Haven't these people been thoroughly discredited yet?

I was reading the hometown fishwrap the other day and ran across a column (apparently it was written apropos of nothing) that tried to discredit phonics. And yes, the author (a retired educrat) did sneak in a snide reference to "Hooked on Phonics" while he was at it. Cute, if not trite.

Now my role in life is not to bore you with technical stuff, so I will distill his argument into this: phonics doesn't work because... well, um, because... uh.... BECAUSE IT DOESN'T!!!

Yes I know, I'm being unfair. His argument wasn't even as good as that.

He tried to argue that some words cannot be deconstructed phonetically, therefore phonics fails at all levels. There are, in fact, a few words such as "for", "come" and "who" that can't be deciphered phonetically and therefore must be learned by sight.

But the alternative to phonics is whole language. And whole language requires that virtually ALL words must be read by sight and memorized. I'm sure future chemistry majors, doctors and lawyers will all really appreciate that.

No, sir, phonics is time-tested and proven to work. In fact, very few colleges of education insist in perpetuating whole language instruction. The most prominent of the dinosaur thinkers is the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ, and they invented the thing.

Critics of phonics say they find it lacking because some kids who learn using phonics are poor readers. That's a circular argument not worthy of an academic thinker. There are endless reasons why kids are poor learners, blaming phonics is just scapegoating. Note that this guest columnist did not have the temerity to claim that all kids taught with whole language are excellent readers, one and all. He knows better.

His claims are pure sophistry designed to prop up a failed and unloved system of reading instruction - whole language. I am so happy the author of that article is now a retired educator.

And I am so happy I learned how to read by phonics.