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Beyond the Phonics Vs Bowers, J. , & Bowers, P. (2017). Beyond Phonics: The Case for Teaching Children the Logic of the English Spelling System. Educational Psychologist, 52(2), 124-141. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2017.1288571 Peer reviewed version License (if available): Unspecified Link to published version (if available): 10.1080/00461520.2017.1288571 Link to publication record in Explore Bristol Research PDF-document This is the author accepted manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via Taylor & Francis at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00461520.2017.1288571 . Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. University of Bristol - Explore Bristol Research General rights This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/red/research-policy/pure/user-guides/ebr-terms/ Running head: LITERACY INSTRUCTION 1 Beyond phonics: The case for teaching children the logic of the English spelling system Jeffrey S. Bowers University of Bristol Peter N. Bowers WordWorks Literacy Centre Author Note: Jeffrey S. Bowers, School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol; Peter N. Bowers; WordWorks Literacy Centre. Special Circumstances: Peter Bowers runs the company WordWorks where he uses Structured Word Inquiry to teach children literacy. Acknowledgments: We would like to thank Jacqueline Aldridge, Patricia Bowers, Gina Cook, Nina Kazanina, John Kirby, Rebecca Marsh, and Gail Venable for comments on previous drafts. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jeffrey S Bowers, School of Experimental Psychology, 12a Priory Road, Bristol, BS8-1TU. Email [email protected] LITERACY INSTRUCTION 2 Abstract A large body of research supports the conclusion that early reading instruction in English should emphasize phonics, that is, the teaching of grapheme-phoneme correspondences. By contrast, we argue that instruction should be designed to make sense of spellings by teaching children that spellings are organized around the interrelation of morphology, etymology and phonology. In this way, literacy can be taught as a scientific subject, where children form and test hypotheses about how their spelling system works. First, we review arguments put forward in support of phonics and then highlight significant problems with both theory and data. Second, we review the linguistics of English spellings and show that spellings are highly logical once all the relevant sub-lexical constraints are considered. Third, we provide theoretical and empirical arguments in support of the hypothesis that instruction should target all the cognitive skills necessary to understand the logic of the English spelling system. Key words: morphology; phonics; reading; dyslexia; literacy instruction LITERACY INSTRUCTION 3 Beyond phonics: The case for teaching children the logic of the English spelling system The phrase “reading wars” refers to a long-standing debate regarding literacy instruction. At issue is whether early instruction should focus on sub-lexical grapheme-phoneme correspondences (phonics) or target meaning at the word level (whole language instruction). This controversy continues in some settings, but both theoretical analyses and empirical findings have led to the widespread view that phonics is the better approach. Indeed, phonics is now required in all UK state schools and is a standard teaching method in the United States and Canada. Nevertheless, there is a growing realization that phonics instruction is not working for all children. It is estimated that 10 to 15% of children who complete intense remedial phonological instruction continue to struggle (Compton, Miller, Elleman, & Steacy, 2014), and an unacceptably high number of children enter secondary school with very low levels of literacy skill (Higgins, Katsipataki, & Coleman, 2014). Indeed, individual differences in reading skills and vocabulary knowledge are enormous: in the UK, for example, the performance of children between the ages of 11 and 16 years ranges from floor to ceiling (age equivalence of 6 years to 17 years) (Stothard, Hulme, Clarke, Barmby, & Snowling, 2010). These disappointing outcomes have motivated the search for new methods (Compton, Miller, Elleman, & Steacy, 2014; Snowling & Hulme, 2014). Here we make a theoretical case for a very different form of instruction – what Bowers and Kirby (2010) called Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) – that takes key insights from both phonics and whole language, but goes far beyond either approach. SWI is motivated by a fundamental insight from linguistics, namely, the English spelling system makes sense when the sub-lexical constraints of morphology, etymology and phonology are considered in combination LITERACY INSTRUCTION 4 (see section entitled ‘The English Spelling System’ for a brief tutorial of the English writing system that includes a table with linguistic terms and definitions). Consistent with phonics, SWI agrees that it is important to teach sub-lexical grapheme-phoneme correspondences, but it emphasizes that English spellings are organized around the interrelation of morphology, etymology, and phonology, and that it is not possible to accurately characterize grapheme- phoneme correspondences in isolation of these other sub-lexical constraints. Consistent with whole language, SWI emphasizes the importance of meaning in literacy instruction from the very start. Indeed, SWI exploits that fact that English spellings represent meaning in a consistent fashion, as reflected in morphology. What makes this approach very different from phonics, whole language, and all other approaches, is that SWI teaches word-level literacy knowledge much like other scientific disciplines (e.g., biology, physics). That is, children are engaged in generating and testing hypotheses about how the system works (thus the word “inquiry” in “structured word inquiry”). The goal is to get children to understand why words are spelt the way they are in order to improve literacy, measured in terms of reading words aloud, spelling words, improving vocabulary, and improving reading comprehension. Our paper is organized in three main sections. First, in the section entitled “Phonics instruction” we describe the theory and practice of phonics as well as summarize the evidence that supports phonics for children in general and struggling readers in particular. We then challenge these conclusions, in terms of both theory and practice: too many readers struggle with phonology-focused instruction. Second, in the section entitled “The English spelling system” we explain the rationale for SWI by reviewing the linguistics of the English spelling system. We LITERACY INSTRUCTION 5 show that English orthography is a morphophonemic system in which spellings have evolved to represent sound (phonemes), meaning (morphemes), and history (etymology) in an orderly way. Third, the section entitled “Teaching children the logic of the English spelling system” makes the theoretical and empirical case that literacy instruction should focus on teaching this logic. Theoretically, SWI ensures that children can exploit the well-established finding that memory is best when the to-be-learned information is organized in a meaningful and logical manner and when the learning context is characterized by generating and testing hypotheses. Empirically, we review the growing evidence that morphological instruction is beneficial, and preliminary data in direct support of SWI. Table 1 summarizes the overall motivation of SWI. We hope these arguments will inspire teachers and researchers interested in literacy instruction to start paying more attention to the logic of the English spelling system when designing and testing new forms of instruction. Phonics Instruction Phonics instruction refers to a method of teaching reading that focuses on sub-lexical grapheme-phoneme correspondences with little or no reference to other constraints on spelling. Children are taught the most common ways that single letters or groups of letters (graphemes) map onto phonemes (e.g., the single letter grapheme <k> can be pronounced /k/ and the phoneme /k/ can be represented by the graphemes <c>, <k>, <ck>, <ch> or <que>) and are instructed to blend the sounds associated with the letters together to produce approximate pronunciations of words. For example, when taught the sounds for the letters <d>, <o>, <g>, and <f>, the child can sound out the familiar word <dog> and less familiar or unknown words such as <fog>. LITERACY INSTRUCTION 6 Phonics instruction has several versions. Practitioners of synthetic phonics, for example, teach children the pronunciations associated with graphemes in isolation, and then coach students to blend the sounds together. A child might be taught to break up the written word <dog> into its component letters, pronounce each letter in turn—/d/, /ɔ/, /g/—then blend them together to form the spoken word “dog” (Bowey, 2006). By contrast, in analytic phonics, the phonemes of a given word are not read in isolation. Rather, children identify (analyze) words looking for a common target phoneme across a set of words. For instance, children are taught that <dog>, <dig>, and <dish> share the letter <d>, which is pronounced /d/ (Moustafa & Maldonado-Colon, 1998). In other words, synthetic goes from ‘parts to wholes’, starting with letters and phonemes to build up words, whereas analytic phonics
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