Print-to-Speech or Speech-to-Print? That is the Question

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  • phonics decoding speech-to-print phonics
  • 17 August, 2024
  • 19 Comments

Blast from the Past:  This entry first posted on June 4, 2022, and reposted on August 17, 2024. Recently, I received a couple of similar inquiries, so thought it might be worth reposting.  A quick review of recent research revealed studies focused on the importance of cognitive flexibility in phonics development (Boldrini, et al., 2023; Vadasy, et al., 2023) which suggest to me that adding spelling to the phonics regime may contribute to a stronger understanding of the conditional nature of decoding patterns. Since speech-to-print and print-to-speech are not just reverse processes, grappling with both may contribute to the necessary cognitive flexibility. Also, I found another recent study showing that adding spelling activity to phonics instruction improves decoding (Møller, Mortensen, & Elbro, 2022). The evidence continues to increase in support of adding speech-to-print to the mix.

RELATED: Should We Teach Graphicacy?

Teacher question: 

I know you typically don’t talk about specific programs, but I really would like to know your thoughts. I had always wanted more training in a structured literacy program/approach. I always thought Wilson, and specifically OG approaches, were the gold standards. More recently, I began reading about programs labeled as speech to print. Proponents of speech to print methods claim it is much faster to teach kids to read (and spell) than OG based approaches. Is there research to support this? Are these studies comparing programs based on OG (that mainly follow a more print to speech approach) and programs that are more specifically speech to print? Thank you!

Shanahan response:

You’re right that I don’t comment on specific programs. However, I do talk about research on programs or the consistency of certain parts of a program with research.

Let’s start with the claim that Orton-Gillingham (OG) and programs derived from it being the “gold standard.”
To me a gold standard program would consistently result in positive learning outcomes and would outperform competing methods. Outperformance would be demonstrated by direct research comparisons, or by meta-analyses summarizing disparate but relevant studies. Gold standard approaches would result, on average, in more learning.  

If OG is the gold standard, it should reliably do better than other explicit decoding programs.

The National Reading Panel (NRP, 2000) analyzed the effectiveness of phonics across 38 studies that evaluated 18 different curricula. Our conclusion was that phonics added a valuable ingredient to literacy teaching, and that programs with explicit systematic phonics outdistanced those that did not.

What about different types of phonics teaching?

We made some of those comparisons, too. Synthetic phonics (reading words from individual letters and sounds), for instance, had higher average effects than analytic phonics (focused on syllables, morphemes, and use of known words as analogies). This difference wasn’t statistically significant, however. That means those different approaches did equally well.

We didn’t compare individual phonics programs with each other.

There were usually only 1 or 2 studies of each program. Not enough evidence for meaningful comparisons of Phonics Programs A and B. An exception was OG. There were enough of those studies to compute a meaningful estimate of effectiveness, it could have been compared with the rest of the set.

I didn’t push for such an analysis because I feared the results would be misleading. OG often failed but usually with severely disabled – hospitalized – populations. It was clear that OG exerted no miracle impact on those learners, but would any other program have done so? It would be impossible to say.

Over 20 years, more research has accumulated, and OG now has merited its very own meta-analysis (Stevens, Austin, Moore, Scammacca, Boucher, & Vaughn, 2021). That study found OG to be effective but with rather modest benefits – lower effectiveness than for the average phonics study that NRP considered.

So much for being the gold standard!

Orton-Gillingham procedures are no more effective than any other explicit systematic phonics instruction – despite the religious fervor of some of its advocates.

Of course, those true believers, argue against these data:

“They didn’t look at the right version of OG.”

“I do it a little differently than others and it really works well for my kids.”

“The newer trainers aren’t as good as the past ones, so they probably studied teachers who weren’t well trained.”

Those complaints aside, there is no reason to think those kinds of things affect OG any more or less than any other program. If it’s that hard to find a potent version, then we shouldn’t expect widespread success.

