Teaching Reading

I am an elementary school teacher who just took a course in New Zealand’s methods of teaching literacy (“Trouble in the Mecca of Reading,” May 4). The most significant quote in your article was Principal Alan Kick’s statement that children used to come to school knowing their letters and often knowing how to read. They already had a lot of language and many were ready for a systematic reading program with a large phonics component from day one. There almost used to be a tacit agreement that parents would send their children to school with certain pre-reading skills. Children would be talked to, read to and would even begin learning letter sounds. Teachers then could go right into phonics-based programs.

Today this is not the case. Not as many parents have the time to read to children or talk with them because both need to work. We have more immigrant families, and the tacit agreement is too often replaced with a “let the schools do it” attitude. Early “whole” language programs attempted to address this new reality without phonics. Now we see we need to include phonics in whole language. The new state framework and the materials that the framework will generate will reflect that reality.

LARRY WIENER

Alhambra