyone presumed that it also involved visual storage. However, input and storage are not the same thing…. There are several types of research findings that disproved the “visual memory” theory of word storage…. Having a good understanding of how words are stored will determine what we teach, and how we teach it…. But how do words or parts of words become familiar if not visually? Here is where phoneme awareness comes into play…. The letters of our printed language are supposed to represent the sounds of our spoken language…. We use our oral-linguistic filing system as the basis for word recognition…. orthographic mapping will only occur if the student has adequate phonemic awareness/analysis. If he cannot pull apart the sounds in words, he cannot align those sounds to the order of the letters…. Mapping must not be confused with phonics. Mapping and phonics differ in some very important ways…. All of the classical methods (phonics, whole word, whole language) were developed before the discovery of orthographic mapping, so they cannot be faulted for missing some or all of the components of permanent word storage. Given the research findings about permanent word storage, we can now make the training and support of these components a central part of early reading instruction and reading remediation. If we do this, we can make substantial reductions in the percentage of struggling readers…. Students were trained in phoneme awareness, letter-sound skills, and word study skills. This allowed them to map words efficiently to permanent memory. As a result, they became good readers and no longer required extra reading help. Other studies have shown similar results.” (David Kilpatrick in Equipped for Reading Success, pp. 27-43).

  
Vowel clustering works with the brain and the way the brain processes phonemes or letter sounds.  Vowel clustering uses visual, auditory, and hands-on teaching techniques.    Vowel clustering teaches students to match consonant and vowel sounds with their corresponding letter symbols.  This emphasizes the oral letter-sound relationship.  Remember, we are training the brain, building “pathways” in the brain.  When these neural “pathways” are developed, reading can take less than half a second.   Therefore, it is important to organize how we teach so students can organize how they learn. We want to work with the brain, not against it. The vowel clustering teaching approach presents a visual and oral picture that struggling students can immediately identify with.  Visually, students match words by how they sound not by how they are spelled.  This teaches children that words can be pronounced one way but spelled another.  This visual-auditory learning technique allows students to both see and hear letter sounds (phonemes).  Vowel clustering also teaches handwriting because it is very important for students to write words correctly as they practice reading, spelling, and matching written letters to oral sounds. 
 
For more information on how vowel clustering works, watch for my new book, “Why Can’t We Teach Children to Read?  Oh but Wait, We Can.”

In this, the seventh of our discussion on vowel clustering, I want to discuss the concept of building words.  Phonics and other teaching methods primarily talk about how to decode or break words down into letter sounds.  Decoding is essential.  Vowel clustering also teaches decoding, but vowel clustering goes a step further.  Vowel clustering teaches building words as well.
 
Building words is important because students must understand the relationship between letters and oral sounds.  As Dr. Nadine Gaab, newly-appointed Assistant Professor at Children's Hospital at Harvard Medical School, says, “Learning to read an alphabetic language requires mastering grapheme-phoneme correspondences (i.e., mapping the sounds of auditory language to the letters of the written language system)” (Gaab et al., 2007, p. 296).
 
As Dr. Gaab goes on to explain, before students can learn to read they must master the grapheme-phoneme relationship between alphabetic letters and the oral sounds those letters represent.  In other words, students must be able to map or neurologically associate the sounds of auditory language with the letters of written words. This is what vowel clustering teaches through the concept of building words.  Dr. Gaab and her research team have shown that preschool children, early elementary school readers, and even adults demonstrate positive improvement in reading skills after receiving training in letter-sound relationships.  “Sound training,” Dr. Gaab says, is more than just saying that phonemes represent sounds.  You must actually teach the relationship between the sounds and the letters.  We automatically learn to speak a language just by listening to parents and those around us speak, but we do not automatically learn to read just by listening to oral sounds or by listening to someone read. A research team from the McGovern Institute for Brain Research summarized this concept by explaining that in order for students to learn to read, spoken oral sounds must be mapped onto the letters of the alphabet that are used to make the spoken words (Saygin, et al., 2013). 
 
Understanding letter-sound relationships or mapping the oral sounds of spoken language to the corresponding printed letters that represent those sounds (Norton, Beach, & Gabrieli, 2015) is essential for students learning to read.
 
When I teach vowel clustering, I teach students to build words, such as with the sound at.  Students start with:  at, bat, cat….  Then they change to:  an, can, fan….  Also used ap for cap, map, ….  We begin teaching letter-sound relationships with simple one syllable words.  The main rule for word building is that the vowel sound stays constant—does not change.  For example, building words with the short a vowel sound would mean that you cannot insert such words as able, cake, car….  Yes, these words use the letter a, but they use different sounds for the letter a.  Remember, there are seven sounds for the letter a and 22 different ways to make those sounds.  In word building, you teach one sound at a time.
 
At-risk readers should be taught how to build words from a common letter sound so that they can understand the individual sounds that make up a word. When you teach students how to build words, use a vowel cluster. 

What do I mean by a vowel cluster?  A vowel cluster is all the sounds for a vowel.  For example, as I’ve said before, the letter a uses seven different sounds and it makes these seven different sounds with 22 different letter combinations.  Phonics describes these sounds as “irregular vowel sounds.”  At-risk students become confused when you teach short vowel sounds (A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y), then long vowel sounds with silent E; then, later still, phonics comes back and teaches “irregular vowel sounds.” 
 
With 63 to 64% of fourth grade students across the nation not even able to read at the fourth-grade level, we obviously have a problem with the method that we are using to teach students to read (see Nation’s Report Card).  Whole language, phonics, and even balanced literacy (combining the two together) are not teaching children to read.  Yet, these children can learn to read, even struggling students (Meyler, Keller, Cherkassky, Gabrieli, & Just, 2008).
 
I’ll quote Dr. Shaywitz again (see Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003).  Yes, I’ve quoted her many times before, but she says it better than anyone. Dr. Shaywitz’s explanation is so clear that there is no way we should not be able to understand.  “Children do not learn to read by memorizing a word list.  Most children, especially those who struggle in reading, do not learn to read by memorizing phonics rules” (p. 78).  The question remains then, why are we still teaching whole language and phonics in the classroom?
 
Vowel clustering works and we have the data to prove it.  Watch for my new book coming out this summer from Springer documenting eight years of research data showing how effective vowel clustering can be.  Yes, we have had students move up four grade levels in reading in just one year.

A parent asked me this weekend, “When should I start my child on reading?  She’s four years old and will be starting preschool this fall.  Should she be reading when she starts?”
 
