multisensory reading instruction

Again, calma, on what basis have you determined that students are reading the words accurately? And I would have to strongly disagree — we may be in boats heading toward the same waterfall, but the action needed to change course would be different. The approaches you “dis” (though without being willing to back up your statements) do, in fact, work *effectively* at getting students out of the boat of inaccurate reading. So, it does matter.
Teaching comprehension skills based on interpretingt what is not accurately read is so often, actually, teaching ways for students to compensate for their lack of knowledge of how to accurately read.

I haven’t “dissed” anyone. I’ve repeatedly said that phonics is an appropriate strategy for some children. My focus was on the false statements made in the NRP summary report about ALL children needing to be taught with systematic, intensive, phonics. I’ve supported those statements to the “nth” degree.

Rather than thoughtfully analyze the facts I presented, the posters on this thread, for the most part, have chosen to personalize their comments, not just “dissing” Whole Lanuage, but me, personally.

There is no way I can present data about Whole Language to the few who have already made up their minds about it. I have been more open-minded than anyone who has posted “anti” Whole Language. A couple of parents described their children’s experiences with Whole Language, and stated how it was wonderful for some, but not all, of their children. I have repeatedly stated that phonics is one of the necessary components of learning to read.

Now, back to the main point I’ve tried over and over to bring to light, only to have my personal philosophy and teaching strategies trashed by some not very respectful people. By doing that, they could ignore and obfuscate the point I was making.

THE NRP SUMMARY REPORT, WHICH IS THE BASIS FOR THE READING FIRST GRANTS AND NCLB, IS FALSE AND CONTRADICTS THE FULL REPORT OF THE NATIONAL READING PANEL. TO USE THESE FALSE CONCLUSIONS TO MANDATE PROGRAMS FOR ALL CHILDREN IS UNCONSCIONABLE.

Now, if you want to continue to slam me, my motives, my teaching style, my success with children, the success I’ve seen over and over and over in Whole Language classrooms, for ALL the students, in all areas of their growth and development, including reading, fine. That’s not really the debate that I’ve tried to thoughtfully engage in.

And Victoria, I NEVER said I was leaving for good. I said I would “try” to ignore this thread. But when you assail my honesty and motives, I need to respond. Please, in the future, refrain from personal comments and casting aspersions on my character.

The claim was that you dissed approaches, not people. Granted it’s not direct; you attempt to discredit the analysis of the research supporting it. However, nobody said you dissed any people.

You basically recanted the conspiracy theory of the whole language umbrella (to quote: “The summary report misrepresented the full report. Phonics was NOT determined necessary for every child. It had minimal value for almost every grade level and type of student. A small number of children with learning disabilities benefit from the inclusion of a phonics program.”

I suspect you are correct to a point about the slanting in the report — but if you want anybody to believe you, don’t slant things so far in the other direction. There is an *awful* lot of research that says that phonics is necessary for most children. I share your frustration with the commercial exploitation of the phonics spin — I remember reading claims that certain reading programs had been “approved” by the reading panel.

HOwever, you should have gone on to say that no program of any type was approved, instead of implying that only phonics programs were not approved. The panel didn’t approve programs, period — correct?

I, too, get frustrated at the way almost *all* the research does specific training in a specific skill and then tests that specific skill, but it’s as much a frustration with the complex nature of reading because if you don’t isolate what you’re researching, you confound it.

You cite second hand information — hey, the whole language publishers have as much of a hand in continuing to sell their products, too, and their books. They do, rather, start from conclusions and work backwards, changing the facts as they see fit to make them fit — just as you suggest the NRP summary does. (However, when you “dis” the choice to limit the analysis to certain research, and completely ignore the very rational and valid reasons for that which were discussed in the report, again, it casts doubts on your other statements.) Where in the report does it say that stuff?

There are many places–cited in my previous very long post on this subject–that explain the flaws in the NRP meta-analysis, the contradictions in the NRP summary, etc. page numbers cited and quotes and all the rest.

You are right, guest, that the full report of the NRP does not recommend any one “program.” However, the Reading First grants are, to my knowledge, only given to school districts that adopt a systematic, intensive phonics program. Generally, those programs are Open Court, Reading Mastery, Houghton Mifflin, DISTAR, etc.

Since the summary report is being used as the basis for the selection of reading programs, any other applications are being denied. Since the summary report mis-stated the conclusions of the full report of the subgroups of the NRP, school districts, teachers, and children are being limited to only one approach—systematic, intensive phonics. An approach that was found unnecessary for MOST children.

As a result, school districts have to expend money on very expensive reading programs–somewhere around $100 + per student–when that money, for most kids, could be used on real children’s books. Staff development money in school districts is focused on phonics, when in fact, comprehension is the greater need for MOST students, as described in the NRP report.

It is the incorrect citing of the results of the NRP research in the summary report that I object to. It is the use of those incorrect results to dictate phonics from K on into high school for ALL students that I object to. It is the use of federal funds to buy ONLY commercial phonics programs that I object to. Just as you want children with reading difficulties to have access to phonics programs, I want children without reading difficulties AND children with reading difficulties to have access to real books, staff development on comprehension strategies (including use of phonics for decoding) etc. When money is used ONLY for certain types of programs, whole groups of children are shut out of what they should be getting in order to learn.

I don’t like that for kids without reading problems any more than I like it for kids with reading problems. Whole Language teachers recognize that each child is an individual, and work to find the best way to teach that child to read.

You, and others, are not providing any factual support for your positions, that I can remember, other than one post from Victoria. I have provided chapter and verse directly from the NRP report and NRP summary report, as well as numerous references. I have already been chastised for writing posts that are too long, so I won’t repeat those items. Go to the source. You can get copies of the reports on-line for free.

Dear Calma,

Perhaps all of us need to take a deep breath and exhale slowly.

I recall an acquaintance who lost her religion in college after a barrage of assaults from her atheistic professors. Then she made a commitment to examine the principles of her faith thoroughly, and she reaffirmed that she truly believed in Roman Catholic doctrines.

You have caused us to reassess our instructional methods and choices of materials.

The replies to your posts on this thread have been valuable (although some comments might have been over the top). When someone hands you a lemon; make lemonade.

Many of us who began to read in the 1930’s memorized the words in the stories in basals. We had little if any phonics instruction. Most of us acquired a phonetic sense. We simple drew the logical conclusion that the f in fox was linked to the sound of f in fan. Yet, even now, I occasionally encounter an unfamiliar word that I cannot decode with any phonics strategy or through context. Some of my classmates who failed to learn to read efficiently might have profited from explicit phonics training.

