The Ballad of "Sound-It-Out"

This post is in remembrance of a phrase I would like to bury so deeply in the ground that we never see or hear from it again. The phrase is, "sound it out," and if education needs someone to step forward and bravely pull the trigger, well, then, I'm your huckleberry.
I am quite certain that this post will annoy, upset, possibly infuriate more than one of my fellow teachers. I know this because every time I bring up the subject while I am presenting, at least one teacher gets really fired up and questions my logic.  And I'm okay with that!  The point of this blog is to start discussions so if you read this and you think I'm wrong, please go right on ahead and tell me so.  But, if you think I'm right, please, for the love of all things holy, grab a shovel and let's start digging!
If you are a reading teacher at any level, there's a good chance you have, at some point in your career given the order for a student to, "sound it out."  Parents, I'm certain you have probably said it as well. In fact, I hear students telling other students to "sound it out" almost daily.  Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you are saying that?  What is it that you really want them to do?  Do they even know what that phrase means?  I'm going to answer those questions for you but first, let's explore the two most common scenarios where a teacher (or possibly a parent) might use the dreaded phrase.
The first situation where this phrase is commonly used is in a guided group where a teacher and students are working on phonics. They aren't reading a text, they are simply manipulating phonemes to blend, segment, and/or form words.  Most of the time teachers refer to this as "word work."  In this particular setting, a student might be working on a word family, possibly substituting an initial or final sound, or even a medial vowel.  The student gets hung up on a tricky manipulation and the teacher wants to give the child some clues to help him or her be successful.  So, let's take it one step further.  We're in a kindergarten classroom. The teacher has four students in her small group and they are working on the --am family.  They are trading out the initial letter to form new words.  Ham to jam to Sam, etc.  The student is having trouble with the /r/ sound. He isn't sure what sound that letter makes.  So, when his teacher asks him to remove the "S" and put the "r" in it's place, he's stuck.  He knows the last part is /am/ but he doesn't know what to say at the beginning.  His teacher tells him to "sound it out."  Uhm, ya, he's trying to sound it out.  Problem is, he doesn't know what sound "r" makes, so he can't sound it out.  He's still stuck, and she's still insisting he does something he doesn't know how to do. Now, tell me, who is this benefiting?