The answer is no. If the child picks up reading on her own (and some children do), then that’s fine, but absolutely no child should be pushed to read at four years of age.  If your preschool is trying to teach children to read at four years of age, tell them they are doing it the wrong way.

Four-year-olds should be learning the alphabet, both the capital letters and the lowercase letters.  I frequently see third graders who do not know or recognize lowercase alphabet letters; therefore, we obviously need to spend more time teaching the alphabet. It’s like building a house: you can’t start with the roof. You have to build the foundation first, and if you do not build a solid foundation your house will fall down.  If you do not build a solid foundation in reading, the child will always have trouble.

We assume that because a child has been shown both capital and lowercase letters that they have learned them. This is not the case and this is one of the first big mistakes often made in teaching reading.

First, start with the alphabet. Teach both the capital letters and lowercase letters. Teach them separately. Then mix the capital and lowercase letters up and make sure that children can actually identify both capitals and lowercase letters.  Don’t show them in order.  Rearrange the letters so that the child is actually looking at the letter and actually identifying the letter, not just remembering it from the song.

Second, teach children to write the alphabet letters. Yes, I know that we do not teach handwriting anymore, but we should.  Handwriting is directly linked to learning to read.  Buy a manuscript writing tablet and teach your child to shape and write their letters correctly before you try to teach the child to read.

Then, after your child has mastered identifying and writing the alphabet—both capitals and lowercase, teach letter sounds.  No, I did not say teach word lists or simple stories.  I said teach letter sounds.  Start with the consonants.  Vowel clustering teaches students to recognize that the letters of the alphabet represent sounds.  I devote an entire chapter on teaching consonant sounds in my new upcoming book:  Why Can’t We Teach Children to Read?  Oh but Wait,We Can.

When we try to teach children to read, we rush to teach words and stories before we have even laid the foundation for learning about words.  Four-year-olds should learn about the alphabet.  Teach the alphabet first.  Then, you will have a much stronger foundation for teaching reading.

Vowel clustering teaches students to read one step at a time: (1) learn to identify the alphabet letters—both capitals and lowercase, (2) learn to write and shape the letters correctly on manuscript writing paper not sprawled across a paper without lines, and (3) learn to identify sound(s) that each letter represents.  This is the kind of foundation that vowel clustering is built upon.  Once the child has letter identity, letter shape, and letter sounds, then you are ready to introduce simple words, but not before.  Build the foundation before you try to add on the roof.

A parent recently contacted me because her child’s school had told her that her son was going to be retained in first grade because of his failing grades in reading.  She frantically asked, “What can I do?”
 
Retention (repeating a grade) does not work, neither does social promotion (simply moving a student on to the next grade).  For a more complete discussion on why retention does not work for failing students, see my article in The Group Psychologist.
 
We know that one of the main causes for reading failure is the method used in the classroom to teach students to read.  Whole language teaching methods, even when combined with phonics, simply do not work (see my blog on 1-21-19). 
 
If we use the correct teaching methods, neuroimaging research proves that even children who have previously failed can be taught to read.  Neuroimaging research shows that intensive training in phonemes (letter sounds) changes the “brain and the way it functions.” This change allows even struggling at-risk students to make significant improvement in reading (Meyler, Keller, Cherkassky, Gabrieli, & Just, 2008). 
 
As Yoncheva, Wise, & McCandliss, 2015 explain, “teaching students to sound out ‘C-A-T’ sparks more optimal brain circuitry than instructing them to memorize the word ‘cat.’” They conclude that “different instructional approaches to the same material may impact changes in brain circuitry.”
 
I still think Dr. Sally Shaywitz (see Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003) explains the problem best, “Children do not learn to read by memorizing a word list.  Most children, especially those who struggle in reading, do not learn to read by memorizing phonics rules” (p. 78).  Therefore, the first thing a parent must do is seek a new teaching method for their child.  Merely repeating a grade will not necessarily teach the material to the child.  A new teaching approach should be instituted. This may be tutoring, an afterschool program, or one-on-one with the parent at home.  I use vowel clustering.  We have had students move up four grade levels in one year in reading using vowel clustering. 
 
In this, the fifth in our series on vowel clustering, I want to speak directly to the parent of the first grader.  Yet, the suggestions that I offer apply to every single student of any age who is struggling in reading.  I taught a 15-year-old to read who had failed for nine straight years.  I used these same vowel clustering principles.  Must start at the very beginning with all students, regardless of their age.  If the student is failing or struggling, completely reteach.
 
Make sure that the student knows and understands the sounds for all alphabet letters.  We often think that students know their alphabet.  In the classroom, the capital alphabet letters are taught side-by-side with the lowercase alphabet letters.  Many children do not learn the lowercase alphabet letters.  We read primarily with lowercase letters; therefore, when students encounter these lowercase letters in words and stories, they are confused and lost.  Separate the capital and lowercase letters.  Have your student practice capital and lowercase letters separately.  Also, do not always practice alphabet letters in alphabetical order. Mix the letters up. Practice the sounds for each letter both with the capital letters and with the lowercase letters.  For the vowel sounds: A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y, teach each vowel separately.  Since the vowels have numerous sounds, practice only the letter name at first. 
 
In phonics, they teach the short vowel sound for each vowel.  No.  It is much better to teach just the letter sound.  For example, the letter a says its name A.  Explain that there are seven different sounds for the letter a, but we will begin by just learning the letter name for the vowel.  In this way, you let the child know that vowels have many sounds, not just a long and a short sound. 

Practice handwriting.  Handwriting and reading are connected.  If the brain cannot recognize the words that a student writes, the brain is not going to learn the words.  Dr. Shaywitz (see Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003) explains that handwriting is one of the critical steps in “rewiring the brain.” Instead of “rewiring,” I call it retraining the brain.  Therefore, improving a student’s handwriting is one of the first steps in helping a student learn to read.  It is not enough to just be able to sing the alphabet song.  The student must be able to identify and say the name of each alphabet letter.  Then, the student must be able to write the letters correctly.

Once your student is familiar with identifying and writing capital and lowercase letters, you are ready to begin teaching vowel sounds.  Vowel clustering recognizes that vowels are the most important sounds for children learning to read and teaches all of the sounds for a vowel in a cluster.  With the letter a, the children learn all seven sounds used by letter a and the 22 different letter combinations that can be used to make those seven sounds.  The traditional phonics approach was to teach the short vowel sounds and then the long vowel sounds using silent e.  The other sounds were called “irregular sounds,” but irregular vowel sounds cause children the most confusion.  Teaching vowels in clusters teaches children to learn all of the sounds for each vowel in an organized pattern.  It’s easier and less confusing, and it works directly with how the brain assimilates and organizes letter sounds—connecting synapses and building pathways.  Vowel clustering simply means to teach words by sounds rather than by letters. 

