Recalibrating Phonics and Other Basic Skills Instruction

A recent article in Education Week raises an issue I’ve been concerned about for some time and I was glad they contacted me about it:

Phonics Is Crucial—But How Much Is Too Much?

The piece reflects a shift that’s been building: after correcting the relative lack of phonics and other basic skills instruction in the Whole Language/Balanced Literacy approach, some adopters of the “science of reading” are now asking whether phonics is being overtaught, crowding out other essential aspects of literacy.

This is not an argument against phonics. Phonics instruction is foundational. The evidence is clear that learning how the writing system works—particularly how spellings map onto sounds—is essential for becoming a skilled reader.

The concern is about how phonics is being implemented.

The problem is familiar in education: an important insight gains traction, but then gets simplified into a rule, or even codified into law. In this case, the recognition that phonics matters can become the belief that more phonics is always better, for more students, for longer periods of time. That conclusion would only be true if explicit instruction were the only way children learn, and phonics were all that mattered, neither of which is correct.

Most of the knowledge that supports reading isn’t learned from explicit instruction. Children require instruction to learn about how the code works and to gain a foundation that allows them to assimilate additional knowledge from a variety of reading and language activities. Most educators are familiar with Vygotsky’s “Zone of Proximal Development”: the idea that people learn from experiences that are different from what they already know but not so different as to be beyond reach. You could say that the goal of early reading instruction is to get children to the ZPD for learning about print.

Instruction time is not a zero-sum game. Overteaching phonics can unintentionally interfere with the broader goal of literacy. Skilled reading obviously involves much more than decoding: language comprehension, vocabulary, background knowledge, and engagement with text all matter. If instructional time is disproportionately allocated, those other components can be shortchanged.

I wrote about a related concern in an earlier Education Week column:

Is the ‘Science of Reading’ Becoming Too Much of a Good Thing?

The common thread between the two pieces is this:

Good instruction is not about delivering as much high-quality instruction as time permits. Good instruction is efficient as well as effective.

There shouldn’t be any question as to whether phonics belongs in reading instruction (though I know that there are places where this continues to be an issue). How much to teach, for how long, for which students, depends on other aspects of learning to read, such as the fact that explicit instruction is not the only way children learn. The goal of instruction is to get in, get out, and move on: teach enough of the code so that children can begin to learn from other experiences, including their own reading.

As this conversation evolves, it will be important to resist the cynical view that this is just another swing of the educational pendulum. Think of phonics (and other basic skills instruction) as a setting on a dial. Whole Language had it set too low. Extended, multi-year phonics instruction sets it too high. In most educational settings, for most children, the “science of reading” approach needs to dial back on the instruction—not to where it was before, but to a place where instruction enables children to achieve escape velocity: the ability to learn from their own behavior.