Reflection 13

The balance approach is when both the whole language and phonics are used in a classroom to teach children to read. During the past centuries teachers have been using either whole language approach or phonics approach to get the children to read but there has been a great debate for years about which one is better. The only problem is that both approaches have been used in various setting but the child reading still has been low. This has cause for teachers to use both strategies to teach students but so far there has still been no real drastic change and according to the article is stated that the balance approach is the mixing of both approaches but how is this accomplished accurately that depends on the teachers.
The most important part of this situation is to try to get the students to actually enjoy reading and not see it as something boring. Personally I have never been a big fan of reading because all the experiences that I have had has been bad, teachers would make me read stories that are boring and that I would have no connections to them. In a way the teachers should not put so much focus as to which of the two approaches is better but instead focus on the style that each child has to learn. Some students might learn by the balanced approached, while other from the whole language/ phonics approach or it can be from an approach that no one has really discovered yet. The focus of the teacher should be the students and not the approach. In the article it even stated that there has been research performed from the two approaches and neither has given much of positive results, so there can still be a better approach out there that has not been found. The research recommended that teachers should try to do something different or to look beyond those approaches that have been used.