phonemic awareness

The preponderance of research suggests that phonemic awareness needs to be in place before children can benfit from phonics instruction. Can SOME children read well without PA? There are probably some truly visual learners whose ability to read whole words at sight makes it appear they don’t need phonemic awareness skills. Many of these children start strong but by third or fourth grade outrun their visual memories and have no decoding strategies to help them unlock more difficult words. Somewhere along the line they may have to go back to the basics and learn about sounds and the letters that represent them.

I agree with Grace here and would add that in my belief that for good readers, much of what “seems” to be global recognition of words is in fact just really fast decoding. It would be impossible to commit to memory enough distinct graphical representations of words to be literate in our language. And obviously, if reading involves decoding symbols to sounds, the reader is going to have to be able to take those sound and push them together into syllables and then syllables into words. Is that phonemic awareness? I’m not sure if that’s what is meant by this term. But its a processing skill that you need in order to be able to read.

Andy

andy, i agree completely with your assessment of “fast decoding”, I said the same thing in my grad class to my prof and she said i was wrong, a sight word is just that she said, you recognize it on sight,
I agree that would be a rather impossible thing to do, I would like to see a discussion follow on what is a sight word?

any ideas out there?? would love to do a dissertation on this very subject….

dave

In a word, “yes.” However, I will add that not everyone must be TAUGHT phonemic awareness skills. Many average to above average readers have natural sound awareness. They learn phonics skills with some instruction, brief instruction or even intuitively. If they can rapidly “decode” new words (oftentimes because they are able to relate words and patterns they know to new words), then they DO NOT need phonemic awareness training. Children who do not have these natural abilities must be taught these skills very systematically and sequentially.

I would never, ever waste the time of every student submitting them to rigorous training in skills they come to school in possession of. I would screen, group and teach appropriately.

I am sure a sight word is different things to different readers (and teachers :)). Decoding takes a greater or lesser role — so some people are using visual memories, others making auditory connections, depending on which is stronger and what the word is. A very strong auditory learner will take even an “irregular” word and “sound it out” and make the appropriate changes, but quickly — until it gets recognized instantly… but I bet even then if you wired up ye olde brain, the brain parts getting triggered would be the auditory processing parts. Another kiddo will use more visual stuff; and of course girls will be mroe likely to use more avenues.

Dave, a sight word is recognized on site. I also agree that good readers DO identify (rapidly) every single letter in a word every time they see that word (went, want) or they are not going to be good readers. What they don’t have to do is sound every letter every time. They have learned syllables, patterns, etc. Good readers pick this knowledge up, some w/o direct instruction. Virtually no child CAN be a purely visual reader from about third grade reading level and beyond, there are too many multi-syllabic words in English that the reader must decode. Almost no one can memorize all of that w/o benefit of phonemic awareness skills. Nonphonetic words are learned by vosual memory (as ultimately all sight words are placed in visual memory). Good readers not only have good, natural phonemic awareness skills, they also have strong visual memories and rapid sequential processing skills.

Carol, as mentioned by others there is overwhelming evidence that children need phonemic awareness skills. The literature states that it is necessary but not sufficient. This means that there are other things involved. One of those things is Rapid Automatic Naming. It gets very technical quickly to discuss things like the double deficit theory which suggests that if you have problems with both of these areas remediation will be more difficult.

What do you do to assess Rapid Automatic Naming skills (as in, where are the norms?)

Janis

Several tests have this subtest. Generally the student is shown pictures, shapes, colors, etc. and asked to name each one, while being timed. The CTOPP (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing) has this measure and I am pretty sure hte NEPSY, as well as others. Yes, it is very common for my students to continue to be very slow readers, even when they can prety well decode the words. Generally my students do poorly on rapid automatic naming and on phonological processing skills. There is some debate as to whether these are separate deficits or if rapid auto. naming is part of P.A. (phonological awareness). I tend to think they are separate, I have had and continue to have a few students who are well able to decode from the get go, if you have all day, they’ll read it to you. I also read an article about a year ago that did a good job explaining the visual processing aspect of reading. This has been downplayed as many have insisted that reading disability is a P.A. deficit. I am to the point where I believe there are several deficits, explaining why some children are so hard to successfully remediate.