We lack direct comparisons of OG with other phonics approaches, but it looks like it works about as well any (though often it does not do as well as those).

Which moves us on to the second point – the one about speech to print approaches to phonics.

I’ve oft grumbled about the lack of evaluation of individual features of complex instructional programs. Research may affirm the benefits of a program without revealing its active ingredients.

You’d think with all the interest in phonics there would be many such studies exploring the implications of sound tracing, analytic/synthetic approaches, grapheme-phoneme sequences, inclusion of morphological analysis, decodable text, emphasis on consistency versus flexibility, print-to-speech/speech-to-print approaches, dosage variation, and so on.

Unfortunately, there are few research comparisons of print-to-speech and speech-to-print. There is relevant information about that difference, just nothing definitive yet.

Historically, phonics programs tended to emphasize print-to-speech. Kids are taught to identify letters, to link sounds to those letters, and then to sound out words by sounding each letter. That sequence mirrors the process readers must use during reading: look at the letters and use that information to generate a phonological representation.  

It seems reasonable to teach students explicitly what we eventually want them to do. However, advantageous curriculum designs do not necessarily mirror their end points so closely. Engaging in a process like reading and learning to read are not the same thing.

Perhaps the opposite – starting with phonemes and pronunciations and connecting those to letters and printed words – might be a good idea. It’s possible that trying to spell and write words does more to enhance phonemic awareness and it may somehow make the phonology more prominent or easy to perceive (Wasowicz, 2021).

The earliest evidence I know of on this was reported by Jeanne Chall (1967). In her qualitative review of research on phonics, she concluded that programs with spelling, writing, and/or dictation did better than those without.

I followed up on that in my reading-writing relationship research in the 1980s. I found spelling and decoding to be closely related, even when a lot of other variables were available to suck up the variance (Shanahan, 1984). Later, Ginger Berninger and her colleagues followed up on that and with an even more ambitious effort they found the same thing (Berninger, Abbott, Abbott, Graham, & Richards, 2002).

Marilyn Adams (1990) and Linnea Ehri (1997) both theorized on that possibility as well, and Steve Graham reported a meta-analysis on spelling instruction that found spelling to improve reading – probably because of its contribution to decoding (Graham & Santangelo, 2014).

That’s all fascinating, but it’s indirect. It suggests value, it doesn’t prove it.

Not everyone agrees with that assessment. Louisa Moats (1998, 2005, 2010), for example, has several publications that treat this as a settled matter, claiming speech-to-print to be most effective. Her reasoning hasn’t convinced me, and yet the preponderance of current data are on her side. (I suspect that adding speech-to-print is effective including adding spelling to traditional phonics instruction, but it is too early to claim it to be a proven fact).

Perhaps the closest thing we have to a direct test of the proposition is a meta-analysis of 11 studies (Weisler & Mathes, 2011). It concluded that instruction that integrated encoding into decoding instruction led to significantly higher reading achievement. Still not the strongest evidence – because it combined investigations that compared encoding with decoding (Christensen & Bowey, 2005) along with those that compared encoding instruction with things like extra math lessons (Graham, Harris, & Chorzempa, 2002).

At some point – any decoding program must focus on print-to-speech, since that is what we do in reading. However, I think there are real benefits to be derived from activities like invented spelling, spelling instruction, word construction from sounds, and so on – in any phonics program. Speech-to-print activities appear to increase learning. My advice: get a phonics program that includes such activities or layer them into a traditional print-to-speech program (including OG).

