ABSTRACT
John Donne said that "No man is an island"; neither is any child, nor is word identification or phonics instruction. Although the philosophical implications of Donne's statement reach far beyond the classroom, it is helpful to put children and their efforts to decode written language into a larger context. No one influence has shaped the child, and no one instructional method will develop all necessary academic skills for a child. Most people have an immediate reaction to the word phonics. Reactions range from rapturous advocacy to near nausea, depending partly on the positive or negative impact of the person's childhood phonics experiences. Teachers are not immune to this reaction and consequently may avoid teaching phonics at all costs or, alternatively, may use it to the exclusion of all else. Whether or not to teach phonics is not the question. To read, one must be able to automatically identify sound-letter relationships and that, basically, defines phonics (Archer, Gleason, & Vachon, 2003; Beck & Juel, 1995; Stahl, Duffy-Hester, Dougherty, 1998). The questions to be addressed are to what degree phonics is needed by each reader and how to present phonics instruction in the most meaningful ways.
