article - what do you think? Bush adm./phonics/teachers/comm

My take is that reading instruction in this country is in a mess and somebody needs to say what the good reading programs are! From what I have read, Open Court IS one of the best.

Janis

Since phonics is a method, not a program, I’m not sure that advancing this *idea* is selling a commercial program. Anyway, if I were selling a phonics program, George W. Bush would be pretty far down on my list of salesmen. Posterboy, maybe…

When your exclusive whole-language ship is sinking and you can’t bail enough water, you eventually have to sink or swim. The truth can hurt ya’ right in the ol’ research.

I have read a lot of research on Open Court and it hasn’t made an inroad on the low 20%. In fact, they are trying to change the program so that it does. We, the public schools haven’t done very well, it is time that the feds step in, particularly in special education reform.

Shay, you know what, though? In that bottom 20% are all the slow learners, all the processing disorder kids, all the children for whom English is a second language, etc. I do not believe there is a reading program on earth that will teach EVERY child by the end of first grade. Why? Because not all children are developmentally ready, and some will need a more intense multi-sensory method and more time for mastery. If Open Court works for 80%, then I’d say that’s better than most everything else out there! My child had Saxon phonics which is also excellent (and somewhat multi-sensory), but because of APD, she just couldn’t master it all last year. She is repeating first grade this year and hopefully is more developmentally ready. Her language scores have increased due to therapy.

I do agree that someone needs to step in when many systems hold to whole language so dearly that they refuse to believe the reading research. If it takes a push to cause change, then so be it.

Janis

Well, I am waiting……………

I personally have serious doubts that the feds can bring about any real and lasting change in children’s reading scores. This is for several reasons (I am against big government):

1. The nation is huge and diverse, the feds are few and far out of touch with the day to day workings in classrooms and communities.

2. For the most part, the people who are pushing their agenda are NOT experienced teachers and child development specialists. They do not understand human growth and development, the art and science of teaching and a host of other things. They treat education like children are robots we can program.

3. The primary ingredient is and always will be a strong teacher. The grassroots level is where the changes need to happen. We need to locate (we have them in my district) the teachers who are having the most success, study what they do, then have them help teach other teachers how they do it.

4. The entire initiative totally ignores the fact that when you take any human activity, people will spread around a bell-shaped curve with respect to their performance on this activity. We will ALWAYS have children who read below grade level, we will always have people who are clumsy, people who are great, good, average, weak and incompetent in any area of human activity. School is no different.

5. Generally there is room for improvement, but the question is how much improvement can we get? We want increasing test scores each year. is there a point where we reach saturation? Are there small variations in groups such that one year’s third grade class may be generally more accelerated than the next? Our teachers note these differences some years. Will we continue to threaten teachers and administrators if we do not every year show gains? What happens when we top out.

6. We need to make demands on parents, too. Let’s demand that all children walk at 12 months. Why not, that is the average? Let’s require parents to create and implement remedial walking programs for those children who dare to be individuals.

OK, we can teach our LD youngsters. Susan does it and very well. But, if you ask her, she will tell you that certain things need to happen. We need to respect that not all children learn at the same speed. Yes, we can differentiate instructional methods, but there is more.

Research has shown us that LD youngsters may need 100 times the number of teaching exposures to learn skills! Stop and take that number in and think about how that translates into day to day teaching. Think about how we cover as much in a year when we must spend an incredible amount of time just teaching every new thing. OK, so fabulous teaching methods and materials might cut that to 50-75 times the number of exposures.

Since when do all children learn at the same pace and with the same ease?

OH, there has been concern because there have been persons who are on the Open Court payroll on the President’s commissions, etc. There has been some entanglement and possible conflict of interest. But, yes, Open Court is a reasonably sound program for a general education teacher to use. Then our teachers need to be able to differentiate and to provide more individualized instruction to the children for whom Open Court is not enough.

Problem is Open Court and other programs tout whole class instruction. Children do not learn at the same rate, so 20% are bound to fail just because they ain’t never going to learn the stuff as fast as the average child.

I loved the statement in the article that the IRA is an apolitical organization. Actually, there’s so much politics in the IRA that it’s like the pot calling the kettle black. The IRA sent out its big guns to workshops all over the US to promote Cunningham’s 4blocks methodology and her results data are less impressive than those of many phonics programs including my own spelling work (http://www.spellangtree.org). Just this week I received notice of a new book by Richard Allington that is an effort to tear down all of the government recommendations. No, I really don’t like the feds interfering in reading education but our schools have failed in many areas to help students. It makes a great political football. Just my thoughts. Grace