Wheaton professor decries over-emphasis on phonics

The current push by the federal government to stress phonics in teaching children to read will be good for big business, but not so good for the nation's children, according to Assistant Professor of Education Mary Lee Griffin, who is speaking out on the subject in an essay published by the Los Angeles Times.

''A steady diet of phonics, scripted instruction and decodable texts in the primary grades crowds out time for the authentic reading and writing tasks that will build lifelong learners,'' Professor Griffin argues in her essay. ''Even strong readers' comprehension suffers.''

Professor Griffin has dedicated her career as a teacher and literacy researcher to championing effective reading approaches for children in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and beyond. She is critical of the Bush administration's efforts to advance the teaching of phonics in America's classrooms--an approach which, she maintains, seeks to promote specific commercial reading products.

''Literacy has become a lucrative and unduly complex political issue,'' she says. ''The phonics movement receives significant support from the big business of textbooks and testing, and the profits from these companies can be brought to bear in shaping policy, and support or lack of support for certain types of reading research.''

The work of teachers and academics, however, reveals that phonics is just one strategy of the many that good teachers should be using, says Griffin. "Research has shown that the single most important factor in students' reading success is skillful teachers. But the idea of skillful teachers who know students' needs and plan appropriate instruction based on authentic, classroom-based evidence is financially terrifying to commercial publishers who want to ensure that their programs will be bought, used and renewed."