A NYT article, In War Over Teaching Reading, a U.S.-Local Clash inspired dozens of blog posts. Many of them challenge the article’s bias and the author’s uncritical acceptance of the school administration’s claims of efficacy for their program.
Richard Allington, past president of the International Reading Association, defended the Madison schools, saying that the National Reading Panel report shows only minor benefits from phonics for K-1, that it lends no strong support for one style of instruction, and that an early phonics instructional emphasis has not been shown to improve comprehension for older students.
“This revisionist history of what the research says is wildly popular,” Dr. Allington said. “But it’s the main reason why so much of the reading community has largely rejected the National Reading Panel report and this large-scale vision of what an effective reading program looks like.”
The article also spawned a series of responses in EducationNews.org from Reid Lyon, Bob Sweet, Linnea Ehri, Timothy Shanahan, Mark Seidenberg, and Louisa Moats, who all try to “set the record straight.”
Lyon and Sweet make it clear that by law, eligible programs must include “explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, fluency, and comprehension strategies.”
The comment by Louisa Moats took aim directly at Allington, insisting that,
Like the issue of global warming, there is no scientific debate about whether children benefit from direct instruction in how the alphabetic code of English represents speech. There is, in contrast, plenty of evidence that teaching children to guess at words through context and pictures is, indeed, malpractice, and that most poor readers fall by the wayside early because no one is teaching them how to read. Richard Allington, who was quoted in opposition to Reading First, has no credentials as a researcher or scientist. He and the “reading community” to which he refers have perpetuated myths and ineffective practices associated with Whole Language for decades.
No scientific debate? No credentials as a researcher? Malpractice?
Why does Moats so casually dismiss Richard Allington’s qualifications to offer criticism? Could it be that he published a critical rebuttal to her recent Whole Language High Jinks attack on “non-scientifically” based research programs? (The use of scare quotes around these phrases seems impossible to avoid in this discussion.)
Allington accused Moats of exaggerating the link between systematic phonics instruction and reading achievement reported by the National Reading Panel, ignoring research that contradicts her point of view, and recommending commercial reading packages developed by her employer. Schools Matter also took a jab at her report.
The NYT article and ensuing discussions serve as an example of the rhetoric around the reading wars, which has escalated now with the development of an allegedly scientific, and subsequently legal, standard for reading programs. Though it originated as a device for reviewing grant applications, this standard appears tempting for school critics to use as a litmus test for teacher professionalism.
Timothy Shanahan understood this in 1999, when the National Reading Panel was formed:
The fundamental idea behind the federal government’s establishment of a review panel is something along these lines: A major controversy is compromising the commonweal (in this case, children are not being taught to read as well as they should be) and undermining public confidence (i.e., trust in schools is declining). To ensure a reasonable standard of quality and to protect respect for public institutions and professions, an authoritative group is appointed to carry out an objective review of the research and to decide upon a standard of practice. The federal government then endorses this standard and benefits are provided to those whose professional practice is consonant with it.
Shanahan went on to make a comparison with Medicare, which will only pay for standard treatments, pointing out that review panels such as this are unprecedented in education. He also said that he didn’t know, at the time, how the NRP findings would be used, or even what those findings would be. As it turns out, though, we are hearing the adjectives evidence-based and scientifically-based, being linked to curricula, and educational decision-making, and when they are coupled with medical metaphors and accusations of malpractice, I feel a bit queasy because it sounds like a prescription for an end to inquiry, as Moats would apparently have it. The medical metaphor is a dangerous one to apply to education, I believe.
In 1998, Ken Goodman rhetorically asked, Why Reading?
Why is so much effort, heat, anger, and venom poured into arcane issues of how kids learn to read?…
1. Reading has always been a hot-button issue. It has a proven track record of scaring parents into electing board members who support back-to-basics campaigns….
2. Political campaigns need to paint everything in black and white as good versus bad….
3. A successful reading campaign could be a vehicle for developing a blueprint for a campaign to control education at all levels through national law, an objective heretofore seemingly impossible under the constitution.
He goes on to say that “reforming” won’t stop at reading, and that math would be next. He was right. See the National Mathematics Advisory Panel site.