I have not given the Whole Language method a fair trial. That little I have seen of it in practice with LD children has turned me away. I subscribe to accurate word reading. I also subscribe to knowing the meanings of as many words as possible. Yet I have reason to believe that whole reading is more than the sum of its parts. I have encountered technical material in which I could decode and define every word accurately and not be able to get the gist of a passage.

I was favorably impressed with Victoria’s instructional overview on the thread Sight Words: “I use very structured controlled vocabulary readers that introduce high frequency words and repeat them over and over and over again but each time in different context so it is the word form that is learned, not other details.” Perhaps Victoria will supply the name of the reading materials she uses.

Arthur

Arthur, thank you for your reasoned reply. I’m breathing deeply as I type and think about your comments.

Hi,
Suppose the teacher was to take the text that the student wanted or needed to read and lead the student to decode the words that were presenting problems to the student? Suppose the student was guided to use all senses to decode those words? Suppose the student was helped to get from the written spelling to the “sound spelling” in a concrete, pencil -and-paper, multisensory strategy?
That is how I have been dealing with “whole language” texts for the past 20 years. Whatever I have been expected to help a student read, and there have been a great variety of texts, I have made the decoding multisensory in a logical way. And struggling students have learned how to really make sense of words and text. That is how to really merge “whole language and phonics!”
Contact me at [email protected] if you would like to know more.
Anita

Calma,

Again just a parent. Reading well seems to invovle three different things: decoding, comprehension, and fluency. You seem very focused on comprehension and appear to take decoding for granted.

Someone who has been on the board’s for a long time know how much some parents and teachers have struggled with teaching decoding. And what seems to work there is systematic phonics. The Report validated that. (I provided quotations in an earlier post from the full report.) It did state emphatically that this was absolutely the most successful approach for beginning readers (1st grade) and LD students, who are the center of concern for posters on this board. The results were mixed for older, non-LD students. (Could this be because they did not have the first year in a systematic phonics program but just the second year and, thus, missed some key fundamentals? We don’t know because the report does not go into this level of analysis.) But—and this is key—the report absolutely did not conclude that whole language was more successful in teaching these students to decode. Rather it called for for more research in better ways to reach these students.

Again, if you were a frequent reader of these boards you would also know that comprehension is important concern to many of the posters on this board. But, this problem is generally not tackled until a decent level of decoding has been achieved. Put another way, how do we know they can’t comprehend what they are reading unless they are first reading? It is unclear to me that whole language is a better way to teach comprehension than, for example, the types of verbalization and visualization techniques Lindamood Bell uses, particularly for the LD population this board caters too.

As to fluency, I am unaware of any studies showing that whole language is more effective at addressing this than other systematic methodologies.

I was one of the parents who said that one of my dc learned to read with whole language and is actually a very high level reader at present. But her spelling is all over the place and I emphatically believe it is entirely due to the lack of systematic phonics training.

Also, no one here would dispute the need for school and neighborhood libraries from being well stocked. You appear to believe that they are not because the money is being spent instead on expensive systematic phonics programs. If only it were the case that schools were using systematic phonics to teach reading.

Sorry for the long post.

Well, the following is directly copied out of the NRP report. Not the summary because Calma doesn’t accept that, but the main report.

These statements, measures, studies, and facts. directly contradict just about every claim she has made.

As far as Arthur, he keeps claiming that there aren’t any studies, despite the fact that they are here in front of us.

___________________________________________________

Learning to read is a complex task for beginners. They
must coordinate many cognitive processes to read
accurately and fluently, including recognizing words,
constructing the meanings of sentences and text, and
retaining the information read in memory. An essential
part of the process for beginners involves learning the
alphabetic system, that is, letter-sound correspondences
and spelling patterns, and learning how to apply this
knowledge in their reading. Systematic phonics
instruction is a way of teaching reading that stresses the
acquisition of letter-sound correspondences and their
use to read and spell words (Harris & Hodges, 1995).
Phonics instruction is designed for beginners in the
primary grades and for children having difficulty
learning to read.

The purpose of this report is to examine the research
evidence concerning systematic phonics instruction.
The research literature was searched to identify
experiments that compared the reading performance of
children who had received systematic phonics
instruction to the performance of children given
nonsystematic phonics or no phonics instruction. The
National Reading Panel (NRP) sought answers to the
following questions:
• Does systematic phonics instruction help children
learn to read more effectively than nonsystematic
phonics instruction or instruction teaching no
phonics?
• Are some types of phonics instruction more
effective than others? Are some specific phonics
programs more effective than others?
• Is phonics instruction more effective when students
are taught individually, in small groups, or as whole
classes?
• Is phonics instruction more effective when it is
introduced in kindergarten or 1st grade to students
not yet reading or in later grades after students
have begun to read?
• Is phonics instruction beneficial for children who
are having difficulty learning to read? Is it effective
in preventing reading failure among children who
are at risk for developing reading problems in the
future? Is it effective in remediating reading
difficulties among children who have not made
normal progress in learning to read?
• Does phonics instruction improve children’s ability
to read and comprehend text as well as their
decoding and word-reading skills?
• Does phonics instruction have an impact on
children’s growth in spelling?
• Is phonics instruction effective with children at
different socioeconomic (SES) levels?
• Does the type of instruction given to control groups
as part of a study to evaluate phonics make a
difference?
• If phonics instruction is found to be more effective
than less-phonics or no-phonics instruction, were
the experiments that showed these effects well
designed or poorly designed?
Phonics programs have been used to teach young
children to read as they progress through the primary
grades and to remediate the reading difficulties of poor
readers. The Panel analyzed studies that examined the
effectiveness of phonics programs with three types of
problem readers: children in kindergarten or 1st grade
who were at risk for developing reading problems; older
children of average or better intelligence who were not
making normal progress in reading, referred to as
disabled readers; older children who were progressing
poorly in reading and who varied in intelligence with at
least some of them achieving poorly in other academic
areas, referred to as low-achieving readers.
In evaluating the
evidence, the Panel attempted to rule out weak designs
as the explanation for any positive effects that were
produced by systematic phonics instruction.

To qualify for the analysis,
studies had to meet the following criteria:
1. Studies had to adopt an experimental or quasiexperimental
design with a control group.
2. Studies had to appear in a refereed journal after
1970.
3. Studies had to provide data testing the hypothesis
that systematic phonics instruction improves reading
performance more than instruction providing
unsystematic phonics or no phonics instruction. To
be considered an instance of phonics instruction, the
treatment had to teach children to identify or use
symbol-sound correspondences systematically.
4. Studies had to measure reading as an outcome.
5. Studies had to report statistics permitting the
calculation or estimation of effect sizes.
6. Studies were not those already included in the
NRP’s meta-analysis of phonemic awareness
training studies.