Thanks for your time, all. I love to discuss these issues for I struggle to find ways to better teach my students.

>andy, i agree completely with your assessment of “fast decoding”,

Hi dave!

Wow. I can’t remember the last time anyone so readily agreed with me. I like this forum so far!

>I said the
>same thing in my grad class to my prof and she said i was wrong, a sight
>word is just that she said, you recognize it on sight,

There are sight werdz. What are sight words? They are words that really cannot be decoded probably because their spelling comes from a different language and through heavy use in our language, its pronunciation has lost reference to the spelling. But there are VERY few of them and they are small, very oft used wurds like the word “one”. Hmm…. can’t think of any others at the moment.

Some people believe that lots of wirds do not fit the code and are therefore sight words. They are wrong. Their problem is that they don’t undestand how the code works. I’m not saying that they don’t know how to read. But they don’t know how they read. Obviously, every big wird is decoded even if the reader can’t really explain how he decoded it.

You can demonstrate this by typing nonsense werds into a computer application that reads text. As long as you stick to English syllable structure, the program will pronounce it the same way you do. I tried this with Babylon translator. But it should work with any good text reader. This shows that long unusually spelled words can be and are decoded. Obviously, a made-up nonsense word is not going to be indexed as by a computerized text reader.

Wanna try it? Here’s some examples: lyterpationafle, togaleightsenburger, kadbookstolupe.

So how does the code work? You can find out by reading the book Reading Reflex. Its all explained there.

Andy

I have been following the discussion with heaps of interest. This is an area which has consumed a lot of my time lately. In my role as a Learning Support Teacher I have had to work with many students who appear to cope very well in reading, spelling etc in the first one or two years of school and in their 3rd or 4th year they begin to drop their bundles.

I have had parents express that their child never had trouble in the early years and was always “top of their class”, implication ” what is this teacher not doing?”. I agree that many students are able to progress through the early stages of reading acquistion by relying on their good visual skills. I often have parents express concern that the books the children are reading are too easy or they are bored. There is the danger that they are rushed through some of the developmental stages too quickly.

The necessary skills needed for later decoding of multisyllabic words need to be explicitly taught. I also believe that they need to be taught over and over until they become automatic. Some sort of screening is necessary to help find those students who are very proficient in the skills. To believe that because a child is a proficient reader in the early grades and therefore does not need explicit teaching and practise is not the way to go.

There are obviously many of you who have had enormous experience in thsi field and I have enjoyed picking up on your thoughts. We have finished school today for the next 8 weeks for our Christmas holidays and we have 3 new teachers working in these classes next year. I am wanting to go down the path of doing some inservice work with the teachers and aides who work with the students in these earlier grades to highlight the need for phonemic awareness ability.

Any ideas

Greetings from Oz
Helen

There is a Rapid Automatic Naming test in the Woodcock Johnson III also and I think there is actually a test called the RAN wchich is normed.

Robin

Robin,

Thanks! That’s great to know. Now to find someone who has actually swtiched over to the WJ-3 and has given it several times! My child’s school just gives the basic WJ-R subtests, reading, math, etc. But it is really in subtests like the Rapid Automatic Naming that you find out where the child’s true weaknesses are!

Janis

Yes, I am noticing that our teachers do a great job with primary phonemic awareness and phonics instruction, but very little is done to teach decoding multisyllabic words in the 3rd through whatever grades. While good readers don’t need much here, there are children who do. These children should not all be identified for special ed and will not be if they are taught these skills in the general ed. classroom.