READ MORE: Shanahan on Literacy Blogs

References

Adams, M. (1990) Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Berninger, V. W., Abbott, R. D., Abbott, S. P., Graham, S., & Richards, T. (2002). Writing and reading: Connections between language by hand and language by eye. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 35(1), 39–56. https://doi.org/10.1177/002221940203500104

Boldrini, G., Fox, A. C., & Savage, R. S. (2023/01//). Flexible phonics: A complementary ‘next generation’ approach for teaching early reading. Literacy, 57(1), 72-86. https://doi.org/10.1111/lit.12308

Chall, J.S. (1967). Reading: The great debate. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Ehri, L. C. (1997). Learning to read and learning to spell are one and the same, almost. In C. A. Perfetti, L. Rieben, & M. Fayol (Eds.), Learning to spell (pp. 237-269). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Graham, S., & Santangelo, T. (2014). Does spelling instruction make students better spellers, readers, and writers? A meta-analytic review. Reading and Writing, 27, 1703-1743. DOI:10.1007/s11145-014-9517-0

Moats, L.C. (1998). Teaching decoding. American Educator, 22(1), 1-9.

Moats, L. C. (2005). How spelling supports reading and why it is more regular and predictable than you may think. American Educator, 29(4), 12-22, 42-43.

Moats, L. C. (2010). Speech to print: Language essentials for teachers. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

Møller, H. L., Mortensen, J. O., & Elbro, C. (2022). Effects of integrated spelling in phonics instruction for at-risk children in kindergarten. Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 38(1), 67-82. https://doi.org/10.1080/10573569.2021.1907638

National Reading Panel (U.S.) & National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.). (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read : an evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Shanahan, T. (1984). Nature of the reading-writing relation: An exploratory multivariate analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76, 466–477.

Stevens, E.A., Austin, C., Moore, C., Scammacca, N., Boucher, A.N., & Vaughn, S. (2021). Current state of the evidence: Examining the effects of Orton-Gillingham reading interventions for students with or at risk for word-level reading disabilities. Exceptional Children, 87(4), 397-417.

Vadasy, P. F., Sanders, E. A., & Cartwright, K. B. (2023///Oct 2023 - Dec). Cognitive flexibility in beginning decoding and encoding. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 28(4), 412-438. https://doi.org/10.1080/10824669.2022.2098132

Wasowicz, J. (2021). A speech-to-print approach to teaching reading. LDA Bulletin, 53(2), 10-18.

Weiser, B., & Mathes, P. (2011). Using encoding instruction to improve the reading and spelling performances of elementary students at risk for literacy difficulties: A best-evidence synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 17-200.

 

Click here to read the 37 comments generated by the original version of this entry.

 

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Comments

See what others have to say about this topic.

Harriett Janetos Aug 17, 2024 04:29 PM

Thanks, Tim, for this important reminder about encoding and decoding. My instructional guide to reading, From Sound to Summary: Braiding the Reading Rope to Make Words Make Sense, rests upon Ouellette and Gentry's book, Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching. Here's what they say about the "listening first, spell-to-read approach":

“New information from cognition psychology demonstrates how having a deep level of knowledge of words in the brain—including how to hear them, say them, read them, and spell them correctly—turns out to be a very big deal. Yet for too many reading programs, establishing a dictionary of brain words is either missing or attempted through teaching methods that aren’t scientifically supported. Instruction is all too often piecemeal—failing to integrate this brain connection and neglecting the aural component of written language. For decades schools have given instruction in deep word knowledge—including explicit spelling instruction—very low priority while touting phonological awareness alone, phonics only for isolated decoding lessons, fluency and comprehension as separate entities without capitalizing on their essential deeper connection to word reading and spelling” (p. 5).

Paul Howard Aug 17, 2024 02:40 PM

This is far too timely to be coincidental.

I've recently reached out to Dr. Mark Seidenberg about this very question, and more broadly about how to appropriately bridge the gap between research and practice. In a correspondence he recommended revisiting your blog (which I had already subscribed to). In brief, I'm a veteran literacy instruction teaching coach at a private school for students with language-based learning disabilities. I'm in a relatively unique position (in coordination with a team of other professionals) to ensure that the school is following best practices in terms of our students' learning needs (first) and also our new teachers' training.

I shared a few concerns with Dr. Seidenberg about troublesome rabbit trails the school may have veered off on, and I'm trying to reach out to respected experts in literacy and research to get back on the right path.

