Parent: What does your T-shirt say? F-o-n … i-x?
Dr. B: Oh, this? It’s my new gig?
Parent: Is Fon … ix some new high-tech venture?
Dr. B: Actually, it’s about as low tech as it gets.
Parent: Huh?
Dr. B: I’m teaching phonics to kindergarten and first grade kids at the neighborhood school.
Parent: Oh, I get it. Fon-ix stands for p-h-o-n-i-c-s.
Dr. B: Yep.
Parent: So, you are teaching them phonics and THEN you are going to teach them how to spell?
Dr. B: If you take the T-shirt literally, …
Parent: … rather than seriously? Why are you tutoring kids in phonics?
Dr. B: If you were like me, learning to read as a kid was hard?
Parent: How did you know?
Dr. B: Well, I probably had better than a 50:50 chance of getting it right.
Parent: Did you slink down in your seat, so you wouldn’t get called on to read?
Dr. B: No, I usually asked to go to the bathroom, or to the nurse.
Parent: Did the teacher know you were faking it?
Dr. B: I wasn’t faking. Reading Class made me ill.
Parent: I can believe it. My mother and I had some epic battles over reading. She thought I was just being lazy.
Dr. B: That’s too bad, because it wasn’t your fault. We were just being taught the wrong way.
Parent: So, you are going to call my mother and tell her that?
Dr. B: I thought your mother passed away.
Parent: Yes, she did. That’s my point. Isn’t it a little late to be telling me this?
Dr. B: What if I told you, many schools are still teaching kids the wrong way?
Parent: If I was a parent of one of those kids, I’d be pissed. So, phonics is part of the right way?
Dr. B: Yep.
Parent: Phonics, as I understand it, is learning the sounds of all the letters. Isn’t that pretty boring? For the kid and the teacher?
Dr. B: Yeah. Actually, it is kind of boring. Kind of like doing push-ups is boring.
Parent: So, now you are going to tell me why it’s good for us … like push-ups?
Dr. B: Kids are hard wired for learning to talk. If they can hear, they’ll learn to talk. And the more they are talked to or read to, the more words they understand.
Parent: Here comes the “But”. I can just sense it.
Dr. B: But kids aren’t hard wired to read. Just because they know a word, doesn’t mean they can read it.
Parent: Ah, I’m seeing what you are getting at. Written words are like a code and kids need to learn how to break the code.
Dr. B: Exactly. There are 26 letters in the alphabet, but there are 44 different sounds. And what sounds letters represent have all sorts of rules.
Parent: Now you really are boring me.
Dr. B: When kids see a new word, they need to know how to sound it out. And once they do, if it’s a word they already know …
Parent: Walla! They’re in business.
Dr. B: But if they don’t know how to sound out words, it’s like …
Parent: – being in a boat without a paddle.
Dr. B: I was going to say it’s like trying to teach yourself how to swim; but I like the ‘no paddle’ metaphor.