But they don’t know how they read!

that sentence from Andy’s post sums it up completely, those who think we read by using context cues seem to think that all words become sight words, and we rely on semantics and syntax to read fluently,

the problem i see is that we cannot agree on WHAT is reading, , did i read in a post that you are in Israel??

my prof last night spent an hour describing how decoding does not lead to fluent reading, and that kids must use other cueing systems if they are to ever read for MEANING!!

what we cannot seem to do is to agree on how GOOD readers read, and I do believe Andy and I are in complete agreement as to how good readers read,

but many including most literacy profs think reading is a contextual process involving all kinds of things,

our class assignment was a case study, we had to help a child learn to read, well my kid learned and I wanted our final grade to be dependent upon just that accomplishment, the prof nearly fainted at the suggestion, god forbid we be held accountable for teaching something, instead our grade is dependent on a huge report we must write about what the kid can and cannot do, a waste of everyone’s time if the kid did not learn to read,

oh well, keep posting Andy, your posts reaffirm what i have believed all along, that sight words are few, most words are actually read each time we see them,

take care and if you are in Israel, be careful, dave

Where do you live? Most evaluators where I am have given up the WJR and switched to the WJIII. There are a few holdouts but not many…

Robin

Oh, Robin, I live in NC. But you know how slow school systems are to change! But actually, the last few reports I’ve seen had the WIAT as the achievement test anyway in my school system.

Now, that said, I should say to the credit of the charter school principal where my child goes, he DID order the WJ3 for his LD teacher. She had it but had never given it when she tested my child. I just didn’t want my child to be the guinea pig. Maybe by the end of the school year she will have some experience with it and can retest my child. She needs retesting at the end of first grade anyway to see to what degree she is behind in reading, etc. She was tested in the third month of first grade and scored 1.0 on the reading. That tells me she’s already a little behind.

Janis

Well, maybe. The grade level scores on any normed test usually bear little relationship to what grade level work really is. They are not- and are not intended to be- accurate that way. She probably hade a percentile rank near 50 and a stadard scorethat was between 95 and 100? This indicates average performance for her age- and does not generally mean there is a cause for concern.

Robin

That’s about right, Robin. I think her reading curriculum is advanced which may be why she seems to have some difficulty with her actual assignments yet scores okay on the reading test. She did score an 85 std. score on the Test of Phonological Awareness (kindergarten level test, but given in first grade) which concerns me a little.

Janis

85 is a low average score and would prick my antenna a little- at least to where I would be asking if specific teaching in this area is being done. PA is one of those “building block” pieces that seems to be coming up as necessary for reading development. A good reading program at her age will include a lot of work in this area.

Robin

I am obviously from a different system or area. Could you help??

I have seen the term “charter school” used many times. What is a charter school?

helen

Hi, Helen,

Some states have allowed different groups apply to start independent but state supported schools. These schools choose their own boards; often parents and educators who want to try new (or old!) curriculums, or have a school that specialize in a certain thing. Some charter schools are traditional and have strong college prep curriculums, some take inner city children and attempt to raise their achievement, some are for gifted children, etc. The best part is that every family has made the CHOICE for their children to go there, so there is usually a much higher level of parental involvement than you may see in a regular public school. Students are admitted by lottery in kindergarten (in my state) and from then on there are “first-come, first-served” waiting lists for entrance. There is no discrimination, so they are very much “public schools”. Public schools have much less latitude to try new things (or even reinstate older programs that had been discarded for the “new” and ineffective). The best thing is that if charter schools are successful, it will challenge the public schools to improve as well.

My child’s school has a strong, academic curriculum and the high school emphasis is college prep. It is also small, which is wonderful…one class per grade and will probably never be larger than two classes per grade. Children are known to the staff rather than just being a number. All classes have a limit of 22 children and K-3 has an assistant in each class. Parents are required to volunteer. I really feel fortunate that my child was able to go to this school.

Janis

You are right and your professor has been brainwashed. It is impossible to get the older educational establishment, who have entire careers wrapped up in trading back-pats on unproved theories, to change, but please try to get the word out to the younger genreation.

Read the research! Start with the giant NIH/NICHD study published in 1999, available on this site on LD In Depth. Then go on and read linguistic studies and brain research studies about the relationship between reading and spoken language.