Thank you for sharing this particular blog post again. It is extremely valuable and important to my work.

In an ideal world, I would love to coordinate with you, Dr. Seidenberg, our research coordinator, and the best and brightest upcoming researchers to conduct some studies on the efficacy of our literacy training and approach at the school. It is vital that we get it right because our students desperately need to become successful readers. The parents and guardians spend time, money, and a few tears trying to get their kids into a school that will help them reach their full educational potential.

I would love to continue the conversation. All the best and thank you for what you do!

Paul

Elizabeth Scott Aug 17, 2024 03:32 PM

I was trained in Wilson and their lesson plans are made up of 3 parts-one is reading the other is spelling. Print to speech (visual) activities are done in the first part, speech to print (auditory) activities are done in the second part. There is also dictation of sounds, words and sentences.
I also trained with the OG Online Academy-there is always a two part process-visual and auditory-decoding and encoding.
Why do people think OG doesn’t include spelling?

Jenny Chew Aug 17, 2024 04:31 PM

You write, Tim, ‘Historically, phonics programs tended to emphasize print-to-speech. Kids are taught to identify letters, to link sounds to those letters, and then to sound out words by sounding each letter. That sequence mirrors the process readers must use during reading: look at the letters and use that information to generate a phonological representation.’ Yes, indeed. I would just add ‘then blending the sounds’ after ‘sounding each letter’. The sounds produced in response to letters are isolated artificial versions of the co-articulated sounds of spoken words, but the blending converts them into those co-articulated sounds.

By contrast, a speech-to-print approach now seems to mean that it’s better for children to start with the spelling routine of segmenting a simple spoken word (e.g. ‘mat’) into its component sounds, selecting a letter for each sound, and arranging the letters in the right order. In videos I’ve seen of this approach, it’s not clear whether or how the children already know the letters.

I’m all in favour of teaching early reading and spelling reversibly, but I don’t see the segmenting-first routine as better, and I think it may actually be harder for beginners, as the co-articulated sounds of spoken words are not easy to separate, particularly if the sounds represented by letters are not known. This is shown by studies of adults who are illiterate or literate only in languages which are not alphabetically written.

As you say, however, we need proper evidence.

Lauren Thompson Aug 17, 2024 05:10 PM

I think that Dr. Shanahan could clarify more of the differences between the "print to speech" and "speech to print" approaches. It is about more than whether to include spelling activities or to start with decoding or encoding in a lesson.

The premise of the structured linguist literacy approach (aka speech-to-print) is that the alphabetic code was created to represent speech sounds in print; the point of origin is speech. Also, students come to school knowing how to say many words; they don't yet know how to translate spoken words into print, and vice versa. The principle of systematic instruction is that we start with what the student knows and build upon that; thus, instruction starts with the spoken word. Letter-sound correspondences are taught within the context of spelling whole spoken words, with guidance in how to segment sounds so that phonemic sensitivity develops. The students learn letter-sound correspondences in a meaningful context -- words -- rather than as isolated ciphers. This approach lessens the cognitive load for students brand new to reading and spelling.

Like print-to-speech approaches, speech-to-print approaches aim to help students develop the insight of the alphabetic principle and learn the code, from the most common phoneme-grapheme correspondences to the less common. The speech-to-print approach is up front about the complexity of the code, that one grapheme can represent a number of different phonemes, and that one phoneme can be represented by a number of different graphemes. A student can be taught several ways to write the long /A/ sound at once, with interleaved staggered practice, The S2P approach tends not to insist on mastery before moving on to new concepts; instead it returns to concepts repeatedly. This method tends to lead to students learning enough about the code sooner to begin to read a variety of texts outside of decodably-controlled text.

I would direct curious readers to the long comment left by Dr. Jan Wasowicz which can be found among the comments left for the original post. I also recommend reading her article [Wasowicz, J. (2021). A speech-to-print approach to teaching reading. LDA Bulletin, 53(2), 10-18.]

