Professional Learning for Busy Educators

The International Literacy Association has put out a new brief endorsing "systematic and explicit" phonics in all early reading instruction.

"English is an alphabetic language. We have 26 letters. These letters, in various combinations, represent the 44 sounds in our language," the ILA brief released last week reads. "Teaching students the basic letter-sound combinations gives them access to sounding out approximately 84% of the words in English print." 

It's a strong statement from an influential, big-tent organization whose members, which include teachers, researchers, and parents, have traditionally held a wide range of views on reading approaches.

"It's kind of a refreshing piece," said Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "A lot of people think ILA is an anti-phonics group, but it's a large group."

More and more people are turning to social media to learn their Indigenous languages, and two Ojibway speakers are using different techniques to connect with language learners across the country on Facebook.

Every Thursday at 9:30 p.m. CT, James Vukelich turns his phone's camera toward himself, and hits "go live" on Facebook. He starts off with a traditional Ojibway language — or Anishinaabemowin — greeting and delivers the "word of the day," connecting with and teaching the language to his online friends.

"For me, putting stuff on social media is a way to get language materials to [people] for free that they can use at a touch of their fingertips," said Vukelich.

Vukelich is from the Turtle Mountain Indian Reserve in Minnesota. He said his mother, grandmother, grandfather and uncles all went to boarding schools in the United States — like Canada's residential schools — and the language was lost for two generations in his family.

"I didn't hear the language until I was 24 years old," said Vukelich.