The real research shows:
Phonics is necessary in every classroom. The sooner, the better. Starting with “sight” memorization words only is very inefficient — a waste of a year of time and work. Good readers use a combination of “sight” skimming and phonics on all words — this is how proofreaders work ( I proofread myself).
Guided oral reading is the way to develop fluency.
Comprehension needs to be taught, in a number of ways.
Ability to discriminate sounds is the best predictor of reading success and failure, as early as age 4.
There is no such thing as truly silent reading without mental vocalization; the studies that were used as a basis to try to force us all to stop reading aloud were faulty studies done with lousy 1940’s technology, and just weren’t sensitive enough to pick up the small and efficient subvocalization that experts use.
Reading from “context clues” and “prediction” and all the rest of that turns out to be just a fancy form of guessing, and collapses some time around Grade 3. Unfortunately, by then the bad habits are so ingrained and so much time has been lost that it’s very hard to turn things around; thus the proliferation of special reading programs for upper elementary.

Read, get the articles, and spread them around. It is a good deed for future teachers and students.

Dave,

I submit: Reading is meaning activated solely by text.

Do some people read silently faster than they can mentally “auditorize” words? If so, what do we make of the principle that a letter is a picture for a sound.

Here in New England, we find that snow piles get smaller even though the temperature has remained below freezing. Snow can pass from a solid to a gas without becoming a liquid.

Can words pass into meaning without being spoken aloud or in one’s mind?

There is nothing like knowing how to pronounce a word seen in print without having to resort to context (which can fail) or sound/symbol (which also can fail).

Do fluent readers map most words instantly, accurately, and effortlessly?

Peace.

Arthur

I think that good readers process sounds really fast without having to “auditorize”. Its similar to what people do with multiplication. A person can solve multiplication problems with a combination of recalling memorized facts and analysis.

The multiplication table itself is committed to memory but that commitment to memory does not mean that arithmatic analysis is suspended when the “fact” is being recalled as a solution to the problem. In other words, you know that 4*3=12 without having to add 3 groups of 4 (or whatever analytical tool you use). But the analysis still underlies the fact.

With a more complex problem, the role of analysis grows relative to the role of recall. Hmm… If 5*5 = 25 then 50*5=250! Here, I didn’t write down every step, because the analysis itself is memorised and doesn’t have to be stated explicitly with words in the process of problem solving.

Same thing with reading.

Auditory analysis takes place with makes it unnecessary to auditorize every sound picture. But just as very elementary arithmatic (counting by one’s) is the basis for all advanced analysis, awareness of individual sounds in words and the ability to segment them and blend them is the basis for advanced auditory processing which enables a good reader to work out the answer without having to go through all the steps explicitly.

I’m not sure if your evaporating snow example quite fits what I’m saying. But It would be nice if that dissapearing water would somehow just as magically end up over hear in the form of badly needed rain!

Efficient Readers Read at Sight

A mother and her young twins walked into their back yard on a warm summer’s evening. The night sky was black and the humid air was oppressive. There were no sounds save for the chirping of crickets. As they gazed upward, a sudden flash of forked light lit the dark, distant sky. The mother knew instantly what was to come. After a few seconds, a distant rumble rolled across the heavens. The mother gathered her frightened children close to her and whisked them into the house and readied them for bed.

Fluent readers get messages in much the same way. Meaning comes to them before any sound is heard. They look at words in print, and they note the order of each letter in a flash. Sometimes they anticipate what the order will be. They are usually correct. At other times they make errors, realize they have made errors, retrace their observations, and then self-correct their reading. Readers appear to be reading whole words. They actually note the position of letters in nearly every word they see. Readers who have committed many words to memory are able to use context to read when words have been misspelled and even when whole words have been omitted.

Efficient readers are able to read faster than they can say the words they see. They have little patience with phonics. They are busy with the next word and the next. Sight comes in a flash. Sound takes longer. Readers know the meanings and the pronunciations of most of the words they see. Less efficient readers might do a great deal of sounding out. Rapid readers find it necessary to hesitate and attempt to sound out only the unfamiliar words they encounter.

A question remains: “Can one read all the words he can sound out?” If reading is defined as “accurate word calling,” the answer is, “Yes.”

