“There’s no wrong way to eat a Reese’s.”® This and other phrases teach the important lesson that most tasks can be completed in a number of different ways. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes there is a better way of completing a task.
Through extensive studies, The National Reading Panel has found that the most effective reading instruction includes these three elements:
- Phonemic Awareness – teaching students to hear, identify, and manipulate the sounds in the English language.
- Phonics – teaching students the letter representations connected to each sound and how to combine letters to form words in the English language.
- Guided Oral Reading – listening to students read aloud while providing them with guidance and feedback.
Although this was discovered years ago, most often when a child is struggling with reading, guided oral reading is the go-to strategy for remediating the problem. Not to undermine the benefits of oral reading practice, but this is not sufficient. For reading instruction to be effective oral reading needs to be paired with phonemic awareness and phonics instruction.
There may be no wrong way to eat a Reese’s, but there is a better way to teach reading.
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