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How Much Phonics Should I Teach?

Teacher Question:
I keep hearing about the science of reading and that I need to teach phonics (I’m a second-grade teacher). I’m okay with that but there is a lot to teach in reading. How much of the time should I spend teaching phonics?

Shanahan responds:

Man was I surprised. I’d already spoken to the principal about the school curriculum. He’d given me an overview and assured me that what his teachers needed was training in academic language and how to ask high level comprehension questions. The speaker at a professional conference had stressed the importance of those in high poverty schools and the principal was convinced that was the road to higher test scores.

I’d asked about how much reading instruction his students were receiving in phonics and fluency, and he assured me those were already addressed. “No, the problem is those higher-level thinking skills that our students lack.”

I told him that I thought I could help but that I wanted to be sure. “Could I visit some classrooms before I decide?”

What I saw wouldn’t surprise me now, but at that time I was gob smacked.

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Comment by Bruce Deitrick Price on February 9, 2022 at 7:24pm: It's now 90 years since the education elite discredited and destroyed the proper teaching of reading. That would be phonics. This know-nothing discussion seems almost tongue-in-cheek. Everyone knows Why Johnny Can't Read, right?

Almost every child can learn to read in the first grade. If that's not happening, you're not doing it right. Spend a few months on the alphabet, a few months on the sounds represented by the letters, and then a few months on the blends. Now they can read.

It's clear that the curriculum discussed by Professor Shanahan is not intended to teach reading, but rather to pretend to do so.

I think I have a dozen articles or posts on this site explaining how phonics should be done. But for the shortest piece I've ever published, see this 4-minute video: Reading Is Easy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JV0tPGn-Ws&t=33s

My main site is being reconstructed but I do have a lot more material on this topic. Reading is the sine qua non of education.

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