This blog post could be so much longer. Over the past week I’ve dug back into the NRP findings and dozens of journal articles to learn what the report did and did not say. It’s important, I think, because public schools not only serve a public but they also create a public. The politics of education seems distant, though it speaks to us and though us constantly.
Just what did the National Reading Panel say? What is evidence-based reading research? What effect do metaphors have on teaching? I’ll try to deal with those questions each in turn in my next few entries. But, right now, report cards demand my attention.
11 Comments
I’m reminded G.K. Chesterton’s famous line “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” The same might be said of whole language. I was an elementary school teacher in the 1970s and saw first-hand how powerful and effective real whole-language instruction could be, how quickly it was picked up watered down by textbook manufacturers looking to make money off a hot trend they did not understand, and how soon, in an effort to make whole-language “teacher proof,” the entire fascinating but “difficult” set of investigations about how best to encourage this child and this child and this child in their explorations of literacy was reduced to a set of formulaic steps that did not embody anything like the organic, thoughtful, highly attentive, and highly organized individualized instruction advocated by Donald Graves and Lucy Caulkins and the like.
Now it appears that whole language is going the way of the L-word, and that anyone who wishes to argue for a broader definition of reading, for an approach that goes beyond skills and drills to inquiry and knowledge creation, is to be painted by the self-appointed guardians of The Truth as an irresponsible loony who should be barred from the classroom on grounds of educational malpractice? That would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.
The problem with “reform” efforts based on “evidence-based and scientifically-based” assessments of classroom practice is that nobody wants to get down and actually look at any of the work that students are doing in school, much less actually go into the schools to see the students at work. It’s too time-consuming, too expensive, too “difficult.” So the legislators toss some money at a company (in my days as a curriculum coordinator in Massachusetts public school, it was Advanced Systems, a New Hampshire tech startup feeding on the testing craze) which is charged with designing a multiple choice test that will target what is that multiple-choice tests can target, which is to say, a very limited subset of reading and vocab skills (perhaps including a decontextualized writing task which has no meaning or relevance to the student being asked to do it and which is unlikely to represent the best work the student can do) and no assessment at all of the study skills or attitudes or habits of mind that are going to determine the ultimate success of any individual student as a reader, writer, and learner.
I began teaching in 1969 and spent 29 years teaching in the public schools. During that time I saw greater and greater concern being expressed about the direction of public education, and saw reform effort after reform effort, all linked ever more self-righteously to “standards” and “back to basics” movements. Is there anyone out there who would like to argue that as a result of those efforts that students in 2007 are learning more or learning better than the students of, say, 1967?
After 29 years of having this conversation and fighting this particular fight, I finally bailed out. I’ve spent the last nine years teaching in a private school, a school in which we have no state tests to answer to, no systemwide mandatory assessment, no pressure respond to whatever the latest bright idea has occurred to a legislative committee. The students and teachers at the school are encouraged, often required, to monitor their own learning practices, to design their own assessments, to make their own choices, to connect what they are doing to what they most care about. Sure, there are systemic constraints; not everything is up for grabs. But the system works because it starts with trust and a commitment to inquiry. Are these kids learning more and learning better than their counterparts were in 1969? No question in my mind.
Doug – Great post! And Bruce’s experience is much like my own – so many years we were given a new reading program with little to no training, no follow-up and then we would read that another program was not working. Isn’t ironic that every program you ever see REALLY implemented correctly has positive results – just not many are given the support they need.
You’ll like this from Gary Stager:
http://www.districtadministration.com/pulse/commentpost.aspx?news=no&postid=18649
Moats is just another mercenary for the pro-phonics forces. I’d be happy to line up each of our research “credentials” (things like research publications, editorships, awards, etc.) and have an independent panel review judge whose credentials are “better.”
But two points: First, the notion that the National Reading Panel found very modest positive effects for systematic phonics instruction as compared to non-systematic or no phonics instruction was not mine. I was quoting/summarizing key points from an article by Don Hammill and Lee Swanson, two distinguished special education quantitative researchers (appears in Sept. 2006, ssue of Elem Sch Journal). They pointed out that using the NRP data only 2-4% of the variance in reading achievement is accounted for by the presence/absence of systematic phonics instruction. That leaves 96-98% of the variance in achievement unexplained, or, attributable to other factors.
