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Pronounce these words:

• church
• launch
• change
• teach
• China
• watch
• franchise
• which
• child

The pattern? Each of these words have a common sound. It would seem that the letter combination of ch represents this sound. Okay, with this new found piece of knowledge, pronounce these words:

• character
• archive
• Christian
• technical
• echo
• choir
• chorus
• chemistry

You should have noticed a problem there. These words didn't follow that pattern that I just taught you. Let me ask you a question: would it make sense to learn how to read (in English at least) by teaching that there are patterns only to have these patterns made meaningless with several exceptions to these rules?

This is a very controversial point of difference between schools of thought. One school (phonics) believes that children should be taught to read by putting letters together to make sounds. Phonics also deals partly with the meaning of words too. A general observation of the English language would note that most words ending in ly are adverbs. Proponents of the other extreme (whole language) believe that the pronunciation of each word should be taught individually. They would counter the earlier adverbial statement by stating that not all adverbs end in ly (e.g. too, very) and that not all words ending in ly are adverbs (e.g. kingly).

In some languages, this isn't a controversial topic at all. In languages that use ideograms (id est: Japanese, Chinese), whole language is the only system available and phonics doesn't work. In languages that use a phonetic alphabet (id est: Spanish, Esperanto), whole language will work to teach reading, but that would be the equivalent of hitting a thumb tack with a sledgehammer. Words in Spanish are pronounced exactly as they're spelled. (I can only think of a few exceptions such as pizza and placenames of Nahutal orgin.) Phonics would be the most logical option in this situation. However, in this case, we're dealing with the English language. English is unusual in the fact that its vocabulary is a combination of several different languages. English incorporates many words from its initial Germanic origins. The language was influenced by French after the Norman Invasion of England in 1066. Later, the language borrowed words from other languages with relevant topics. Words relating to food are borrowed from French. Words relating to music are borrowed from Italian. Words relating to shipping are borrowed from Dutch. Words relating to mining are borrowed from Cornish. Words relating to racial segregation are borrowed from Afrikaans. When English incorporates these words, it tends to usually keep the spellings the same down to retaining the diacritic marks on some words. Since we keep the spellings, we often need to remember certain rules. Words from Greek pronounce ch differently than words from Latin.

The point in explaining the history of the English language is to point out that since English is a combination of several different systems that (for the most part) have traits in common. Using phonics to decipher unknown words works for the most part but can cause embarrassing results with words like island and façade. In a computer analogy, whole language is like the programming practice of hardcoding. Hardcoding is a despised practice, but hardcoding will always work. Whole language will always work as a means to teach language, but phonics will work better when it can. So, in essence, both of these systems can work together to compliment each other where the other system falls short.

What I find ridiculous is the fact that some phonics advocates believe that whole language will destroy the moral fabric of society by teaching that there are no absolutes. Please explain how teaching that each word has an absolute pronunciation destroys that. Hopefully, that won't make sense to you. If, by any chance, it does, tell me. I'll have a contact form here shortly.