If reading is defined as: “Meaning activated solely by text,” the answer is, “It is unlikely that one can read all the words he can sound out. It depends on whether the reader can comprehend all the words he can sound out and derive meaning from text.”

There are a few common words every efficient reader must be able to map (look at the words carefully to see the order of the letters that form them) directly, accurately, instantly, and effortlessly from sight to meaning. Beginners need to acquire this foundation. Teachers need to have confidence that the reading method they are using has a high potential to achieve this result.

Peace.

Arthur

www.canheread.com

Irrelevant analogies: reading has absolutely nothing to do either with snow sublimating or with lightning flashes. They make such pretty mental pictures that the naive reader can be snowed into believing that there is some meaning here. Not the issue.

Yes, good readers both skim and analyze. Good readers know the difference, know which skill to use when, and act accordingly. The question here is not what experienced and skilled adults do, but how to teach kids (generally, here, kids with difficulties) the foundations which will allow them, many years in the future, to become skilled readers.

There is an analogy which does fit here: don’t try to run before you can walk. Beginning readers need to learn to walk slowly, sounding out most of their words, so that they can develop a solid foundation on which to build faster recognition and skimming later. Yes, good readers go fast and only slow down to analyze in detail when they meet something new or unexpected — but they *have* the skill to slow down and analyze. Without that skill, people attempting to read get lost in a fog of confusion and misunderstandings.

I well remember a class I had in my first year teaching, supposed to be doing physical geography in junior high, trying to read “The Earth goes around the sun in an eccentric orbit” and instead saying “The Earth goes around the sun in an elephant orange.” You see, they had learned to guess words by sight, and one word was long and started with e and the only word they knew like that was elephant … It would have been much better if they stalled out and asked what the word was; one of the first steps to knowledge is to know that you don’t know. At that point, teaching either science or reading was almost impossible, too little time, too late, too much to unlearn.

I disagree entirely with Arthur in his contention (unsupported by any evidence) that it is impossible to learn words from print. In fact, I am generally acknowledged to have an excellent vocabulary in both writing and speech, and I learned almost all of it from print. For various reasons including something that seems to somewhat resemble NLD, and ear infections, I had trouble hearing in groups or other noisy situations and tended to ignore or mentally shut out classroom speech for many years as a child, and thus was not called on and didn’t speak much either. (Still don’t find group listening easy.) On the other hand, I read voraciously. I can pronounce over 90% maybe 98%, of the new words I meet in print correctly on the first try. On the rare occasion when I get an irregular word wrong, when someone else uses it I mentally file the pronunciation — after checking that, indeed, the person is correct. Many other scholarly people of my acquaintance do the same — after all, you may often read about eschatology or homeomorphic functions if you are interested in philosophy or math, but let’s face it, you rarely hear these words pronounced, even in the faculty lounge. People who are real readers do develop a linguistic analysis system that allows them to pronounce from print with a very high degree of correctness. BTW many of us can do this in several languages — a literate person can pronounce German or Spanish or Russian or many other languages after ten or twenty hours of instruction and learning the sound-symbol system, without knowing most of the words’ meanings. We don’t expect this level fom elementary students, but if they make a close guess at the pronunciation with all the consonants and half the vowels, that’s close enough to refine it when they do hear the word.

Yes, pronunciation is only part of the game, and is pointless without comprehension. Again, walk before you run — if you can’t make even a near guess at how to say the word, you don’t have a chance of comprehending it. Or, often, you may comprehend the wrong word, like the elephant orange, and lose or even invert the message.

And, yes, we do all subvocalize all the time. Recent studies show that the original 40’s and 50’s studies were just not sensitive enough. Sorry, don’t have the reference to hand, but check ERIC and Scientific American over the last five to ten years if you are a bear for details. Moving your lips as you speak is not the sin we were told in the 1950’s; it is a good and necessary step for beginners, and should be gradually minimized as skills develop (but in new subjects or foreign languages, it’s a good thing to go back to speaking as you read).

