Do children need to learn phonics before they learn to comprehend?
Children do need phonics to read words but not to comprehend. Read alouds, coupled with listening comprehension strategies, develop comprehension before students are proficient decoders. Listeners use the same strategies readers use to understand text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become active listeners and readers. Applying those strategies to read alouds allows students to focus on the strategy without having to also attend to decoding. Using read alouds to build listening comprehension allows students to focus on a strategy without also applying decoding strategies. However, students must learn to use decoding strategies and comprehension strategies simultaneously. Supporting students as they learn to decode and think about text will consume a great deal of instructional time. Duke, Pressley, and Hilden (2004 in Allington, 2009) suggest that there are many struggling readers with adequate decoding skills but poor comprehension, and the percentage of students th
