Whole Language or Phonics: Which

Approach Is Best?
Whole Language is an approach to spelling that encourages a lot of reading
aloud to your child (a good thing!)—but it also encourages kids to read by
sight rather than by sounding out words.
In reality, there are very few words that don't follow any phonics rules and that
must be learned by sight. All About Spelling teaches these words (they are
called "rule breakers" and they get put in jail, which my students love!), but the
majority of words actually do follow the rules and can be sounded out.
"With phonics, students need only learn the basic
phonograms and their corresponding sounds,
which will give them a strategy for figuring out
new words."
There are a couple of problems with the sight-word only method. First, it
encourages kids to guess. Words like house and horse look almost identical—
they begin with ho and end with se, have the same shape if you draw an
outline around the word, and are the same length—but as you know, they are
very different words. A child who only knows how to read by sight will confuse
words like these.
Second, sight-reading doesn't give the child strategies for reading unknown
words; he has to hear the word, look it up, or ask someone what the word is.
These students rely on pictures and context clues; they have to take a mental
picture of that word and store it, and—to become fluent in reading—they have
to do that with thousands of words. With phonics, on the other hand, students
need only learn the basic phonograms and their corresponding sounds, which
will give them a strategy for figuring out new words. And once a student has
decoded a word, he can use context as another strategy to confirm what he
has read.

Understanding the phonograms really demystifies reading and spelling.

English letters and letter combinations (phonemes or phonograms) stand for
sounds, and kids appreciate being let into this "secret" or "code" of how our
written language works.
Another aspect of Whole Language is that it encourages students to
use "invented" spelling as they write. That's not necessarily a bad strategy for
helping a young writer express herself, but without also teaching the skills of
how to spell, the student is left on her own to figure out spelling—or to
continue struggling.
An alternative to invented spelling is to allow young writers to write without
being required to edit everything. For items that require editing, have students
look at their work the next day and see if they can correct any words or
spelling patterns that they have already learned. This strategy keeps students
from getting overly frustrated and from giving up on words they don't know
how to spell.

"Understanding phonograms demystifies

spelling and reading for children."
All About Spelling includes dictation exercises that give students the
opportunity to practice writing in sentences. The dictation reviews previous
and current spelling patterns, and ensures that students don't just memorize a
list of words, but that they retain the patterns long-term. Dictation is a great
exercise for helping kids break words down into sounds (segmenting) and
syllables for writing, without actually having to come up with original writing
themselves. Try emphasizing spelling instruction in the context of dictation
and, when it comes to their own writing, only hold students accountable for
words and patterns already learned.

Whole Language vs. Phonics

Whole language reading instruction (also known as "look-say" or "sight" reading) is the most widely
used method of teaching reading in the U.S. and many other countries. Its development dates back
to early in this century (for more information, see our upcoming book Turning the Tide of Illiteracy),
and its continued use is based on two factors, one factual and one . . . emotional.

First, researchers learned that experienced readers grasp the meaning of entire words at a time.
Further, when children talk they use complete words without conscious attention to the individual
sounds that make up those words. Why, therefore, should children be taught to read — as was the
norm at the time — by teaching them the component sounds of words. Whole language "founders"
believed that children should, then, be taught from the beginning to read whole words.

Second, whole language is said to be "literature-based" because students are expected to learn
these words by "reading" them as teachers read stories aloud. After they have thus "read" them
enough times they will recognize them and be able to read themselves. This sounds much more
compassionate than the drill and repetition necessary to intensive phonics instruction. Drill and
repetition, after all is boring and would inhibit proper emotional growth of children. Furthermore,
learning to read while being exposed to more interesting stories will give young students a greater
appreciation for great literature.

Unfortunately, both points are based on faulty reasoning. And, like Outcome-Based Education,
experimenting with new concepts upon an entire nation of children without any verifiable proof of a
concept's effectiveness has proven a grave mistake for millions of children in several generations.
Illiteracy has been growing for at least four decades, and yet whole language continues to be used.
On point one, it is true that readers recognize familiar words as a whole. And, yes, many students
learn to read for themselves the words they thus learn. But how do we read UNfamiliar words? We
must deconstructwritten words into their component sounds before we reconstruct the way the
complete word sounds! Moreover, although children often are not aware of the individual sounds of
words, they spent several years imitating and practicing sounds around them before they were able
to speak whole words.

