Orthographic phonology: a field of study that includes any & all writing systems. All orthographies represent aspects of phonology: words, syllables, phonemes, tone, stress.

Phonics: a teaching approach that prioritizes speech segments & their spellings.

They're not the same.

I've never claimed that a body cannot be a phonics professional, or an expert in phonics. 1st beef with phonics is specifically that it misrepresents the writing system. Like, good for phonics for studying sublexical patterns! Just, please, do it accurately. 1/

2nd beef with phonics is the groupthink cartel: whatever evidence there may be for studying sublexical vs. whole word, we are expected to just swallow whole lists of 'exceptions,' nonsense, syllabaloney, decodables, SATPIN, etc. 2/

3rd beef is specifically w/ syllabaloney. Facts: English is stress- not σ-timed. A schwa is not the same as a 'short u.' Structurally there are 2 types of σs: open and closed (not 6, 7, 8..). Syllabaloney conflates spoken & written patterns. σ pedagogy ≠ human data. 3/

4th beef with phonics is the default position that a kid who has had 3, 4, 5, 8 years of phonics and still can't spell or write: "Not all phonics is the same! It wasn't done with fidelity!" Etc. Amazing how common this is, then, across programs, classrooms, curricula... 4/

My point has always been that phonics can & must do *better.*

Not everything or everyone opposed to phonics *as is* is pro-WL/BL. Those aren't the only two choices, but they both act like they are. Progress doesn't come to a halt just because you get an answer you like.

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