Second, The federally funded What Works Clearinghouse has just posted their report on Reading Recovery effectiveness. I mention this because Moats and her ilk are constantly battering RR as unscientific. But the WWC reports that RR has positive effects on reading achievement. Their highest rating! So will all those other “approved” commercial intervention programs now be deleted from the various state agency websites and replaced by the only intervention, so far, found to be effective by the WWC?
Dick A
I think whole language is only useful if you have already mastered phonics. I’ve seen so many children hit the wall at a certain age who were soley taught whole language. Its like teaching a person to fish, not just giving them a fish for a day.
Great post and comments. Simply remember when phonics was out. What happened to our childrens grades? Yes I agree with phonics your teaching children to become more fluent all the way around.
The link to the commercial site in the above comment has been removed. But I’ve left the comment otherwise intact to serve as evidence that at least one advocate for explicit phonics instruction doesn’t have basic punctuation figured out yet.
I learned to read through ‘osmosis’ which is what the Whole Language method amounts to.
I seldom ever picked up a book in elementary school, my parents spoke another language, I watched TV all the time, played outside… By all accounts, I should have been illiterate, but for whatever reason, I read very well, have two college degrees and won the regional spelling bee in 2nd grade. This is because I spelled words phonetically.
I do not guess unknown words by relying on context clues, I try to sound it out. If I am able to sound out the word, I then match it to my auditory cache.
If I have used or heard the word used meaningfully, only then do I know what the word is and how it fits in the context of the passage I am reading.
Here are your unknown words.
Evereewon lernz if wee r willing tu tri the rite aprochez for eech indeevidooal.
Did you use context clues first or did you sound out the words first?
Luv,
REEDER
I am a student in an ECE class. I am learning about all the different perspectives of others having to do with the teaching and learning process of reading. As I read through the article above and the comments made there after,I was reminded of some my own experiences as a child and how I chose to help my own children to learn. Many of the teachers that my children started with taught by using sight words, but I wanted them to actually be able to sound out the words. I know from experience that you’re not always going automatically recognize every word that you see. I fully understood what the person from comment #7 was saying. I also fully believe in making the learning and teaching process less tedious and more enjoyable for all involved, especially at the younger ages. I think all would be more receptive. I apologize for any computer or typeographical errors I may have made during my response to this article. I am a 40 year old mom going back to school(night courses), and I am a complete COMPUTER illiterate. Sincerely, J.
Ms. Meyer, thank you for your comment here. No apologies are necessary for typos on the Internet. We try to avoid them, but they are a fact of life – especially when you don’t have the power to go back and edit your posts, which is what happens when you comment on a blog.
As we look at various instructional approaches to reading, I think we should be wary of any effort to constrain our choices to a narrow subset of what is available. Each method has its strengths and drawbacks, and no single method has proven best for every learner, in every circumstance. The phonics method may work for some; it may be irrelevant for others. It all depends.
Dear Mr.Noon,
I understand what you are saying about being open minded. I also believe in having a well rounded approach to teaching, whether it be for reading writing, math, science, etc. Every child is different and special in their own way, as well as are their life experiences. I feel that one of their first introductions to literacy is as an infant. All the wonderful sounds(words,noises,and music)they may hear. As they grow, so does their natural instinct for curiosity and yearning for knowledge. I feel a young child will experience, appreciate, and learn more through a fun learning experience rather than tedious and constant repetitivenous(not sure if that’s a real word). I feel if they can enjoy it a little as they learn it, it will stick with them a little longer and make the process a little easier. As they grow so will their learning capabilities and hopefully their interest. I know it is very hard for a single school system to create a curriculum that will hopefully fit every childs needs and capabilities; but I also feel that everywhere you turn it seems that we are trying to speed through childhood into adulthood a little to fast. Some of the experiences they have as a child are the ones that stick with them the most. A child is a child and should be able to learn and experience things in a way that best suits them, not just us. Everyone is unique and special in their own way; young, old, or in between.
Doug,
You are absolutely correct about the fact that different things work with different learners. When districts adopt reading textbooks and call their use “non-negotiable” and insist that teachers use the whole package “to fidelity,” they are preventing teachers from doing what’s right for children and they are cheating children out opportunities for authentic learning. I am a professional whose judgement is not trusted or valued when it comes to deciding what would be best for the kids in my classroom right now. I am fed up.
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