And, two, while drills and repetition can be boring for adults (especially including the teacher!)
children like repetition. My five-year-old son can happily jabber the same word or phrase or song 20
times in a row as easily as two. (It would require scientific notation to represent how many times I've
heard the phrase "One, eight hundred, ninety-four, Jenny") At that age repetition is a game! It is no
different than any other behavior we must teach our children -- sometimes both emotional and
intellectual growth require some . . . difficult transitions. We want our children to be independent
thinkers, but they still have to live within a community, and until they are mature enough to make
their own decisions, we have to make those decisions for them, no matter how painful those
decisions might be . . . for us adults. Drills might even be boring for some. But compare that short-
term inconvenience with the alternative of illiteracy or, at best, discomfort with the written word. In a
world with growing reliance on communication, that leads to a nation incapable of competing, or,
perhaps, even surviving.

The simplest explanation I have come up with is this:

A friend once complained to me that she didn't want to teach using phonics because the
memorization necessary to learn phonetic rules for English is so repetitive and boring. It
struck me then that whole language is nothing more than rote memorization of every
word in the English language.

You be the judge of which method is more compassionate.

Except for the passing coverage that most whole language basal reading programs give to phonics
(or teachers who sneak in phonics when they're not supposed to), or children who infer phonics rules
themselves, we would all need someone else to tell us the sound of every new written word we
encounter.

Put simply, whole language does not work, and there is ample experimental evidence to prove it and
little or none to the contrary.

The only universally effective method of teaching reading is through the use of intensive phonics for
a period ranging from several weeks or months to about a school year, depending upon student age
and ability. For specifics about a wide range of research dealing with whole language and phonics,
see Preventing Reading Failure — Examining the Myths of Reading Instruction. Once students have
learned the phonics skills that will serve them throughout their lives, don't hesitate to have them
practice their reading skills with mainstream children's literature as possible to help them see how
exciting and meaningful reading can be.

Turning the Tide of Illiteracy points out that both Cuba and Israel discovered they had high illiteracy
rates after using whole language methods. Both solved their problem by returning to intensive
phonics. Fortunately for them, both are small, authoritarian nations; once they find a solution, they
can implement it nationwide almost immediately.

A much larger nation, with a tradition (perhaps dying) of distaste for autocracy, the U.S. can't do that.
In fact, most academicians who support phonics are often prevented from publishing their work in
professional reading journals.

Another book Retarding America — The Imprisonment of Potential is based upon a study of children
and young adults in the juvenile justice system. It probably won't surprise you that there is a very
high rate of illiteracy among that group. But children who learn to read well while in the system have
a markedly lower recidivism rate than the rest who don't. Unfortunately, most teachers in both our
juvenile and adult prison systems predictably teach reading the way they were taught to -- using
whole language.

Return to Halcyon House Main Page

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What Is The Best Workout For Women

Over 40?
After you hit 40, you might begin to wonder what this means for your workout program.
What are the best workouts for those in their 40’s and beyond? How should your
workout change compared to that of someone half your age?
There’s no question that you do need to adapt your workout over time due to the
changing needs of your body, but contrary to what many women might believe, it
doesn’t need to change that much.
The Best Workout For Women Over 40
Hands down, the single best workout option for women in their 40’s is going to be a
good resistance training program. It’s incredibly important for women at this age to start
with a strength training workout if they have not yet already because at this age, you are
at a higher risk of losing lean muscle mass. It’s the old principle ‘use it or lose it.’ If you
aren’t putting sufficient stress on your muscles as the weeks pass by, slowly you’ll grow
weaker, which can make everyday activities harder to perform.
Likewise, your lean muscle mass is the most metabolically active tissue in the body, so
the more muscle you lose, the slower your resting metabolic rate will become, which
can contribute to weight gain.
One of the biggest reasons why women start to gain weight into their 40’s and 50’s is
because they are losing the lean muscle that helped keep their daily calorie burn higher.
If you aren’t adjusting your food intake to account for this loss of muscle mass, it will
result in weight gain.
Additionally, if you are in your 40’s and really looking to transform your body, weight
lifting is the way to do it. While cardio training may help you burn fat, weight lifting will
help you reshape your physique, adding curves and muscle in all the right places.
Finally, weight lifting is a great choice if you want to combat stress. Between a
demanding career and family obligations, life can get stressful. A good weight lifting
session will release a nice dose of endorphins, helping calm your body and combat that
stress.
Getting Started With Resistance Training
 So how can you get started? First, you’ll want to select the best exercises to make the
most of your time in the gym. Chances are, you’re busy and don’t have hours to train,
so you’ll want to get the most ‘bang for your buck.’
Compound exercises will work multiple muscle groups at once, help you gain functional
strength, and burn the most calories per session. They should be your focus. These
include moves such as bench pressing or push-ups, bent over rows, shoulder presses,
squats, lunges, deadlifts and pull-ups (or pull-downs).
Focus on these first and foremost, then you can add other exercises such as bicep
curls, tricep extensions, lateral raises, leg extensions, and hamstring curls if you’d like.
You should focus on lifting a heavy enough weight that you are fully fatigued by the time
you finish around 8-10 reps without losing proper form. This will give you both the
strength-training stimulus to help generate more lean muscle mass while keeping your
metabolic rate and calorie burn higher.
Finally, rest for around 30-60 seconds between sets. You don’t want to rest too long or
you’ll lose some of the metabolic boosting effects this workout provides. At the same
time, don’t rest so little that you can’t challenge yourself with a heavy weight.
To help give you an idea how to implement this, let’s examine at what a full body
workout for those over 40 would look like. Always begin with a brief five to ten minute
warm-up and finish up with some light stretching at the end.
Full Body Workout For Women Over 40:
 Squats – 3 sets of 8 reps
 Bench Press – 3 sets of 8 reps
 Bent Over Rows – 3 sets of 8 reps
 Leg Press – 3 sets of 10 reps
 Shoulder Press – 3 sets of 10 reps
 Walking Lunges – 2 sets of 12 reps
 Superset* Bicep Curls with Tricep Extensions – 2 sets of 15 reps
 Superset* Lateral Raises with Front Raises – 2 sets of 15 reps
*Note that a superset is performing all the reps of one exercise and then directly moving
to the next exercise, doing all the reps of it before taking a rest.
So if you have not yet started with resistance training, lean towards this style of exercise
as you formulate your workout plan. It’ll serve you very well both in your 40’s as well as
in the years beyond.