Photo courtesy of trcb,com

What are some more appropriate things the teacher could say in this situation?  Well, what is our purpose in the lesson?  We want the student to understand the relationships between phonemes and words, how different sounds join together to make different words and how closely related some of these words are. We also want to make sure our students have a firm grasp of the most common sounds these letters make. If we understand that our little friend here isn't confident in the sound "r" makes, then we cannot move forward with the other skills that we want him to know.  We have to put that first brick down--the sound the letter makes--before we can build upon it with blending, segmenting, etc.  Now, we can teach these concepts simultaneous as long as we are willing to go back and plug some holes, like this little boy's missing information when it comes to the sound for "r".  In order to do that, let's start with the most basic question.  "What letter is this?"  If he knows it's "r" that's great. Tell him so!  If he doesn't, that's okay, too, we are going to teach him.  "This is the letter 'r.'  Do you see it up there in the alphabet? On the word wall?  Can you see the picture next to the letter?  What is it?  A rabbit.  That's right! And rabbit starts with /r/.  So the letter 'r' says /r/ like in rabbit!" If he knows the name of the letter but not the sound, simply skip that part about identifying the letter.  "That's right! It is the letter 'r.'  Do you remember what sound 'r' makes?  No?  Look over there at the alphabet (or word wall).  Do you see the picture next to 'r' . . . ."  You get it from here.  Our goal is not to interrogate the information out of our wee little friends. Our goal is to help them learn, remember, build schema, find something to hang this information on. Once they have that hook, they'll be much more likely to remember the next time.
Let's take this scenario one step further. Let's say our friend does know "r" says /r/ but the trouble comes with blending the sounds together. He just can't seem to get those gaps out of /r/ /a/ /m/.  Is asking him to "sound it out" going to help here?  No, he IS sounding it out. He's just not sounding it in--err-together.  So telling him to "sound it out" again, is not helpful. Tell him to squeeze those sounds together.  Show him a rubber-band around your fingers, how you can stretch it out and squeeze it together. Let him try.  Model it.  Model it again. Model it a third time.  Keep modeling it until he gets it or until you can't stand the sight of any animal with horns.  Or, on the other hand, stop modeling it because he's not ready--and that's okay, too.  We'll try again later.
Bottom line, I cannot think of a single time when a teacher is working on word work with a group of students when he or she would ever need to tell a student to "sound it out". If you can, please let me know!
The other situation when I hear, "sound it out" demanded repeatedly is when a student is reading aloud to a teacher and they become "stuck" on a word. It could be in a guided reading group, reading aloud to the class, basically any situation where the teacher is listening and the student is reading. It doesn't matter what grade-level or subject, chances are there is something better for you to say than, "sound it out."
And why is that?  Well, two reasons. First of all, chances are the student is familiar with the phrase "sound it out."  In most cases, that is the first and sometimes only strategy a student is going to use to try to decode a word.  It is not, however, the best strategy the majority of the time, for the second reason--the majority of the words in the English language are unsounderoutable.  Yes, that is my own invented word. I love it and I'm going to continue to use it.  Think about it, how many words in English are actually spelled phonetically?  Not very many. And once we get into vowel digraphs, diphthongs, special endings, "sneaky" e's, and several vowels walking together, well, it's your best guess as to what sound any letter is really going to make at any given time, depending upon the price of consonants in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Needless to say, giving your students some other strategies may go a lot further than imploring him or her to "sound it out."
So, what other strategies should you be giving them?  I'm so glad you asked!  Let's look at the merit of a few other questions we could ask (and the word question here is key--"sound it out" is not a question.  We want to ask our students to do things not demand it. Asking makes them think, demanding let's us think for them.)
1) How does that word start? (or) end?
2) Do you see a smaller word inside of the bigger word?
3) What makes sense in this sentence?
4) Do you know part of that word?
5) Do you remember the rule for ____ (ai, ay, ou, ow, etc.)?
6) Do you have a guess as to what that word might be?
7) What is the book talking about?
8) Is there a prefix or suffix you can take off?
9) Do you have a clue in your picture?
10) Have you seen that word anywhere else before?
11) Do you have a friend that you think can help you?
I would argue that all of these questions are better than "sound it out." All of them make the student stop and consider the situation.  All of them assist the student in finding clues to solve the mystery of what is that word.  We want our students to ask themselves these types of questions when they get stuck because these are the types of strategies good readers naturally do when they are trying to decode a difficult word. I mean, when was the last time you tried to "sound" out a multi-syllabic word without at least breaking it apart and considering the smaller pieces? It just seems like we are doing our children a disservice by insisting that they sound out words that we know good and well are unsounderoutable.  So why do we continue to insist that they do so?
I actually do want to answer that question, my theory anyway, about why we continue to use this phrase.  It's because that's what we were told to do.  And not just by our teachers and parents from way back when we were in school either.  The teachers that taught us how to be teachers--they are saying it.  Our mentors--they're saying it. Our coaches, our specialists, the teaches we are going to observe--some of them are still saying it.  So, we don't think, "Why are we saying this?" we just keep saying it.  But now we know why we shouldn't be saying--because there are better things to say--so let's just put it out of it's misery!

I bet this teacher even asked her students to "sound it out."

Please don't think I am under the impression that all other teachers are still saying this phrase. I know many of you are not. Please don't take this to mean I think that, if you are using this phrase you are not a good teacher or you are doing a disservice to your children--again, I don't.  Your students are not going to stop developing as readers because you used or continue to use this phrase.  But this blog isn't about what we used to do, it's about what we are going to do so that we are better teachers, with smarter, more successful students.  And I truly think taking this one phrase out of our vernacular will go a long way to helping our students become better thinkers, problem solvers, and ultimately better readers.
I know some of my self-conscious friends out there are probably panicking now, thinking, "OMG, I think I said that the last time Amy was in my classroom!  SHE'S TALKING ABOUT ME!" Let me assure you, I'm talking about the collective us--myself included--we can all stand to begin removing this phrase from our teaching regiment.  I'm not going to throw an eraser at the next teacher who says it, I probably won't say anything at all. But I want you to start being conscious of what you are saying and why you are saying it. Again, if it's justified, please say it. Otherwise, say something better.

Everyone is sooo happy!

With any luck, this dead horse has now been beaten to death and we can all get back to our classrooms now and start insisting that students say, "May I go to the restroom," instead of "Can I use it?"
Tomorrow, I'm going to take you on a fishing excursion. Oh, yes, it will be fun and, no it's not that kind of fishing. ;)