The next question is, how do we teach students vowel sounds?  Vowel clustering teaches all the vowel sounds in clusters.  Remember, there are seven different sounds for the letter a, and the long a sound is just one of those seven sounds.  The long a vowel sound can use:  ea, ai, ay, ei, ey, eigh, and silent e.  Of course, the letter a can also make the long a vowel sound when it stands alone, as with the word apron.  So, if you are only introducing students to the long a sound through silent e, you have created a problem and confused struggling students, especially when you come along later and introduce irregular vowel sounds.  Irregular vowel sounds that are thrown in later is how most students get lost while learning vowels. This is also one of the main reasons that phonics fails with at-risk students.

Reading, spelling, and writing (creating sentences or a paragraph or more) are all interconnected in the brain.  They should all be taught, starting in kindergarten and throughout school.  If a teacher uses vowel clustering, a beginning student can learn to read, spell, and write a vowel-clustered sentence.  Vowel clustering teaches students to work with letter sounds. 

For example:  While teaching the short a vowel sound on the first day of class, you can teach students to combine the word at with various consonants and spell a list of words by just using at.  Examples would be: at, bat, cat, fat, hat, mat, pat, rat, sat, and vat.  Children can practice pronouncing, spelling, and writing these words. Then, you might ask the children to write a story.  Tell them they are only allowed to use at words.  You'll need to allow the and a just to make sentences complete. 

Example:  The cat sat at a mat.  A fat rat sat at a hat.  The cat spat at the rat. 

The children can then add to this story when they learn an.  They might add: 

The rat ran.  The cat ran at the rat.  The rat ran faster. 

Young children do not need long, complicated sentences. They do need to learn vowel sounds.  Learn one vowel sound at a time. Start with a.  Do not go on to the next vowel sound until the child has learned all seven sounds for the letter a.

Someone recently asked me if vowel clustering was another form of phonics.  No!  Vowel clustering and phonics are completely and totally different teaching approaches. 
 
Vowel clustering teaches students to decode and encode letter sounds to pronounce and read words (Clanton Harpine, 2013). There are no rules to memorize, and students are never allowed to guess at a word. Vowel clustering teaches students to decode or break words down into individual letter sounds and then to encode or reassemble those sounds back into pronounceable words.  My vowel clustering method also teaches spelling, handwriting, oral reading fluency, comprehension, and story writing.  All of my reading programs teach vowel clustering.  Vowel clustering has been tested and proven to work with struggling, at-risk, and failing students.  A student, who failed for nine years using balanced literacy and phonics, learned to read in 3 ½ years using vowel clustering.  I have even had struggling students move up four grade levels in one year using vowel clustering.  These were students who had failed multiple years in schools that taught whole language, balanced literacy, and phonics.  So yes, we can teach students to read, but to do so, we must change the methods that we use to teach reading. 
 
This is the fourth in my series on vowel clustering.   So far, we have defined vowel clustering and how it differs from whole language and phonics [for a more direct comparison between vowel clustering and phonics see my blog posts for August 2018, September 2018, November 2018; click the buttons on the right].  We have also talked about how vowel clustering works with the brain, discussed the importance of handwriting and learning to read, and in this post, we are talking about letter sounds.  Just to summarize the research findings that we’ve discussed so far, researchers tell us that:
 
“Children do not learn to read by memorizing a word list.  Most children, especially those who struggle in reading, do not learn to read by memorizing phonics rules.” (Shaywitz, 2003, p. 78)
 
Systematic phonics “did not help low achieving readers that included students with cognitive limitations.” (Ehri 2001)
 
“… teaching students to sound out ‘C-A-T’ sparks more optimal brain circuitry than instructing them to memorize the word ‘cat.’ [thereby concluding that] “… different instructional approaches to the same material may impact changes in brain circuitry.” (Yoncheva, Wise, & McCandliss, 2015)
 
“… the motor experience of manually creating letterforms helps children discriminate the essential properties of each letter, which leads to more accurate representations bolstering both skilled letter recognition and later reading fluency.”  (Gimenez et al. 2014, p. 155)
 
If we use the correct teaching methods, neuroimaging research proves that even children who have previously failed can be taught to read.  Neuroimaging research shows that intensive training in phonemes (letter sounds) changes the “brain and the way it functions.” This change allows even struggling at-risk students to make significant improvement in reading (Meyler, Keller, Cherkassky, Gabrieli, & Just, 2008). 
 
Our task, then, is to find a teaching method that works for all students. I believe that all students can learn to read, and I have worked the past eighteen years to develop and prove that vowel clustering can teach all students to read. 
 
Why does vowel clustering work so well?  Vowel clustering works with the brain.  Memorization works against the brain, regardless whether you are memorizing words from a word list or memorizing phonics rules.  As Yoncheva, Wise, and McCandliss (2015) stated, “teaching-induced differences” can determine whether a child fails or succeeds in learning to read.  Dr. Sally Shaywitz summarized the importance of using the correct teaching method by saying:
 
“In order to read, a child must ‘enter the language system;’ this means that the child must activate and use the brain circuits that are already in place for oral language…. tens of thousands of neurons carrying the phonological messages necessary for language… Connect to form the resonating networks that make skilled reading possible….” (Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003, pp. 59-68).
 
So, how do we activate these brain circuits?  By the way we teach letter-sound relationships.  Neuroimaging research shows that phonics does not teach letter-sound relationships in the same way that the brain processes them.  Phonics focuses on the letters; the brain focuses on sounds. 
 
“Most people assume that words are stored in visual memory. Many teaching approaches presume this. We assume that if students see the words enough, they will learn them. This is not true. Children with reading problems often cannot remember new words, even after many exposures.”  (David A. Kilpatrick in Equipped for Reading Success, pp. 29-30).
 
Kilpatrick explains that the brain does not recognize and store words through visual memory—seeing the same word over and over or “look-say.”  Instead, the brain creates an oral filing system.  The brain does not file words by letter.  Neither whole language or phonics works with the brain’s oral filing system.  Students who cannot memorize whole language word lists cannot memorize phonics rules, especially rules for irregular letter sounds. If we go back to a phonics approach, we will leave many students failing in reading when we have the scientific knowledge to teach every student to read.  Struggling students need educators to move forward, to read and understand what scientists are saying, and to use new scientific methods to help struggling students learn to read. 
 