Short-term laboratory studies
and studies that taught only a limited set of processes
were eliminated. Also eliminated were studies that
simply compared different forms of phonics instruction
but did not include a control group receiving reduced
phonics or no phonics. Of the 75 studies screened, 38
were retained and 37 were eliminated from the final set
used to calculate effect sizes.

1. Does systematic phonics instruction
help children learn to read more
effectively than nonsystematic phonics
instruction or instruction teaching no
phonics?
Children’s reading was measured at the end of training
if it lasted less than a year or at the end of the first
school year of instruction. The mean overall effect size
produced by phonics instruction was moderate in size
and statistically greater than zero, d = 0.44. Findings
provided solid support for the conclusion that systematic
phonics instruction makes a bigger contribution to
children’s growth in reading than alternative programs
providing unsystematic or no phonics instruction.
2. Are some types of phonics instruction
more effective than others? Are some
specific phonics programs more effective
than others?
The conclusion supported by these findings is
that various types of systematic phonics approaches are
significantly more effective than non-phonics
approaches in promoting substantial growth in reading.
3. Is phonics taught more effectively when
students are tutored individually or when
they are taught in small groups or when
they are taught as classes?
All three delivery systems proved to be effective ways
of teaching phonics, with effect sizes of d = 0.57
(tutoring), d = 0.43 (small group), and d = 0.39 (whole
class). All effect sizes were statistically greater than
zero, and no one differed significantly from the others.
This supports the conclusion that systematic phonics
instruction is effective when delivered through tutoring,
through small groups, and through teaching classes of
students.
4. Is phonics instruction more effective
when it is introduced to students not yet
reading, in kindergarten or 1st grade,
than when it is introduced in grades
above 1st after students have already
begun to read?
Phonics instruction taught early proved much more
effective than phonics instruction introduced after first
grade. Mean effect sizes were kindergarten d = 0.56;
first grade d = 0.54; 2nd through 6th grades d = 0.27.
The conclusion drawn is that phonics instruction
produces the biggest impact on growth in reading when
it begins in kindergarten or 1st grade before children
have learned to read independently. These results
indicate clearly that systematic phonics instruction in
kindergarten and 1st grade is highly beneficial and that
children at these developmental levels are quite capable
of learning phonemic and phonics concepts. To be
effective, systematic phonics instruction introduced in
kindergarten must be appropriately designed for
learners and must begin with foundational knowledge
involving letters and phonemic awareness.
5. Is phonics instruction beneficial for
children who are having difficulty learning
to read? Is it effective in preventing
reading failure among children who are
at risk for developing reading problems in
the future? Is it effective in remediating
reading difficulties in children who have
been diagnosed as reading disabled and
children who are low-achieving readers?
Phonics instruction produced substantial reading growth
among younger children at risk of developing future
reading problems. Effect sizes were d = 0.58 for
kindergartners at risk and d = 0.74 for 1st graders at
risk. Phonics instruction also significantly improved the
reading performance of disabled readers (i.e., children
with average IQs but poor reading) for whom the effect
size was d = 0.32. These effect sizes were all
statistically greater than zero. However, phonics
instruction failed to exert a significant impact on the
reading performance of low-achieving readers in 2nd
through 6th grades (i.e., children with reading
difficulties and possibly other cognitive difficulties
explaining their low achievement). The effect size was
d = 0.15, which was not statistically greater than
chance. Possible reasons might be that the phonics
instruction provided to low-achieving readers was not
sufficiently intense, or that their reading difficulties
arose from sources not treated by phonics instruction
such as poor comprehension, or there were too few
cases (i.e., only eight treatment-control comparisons
pulled from three studies) to yield reliable findings.
The conclusion drawn from these findings is that
systematic phonics instruction is significantly more
effective than non-phonics instruction in helping to
prevent reading difficulties among at risk students and
in helping to remediate reading difficulties in disabled
readers. No conclusion is drawn in the case of lowachieving
readers because it is unclear why systematic
phonics instruction produced little growth in their
reading and whether the finding is even reliable. Further
research is needed to determine what constitutes
adequate remedial instruction for low-achieving
readers.
6. Does phonics instruction improve
children’s reading comprehension ability
as well as their decoding and wordreading
skills?
Systematic phonics instruction was most effective in
improving children’s ability to decode regularly spelled
words (d = 0.67) and pseudowords (d = 0.60). This was
expected because the central focus of systematic
phonics programs is upon teaching children to apply the
alphabetic system to read novel words. Systematic
phonics programs also produced growth in the ability to
read irregularly spelled words although the effect size
was significantly lower, d = 0.40. This is not surprising
because a decoding strategy is less helpful for reading
these words. However, alphabetic knowledge is useful
for establishing connections in memory that help
children read irregular words they have read before.
This may explain the contribution of phonics.
Systematic phonics instruction produced significantly
greater growth than non-phonics instruction in younger
children’s reading comprehension ability (d = 0.51).
However, the effects of systematic phonics instruction
on text comprehension in readers above 1st grade were
mixed. Although gains were significant for the subgroup
of disabled readers (d = 0.32), they were not significant
for the older group in general (d = 0.12).
The conclusion drawn is that growth in word-reading
skills is strongly enhanced by systematic phonics
instruction when compared to non-phonics instruction
for kindergartners and 1st graders as well as for older
struggling readers. Growth in reading comprehension is
also boosted by systematic phonics instruction for
younger students and reading disabled students. These
findings should dispel the any belief that teaching
phonics systematically to young children interferes with
their ability to read and comprehend text. Quite the
opposite is the case. Whether growth in reading
comprehension is produced generally in students above
1st grade is less clear.
8. Is phonics instruction effective with
children at different SES levels?
Systematic phonics instruction helped children at all
SES levels make significantly greater gains in reading
than did non-phonics instruction. The effect size for low
SES students was d = 0.66 and for middle-class
students was d = 0.44. Both were statistically greater
than zero and did not differ from each other. The
conclusion drawn is that systematic phonics instruction
is beneficial to students regardless of their SES.
9. Does the type of control group used to
evaluate the effectiveness of phonics
instruction make a difference?
The type of nonsystematic or non-phonics instruction
given to control groups to evaluate the effectiveness of
systematic phonics instruction varied across studies and
included the following types: basal programs, regular
curriculum, whole language approaches, whole word
programs, and miscellaneous programs. The question of
whether systematic phonics instruction produced better
reading growth than each type of control group was
answered affirmatively in each case. The effect sizes
were all positive favoring systematic phonics, were all
statistically greater than zero, and ranged from d = 0.31
to 0.51. No single effect size differed from any of the
others.
The conclusion supported by these findings is that the
effectiveness of systematic phonics instruction found in
the present meta-analysis did not depend on the type of
instruction that students in the control groups received.
Students taught phonics systematically outperformed
students who were taught a variety of nonsystematic or
non-phonics programs, including basal programs, whole
language approaches, and whole-word programs.