PS all word plays above deliberate, thanks

Thank you, Victoria, for your comprehensive post.

Victoria wrote: >I disagree entirely with Arthur in his contention (unsupported by any evidence) that it is impossible to learn words from print.

I did not write that it is impossible to learn words from print. It is not my contention. I sincerely hope I did not imply it. All but the blind have to learn (to read) words by looking at print.

Victoria wrote: >Beginning readers need to learn to walk slowly, sounding out most of their words, so that they can develop a solid foundation on which to build faster recognition and skimming later.

Reading can be taught to people who cannot hear.
Readers can read in a soundproof room; they cannot read in absolute darkness.
Sight comes before sound in reading.

A reader is needed to teach non-readers how to activate meaning from those squiggly little black marks on a page. That reader can be a parent or a sibling who does not know the first thing about teaching phonics. Many students, taught by relatives, enter kindergarten already reading. Schools that abandoned phonics produced many efficient readers. Phonics instruction is useful in doing the things it can do. Phonics is not essential in producing fluent readers, and it has significant limitations. Students with special needs require specialized materials and methods.

Victoria wrote: >The question here is not what experienced and skilled adults do, but how to teach kids (generally, here, kids with difficulties) the foundations which will allow them,
MANY YEARS IN THE FUTURE,
to become skilled readers.

(I added the upper case letters for emphasis.)

If I am correct, you are cautioning parents and teachers not to expect fluent reading ability after the 12 easy lessons advertised by some reading programs. I can accept that.

The question you alluded to leads to further questions. Should we measure beginning reading ability to determine if students are on target ‘to become skilled readers?’ I have created a test to assess interim reading ability at the K-2 level.

Several US presidents in recent times have longed to wear the
mantle of “the Education President.” They time is close at hand.
Students will be tested for reading ability in third grade.
Existing reading programs will be evaluated and vindicated or found
wanting. But third grade is a day late for some students. Have you measured the reading ability of your beginners? Are you confident that your students are on target for success on the third grade assessment?

Accurate word calling is essential to fluent reading. There is much more to fluent reading than accurate word calling. There is no reading in the absence of comprehension.

Perhaps we are finally going to be able to draw some scientific conclusions about the effectiveness of reading materials and methods. No more testimonials from friends. No more hype; just the facts. Which succeeds, not in small control groups but clear across the US: bottom up phonics, structural linguistics, whole language (arrrr), spell to read, or a “balanced” program?

The authors of reading programs that keep their promises do not fear testing—they rejoice in it.

Peace.

Arthur,

I am just curious, what kind of reading programs do you find to be effective?

What does your K-2 reading assessment test specifically? Is it available? I have a first grader I want to test at the end of the school year to determine if she needs remediation (she has a language delay and APD).

Just a side-note, the pre-lingually deaf are generally very poor readers. The average reading level of deaf high school graduates is around fourth or fifth grade.

My state has instituted reading/math “gateways” at 3rd, 5th, and 8th grades. What a shame that it isn’t earlier. It is insane to wait until third to intervene with reading difficulties. (But our legislators apparently didn’t know that!)

Janis

Thank you for your questions, Janis. I am a retired special ed/reading teacher. Although I hold 3 Master’s Degrees, I am neither brilliant nor a widely read scholar. I had to study very hard while my fraternity brothers were able to hang out on weekends.

Janis asked: > I am just curious, what kind of reading programs do you find to be effective?

I am delighted that you asked your question that way. It means you are asking for an approach rather than for names of publishers or programs.

I am not being evasive when I say that the most effective reading programs are the ones chosen by the most effective teachers to be used with the students who have the greatest potential to become fluent readers. Successful teachers use different methods to achieve similar objectives. Each believes mightily in the method he has settled on after exploring and rejecting many others. Teachers might fail to do as well if they were forced to teach with methods and materials they do not respect. Some teachers produced superb readers using the scoffed at ‘Dick and Jane.’ Some students blossom in whole language classrooms. Other teachers insist on a thorough grounding in phonics. I applaud every teacher who produces fluent readers with the method of his or her choosing. All’s well that ends well.