Vowel clustering teaches letter sounds.  At all of my reading clinics, I work with children in small groups, use the group-centered format that combines learning and counseling, and teach vowel clustering. 
 
Vowel clustering begins with the lower-case alphabet.  Vowel clustering teaches students to recognize that the letters of the alphabet represent sounds.  Students are taught to sound words out letter by letter instead of guessing.  Students must be able to identify both the capital letters and lowercase letters to be able to read.  We read mostly lowercase letters, but schools often teach only the uppercase letters. The first step to teaching a student to read is to teach the lowercase alphabet: (1) to recognize each lowercase letter (and know the letter name), (2) to know the letter sound(s) for each lowercase letter, and (3) to be able to write the lowercase letters correctly using manuscript style paper and letter formation.
 
Vowel clustering recognizes that vowels are the most important sounds for children learning to read and teaches all the sounds for a vowel in a cluster.  With the letter a, the children learn all seven sounds used by letter a and the 22 different letter combinations that can be used to make those seven sounds.  The traditional phonics approach was to teach the “short vowel sounds” and then the “long vowel sounds using silent e.”  The other sounds were called “irregular sounds,” but irregular vowel sounds cause children the most confusion.  Teaching vowels in clusters teaches children to learn all of the sounds for each vowel in an organized pattern.  It’s easier and less confusing, and it works directly with how the brain assimilates and organizes letter sounds—connecting synapses and building pathways.  Vowel clustering simply means to teach words by sounds rather than by letters.  See Chapter 1 in my After-School Prevention Programs for At-Risk Students (2013) and Chapter 4 in my Group-Centered Prevention in Mental Health (2015) for examples of how this concept is applied in teaching children to read.
 
Today’s struggling students deserve the very best we can offer in the classroom.  It is not enough to trade whole language for phonics.
 
The next question is, how do we teach students vowel sounds?  Vowel clustering teaches all the vowel sounds in clusters.  Remember, there are seven different sounds for the letter a, and the long a sound is just one of those seven sounds.  The long a vowel sound can use:  ea, ai, ay, ei, ey, eigh, and silent e.  Of course, the letter a can also make the long a vowel sound when it stands alone, as with the word apron.  So, if you are only introducing students to the long a sound through silent e, you have created a problem and confused struggling students, especially when you come along later and introduce irregular vowel sounds.  Irregular vowel sounds that are thrown in later is how most students get lost while learning vowels. This is also one of the main reasons that phonics fails with at-risk students.
 
The vowel clustering method uses a vowel center where children learn to match the vowel sounds.  Children learn to match words with the letter sounds; therefore, emphasizing the letter sound relationship and helping children to build and connect the sounds with their oral filing system.

The sounds are taught in clusters before going on to the next vowel.  Remember, we are training the brain, building pathways in the brain; therefore, it is important to organize the way we teach so that the students can organize how they learn.  We want to work with the brain, not against it.  If we teach in a haphazard fashion, struggling students become confused.  Vowel clustering presents a visual picture through use of a vowel clustered vowel center, that uses an auditory learning technique through oral reading and spelling of new words as they are matched to their letter sound on the vowel clustered vowel center.  This enables students to see and hear the letter sounds.  Vowel clustering also teaches handwriting because it is very important that students write the words correctly as they practice reading, spelling, and matching letter sounds at the vowel clustered vowel center.
 
A mother told me yesterday, “She’s addicted to reading.  Before your Camp Sharigan program, she never wanted to read.  Her reading grade in school has gone up 20 points.  She can’t wait to get home and read.”
 
You, too, can help children become “addicted” to reading.  Change the method that you use to teach children to read.  I use vowel clustering, and it works.

I apologize for my tardiness in continuing our series on vowel clustering.  I have been busy completing a new book that will be released hopefully sometime this summer that presents research data on the eight-year success story of vowel clustering in an after-school program with children who had failed for multiple years in reading.  For those who are interested, I’ll let you know when the book is released, but for now, back to vowel clustering.

Vowel clustering begins with the lower-case alphabet.  Vowel clustering teaches students to recognize that the letters of the alphabet represent sounds.  Students are taught to sound words out letter by letter instead of guessing.  Students must be able to identify both the capital letters and lowercase letters to be able to read.  We read mostly lowercase letters, but schools often teach only the uppercase letters. The first step to teaching a student to read is to teach the lowercase alphabet: (1) to recognize each lowercase letter (and know the letter name), (2) to know the letter sound(s) for each lowercase letter, and (3) to be able to write the lowercase letters correctly using manuscript style paper and letter formation.
      Handwriting and reading are connected.  If the brain cannot recognize the words that a student writes, the brain is not going to learn the words.  Dr. Shaywitz (see Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003) explains that handwriting is one of the critical steps in “rewiring the brain.” Instead of “rewiring,” I call it retraining the brain.  Therefore, improving a student’s handwriting is one of the first steps in helping a student learn to read.  It is not enough to just be able to sing the alphabet song.  The student must be able to identify and say the name of each alphabet letter.  Then, the student must be able to write the letters correctly.  As a research team from California explained, learning to write and shape letters correctly is essential:

“Recent neuroimaging studies have concluded that while free-form handwriting practice clearly supports reading acquisition, typing and even tracing do not. Impressively, James and Engelhardt (2012) showed that preliterate children recruit well established reading related brain regions, such as the fusiform gyrus, posterior parietal cortex, and the inferior frontal gyrus, during letter processing exclusively after handwriting practice compared to typing or tracing. The emerging consensus is that the motor experience of manually creating letterforms helps children discriminate the essential properties of each letter, which leads to more accurate representations bolstering both skilled letter recognition and later reading fluency.”  (Gimenez et al. 2014, p. 155)
     
The way a student writes or shapes letters is very important for students learning to read (James & Engelhardt, 2012).  I had a parent tell me once, “I know that her handwriting is terrible, but I brought her to you for you to teach her to read.”  I explained how important handwriting is to the reading process.  I use manuscript paper and manuscript style writing tools because, if the student’s brain cannot recognize the letter that the student has written, the student will not be able to read the alphabet letter.  I use traditional “tracing with direction arrows” for practice.  I give the students colored pencils (especially the erasable kind) and have them trace a letter over and over with different colors to see what colors they can make.  Adding a little fun makes the task more enjoyable.  I have the children use manuscript writing paper for all of their writing.  As I tell students, “we’re training our brains to recognize these letters so that our brain can identify the letters when we see them in a story.”  I use manuscript writing paper and block manuscript writing style.  Since my emphasis is to teach students to read, I teach only block style handwriting, not cursive.  So, the first step in learning to read is to learn to identify and write the alphabet letters correctly, both capital and lowercase letters.  The next step is to learn the letter sounds.