effects of phonics instruction well
designed or poorly designed
experiments? That is, was random
assignment used? Were the sample sizes
sufficiently large? Might results be
explained by differences between
treatment and control groups that existed
prior to the experiment rather than by
differences produced by the experimental
intervention?
The effects of systematic phonics instruction were not
diminished when only the best designed experiments
were singled out. The mean effect size for studies using
random assignment to place students in treatment and
control groups, d = 0.45, was essentially the same as
that for studies employing quasi-experimental designs, d
= 0.43, which used existing groups to compare phonics
instruction and non-phonics instruction. The mean
effect size for studies administering systematic phonics
and non-phonics instruction to large samples of students
did not differ from studies using the fewest students.
For studies using between 80 and 320 students, d =
0.49; for studies using between 20 and 31students, d =
0.48. There were some studies that did not use random
assignment and either failed to address the issue of preexisting
differences between treatment and control
groups or mentioned that a difference existed but did
not adjust for differences in their analysis of results.
The effect sizes changed very little when these
comparisons were removed from the database, from d
= 0.44 to d = 0.46.
The conclusion drawn is that the significant effects
produced by systematic phonics instruction on children’s
growth in reading were evident in the most rigorously
designed experiments. Significant effects did not arise
primarily from the weakest studies.

1. Is enough known about systematic
phonics instruction to make
recommendations for classroom
implementation? If so, what cautions
should be kept in mind by teachers
implementing phonics instruction?
Findings of the Panel regarding the effectiveness of
systematic phonics instruction were derived from
studies conducted in many classrooms with typical
classroom teachers and typical American or Englishspeaking
students from a variety of backgrounds and
SES levels. Thus, the results of the analysis are
indicative of what can be accomplished when
systematic phonics programs are implemented in
today’s classrooms. Systematic phonics instruction has
been used widely over a long period of time with
positive results. A variety of phonics programs have
proven effective with children of different ages,
abilities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. These facts
should persuade educators and the public that
systematic phonics instruction is a valuable part of a
successful classroom reading program. The Panel’s
findings summarized above serve to illuminate the
conditions that make phonics instruction especially
effective. However, caution is needed in giving a
blanket endorsement to all kinds of phonics instruction.
It is important to recognize that the goals of phonics
instruction are to provide children with some key
knowledge and skills and to insure that they know how
to apply this knowledge in their reading and writing.
Phonics teaching is a means to an end. To be able to
make use of letter-sound information, children need
phonemic awareness. That is, they need to be able to
blend sounds together to decode words, and they need
to break spoken words into their constituent sounds to
write words. Programs that focus too much on the
teaching of letter-sounds relations and not enough on
putting them to use are unlikely to be very effective. In
implementing systematic phonics instruction, educators
must keep the end in mind and insure that children
understand the purpose of learning letter-sounds and
are able to apply their skills in their daily reading and
writing activities.
Finally, it is important to emphasize that systematic
phonics instruction should be integrated with other
reading instruction to create a balanced reading
program. Phonics instruction is never a total reading
program. In 1st grade, teachers can provide controlled
vocabulary texts that allow students to practice
decoding, and they can also read quality literature to
students to build a sense of story and to develop
vocabulary and comprehension. Phonics should not
become the dominant component in a reading program,
neither in the amount of time devoted to it nor in the
significance attached. It is important to evaluate
children’s reading competence in many ways, not only
by their phonics skills but also by their interest in books
and their ability to understand information that is read to
them. By emphasizing all of the processes that
contribute to growth in reading, teachers will have the
best chance of making every child a reader.

Chall’s (1967) review examined both the underlying
theory and the classroom realities of these new phonics
programs. But the core of her study was a
comprehensive analysis of the research up to the
mid-1960s, including the then-unpublished First Grade
Studies. Chall’s basic conclusion continues to be cited to
this day, her finding that early and systematic instruction
in phonics seems to lead to better achievement in
reading than later and less systematic phonics
instruction.
Chall’s (1967) basic finding has been reaffirmed in
nearly every research review conducted since then
(e.g., Adams, 1990; Anderson et al., 1985; Balmuth,
1982). Also, one of the coordinators of the First Grade
Studies (Dykstra, 1968) published an analysis in which
he concluded that the results of that project supported
Chall’s basic finding (Adams, 1990). Nevertheless, the
controversy has persisted over this issue (Grundin,
1994; Taylor, 1998; Weaver, 1998). Part of the reason
that the debate has continued is that phonics instruction
has become entangled with politics and ideology
(Goodman, 1993; McKenna, Stahl, & Reinking, 1994;
Stahl, 1999). Another reason has been philosophical
disagreements about how children learn to read and
confusions about the implications of these varied points
of view.

