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Amy's avatar

There are many reasons students experience stress and anxiety, not the least of which is because they often are not TAUGHT to be competent readers and writers, yet are expected to be. Competency lowers stress. Educators need to look into a mirror, not a gong, if they truly want to address our adolescents' and young adults' mental health crisis.

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M.C. Moran's avatar

Though I haven't volunteered in too many years, I used to be involved in adult literacy tutoring. I did many hours of training in order to serve as a volunteer for adults who wished/needed to learn how to read, and the training always began with an emphasis upon phonics. Kids from culturally-enriched UMC backgrounds can do whole language, because they've already learned phonics through a process of cultural osmosis. But those who are starting more or less from scratch? They need phonics.

Oh, and I used to bring in some real-life, real-world materials: the weekly flyer from the local grocery store, an application for US citizenship... So, you know, a bit of whole language theory, I guess. But always we began with phonics.

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