This is part 2 of my series on vowel clustering.  The key concept behind vowel clustering is that it works with the brain to make it easier for children to learn to read.  How?  First, let’s take a few minutes to talk about how the brain works when we read.
 
There is no one central area of the brain that controls reading.  Instead there is a “network of connections or synaptic pathways.”  When these pathways are developed, reading a word can take less than half a second, but reading does not happen automatically, it must be taught.  The method that we use to teach reading is what keeps some children from learning how to read [see my previous blog posts on ineffective teaching methods--August 2018, September 2018, November 2018; click the buttons on the right].  Effective reading involves building interconnections or pathways between five different reading-related regions of the brain (Zhang et al., 2014).  Neuroimaging research often studies the “functional connectivity” or interactions between these regions of the brain.  Effective readers display strong “functional connectivity” while poor readers do not.  Students with dyslexia may show a decrease or disruption in “functional connectivity.”  This “functional connectivity” directly relates to reading ability (Koyama et al., 2011); so, we need to discover how we can develop or increase “functional connectivity.”  There is a shared neural basis.  It is the “coordination of spontaneous activity within the reading network” that makes reading possible.  The key finding in all of this research is that “functional connectivity” can be taught (Zhang et al., 2014).  Neuroimaging research clearly shows that at-risk students, who have previously failed in reading, can be taught to read (Keller & Just, 2009).  The neuroimaging study by Keller and Just (2009) showed at-risk children improving in reading when phonemic and phonological awareness techniques were used.  Vowel clustering is a method that teaches both phonemic and phonological awareness by teaching children to decode and encode letter sounds in order to read words (Clanton Harpine, 2013). That decoding and encoding builds connectivity.
 
Vowel clustering teaches students to decode or break words down into letter sounds and then to encode or reassemble those sounds back into pronounceable words.  Vowel clustering also teaches spelling, handwriting, oral reading fluency, comprehension, and story writing.  Vowel clustering has been tested and proven to work with struggling, at-risk, and failing students.  I’ve even had struggling students move up four grade levels in one year using vowel clustering (watch for my new book coming later this spring).  These were students who had failed multiple years in school.  Yes, we can teach students to read, but to do so, we must change the methods that we use to teach students to read. 
 
One mistake some people make in teaching letter sounds is to teach children by the first letter in a word, saying these words are similar:  bell, bike, ball, book.  Unfortunately, although each of these words starts with the same consonant sound—the letter B, the brain does not organize words by beginning letter sounds.  When you introduce new words that contain several vowel sounds as in the example above, it is very confusing to children who are struggling to read.  The brain identifies words by (and we learn to pronounce words by) the vowel sound in the word.  Therefore, we need to teach children to read by using words that have common vowel sounds:  at, back, cat, fat, hat, mat….  If we teach using the organizational structure that the brain uses, it makes it easier for at-risk students to learn.  I call it vowel clustering.  The children in my reading clinic learn to decode and encode words by vowel sounds.  For example, the letter A has 7 sounds and 22 different letter combinations to make those sounds.  Vowel clustering also teaches all of the sounds for a vowel in a cluster.  With the letter A, the children learn all seven sounds used by letter A and the 22 different letter combinations that can be used to make those seven sounds.  The traditional phonics approach was to teach the “short vowel sounds” and then the “long vowel sounds using silent e.”  The other sounds were called “irregular sounds,” but irregular vowel sounds cause children the most confusion.  Teaching vowels in clusters teaches children to learn all of the sounds for each vowel in an organized pattern.  It’s easier and less confusing, and it works directly with how the brain assimilates and organizes letter sounds—connecting synapses and building pathways.  Vowel clustering simply means to teach words by sounds rather than by letters.  See Chapter 1 in my After-School Prevention Programs for At-Risk Students (2013) and Chapter 4 in my Group-Centered Prevention in Mental Health (2015) for examples of how this concept is applied when teaching children to read.

​January was a busy month for the Camp Sharigan Project.  

In January, Camp Sharigan, a one week, 10-hour group-centered program, was conducted in Corpus Christi, Texas.  It was a fabulous week.  As often the case, the community organization and the local university are planning to extend the program in the fall by coupling the one-week Camp Sharigan with the year-long after-school Reading Orienteering Club.  We’re busy working on the details.  Camp Sharigan will be released in a new 3rd edition format this summer that includes a new vowel center workstation.  If you are interested in the new edition, let me know.
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Meanwhile, the community-university collaborative project in Aiken, South Carolina continued.  This is the tenth year for the Reading Orienteering Club in Aiken.  The program returns with new university student staff this semester.  When you use a written program packet, staff changes do not need to slow progress.  Ready-to-use program packets for both Camp Sharigan and the Reading Orienteering Club make them easy to use at any location.  A new 3rd edition of the Reading Orienteering Club program is also being released later this summer.  Watch for details.

In August 2018, September 2018, and November 2018, I wrote a complete series showing why Phonics, while better than whole language, is not the answer to reading failure.  I’ll simply direct you to that body of research on my earlier blogs [August 2018, September 2018, November 2018; click the buttons on the right].  I still think Dr. Sally Shaywitz (see Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003) explains the problem best, “Children do not learn to read by memorizing a word list.  Most children, especially those who struggle in reading, do not learn to read by memorizing phonics rules” (p. 78).  Enough said about whole language and phonics.  The research is conclusive.  The proof is in the neuroimaging pictures.  You either believe the research or you do not.  Whole language, in all of its forms has failed.  Phonics, in all of its forms, while better than whole language, is still a failure because it works against the brain and how the brain learns to read.
 
I’ll be teaching a free training workshop on vowel clustering, January 26th at 10:00 AM in Corpus Christi, Texas.  Come join us.  This is also the beginning of a ten-part series here on vowel clustering.  If you have questions, contact me. (Click the mail button on the top right.)

Let’s begin by defining vowel clustering.  Vowel clustering teaches children to decode and encode letter sounds to read words (Clanton Harpine, 2010).  As Dr. Shaywitz states, children must learn to decode (break down) words into letter sounds and then encode (reassemble) those sounds back into pronounceable words if they are to learn to read (Shaywitz, 2003). Children are taught to sound words out letter by letter instead of guessing. Vowel clustering emphasizes learning the lowercase alphabet and sounding out letter sounds and combinations of letter sounds.  Students never memorize word lists or phonics rules. 
 