In the present day, whole language approaches have
replaced the whole word method as the alternative to
systematic phonics programs. The shift has involved a
change from very little letter-sound instruction in 1st
grade to a modicum of letter-sounds taught
unsystematically. In contrast to the whole word method,
whole language teachers are not told to wait until a
certain point before teaching children about letter-sound
relationships. Whereas in the 1960s, it would have been
easy to find a 1st grade reading program without any
phonics instruction, in the 1980s and 1990s this would
be rare. Baumann, Hoffman, Moon, and Duffy-Hester
(1998), in a national survey of 1,207 elementary school
teachers, found that 63% believed that phonics should
be taught directly and that 89% believed that skills
instruction should be combined with literature and
language-rich activities. Fisher, Lapp, and Flood (1999),
in a survey of 118 California teachers, found that 64%
of the K through 2 teachers integrated phonics
instruction into their lessons (with some extra isolated
phonics), and the remainder taught phonics as a
separate part of word study.
Whole language teachers typically provide some
instruction in phonics, usually as part of invented
spelling activities or through the use of graphophonemic
prompts during reading (Routman, 1996). However,
their approach is to teach it unsystematically and
incidentally in context as the need arises. The whole
language approach regards letter-sound
correspondences, referred to as graphophonemics, as
just one of three cueing systems (the others being
semantic/meaning cues and syntactic/language cues)
that are used to read and write text. Whole language
teachers believe that phonics instruction should be
integrated into meaningful reading, writing, listening, and
speaking activities and taught incidentally when they
perceive it is needed. As children attempt to use written
language for communication, they will discover naturally
that they need to know about letter-sound relationships
and how letters function in reading and writing. When
this need becomes evident, teachers are expected to
respond by providing the instruction.
Although some phonics is included in whole language
instruction, important differences have been observed
distinguishing this approach from systematic phonics
approaches. In several vignettes portraying phonics
instruction in whole language contexts (Dahl, Sharer,
Lawson, & Grogran, 1999; Freppon & Dahl, 1991;
Freppon & Headings, 1996; Mills, O’Keefe, &
Stephens, 1992), few if any instances of vowel
instruction were found (Stahl, Duffy-Hester, & Stahl,
1998). This contrasts with systematic phonics programs
where the teaching of vowels is central and is
considered essential for enabling children to decode
(Shankweiler & Liberman, 1972).
Another practice that is found in some systematic
phonics programs but is not found in whole language
programs is that of teaching children to say the sounds
of letters and blend them to decode unfamiliar words.
Programs that teach this procedure are referred to as
synthetic phonics programs. Systematic phonics
programs also commonly teach children an extensive,
pre-specified set of letter-sound correspondences or
phonograms while whole language programs teach a
more limited set, in context, as needed. Systematic
phonics programs teach phonics explicitly by delineating
a planned, sequential set of phonic elements and
teaching these elements explicitly and systematically;
some systematic phonics programs also use controlled
vocabulary (decodable text) to provide practice with
these elements. Whole language programs do not
prespecify the relations to be taught. It is presumed that
exposing children to letter-sound relations as they read
text will foster incidental learning of the relations they
need to develop as readers.
The meta-analysis was conducted to compare the
effectiveness of systematic phonics instruction to other
forms of instruction lacking an emphasis on phonics.
Included in the database were several studies that
provided whole language instruction to control groups
and studies teaching whole word programs to control
groups. In fact, two studies in the database were
conducted for the purpose of evaluating the effects of
whole language programs, not phonics programs. In
these studies, phonics was the form of instruction given
to control groups (Klesius et al., 1991; Freppon, 1991).

Studies
indicate that knowing letters and having phonemic
awareness are essential for learning to use the
alphabetic system to read and spell words (see the
NRP review of phonemic awareness instruction). Thus,
formal, systematic phonics instruction that expects
students to learn to decode words in kindergarten may
be too much.
On the other hand, in countries such as New Zealand
and the United Kingdom, the practice of introducing
children to reading and writing at the age of 5 in full-day
programs has existed for many years. The Reading
Recovery© program (Clay, 1993) is designed to pick up
the stragglers having difficulty at the age of 6, when
North American children are typically just beginning
reading instruction. Thus, the notion that kindergartners
are not ready for formal reading instruction at age 5 is
questionable.
The most important grade for teaching phonics is
thought to be 1st grade when formal instruction in
reading typically begins in the United States. Children
have foundational knowledge and are ready to put it to
use in learning to read and write. In contrast,
introducing phonics instruction in grades above 1st
means that children who were taught to read in some
other way may be required to switch gears in order to
incorporate phonics procedures into their reading and
writing. The database included studies that introduced
phonics to students at various grade levels. The
question addressed in the meta-analysis was whether
the grade level in which phonics instruction was
introduced made any difference in the outcomes
observed
It is important to distinguish between the methods of
teaching reading and the processes that learners
acquire as they receive instruction and learn to read.
Sometimes the two may be confused. For example, the
term “sight word” has a “methods” meaning and a
“process” meaning. As a method, sight words are the
high-frequency, irregularly spelled words students are
taught to read as unanalyzed wholes, often on flash
cards, for example, said, once, their, come. In contrast,
the “process meaning” of sight words refers to words
that are stored in readers’ heads and that enable them
to read those words immediately upon seeing them. Not
just high-frequency words but all words that readers
practice reading become retained as sight words in
memory.
Methods of teaching reading are aimed at helping
learners acquire the processes they need to develop
skill as readers. In considering how phonics instruction
promotes growth in reading, it is important to describe
the reading processes that learners are expected to
acquire.
Learning to read can be analyzed as involving two basic
processes (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough,
1990). One process involves learning to convert the
letters into recognizable words. The other involves
comprehending the meaning of the print. When children
attain reading skill, they learn to perform both of these
processes so that their attention and thought are
focused on the meaning of the text while word reading
processes operate unobtrusively and out of awareness
for the most part. Children acquire comprehension skill
in the course of learning to speak. Comprehension
processes that children use to understand spoken
language are thought to be the same ones that they use
to read and understand text. In contrast, children do not
acquire word reading skill in the course of learning to
speak. This achievement requires special experiences
and instruction.

A few studies examined effects of phonics instruction
several months after the treatment had ended. The
specific comparisons together with their properties are
listed in Table 4 (Appendix E). Followup tests were
administered from 4 months to 1 year after training. As
shown in Table 3, the effect size remained significantly
greater than zero, indicating that the impact of phonics
instruction lasted well beyond the end of training
although its size was somewhat diminished (from d =
0.51 to d = 0.27).

Phonics instruction was expected to exert a
significant but smaller impact on the ability to read
miscellaneous words that included irregularly spelled
words. Although alphabetic knowledge is not helpful for
decoding irregularly spelled words, it does help children
remember how to read these words (Ehri, 1998).

The above findings suggest that when phonics
instruction is introduced and taught in kindergarten or
1st grade to readers who have little reading ability, it
produces a larger effect than when phonics is
introduced in grades above 1st grade with readers who
have already acquired some reading skills. However,
before concluding that phonics is truly less effective
with older children, it is important to consider several
mitigating factors. The majority of the comparisons in
the older group, 78%, involved either low achieving or
disabled readers. Remediating their reading problems
may be especially difficult. In addition, there were only
seven comparisons involving older, normally developing
readers, and four of these came from one study using
the Orton-Gillingham method, a program developed for
disabled readers, not for non-disabled upper elementary
level readers. Perhaps other types of phonics programs
designed expressly to improve reading in older nondisabled
children might prove more effective. This
question awaits more research.
The outcome measure was the overall effect size
averaged across the six specific measures. Effect sizes
significantly greater than zero were evident for five of
the six groups of readers. From Table 3, it is apparent
that phonics instruction contributed to growth in reading
in all groups but the 2nd through 6th grade low achiever
group.
They suggest
that when phonics instruction is taught to children at the
outset of learning to read and continued for 2 to 3 years,
the children experience significantly greater growth in
reading at the end of training than children who receive
phonics instruction for only 1 year after 1st grade.
One of the 11 studies in the Larger Unit category, that
by Tunmer and Hoover (1993), produced an atypical
effect size, d = 3.71, which was much larger than the
other effects. It should be noted that this study was
atypical in that it was more intensive than most others.
It involved one-on-one tutoring by highly trained
teachers, and it combined phonemic awareness,
phonics, and Reading Recovery© instructional
strategies.

