Reading is Much More Than Phonics Knowledge
In 1955, a book entitled “Why Johnny Can’t Read (and what you can do about it)” was published in the USA. This book was a best seller and caused a lot of controversy.
The author, Rudolf Flesch wrote the book for the millions of parents whose children were being, according to his research, handicapped by the teaching methods of the day.
Flesch explained how he came to write the book and the research he did before publishing it.
The book contains lessons on phonics and is still available today. It is marketed as the classic book on phonics and endorsed by Readers Digest and the method recommended by the US Department of Education.
Below is a summary of the phonics lessons in his book.
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LESSON 1 Sounds of short Vowel a Consonants a b d f g h j l m n p r s t v w y z |
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LESSON 2 Short Vowel e |
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LESSON 3 Short Vowel i |
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LESSON 4 Short Vowel o |
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LESSON 5 Short Vowel u |
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LESSON 6 c k |
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LESSON 7 ck |
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LESSON 8 Blends ct, ft, lb, lk, lm, lp, nd, nt, pt, sk, sp, st |
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LESSON 9 Blends bs cks ds ffs gs lls ms ns ps ts cts fts lbs |
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LESSON 10 Blends lks lms lps lts mps nds nts pts sks sps sts |
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LESSON 11 Blends ng nk sh x ngs nks |
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LESSON 12 Blends bl cl fl gl pl sc sk sl s msn sp st sw tw spl |
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LESSON 13 Blends br cr dr fr gr pr scr spr str shr tr |
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LESSON 14 qu th wh qu thr |
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LESSON 15 ch tch |
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LESSON 16 ee see ea meal e he |
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LESSON 17 oo moon oo book |
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LESSON 18 ar car a pa ma |
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LESSON 19 or sort |
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LESSON 20 er ir ur |
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LESSON 21 oi oy |
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LESSON 22 ou house ow cow |
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LESSON 23 au aw all alt alk |
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LESSON 24 ai ay air |
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LESSON 25 ie pie y by ye rye ind mind ild wild |
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LESSON 26 oa oe old olt oll ow-low o-so |
We know a lot more about how reading and writing is mastered today. Because the activities are so important for people in modern societies enormous sums of money has been spent on scientific research.
Flesch was a forerunner in speaking about how to master the English Alphabetic Writing system. He was aware that reading is much more than decoding words but without this ability one cannot read. It has been my experience over the years that if a poor reader cannot decode (sound out) the words he is reading very little progress is made.
If a reader cannot read fluently they will not developed the comprehension skills that enable them to process information from print.
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