Vowel clustering recognizes that vowels are the most important sounds for children learning to read and teaches all of the sounds for a vowel in a cluster.  With the letter a, the children learn all seven sounds used by letter a and the 22 different letter combinations that can be used to make those seven sounds.  The traditional phonics approach was to teach the “short vowel sounds” and then the “long vowel sounds using silent e.”  The other sounds were called “irregular sounds,” but irregular vowel sounds cause children the most confusion.  Teaching vowels in clusters teaches children to learn all of the sounds for each vowel in an organized pattern.  It’s easier and less confusing, and it works directly with how the brain assimilates and organizes letter sounds—connecting synapses and building pathways.  Vowel clustering simply means to teach words by sounds rather than by letters.  See Chapter 1 in my After-School Prevention Programs for At-Risk Students (2013) and Chapter 4 in my Group-Centered Prevention in Mental Health (2015) for examples of how this concept is applied in teaching children to read.
 
At all of my reading clinics, we work with children in small groups and use the group-centered format that combines learning and counseling.  All of my programs use vowel clustering:

·         A student who failed for nine straight years in public school is now reading.
·         A student diagnosed with ADHD and failing in reading moved up two grade levels in one year.
·         A student diagnosed with dyslexia and whose parents tried everything, including expensive private one-on-one tutoring, learned to read, and moved up to beginning chapter books in one year.
·         Six children who entered the program reading at the (pre-K) level ended the year reading at the 2nd grade reading level.  Only one child in the group was a first grader.
·         One student started at the pre-K level and ended the year reading at the third-grade level, while a second grader started the year reading below first grade and ended at the fourth-grade level.
·         One student moved up four grade levels in reading, four students moved up three grade levels in reading, and eight students moved up two grade levels in reading. 
·         The next year, 2 students moved up four grade levels in reading, 3 students moved up three grade levels in reading, and 6 students moved up two grade levels in reading. 
 
Vowel clustering works.  We will be using vowel clustering teaching techniques with Camp Sharigan in Corpus Christi, Texas and with the Reading Orienteering Club program in Aiken, South Carolina.  Both programs start on January 28th.  Contact me if you would like to participate.
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Learning to read is one of the vital stages of early childhood development.  Reading also influences mental health and wellness.  A child who cannot read is going to have problems in school and throughout life.  About 85% of juvenile offenders in the court system are classified as “functionally illiterate” (National Center for Adult Literacy 2007).  Reading failure is also classified as the main cause of overall academic failure.  A student who cannot read cannot succeed in school or in life.
 
As Dr. Sally Shaywitz (see Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003) explains, “Children do not learn to read by memorizing a word list.  Most children, especially those who struggle in reading, do not learn to read by memorizing phonics rules” (p. 78). We have the knowledge, the research, and the ability to teach every single child across the nation to read, so why do we cling to failed teaching methods and force students to continue to fail in reading? 
 
For the past 25 years, nationwide testing has clearly shown that over half of the children and teens in the United States cannot read at grade level by 4th or 8th grade.  The Nation’s Report Card (NPC) (see my post of 1/2/2018) stated that only 37% of 4th graders and only 36% of 8th graders across the nation can read proficiently at grade level.  That is less than half.  The rest of the students were shown to not be able to read at their respective grade levels, and most of these students, 78%, never catch up (NCES 2016).  When we link reading failure, retention, and dropping out of school before graduation, we have a serious problem that often leads to aggression, violence, and even crime, especially when you consider that 70% of American prison inmates cannot read above the 4th grade level (National Center for Adult Literacy 2007).    Depression and anxiety often accompany academic failure and reading failure, mental health and wellness problems that begin in childhood can last a lifetime. 
 
We owe it to children to use the most effective way to teach them to read, because when children fail to learn to read that failure increases the likelihood that they will drop out of school before graduation, have trouble finding jobs, or even get involved in criminal activity.  As Michael Brunner (1993) of the Department of Justice clearly explained, “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure.”  We can change that because we can teach students to read.  If we use the correct teaching methods, neuroimaging research proves that even children who have previously failed can be taught to read.  Neuroimaging research shows that intensive training in phonemes (letter sounds) changes the “brain and the way it functions.” This change through phonemic awareness training allows even struggling at-risk students to make significant improvement in reading (Meyler, Keller, Cherkassky, Gabrieli, & Just, 2008). 
 
The word cat is a common example for teaching phonemic awareness.  Neuroimaging research shows that it is much better to teach students to sound out the word cat (one letter sound at a time) than to teach students to memorize or simply recognize the word cat (Yoncheva, Wise, & McCandliss, 2015). 
 
The method that I use is vowel clustering.  Vowel clustering incorporates phonemic and phonological awareness by teaching students to decode or break words down into letter sounds and then to encode or reassemble those sounds back into pronounceable words.  Vowel clustering does not stop at simply decoding and encoding.  Vowel clustering also teaches spelling, oral reading fluency, comprehension, and writing.  Vowel clustering has been tested and proven to work with struggling, at-risk, and failing students (Clanton Harpine & Reid, 2009; click on the .pdf link).  I’ll also be publishing a new study on Camp Sharigan in 2019 showing that students preparing for end of the year testing through Camp Sharigan outscored students who followed traditional test-prep methods.  Camp Sharigan works.
 
I’ll be teaching a free training workshop on vowel clustering, January 26th at 10:00 AM in Corpus Christi, Texas.  Come join us.  I’m also starting a ten-part series here on vowel clustering.  If you have questions, contact me. (Click the mail button on the top right.)

Camp Sharigan is coming to Corpus Christi.  St. John’s United Methodist Church at 5300 South Alameda Street in Corpus Christi (phone, 361-991-4342) will be hosting a FREE reading clinic for children in the first through third grade who need help in reading.  Camp Sharigan is a weeklong reading clinic scheduled for January 28th through February 1st from 4:00 to 6:00 PM.  Camp Sharigan will meet in the Community Life Building at St. John’s.  This reading clinic is a part of the church’s outreach ministry to the community, but this is a nonreligious program.  Any first through third grader may attend for free, but we can only accept 30 children at this time.  The first 30 children who register will start for free on January 28th.  Children must be registered by parents, and parents provide transportation.  The focus is on teaching children how to read.  The Camp Sharigan program has been to Tampa, Chicago, the Bronx, several sites in Ohio, Augusta GA, Aiken SC, and even Dallas Texas.  The Camp Sharigan program is now coming to Corpus Christi.  Register today; spaces fill quickly.