When systematic phonics instruction is introduced to
children who have already acquired some reading skill
as a result of another program that does not emphasize
phonics, one wonders about the impact of attempting to
teach students new strategies when old tricks have
already been learned. Findings of the Panel indicated
that the impact of systematic phonics instruction was
much reduced among children who were introduced to
it presumably for the first time in 2nd grade and above.
(This presumption may not be accurate, however,
because most studies did not state what kind of
instruction children had already experienced.)
Additional research is needed to study how systematic
phonics instruction is received by children who are
already reading; whether there are sources of conflict;
and, if so how to address them instructionally. A related
question is whether the sequence of instruction makes a
difference. It may be that children do better when a
year of systematic phonics instruction precedes a year
of whole language instruction than when the reverse is
the case.

Dear Victoria,

Thank you for the “heads up” in your post: Thu May 13, 2004 3:13 am Post subject: sorry this is long “As far as Arthur, he keeps claiming that there aren’t any studies, despite the fact that they are here in front of us.”

I have searched this thread for my posts. I have found three: May 10, 11, and 12. I have not found the word “studies” in any of them. The fact that I have not used the word “studies” is no excuse for my lack of clarity. I concede that I have misled you and others with questions like: “Does research tell us which is the more successful method for teaching reading to students: Whole Language or Phonics? I apologize for my imprecision.

I do not have fond memories of the reading research studies I have attempted to read. I nodded off, and my eyes glazed over as I skipped over the charts, tables, standard deviations, and chi-R squared. I would read the conclusions hoping to find a germ of insight that would help me to teach my students. I suspect that many research reports go unread and that few of the results can be translated into classroom applications.

I seek a far less rigorous investigation. I seek evidence to support tutorial progress reports and provide meaningful information for parents of LD students.

A parent is entitled to a progress report about four or five times during a school year. Teachers often hear the question: “How is (blank) doing?” The teacher might reply: “(Blank) is making outstanding progress –or- above average progress -or- very little progress.”

What evidence does the teacher have to answer a parent’s million dollar question: “How does my child’s decoding and comprehension measure up to other second grade children her (or his) age?”

Arthur

Arthur: alas, fond memories are not the issue.
The issue is actually teaching kids to read and write.

Real scholarship for adults, real teaching jobs, and real reading for kids may not always be warm fuzzies, they may, *gasp*, actually involve some hard work.
Some of us are grown up enough to do the hard work and accept delayed gratification.

When you say you seek something far *less* rigorous, my impression is that you are playing games. When people give short, concise notes, you demand proof; when we produce proof, you demand more proof; when we come out with the whole thing on demand, you say you want something less rigorous. Really, if the issue of teaching reading weren’t so important, I would just forget trying to talk to you, you play so many silly games.

I’m not so sure about the playing games part, but it is true that reading real research of any kind is not fun stuff. Real research with real statistics that is really controlled, etc. is not light reading.

If you want less rigorous research in reading, you are likely to get some sloppy studies. The real research has controls and that sort of thing. If you want to go quickly thru the research I don’t think anyone would really fault you. I do think some people’s comprehension of such stuff may be limited. I have forced myself on occasion, having a significant comprehension problem (no not due to my grand phonics background,
didn’t have it I taught myself to read at 3, but due to Aspergers). But you may be missing some key piece of info— like how many, how long, who, what population, etc etc. So maybe you need to do the same thing (force yourself on occasion to get that really rigorous research). It is necessary to take a look at these real studies to really see what actually works. Feel good “research” is out there and won’t tell you diddily.

The less rigorous stuff usually tells people whatever they want to hear. And you can find less rigorous “research” that lets you believe whatever you want to hear. Does Reading Rescue, Hooked on Phonics, or whatever “work”? No doubt you will find something out there assuring you that it teaches dyslexics, blind, deaf, etc.

Want to find what REALLY works? Well then that takes reading the dull stuff!!

There is some poorly done (or just comparison reviews) of OG approaches as well. But in the end they don’t really tell you too much.

—des

Bottom line: Is there a test at the tutorial level to measure progress in reading?

I take full responsibility for giving the false impression that I want proof that Systematic Phonics is superior to Whole Language (or vice versa) as a method for improving the reading ability of LD students.

I merely want to know the names of a test or tests a tutor can use to measure interim and final reading ability and how to translate the results to parents in a meaningful way.

The publishers of older basal readers used to do this. Scott, Foresman – Harcourt, Brace – Silver, Burdett supplied teachers with unit tests. Teachers were able to administer, score, and report progress (or the lack of it) to parents. The validity and reliability of the tests are open to question. At the very least, they provided some evidence—a comfort level, if you will—to support report card grades.

On Tue May 11, 2004 9:07 pm Victoria posted on the thread: Sight Words

”Over time — and the amount of time will depend on the student and any disabilities she may have — the student develops the ability to scan at speed until it’s *faster* than searching the overloaded memory banks for sight words.
No kiddding — just had a little girl working in her second language, eight months ago was barely reading primer level, today reading fluently a story at the grade 2 level, three or four multisyllable words pronounced smoothly with no trouble although (being second language) I had to go back and tell her what they mean”

That’s the kind of report I want to be able to give to parents. Yet there are some questions. Are these subjective opinions, or are they based on formal testing? If so, what test or tests were administered? What is primer level reading? What is a grade 2 level?

Calma could report that she reads predicable text to children like: “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?” as they looked at pictures and responded orally, “I saw a red bird looking at me.”

Calma could report that her students can not only read the word “red;” they can read at the grade 2 level with comprehension.

Victoria could reply: “Can you verify your claim, Calma? Furthermore, I am not impressed. I have taught my students to match sounds with letters rather quickly, and they can read bed, dead, fed head, led, Ned, red, Ted, and wed—with comprehension.”

What evidence does each of these dedicated teachers have to support the grade score on her students’ report cards?

Arthur

We usually used the GORT (Gray Oral Reading Test) and teh DSPT (Diagnostic Spelling Potential Test), each with an A and B version, at the end of each year (or the beginning of the year for new students). We also used a test of nonsense syllables of assorted types, and of course our observations of error patterns as manifest on said tests and on daily oral reading.

