Effective ways to teach reading skills to B1 students Content Introduction

Chapter II. On effective methods of teaching reading skills to B1 students and the problems that arise
2.1. About effective ways to teach reading skills to B1 level students
Identifying the most effective way of teaching reading to young children has been the subject of fierce debate for many decades.
The two most popular methods have been the 'phonics' approach and the 'whole language' approach. These two methodologies approach teaching reading in very different ways, which has led their proponents to attack each other's approach as misguided or even detrimental to a child's learning.
But what are the characteristics of each approach and how do they aim to build the reading skills of young learners? Furthermore, is it really possible to argue that one is better than the other? Here's an attempt to answer those questions.
Phonics-based teaching
The phonics approach tries to create an association in the child's mind between the 'graphemes' (written symbols) and 'phonemes' (sounds) of language. Through the use of repetitious exercises to drill this link between text and sound, teachers aim to build a familiarity and comfort with the basic building blocks of written texts.
Once the child has achieved this proficiency, teachers then encourage them to blend the individual written elements together to produce whole words; this is known as the 'synthetic approach'. As such, synthetic phonics is described as a bottom-up approach which builds towards comprehension through a journey from the smallest elements of written texts.
Advocates of synthetic phonics claim that an emphasis on the child's ability to 'decode' written texts is essential for creating a foundation on which an understanding of meaning can be constructed.
Its detractors, on the other hand, decry the rigour and repetition of phonics, arguing that children are often bored and disengaged by the slavish focus on rules and individual sound-text associations. The discipline required for this approach gives it a traditionalist, back-to-basics quality that has a recurring appeal for generations of educators.