Read next:

Best exercises for women 40+

Nov 20, 2013
by Lisa Armstrong
Print

Preparing for body changes

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Over 40? Don't despair — it's never too late to start an exercise routine. Here are
some handy tips to help you get started and to stick with it.
Once you hit your 40s, staying in shape can become more challenging. That's
because as you mature, you'll need to address your diet and activity levels more
specifically to maintain your best health.

In other words, the days of eating fast food or late-night high-sugar, high-carb
meals are most likely over. One reason you'll need to say goodbye to high-calorie
eating is that, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz, your metabolism starts to slow about
5 percent per year after your 40th birthday.

For many women, this slowing metabolism registers as weight gain; with more
weight often comes less energy and therefore difficulty motivating yourself to
start (and stay) moving. And even with regular exercise, it can be tough to keep
your weight in check. Your basal metabolic rate also declines with each decade
of life, so fat-burning requires extra effort.

Face the ch-ch-changes

Your thyroid

The thyroid controls your metabolism. You are more likely to develop
hypothyroidism (which can cause weight gain). Besides weight gain, your age
starts to catch up with you in other ways in your 40s.

After 40, exercise routines that once challenged you with in your earlier years
can become painful or difficult. You may start feeling the effects of age in your
joints.

Nearing menopause

Menopause is just around the corner (the average age of menopause is about
51). While exercise hasn't been proven to help you better cope with the effects of
menopause, experts at the Mayo Clinic say making fitness part of your daily
routine can help you manage your weight as you near menopause.
Estrogen loss has also been linked to bone loss, making it important to support
your bones with strength training. And as estrogen dips, there is often an
accumulation of belly fat. That belly fat — sometimes jokingly called the "meno-
pot" — can increase a woman's risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

Changing fitness routines

Since excess weight can be a factor in several types of cancer and heart
disease, it's worth it to stay active well past your 40s. Cartilage, tendons and
ligaments become less elastic, which can cause increased pain and/or injury if
you continue to perform high-impact activities such as long-distance running,
basketball and aerobics.

However, that certainly does not mean that women in their 40s need to stop all
high-impact activities or give up working out.

Good exercises to consider

Chiropractor Dr. Tamara Berger recommends the following fitness suggestions

for women over 40:

1
Lift weights

Our muscles can start to shrink and weaken in our 30s. Using weights is an
important way to keep our muscles strong and flexible.

2
Jump!

Bone density can also start to diminish as early as your mid-30s. To slow the
clock don't be afraid to hop, jump, run, skip, squat or climb stairs.

3
Move fast (at least for a few seconds)

High-intensity training is a great way to stop the physical effects of the hands of
time, and can be done safely at any age. Tabatas are short, high-intensity
workouts where you combine max effort movements (run, bike, skips) with rest
periods. A typical eight-minute tabata involves a 20-second all-out effort with a
10-second rest period.