Tammy Elser Aug 17, 2024 05:10 PM

Thank you for this outstanding discussion of a very important topic. I have been using developmental spelling levels to focus reading instruction with struggling readers and teach my students to do the same. It has been game changing. Some references along with compelling research are included for those interested. Dr. Shanahan, thank you again for bringing forward an important topic for discussion and consideration.

Gentry, R. (2004). The Science of Spelling: Explicit Specifics that Make Great Readers and Writers (and Spellers!). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Gentry, R., & Ouellette, G. (2019). Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Stenhouse.

Ouellette, G., & Senechal, M. (2017). Invented Spelling in Kindergarten as a Predictor of Reading and Spelling in Grade 1: A New Pathway to Literacy, or Just the Same Road, Less Known? Developmental Psychology, 53(1), 77-88.

Seidenberg, M., & Farry-Thorn, M. (2021, May 16). What Does Research Tell Us About Spelling Development with Dr. Rebecca Trieman. Retrieved September 1, 2022, from Reading Meetings with Mark and Molly: Conversations Bridging Science and Practice: https://youtu.be/2NhJH3K7Cxg?t=4118

Treiman, Rebecca PhD1; Bourassa, Derrick C. Ph.d. (2000) The Development of Spelling Skill. Topics in Language Disorders 20(3):p 1-18, May 2000.

Wasowicz, J. (2021). A Speech-to-Print Approach to Teaching Reading. LDA Bulletin, 53(2). Retrieved September 2, 2023, from https://learningbydesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Wasowicz-A-Speech-to-Print-approach-to-teaching-reading.pdf

Grace Vyduna-Haskins Aug 17, 2024 08:16 PM

When I first began teaching in the 50s, with no knowledge of how to teach reading, I made the comment, "If these kids would learn to spell, they'd learn to read." At the time, this was a remote idea and went nowhere. Years later I was trained in Project Read, learned a bit about OG and began to make changes in my first grade classroom instruction. Reading results improved slightly. It was when I added systematic spelling to the mix that real change occurred.
During the same time frame I became aware that in the early days of our country, spelling was taught before reading. My question to the late Dr. Rebecca Barr was, "When and why was this discontinued?" She suggested that that question become my dissertation. That led to "An Historical Investigation of American Reading-Spelling Relationships: 1607-1930." My findings were that, while spelling was taught, there was no real developmental system in the early spelling programs. The only program that closely matched spelling and printed text was Rebecca Pollard,s synthetic method in the 1880s. This was also the time frame of a movement to teach reading through literature so her methods probably didn't gain the traction they deserved. I have no proof, but have a good suspicion, that Dr. Samuel Orton knew of and was influenced by Pollard's work since her materials are archived at the University of Iowa and Dr. Orton began his work there.
As a teacher who was fortunate enough to be allowed to experiment in my first grade classroom in the 80s and early 90s, I continued to teach systematic spelling with excellent results in both vocabulary and comprehension (G.E. 2.5 in the 8th month of school) via the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests used by my rural middle-class district. I remain a champion of spelling-reading relationships.

Melissa Aug 17, 2024 10:54 PM

In Australia speech to print has come to stand for programs that are different to Louisa Moats speech to print. They are now often referred to as structured linguistic literacy. These programs tend to advocate for not teaching letter names. For one-to-one sound correspondences they introduce 3-4 sounds at a time, show the letters without naming them and then make words with those letters. The include activities like phonemic manipulation, reading and writing words and often dictation. Later on they introduce one sound but up to five spellings at a time. There are no spelling patterns taught about when to use each of these spellings, just that these spellings are used for this sound. Then words with these spellings are used in various ways including sorting, reading, writing and dictation. Some are more judicious in the spellings they present then others, while some include a lot more such as ea being a spelling for /ay/ even though it only appears in three words. The most prominent in Australia would possibly be Sounds Write. There are strong proponents of these programs who believe they are better then print to speech programs and that teaching letter names early on and teaching spelling patterns/rules are detrimental to readers and provide too much cognitive load. This has created a bit of an and/or divide between the two approaches and makes it very confusing for educators to know what they should do!