What’s that have to do with anything?

Sue, Des — Arthur has been here before. He has shifted ground on discussions/arguments so many times that I’m just tired of trying to play the verbal games. He describes his sight word reading program with all sorts of positive connotations, warm fuzzies all over the place; and describes phonics with all sorts of negative connotations, as some sort of painful treatment and horrible-tasting medicine that nobody would ever inflict on a child unless desperate and maybe not even then, maybe it’s better to be illiterate than to suffer the treatment. All I can say is to read his posts critically (a skill many people here promise to teach but I’m not sure how many deliver).

Tests: in my position, other people take care of official testing for me. I work as a private tutor, totally independent from the school system, no contact at all, except now and then a parent asks me for an evaluation to take in to meetings. This is in some ways good, because the testing cannot possibly be biased in any way by my actions.
If I start working with a child in the middle of Grade 2 and he is categorized as “severely dyslexic” and there is discussion of sending him to another city a hundred miles a way to go to a special LD school because the local school system has no services for him, and a year later with no other intervention than mine, in the middle of Grade 3 he is getting A and B marks in regular Grade 3 classes - in his second language with no other outside support - then either a miracle has occurred or my intervention did a heck of a lot of good.
After five or six students like this, the likelihood of miracles is very low and the likelihood of my intervention working is high.
Or am I a reading/language/math faith-healer?? I don’t think so! Other people use the same methods and materials and get apparent miracles too.

I also do non-normed testing all the time; I use very carefully graded materials in two different languages, and if in October the student cannot read Level One much less anything else, but in December she can read Level Two, and in March she can read Level Five *and* is passing grade level work in school, that tells us that progress is being made. I have a very strict definition of “can read” — I give the child totally unfamiliar work, absolutely cold, no preparation whatever, and ask her to read orally. Either she says the sentences that are written on the page or she doesn’t. More than five errors on the page (a page with 100 to 500 words of running text, NON predictable) and I’ll say she’s weak, more than ten errors and I’ll drop to a lower level. Errors are any word said incorrectly and not self-corrected, and any word not said or having to be helped by the teacher/tester. The materials are levelled by ever-increasing vocabulary load in English, ever-increasing phonics code in French, along with ever-increasing sentence length and complexity. This is a systematic, objective, reproducible test. Any person can repeat the test with a different page of the same book, or another on the same level, and see the same thing.
The same in writing; if the child literally cannot write a two-letter word and cannot form half the letters of the alphabet in the middle of Grade 2, and is writing full grammatical sentences in his second language by the middle of Grade 3, with the two hundred common words spelled correctly and the rest phonetic, then it is obvious that progress is being made. This is also objective and can be reproduced by anyone - just dictate a sentence from his reading series and have him write. The work in his book shows a steady record of change, mostly improvement.
The school tests and marks provide confirmation of the accuracy of these measures as well.

PS — on the accuracy thing and why I am such a picky ***** about it — I posted dire warnings two days ago and here is a terrible tragic example on the news today, CNN.

A retired engineer driving down the highway saw damage to an overpass and called in to 911 to report the danger to the public — a responsible and competent engineer. He reported that an *I-beam* was damaged.
An I-beam is one of those multi-ton chunks of steel that holds fifty feet of overpass up; if you look at the end of one it is shaped like a capital I, hence the name.
Well, the 911 operator didn’t recognize the word “I-beam” *and* didn’t ask for enough clarification or ask him to spell it out; she thought he must mean “sign” and reported it to the state highway department as a damaged sign. The workers went up and down the road looking for a damaged sign, not too urgently as it would be a minor hazard. The I-beam on the overpass collapsed and killed an entire family.

But hey, if you replace an unfamiliar word with one that you do know and it makes sense in the sentence, that’s just fine, isn’t it?

Virginia, I don’t know this person (Arthur) and just try to assume the best. OTOH, I recognize people CAN and do play games on the board.

I am also totally unimpressed with sight word programs of any kind, including the expensive Edmark Reading with all its little tricks and cute little readers. I think they have some limited applications (severely autistic children with limited verbal language, retarded children with limited language, moderately mentally retarded deaf children, etc). The common denominator here is a severe language delay. (Though in that case I would tend to go to the homemade and related to the child’s particular world.)

IMO, they have no place with dyslexic or other ld children.
In actual use they would limit a child to about a first or second grade reading level. Teaching a lot of sight words makes no sense for most children are capable of learning to read and spell any word.

I agree it isn’t as warm and fuzzy. I think any tutor or teacher here who is using research based methods could quote some similar stories to yours. (Maybe not as many in my case, as I haven’t been doing it so long.) These same kids have had years and years of sight words and whole language and not succeeded at it.

—des

In a post Tue May 18, 2004 10:07 pm, Sue J asked, “What’s that [testing reading ability] have to do with anything?”

Reading teachers prepare instructional objectives. They need to know when students have and have not met those objectives.

Testing reading has several objectives: (l) One kind of reading test measures reading ability for the purpose of finding and comparing the level at which a student is functioning in comparison with her or his peers. Many parents want this information. (2) Another kind of reading test measures progress at intervals in an attempt to discover if a student is making reasonable progress. (3) Testing serves as a guide in determining whether the intervention being employed is working or if it needs to be changed. (4) Testing reveals that an instructional objective has or has not been achieved. (5) A test is a guide to future teaching.

Teachers using either the Whole Language or the Systematic Phonics method do not expect to be teaching 60, 40, or 20 year-old students.

Johnny’s father was an office clerk. He was not at all mechanically inclined, but he did not earn much money so he attempted such tasks at home in an effort to economize. His automobile was not functioning properly, so one hot Saturday in August he crawled underneath the vehicle and attempted to loosen a nut. He was perspiring, and oil dripped onto his cheeks. He had skinned the knuckle on his middle finger, and the wound—now partially covered with black grease—was beginning to sting. Worse than the physical pain was the mental anguish that he might be doing more harm than good.

Five year old Johnny walked up to the family car and asked pleasantly, “Whatcha doin’, Dad?” His patience exhausted, the father snapped, “Nothing!” With the rare wisdom that springs from the pure innocence of children, Johnny asked, “Then how are you going to know when you’re done?”

While learning to read is never done, educators can and should prepare and measure objectives on the path to literacy.

Arthur

des,

Since reading that heartbreaking post on the importance of accuracy, I feel compelled to again mention that you are talking to Victoria…there is no one named Virginia here.