The Camp Sharigan program has undergone rigorous university testing and research proves that it is more effective than one-on-one tutoring.  How is that possible?  The Camp Sharigan program teaches vowel clustering.  Research has shown that vowel clustering is much more effective than any whole language and/or phonics teaching methods.  In a one-week test of the Camp Sharigan program, the Camp Sharigan children outscored children receiving one-on-one tutoring.  One year later, from just the one-week camp, the Camp Sharigan children were still ahead of the one-on-one tutored students.  Camp Sharigan is a new method that works, has undergone numerous tests, and can help any child improve reading scores. 
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What do we need from the community?  Help us find 30 children who need help in reading.  St. John’s will also provide a free training program on vowel clustering on Saturday January 26th at 10:00 AM in the Community Life Building at St. John’s UMC.  We need 10 volunteers per day to help work with the children.  Teachers, parents, seniors, and even teenagers may volunteer to work in this program.  You do not need teaching experience.  Everything is included in the program.  If you would like to register a child for the reading clinic or if you would like to volunteer to work at the reading clinic (even for just one day), please call Elaine Clanton Harpine, Ph. D. at 361-867-8040 or e-mail to clantonharpine@hotmail.com
If you live in or near Corpus Christi, Texas, come and join us, or, if you would like to come for the free training session and/or a reading clinic session, come and join us.  It’s a great time to be in Corpus Christi.  Also, check Dr. Clanton Harpine’s free reading blog at www.groupcentered.com
 
 

I hope that every single child receives at least one book this Christmas, but we need to realize that simply giving a child a book will not teach the child to read.  There are several myths floating around about reading.   Here are some of the most common myths and why they are wrong.

False Assumption:  Some people believe that if we just read stories to children that children will automatically learn to read. 

Fact:  Reading and speaking are not the same.  We learn to speak by listening to others, but we cannot learn to read by simply listening to someone else read, nor will simply listening to someone else read a story improve a child’s reading skills.  Reading a child a story should be a daily activity and is one of the most wonderful ways that you can spend time with a child, but it will not teach a child to read. Neuroimaging research studies showing how the brain works while children are learning to read emphasizes that reading and speaking are different.   For a child to learn to read, the child must be able to look at a word and decode the letters into sounds.  It’s like handing you a book in French.  If you cannot read French, then the pages of the book are filled with meaningless letters and words because you do not know how to decode the letters into the correct sounds.  The same is true for children who have not been taught how to break down or decode the letter sounds used in English. As Sally Shaywitz explains, “In order to read, a child must ‘enter the language system;’ this means that the child must activate and use the brain circuits that are already in place for oral language…. tens of thousands of neurons carrying the phonological messages necessary for language… Connect to form the resonating networks that make skilled reading possible….” (pp. 59-68) (Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003).  Simply handing a child a book, while one of the best possible gifts, will not teach a child to read.  Children must be taught to read; it is not automatic.

False Assumption:  Some people believe that, if we insist that children memorize sight words, learn a certain number of new words each day, or preview sight words before trying to read, children will then just naturally learn to read. 

Fact:  The National Reading Panel conducted a study in 2000 and learned from their nationwide research of 100,000 teaching situations that any and all forms of whole language (memorizing word lists) and even old-style phonics were not effective ways to teach children to read.  Why?  The study stated that for children to learn to read effectively they must have “phonemic awareness.”  Neither whole language nor old-style phonics teaches phonemic awareness.  Phonemic awareness means understanding letter sounds—not rules or a weekly list of words.  Some children cannot memorize weekly word lists; therefore, they fail to learn to read if that is the only method taught in school.  Research also shows that even children who can memorize weekly word lists in the early elementary grades often begin to struggle around third grade.  These children begin to have reading and comprehension problems in third grade because it is impossible to memorize every single word.  Children memorize the word list for the weekly test and then promptly forget the words after the test.  Yet, even after neuroimaging research visually showed how sounding out the word c  a  t  was better than teaching a child to memorize the word cat (Yoncheva, Wise, & McCandliss, 2015), whole language continues to prevail.  It has been conclusively proven that there is no advantage to using whole language.  Yet, thousands of children are still being taught using whole language, “look-say,” or balanced literacy teaching methods. 

False Assumption:  Some people believe that if we just expose children to books or give them free books that this will teach children to read.  One group went out and collected 1 million books to give to needy children. 

Fact:  A book is probably the best gift you can ever give to a child, but it will not teach children to read. The truth is that children cannot learn to read until they understand that every letter represents at least one sound and many letters represent several sounds.  The letter a, for example, can use seven different sounds, which doesn’t seem too difficult until you realize that there are at least 22 different vowel and consonant combinations that can be used to make these seven sounds for just the letter a.  Simply buying books does not teach letter-sound relationships.  Words are stored as sounds, not words.  We do not have a Rolodex of words in the brain.  We learn new words by developing pathways in the brain that correspond to the articulation of letter sounds.  Therefore, it becomes critical that we teach letter sounds.  Phonemic awareness teaches letter sound relationships that focus on oral sounds, the same way the brain learns new sounds. Phonemic awareness and phonics are not the same, do not use the same teaching approach, and are not interchangeable terms.   Phonemic awareness means that you are teaching students to break words down into letter sounds (decoding).  Then, students learn to put those letter sounds back together and to pronounce or read the word (encoding).  It’s a two-step process that does not involve memorizing word lists or phonics rules.  Phonics and phonemic awareness are totally different teaching approaches.  They both stress letter sounds, but that is where the similarity ends.
 
False Assumption:  Still others believe that all we need to do is just get children excited about reading.  They organize large pep rally style gatherings using costumed characters.  They proceed to teach children cheers that tell how wonderful it is to learn to read.  Sometimes they even read a story and give away free books. 

Fact:  Pep rallies are fine.  Reading stories and giving away free books are wonderful, but these pep rally style gatherings do not actually teach the children how to read the books that they are given. A baby must learn how to pull up, balance, and take a step before the baby can have any hope of learning to walk.  It’s a step-by-step process.  Reading is much the same.  Children must learn to read one step at a time.  As Dr. Sally Shaywitz (see Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003) explains, “Children do not learn to read by memorizing a word list.  Most children, especially those who struggle in reading, do not learn to read by memorizing phonics rules.” (p. 78) We have the knowledge, the research, and the ability to teach every single child across the nation to read, so why do we cling to failed teaching methods and force students to continue to fail in reading? 