Anne-Marie Aug 18, 2024 03:30 AM

Thank you so much for this post. I try to stay up with the latest research as a practitioner, but it's not always easy, especially with so many scholarly articles out of reach financially. Finding your post with recent references helps me clarify my own thinking and refine my teaching. I especially appreciated your paragraph "about the lack of evaluation of individual features of complex instructional programs." This would be so useful with limited instructional time. What's your take on what we know on the emphasis on consistency versus flexibility?

Vanessa Aug 18, 2024 03:51 AM

Is OG actually different in Australia? I have done two different trainings (IMSLE and Ron Yoshimoto) and the emphasis in both has equally been decoding and encoding. I also haven’t come across any phonics program that only focuses on decoding.

I don’t understand the argument - print to speech or speech to print? It’s always been both!

Gaynor Aug 18, 2024 10:11 AM

Having observed my mother's, Doris 's , teaching of thousands of remedial students I become impatient with those who insist they have the one correct model for all students. Certainly there should always be a combination of speech to print and print to speech but the order and emphasis may vary from one remedial student to another. Doris had an enormous range of materials and equipment and frustratingly for those who tried to copy her instruction , the order and content could vary from one student to another student . Some thrived on copious quantities of phonograms others needed none or very little. Some needed more spelling practise than others of one particular spelling pattern . Doris taught originally in an era when Universal Literacy was the ideal and practice in NZ. Most of the class had all much the same programme combining explicitly and systematically taught true analytical phonics ( no guessing at all) with synthetic phonic exercises. However those with difficulties often required a variety of approaches. She said that if one approach was not working for a remedial child you quickly switched to another. She often resorted to making her own exercises and drills custom made for any struggling child . These pieces of equipment and charts were made out of cardboard and hung with string on the wall which the child could take home and have parents practise with the child. The message I am trying to promote is : Don't be stuck with only one programme for all children. Maybe with AI or similar there will be more precise ways of determining the most effective method for those at an individual level who struggle most and who unfortunately do often require considerably more time and variety in instruction. As a brain -damaged child I was one such child.

Randi Aug 18, 2024 01:22 PM

Thank you for the timely post as always,Tim! Reading through the comments it would be helpful to have a follow-up post that addresses the comments made by Melissa as she brings forth the most current arguments in regard to print to speech or speech to print. It is not just about including spelling or not in phonics instruction. As Melissa states, many in the field are presenting speech to print to mean starting with letter sounds not letter names, teaching multiple spellings of a sound at one time, and avoiding teaching any spelling guidelines. For example, ay is usually used to represent the long a sound at the end of a syllable or word. Guidelines like these would be avoided in speech to print approaches in the way they are being marketed now. My school district uses a program that is marketed as a structured literacy, synthetic, and speech to print approach to phonics. However, it teaches letter names along with letter sounds, may teach more than one spelling of sound but the scope and sequence moves slower than many of which are being touted now for speech to print, and it includes sharing some spelling guidelines with students. Your attempt to clarify this issue is once again appreciated. However, as a literacy coordinator/instructional specialist, I find it increasingly frustrating to support and guide teachers in the right direction when the “experts” and researchers in the field cannot even agree or come to consensus on what a term or approach looks like in practice. This blog post and Melissa’s comments bring to light the continued need for researchers in the field to help translate research into practice. At the end of the day, we as educators just want to do right by the students we serve. And, yes, there is no one approach that will work for every student. However, can we at least begin to agree on what certain terms and approaches mean and what might be more likely to work?

Thank you for your time and your continued efforts to help all practitioners look at literacy instruction objectively!

Mary Baker-Hendy Aug 18, 2024 09:00 PM

To All
Vanessa and Elizabeth Scott's "Where's the Argument?" comments ring true. if you have been trained in any of the widely used programs, such as Wilson or IMSE you know that the phoneme-grapheme correspondences are taught sequentially using both symbol to sound and sound to symbol routines.