Reading has to be taught if it is to be learned. Most self-motivated children with average or above average intelligence learn to read well enough to meet their needs with any reasonable materials and methods and a competent teacher. ‘Reading’ is more than mere word calling—it requires comprehension. It is likely that no one can read everything. All but the profoundly retarded can be taught to read something.

Most of the teachers I have known in primary grades are wonderful with children who learn easily and well. They choose materials that bring excitement to the reading process. They succeed at bringing joy to learning at a level I can only dream about. Yet they are happy to turn to me to tutor the few students they cannot reach.

I teach some phonics because 85 of every 100 words can be accessed by a sound/symbol method.
But many of my students (I still volunteer) have had phonics up to their eyeballs. They try to sound out words like: where-were, of-off, who-how, come-cone, etc. I try to get my students to focus on letter order and give them much practice saying common words accurately. Someday I will have it all set it down in the form of reading lessons for those who learn with difficulty.

Janis asked: >What does your K-2 reading assessment test specifically? Is it available?

Believe it or not, Janis, there are people who post messages on bulletin boards pretending to be a parent of a reading disabled child. Then they get a helper to send a post recommending a commercial program they hope to sell.

You did not do that. Your request is honest. We do not know one another. I need to make it clear to others that I did not ask you to write to me.

The MERC (Melanson Early Reading Comprehension) tests the ability to read 1,001 words and 20 symbols. The words account for 74%+ of all the English words in print. They are words every fluent reader knows. It is available for less than $30.

The words are tested in rank order. The first word tested is *the* (7 of every hundred words is: the). The second word tested is *of * (3 of every 100 words a reader will ever see in print is: of).

The MERC is on a CD-ROM for your personal computer. There are 1,021 Items (incomplete sentences). The incomplete sentences are read aloud for the first 25 Items. The student proves that he can read common words. He looks at five look-alike but different words. He selects a word from 5 different choices to complete each Item and produce a sensible sentence. He makes his choice by using a mouse and curser to click on a word. He may click on a Smile Face if he does not wish to guess.

The answers require comprehension as well as word recognition. There is only one correct answer for each Item. As soon as a choice has been made, the correct answer is framed in green. (All incorrect answers become framed in red.) The correct answer is spoken and spelled. It automatically hops into what had been a blank space in an incomplete sentence. The sentence is read aloud. The curser becomes a dart that can be clicked on the Item to repeat the audio.

Incomplete sentences 26-1,021 are no longer read aloud. The test taker who can read the answers for prior items will be able to read the Items independently. Items after 25 are composed of words that were test answers for prior Items.

A session can be limited to 15-20 minutes, and the test can be spread over several days. A student could work independently as his mother prepares dinner.

On future sessions at the Basic Level the test taker is asked if he wants to learn new material or review. The review option opens the earlier Items he either skipped or answered incorrectly.

The MERC includes a scale of reading ability from K .1 through Grade 2, Month 8.

The MERC may bore adults, but I have had inner city youths who disliked school ask to take the MERC home over the weekend. Of course, I let them. If they want to use the MERC as a learning tool, I am all for it.

READING MADE SIMPLE™ Materials
Copyright © 2001 J. Arthur Melanson
527 Fox Hollow Way
Manchester, NH 03104-6472
[email protected]

Please visit us at: www.canheread.com or 1-888-386-4157. (Both sites need editing.)

The MERC was formatted on software developed in Poland termed SuperMemo. It is included on the MERC CD, and it can be used to write material that needs to be memorized (historical data, chemical formulae, legal principles, etc.) SuperMemo is a free add-on that is not required if you simply wish to test with MERC. It is at the Professional Level, and it is way beyond me.

Peace.

Thanks, Arthur. It did not occur to me that people might think this was a set up for you to tell about your test! I am just a parent and teacher who is sick of ineffective LD programs and seeks to find the best possible materials to use with my own child and possibly some of my students. It has been extremely helpful for me to read the comments and experiences of those who have specifically been teaching children with reading problems here on these boards. Ultimately, I do realize that no one method will work for all children. But those of us who care must diligently sort through the many available programs and choose a few…hopefully the best ones.