See my 11/20/18 blog post for  an explanation of why systematic phonics and whole language both fail.

A recent pro-phonics advocate asked if I could refrain from saying that phonics will leave struggling students failing in reading.  No, I will not stop warning educators and policymakers that switching from “whole language” to phonics, even systematic phonics, is a mistake.  First, I completely and totally agree that phonics is better than whole language.  Almost anything is better than whole language.  Whole language is the worst teaching method that we’ve ever created, but switching back to phonics is not the answer.

First, we do need to get rid of whole language now and forever more.  Sceintific research has completely proven that whole language education is a failure, (Chessman et al., 2009; de Graaf et al., 2009; Foorman et al., 2015; Foorman, Breier, and Fletcher, 2003; Kuppen et al., 2011; Lyon, 1998; Oakhill and Cain, 2012; Rayner et al., 2001; Torgesen et al., 2001) and numerous neuroimaging studies (Keller & Just, 2009, Meyler, Keller, Cherkassky, Gabrieli, & Just, 2008; Yoncheva, Wise, & McCandliss, 2015).

Second, we need to remember that phonics is not a new teaching method.  Phonics has been around since 1690.  The reason that whole language enthusiasts were able to embed the whole language concept into literacy education was that phonics was leaving many students still failing in reading.  Let’s look at some examples—then and now. 

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with a person who is nearing retirement.  This is a very successful person.  While discussing retirement plans, my husband offered to loan a book that he had found particularly helpful.  This very successful, skilled and intelligent man said, “I can’t read; I can only read very-easy-to-read books.”  He then went on to explain that he had been in a pullout program at school from third grade to ninth grade that taught phonics.  Obviously, it failed.

A 15-year-old student was brought to my reading clinic because the school had said, “she could never learn to read.”  In middle school, she was given coloring book pages and shuffled off to the corner of the classroom.  The school was using “balanced literacy” in the classroom, and the student had received one-on-one tutoring in systematic phonics from early elementary school to middle school.  Again obviously, phonics failed.  I taught the student to read in 3 ½ years using vowel clustering.
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A very smart third grader came to my reading clinic.  The student could not even read at the beginning kindergarten level.  The student’s parents were college educated and had even paid for private systematic phonics tutoring.  Balanced literacy from the classroom, pull-out small group phonics instruction during school, and even private one-on-one systematic phonics instruction failed to teach this student how to read.  Again, using vowel clustering, I taught the student to read in one year.

These are just three examples; I have many others, but I selected these three examples because they tell how phonics failed across an approximately 60-year period.  Two of the methods used “systematic phonics.”  These are real people, and we owe these people and thousands more a teaching method that will not fail them.  Systematic phonics is not that method. 

Before we go further, let’s define phonics.  The word “phonics” is used to describe many different teaching methods.  First, I turn to a noted expert, Richard Nordquist, Ph. D.  Nordquist defines phonics as:  “A method of teaching reading based on the sounds of letters, groups of letters, and syllables is known as phonics.”  Linnea C. Ehri (2003) adds to this definition by specifically defining systematic phonics: 

“What is Systematic Phonics Instruction? Phonics is a method of instruction that teaches students correspondences between graphemes in written language and phonemes in spoken language and how to use these correspondences to read and spell words. Phonics instruction is systematic when all the major grapheme-phoneme correspondences are taught and they are covered in a clearly defined sequence. This includes short and long vowels as well as vowel and consonant digraphs such as oi, ea, sh, th. Also it may include blends of letter-sounds that form larger subunits in words such as onsets and rimes.…
 
It is important that we all work from a common definition.  I chose a definition from Ehri because she is a systematic phonics advocate.  From examples of failure under phonics, to definition, to scientific research and findings from evidence-based research, let’s see what scientific research tells us.  Let’s look at what the experts say:

• Jeanne Sternlicht Chall (1967), an advocate for systematic phonics, visited over 300 classrooms.  While she concluded that systematic phonics was superior to “look say” whole language in 90% of the classrooms, she also clearly stated and warned that a purely phonics approach would leave many students failing.
• Linnea C. Ehri studied 66 phonics vs. whole language groups and again found systematic phonics to be superior to whole language but also found that systematic phonics “did not help low achieving readers that included students with cognitive limitations” (Ehri 2001).
• As the National Reading Panel (National Reading Panel, 2000)  clearly stated,  “…systematic phonics approaches are significantly more effective than non-phonics [whole language]…. However, phonics instruction failed to exert a significant impact on the reading performance of low-achieving readers in 2nd through 6th grades….” (p. 94).  Phonics simply does not work for many students. 
• In 2013, Tunmer and associates also clearly stated from their research that Reading Recovery (frequently used to teach struggling students from the classroom) was also not effective with failing, struggling students.  As they stated, “Students with phonological difficulties did poorly [in Reading Recovery].”  https://www.ldaustralia.org/BULLETIN_NOV13-RR.pdf
• As Dr. Sally Shaywitz (see Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003) explains, “Children do not learn to read by memorizing a word list.  Most children, especially those who struggle in reading, do not learn to read by memorizing phonics rules” (p. 78).  Some will say, “but she talks about systematic phonics in her book.”  Yes, she does, but she also clearly states that systematic phonics will not meet the needs of all struggling students.  Struggling, at-risk students who are failing need more. 
• Sebastian Suggate (2016) compared 71 phonemic and phonics intervention groups and found that “… phonemic awareness interventions showed good maintenance of effect…. phonics and fluency interventions … tended not to.”

In the past and in the present, many experts, even those who recommend systematic phonics, clearly state from their research that they are finding problems with systematic phonics.  I am not denying that phonics is better than whole language, but if we go back to phonics, even systematic phonics, we will sentence many struggling students to failure in reading.  I will never accept adopting a program that we know will leave many students failing in reading.  I adamantly believe that every student can learn to read.  The problem is that we simply refuse to teach them.  Even though the scientific research clearly points to a method that works for all students, education refuses to adopt a teaching method that teaches all students, even those who struggle.  Systematic phonics is not the method that we need.  It leaves too many students failing in reading.

I use vowel clustering, and it has worked for me.  I just talked with two parents yesterday; they asked, “Do you really think he can learn to read?  We’ve tried everything.”  I smiled and said yes, “With vowel clustering, I can teach him to read, and with your permission, I will.”