But let us not make the mistake of now throwing out the baby with the bathwater.Much of WHY whole language was introduced has merit, as the focus is on MEANING.

The how to get there process just wasnt solid enough.But there are huge issues with relying on Phonics as well. Be very careful when

choosing a phonics program. Most of those will fail up to 8 in your class as well, as we alljolly well know! What matters when looking at a program, is how far will each student travel

Not just the gifted kids but the students with learning differences eg Dyslexia, Autism, ADHD, an II..

The links between literacy, the ability to read and write the printed word, school performance, self-esteem and adult life chances have been widely documented poor literacy skills are associated

with generally lower education, employment, health and social outcomes as well as being linked to high rates of welfare dependence and teenage parenting. (Centre for Community Child Health, 2004).

What does EVERY student need, to be ABLE to learn to read withfluency and comprehension, and to spell anything with confidence(and know if it looks right) Phonemic Awareness.

Skills Acquisition Process for All Brains.Wiring Brains for Reading, Writing and Spelling

Phase 1 - Oral Language and Phonemic AwarenessPoor PA? Not yet ready for print, however old the student.

Phase 2 - Code Mapping with Speedy, Fluency & Comprehension

Learning to read - chapter book level- to talk on paper inc highlevel authentic spelling skills. (No Look, Cover, Write, Say.)

Phase 3 - Literacy Teaching (No longer learning to read and spell)

Phonemic awareness is a term used to describe ones ability to perceive the identities and order of sounds within spoken words. Can they identifiy 4 speech sounds when they say the word box or 3 in the word house?In the absence of adequate phonemic awareness, the reader must rely heavily on context cues (guessing at words) and on visual memory for the correct letters in the correct sequence in order to recognize words and interact with print. The use of these strategies alone generally results in independent reading levels significantly below intellectual potential. EEimates of the number of individuals who have difficulty perceiving the sounds in words (phonemic awareness) range from 10-33 percent of the population.U nderdeveloped phonemic awareness occurs randomly in the population without apparent linkage to race, sex, education or intelligence Students with limited phonemic awareness will have trouble acquiring the alphabetic principle, which in turn will limit their ability to decode words (Blachman, 1991) and will not benefit from phonics (Juel, Griffith, & Gough, 1986). A long line of research now agrees that phonemic awareness is the best predictor of the ease of early reading acquisition, better than IQ, vocabulary, and listening comprehension. (Stanovich, 1993-94) WiringBrains.com

Academic & Emotional Health Warning

So why keep using them....? Why dumb down Australians?The UK Government explicitly banned this system in 2006.

http://nifdi.org/news-latest-2/blog-hempenstall/402-the-three-cueing-system-in-reading-will-it-ever-go-away

Almost half of Australians between 15 and 74 arefunctionally illiterate.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Chapter6102008Australia and New Zealand languish at the

bottom of English-speaking nations in the 2011Progress in International Reading Literacy Study

(PIRLS)https://www.cis.org.au/images/stories/policy-magazine/2013-spring/29-3-13-jennifer-buckingham.pdf