Edutopia – Sarah Gonser
“The “reading wars” of the early aughts pitted advocates of phonics-based instruction against whole language supporters—and both sides claimed to have science on their side. The contours of the argument are reasonably well known by this point, writes Benjamin Riley for ASCD. On the one hand, supporters of phonics-based instruction, leveraging findings from a National Reading Panel report published in 2000, argued for the importance of developing phonological awareness in young readers—we are not hardwired to read in the way we are to speak, the panel concluded, and explicit instruction on how letters and their corresponding sounds map to meaning is required to master the craft.” (more)