My first fourth grade classes in the early 1960s knew just about all there was to know about phonics. Every recommended phonics lesson in the Teachers’ Manual was nothing new. So after discussion with the principal, a gentlemen who had taught for 40 years and even as a principal still taught ½ day classes, I instituted an individual reading program using books from the school library. It was the next logical step that many other young teachers of the time must have pursued, since classroom sets of classic books appeared within a year.
“Take out a book and read if your schoolwork is done,” is something that never really encouraged reading for all students. However, when I introduced an hour of reading a library book as the new reading program, something unexpected happened. One of the best students of the class blurted out, “I didn’t know this was reading.” The next day a student reported, “I read 100 pages last night.”
How did a generation of elementary school teachers, from normal school (two years of college) prepare elementary school students so well for a reading program? How did literacy and other such programs from higher education, adopted in so many places fail? They did away with phonics. I once communicated with an elementary school teacher who claimed phonics was never presented in her college program.
Phonics instruction for the first three years of elementary school is a proven method of teaching children how to read successfully.