Janis

Arthur, Ishould have been more specific. I should have specified “what does that have to do with anything on this discussion?”

(Yes, Victoria, I know Art… and tend to keep my posts short; he does tend to digress and has some fascinating assumptions about how we perceive words that are strikingly inconsistent with others’ research or experience, my own experience included.)

>Since reading that heartbreaking post on the importance of accuracy, I feel compelled to again mention that you are talking to Victoria…there is no one named Virginia here.

Janis[/quote]

Sorry sorry, I’m just sitting here playing with my mental blocks.
Sorry Virginia, woops I mean Victoria. :-)

—des

Des, Janis — as someone, I think Sue said here, Des can call me anything, just don’t call me late for dinner. I do appreciate the correct name and become quite unpleasant when people try to give me a cutesy nickname, but that’s a whole nother story.

Sue — digression is one thing and I’m guilty of it myself. Would be a lot more guilty if it were not for the backspace on computer keyboards (if you think some of my posts are long, you should see them before they’re brutally pruned.)
Arthur, however, is not digressing; he is deliberately shifting the ground so you can never ever have a reasonable discussion/argument with him because he never answers the question, justs finds another cute anecdote on a slightly different topic to put you in the wrong so he can smile down on you in his paternalistic way. As per example the adorable warm fuzzy in his last post about the dad fixing the car and the little kid — what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
Sue clearly outlined a bunch of very formal normed testing that she does, and I very clearly outlined non-normed but objective and reproducible testing that I do, also backed up by independent measures — and Arthur continues to tell his little stories, implying that we are not measuring and therefore don’t know what we are doing, to try to make us look like incompetents and ignoramuses (ignorami?) Since we *are* indeed measuring, his response is not material and the underlying insult is unpleasant.
After a few hundred exchanges with Arthur, I have found it is impossible to reason with him so I just deconstruct his little implied nasties to try to avoid extending the game-playing.

A hint from someone who has spent far too much time dealing with passive-aggressives: if somebody says something that is supposed to be nice and helpful but it leaves you with an itchy or undressed feeling and a bad taste in your mouth, take a second and third look and find the “gotcha!” underneath.
Then ask youself if you want to take academic or professional advice from such a source.

As far as following the research, well, yes, Arthur does follow the research — the totally outdated and largely disproved research of Gates and others in the 1920’s and 30’s. If you would drive a Model T and live without a refirgerator or antibiotics, then his theoretical backing is just fine for you. If you think that science and psychological measurement and lab tools, as well as standards of statistics etc., have improved over the last seventy years, then you probably want to look at newer ideas.

I was the one who suggested you wouldn’t want to be called late for dinner. :-)

But back to the subject, I have to agree I have found some of Arthur’s posts confusing and annoying. I am not quite sure what they are suggesting. For example, what did that cute little story mean? What does it have to do with reading?

At another point he said “we” all learned to so much about WL, and we were all not going to judge it so badly. I took this to be a sign of trying to be nice and cooperate, but I have to say it did grate on me. No “we” did not all think that.

As a matter of fact, I have seen an excellent, as excellent as any teacher could be, teach whole language. And if they were all that excellent, none of us would need to worry perhaps, even though I was bothered a bit by some of her phonics instruction. (There would still be dyslexic children, and it would still be inappropriate for the kids I work with! I’m not sure how it would fare in reducing reading failure either.)

I also did not know quite what to think of the “give us proof” and then he gets proof and he doesn’t like it because it isn’t easy to read type position. Since when is research easy to read!?

Still I don’t know Arthur. OTOH, I feel I almost know Victoria (or “never call her late for dinner”). Regardless of what the issue is, I have come to trust that what she writes is pretty much dead on.

—des

On Fri May 21, 2004 12:11 am DES wrote:
‘I have to agree I have found some of Arthur’s posts confusing and annoying. I am not quite sure what they are suggesting. For example, what did that cute little story mean? What does it have to do with reading? At another point he said “we” all learned to so much about WL, and we were all not going to judge it so badly.’

The meaning of the story is that when people begin tasks they can usually state when the task will be finished. Consider phonics instruction. How is mastery measured? How do tutors know they have taught their students all the phonics they need to know?

Readers of this thread will note that the word “we” does not appear in my posts of: 05-10, 05-11, 05-18, or 05-19. I did post on 05-11:
“Reasonable people could agree on the superiority of a reading method to teach LD children if WE only had a valid, reliable test.”

Brilliant, experienced, reading educators combined their research findings to write the NRP Report. Their final product supported systematic phonics to teach reading. It would be the height of vanity to conclude that my meager knowledge of reading instruction was equal to or superior to theirs.

I became acquainted with the pre-eminent reading method for LD students during two six-week summer workshops. It is named: Lindamood-Bell. The workshop topic for this thread is: multisensory reading instruction. L-B is certainly multi-sensory. It included block activities and facial and mouth awareness activities (tongue, lip, teeth, breath, etc.). Unfortunately, the instruction I received was only part of the total workshop, and it was not taught by a certified L-B teacher.

There is sufficient research to inform teachers that L-B is a far better method than Whole Language for improving the reading ability of LD students. I suspect that the authors would state candidly that L-B instruction does not guarantee fluent readying, but experience reveals that it results in greater success than anything else that has been tried to date.

Arthur

>breath, etc.). Unfortunately, the instruction I received was only part of the total workshop, and it was not taught by a certified L-B teacher.

Unfortunately I would guess. Likely there wasn’t anything wrong with it though as reading instruction. But it is a *their* product and they have a right to control it.

>There is sufficient research to inform teachers that L-B is a far better method than Whole Language for improving the reading ability of LD

Oh no doubts there. Not all ld kids need that intensive approach but it is amazing when it is works!!

>students. I suspect that the authors would state candidly that L-B instruction does not guarantee fluent readying

No but LiPS was never intended to be a complete reading program. It is marketed, sold, etc exactly as it was intended.
Their program Seeing Stars would prolly have an effect on fluency, but they still aren’t really reading books.

>, but experience reveals that it results in greater success than anything else that has been tried to date.

You get to the point of getting the kid to be able to decode accurately then you can worry about other aspects of reading instruction.

BTW, I have a kid right now who may have more of a reading disability due to WL instruction than his dyslexia which I don’t feel is too severe.
He just guesses left and right. He does fine on single words but when there are sentences and phrases he just tries to guess them. I have gone to the magic pencil routine- the pencil moves as long as he reads accurately. Yikes, it would be so much easier if the kid had never been reinforced for guessing!!

Thanks for your clarifications Arthur.

>Arthur

—des