4
Prevent injury

Strengthening your core (below the breast bone to just above the knees) protects
your joints from injury. Core strengthening involves slow, complex movements
that challenge multiple areas of the body.

5
Stretch

The 40s are a time to focus even more on staying flexible. Why? The need for
flexibility increases as we age because muscles tighten, shorten and become
more prone to injury. "Flexibility is the third pillar of fitness, next to cardiovascular
conditioning and strength training," says David Geier, director of sports medicine
at the Medical University of South Carolina. Flexibility can help your body reach
its optimum fitness level, may play a role in injury prevention and, experts say,
can even contribute to staving off arthritis and other serious illnesses.

The key to increasing flexibility is to hold stretches (no bouncing) for at least 10
to 15 seconds. Don't hold your breath; focus on relaxing the muscles you are
stretching on each exhalation. Many experts recommend yoga or Pilates as good
ways to incorporate stretching into your regular routines. Fitness / Workouts

These Plank Exercises Are the Fastest

Way to Lose Belly Fat
 The secret to amazing abs? Stop doing crunches and start doing these 3 flat-belly
moves!

Chryso D'Angelo
Topics:
abs exercises,
belly fat,
Workout Wednesday,
As Seen on Social
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We all want a toned, flat stomach. No surprise there. But since many women are still
relying on crunches to get it, we want to make one thing clear: Crunching is not the
most effective abs workout. "Crunches work only the muscles on the front and sides of
your abdomen, but it's important to target all the muscles of the core to get more defined
abs—including lower back, hips, and upper thighs," says Lou Schuler, co-author of The
New Rules of Lifting for Abs. (Also try these 20 tricks for engaging your core and getting
a sneaky abs workout.)

To lose belly fat and uncover amazing abs, Schuler recommends a series of core
stabilization exercises based on a training program devised by co-author and personal
trainer Alwyn Cosgrove. "Core exercises like the plank help train muscles to stabilize
the spine and pelvis so you can avoid back pain and improve posture, Schuler says.
"Planks also burn more calories than crunches because they work more muscles."
(P.S. crawling is a great dynamic abs exercise too.)

Trade crunches for these three super-effective plank exercises from The New Rules of
Lifting for Abs and you’ll be on your way to a stronger core and flatter stomach.
The Best Abs Exercises: Side Plank

Why it works: This move is more challenging than a traditional plank because you're
supporting your entire body weight on two points of contact instead of four. As a result,
you must work your core harder to stay stabilized.

How to do it:
A. Lie on your left side with your elbow directly beneath your shoulder and legs stacked.
Place your right hand on your left shoulder or on your right hip.
B. Brace your abs and lift your hips off the floor until you're balancing on your forearm
and feet so that your body forms a diagonal line. Hold for 30 to 45 seconds. If you can’t
hold that long, stay up as long as you can and then repeat until you’ve held for 30
seconds total. Switch sides and repeat.

More great stabilization moves: The standard plank and the anti-rotation hold.
The Best Abs Exercises: Walkout from Pushup Position

Why it works: This advanced plank exercise involves full-body movement, such as
using the arms and legs, while incorporating resistance to strengthen your entire core.

How to do it:
A. Start in pushup position with hands two inches wider than your shoulders.
B. Walk hands out as far as possible, then walk back. Do 10-12 reps.

Make it harder: Lift one leg before you walk your hands out and back.
The Best Abs Exercises: Alligator Drag

Why it works: This plank uses your entire core to keep your body stabilized and burns
additional calories by adding movement (dragging yourself along the floor). It mixes
cardio, stability, and strength training to get you fast fat-burning results.

How to do it:
A. Find a stretch of floor that allows you to go forward 10 to 20 yards, and grab anything
that will slide over the surface with minimal friction. Dinner plates or plastic bags work
on a carpeted floor, while towels work on wood or tile.
B. Start in pushup position with your feet on the slides, towels, or plates.
C. Walk yourself forward with your hands to the end of your runway (aim for at least 10
yards). Rest for 60 to 90 seconds (or as long as you need to recover) and repeat the
alligator walk back to where you started. That’s one set. Repeat one more time.

You might also like:

The Fastest Full-Body Workout Ever
The Best Fat Loss Workout of All Time
Lose the Pooch! The Best Exercises for Lower Abs
Overall, your 40s will definitely be a time of physical, mental and even spiritual
changes, but you can also look forward to a transition toward deeper level of
awareness, fitness and well-being.

More health tips