To those frustrated in the process of selecting evidence based, effective curriculum, walk on solid ground with the studies and practice guide recommendations from the Institute of Educational Sciences, The IES. They have done the work for us and are greatly under-utilized. Have your adoption team compare their recommendations to the scope and sequence of prospective foundational skills programs and decide what's there and what's missing. If possible, do a pilot and come back and look again. You do not have to depend on word of mouth or that of the publisher. We are educators and can use the true educational experts to guide our decisions. Geez, our taxes are paying for it, why aren't we using it?

Jan Wasowicz PhD CCC-SLP BCS-CL Aug 19, 2024 04:56 PM

Popular terms like "speech-to-print" often are defined and used differently by different professionals across different disciplines, and it is not uncommon for these terms to be misunderstood and incorrectly used, i.e., used differently from their originally intended meaning. This contributes to the misunderstandings and confusion and makes it even more challenging to compare one "speech-to-print" approach with another.

I use “speech-to-print” to describe an instructional approach that begins with spelling (encoding), organizes spelling and reading instruction and sequence of instruction around spoken language (vs. letters), and leverages the advantages that spelling brings to reading skill development. Yes, a reading and writing foundational skills program must include print-to-speech (decoding) as the SPELL-Links speech-to-print program does. Within a single pattern-focused lesson, students spell and read words at the word level and, if appropriate for their age/grade, they also read and write at the sentence and passage levels.

To quote from my 2021 article which Dr. Shanahan references in his article above:

"It is important to dispel the misconception that speech-to-print as an instructional approach is merely about teaching students how to spell words. It is much more than that. Speech-to-print instruction is the closely coordinated teaching of word level
reading and spelling in a manner that includes abundant orthographic mapping in the direction of phoneme to grapheme. Very importantly, this makes it consistent with the biological wiring and organization of the brain for oral language (Pinker, 1997). Ideally, if learning is to be maximized, speech-to-print instruction also includes simultaneous activation and integration of all language systems and modalities (Berninger, 2000). The approach, too, involves a focus on procedural and statistical learning of the interconnected sound-letter-meaning codes, with relatively less focus on declarative knowledge (Seidenberg, 2017)."

Not all speech-to-print programs are the same. Yes, OG-based programs and others include spelling, but the spelling instruction is not the same as speech-to-print instruction as I have defined it here. The devil is in the details. It’s not whether you/a program teaches spelling, it’s HOW spelling is taught…the specific pedagogy and methods that are used.

Timothy Shanahan Aug 20, 2024 06:39 PM

Ann Marie--

The research is on the side of flexibility. That means teaching students alternative pronunciations for letters and spelling patterns and developing an approach to decoding that leads students to evaluate a pronunciation and if it doesn't makes sense to try another pronunciation (usually by varying the vowel sound(s)) rather than looking at the picture or whatever.

tim

Timothy Shanahan Aug 20, 2024 06:41 PM

Melissa--

I love how strong these opinions are given the lack of data supporting either side with any degree of certainty. The science of reading should not be who has the strongest opinion.

tim

Kristin Aug 27, 2024 12:31 PM

This is a good discussion, and I always appreciate reading, learning new things, and hearing other perspectives. However, the OG approach includes the very examples he gives of "speech to print" activities.

Timothy Shanahan Aug 27, 2024 12:45 PM

Kristin-
And yet, OG still doesn't work as well or better than other approaches to phonics instruction.

tim

Janet Sep 02, 2024 05:20 PM

To Jan Wasowicz: Speech to Print is not about teaching spelling first. It's an approach that focuses on the idea that letters represent existing sounds. Dr. Diane McGuinness was the pioneer in this approach. If you haven't studied her work, I highly recommend it. Speech-to-Print programs include Phono-Graphix, EBLI, and Reading Simplified.

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Print-to-Speech or Speech-to-Print? That is the Question

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