Janis

Thank you, Janis. You have made it clear to the Board that your post was sincere.

I am willing to send you a free 3.5 floppy disk (formatted for use on a PC or a Mac). It includes some samples of the way I teach reading to those who struggle, but who have the potential to learn and are willing to cooperate. Only one of the programs (the MERC) is ready for market.

I will need a mailing address. Make it a ‘safe’ one to protect your privacy. Some folks use a neighbor, a school, a business, etc. [email protected]

Peace.

Arthur

Arthur is being intellectually dishonest.

He writes above that he would like to see scientific proof of what reading methods work, and that he thinks his methods work best, and he thinks that the jury is still out on the issue.

Well, simply put, he is wrong.

There IS scientific proof, he HAS been informed of it repeatedly - but it doesn’t agree with his preferences, so he has chosen to ignore it. For a person who claims academic credentials, this is very unprofessional.

The NIH — surely a reputable scientific organization - sponsored a massive study on reading teaching methids, which was published in 1999. This study is readily available, right on this website; go to the LD In Depth Board and look for it, NIH/NICHD study on methods of teaching reading. This is not news, either; these papers and books have been available for the last fifty years to people who were willing to look for them. (Arthur has repeatedly been informed of this information, but has chosen either not to read the study or to ignore hundreds of researchers and fifty years of proof because he thinks he knows better)

Please don’t just take my word for it - go to the study and find out the facts in detail.

In short summary, the NIH/NICHD study states:

(1) All the reading research for the last *fifty* years was reviewed, tens of thousands of papers. Some research for the last *hundred* years was reviewed. (If this isn’t enough for Arthur, well, he’s hopelessly set in his ways, and just ignore him)

(2) Papers were chosen for scientific methods and meaningful measurement; personal opinions and preferences and sloppy work that nobody else could replicate was omitted.

(3) The results are absolutely unequivocal. Systematic synthetic phonics is most strongly recommended in every classroom, period. Systematic means an organized progression and planned curriculum teaching all the spelling-sound patterns in a planned order. (NOT the “incidental” phonics which Arthur champions – that is specifically stated not to work). Synthetic means “from the ground up”, teaching kids letters and sounds and putting them together to make words (NOT the memorize first and look back method which Arthur champions – again, that is specifically stated not to work).

(4) Guided **oral** reading is recommended regularly in all primary classrooms, at least, as the best method to teach fluency. (NOT the silent “reading” which many of Arthuir’s favoured programs use; this is specifically stated not to work.)

(5) Teaching of comprehension and vocabulary, in a number of ways, direct and indirect, is strongly recommended in every classroom. (Arthur tends to suggest and imply that teachers who use phonics don’t teach what is really important, namely comprehension, and that he is better because this is what he teaches; he is misleading and intellectually dishonest when he implies this.)

A couple of notes about this: when we compare reading programs and what works and what doesn’t, we are talking about real people and real lives. Remember that a reading program that succeeds with just 10% more kids than another, if it could be implemented across the US, would prevent around half a million cases of reading failure annually, or about five million illiterate or semi-literate adults leaving school over the next decade.

Again I keep challenging Arthur and others: if your methods are so wonderful, where are the results? Show me the county that doesn’t have hundreds of illiterate and semi-literate young adults going to its adult-ed and community college programs every year – and those are the young adults who have the energy and hope left to try to improve, not counting the ones on the street. By illiterate I mean less than Grade 2 reading level, unable to use maps and directions, fast-food menus and so forth; by semi-literate, less than Grade 4, not able to function in the working world because they cannot read directions or signs, fill out forms, etc. Show me the county that has a really working reading program in its school, that is based on your theories, and I will publicly retract all my statements here.

Most of you reading this are parents and are fighting, dedicating your lives to prevent just one case of illiteracy, a lifelong loss for your own child. If you could help one or two kids in each Grade 1 class by instituting more effective reading programs, then you could prevent this lifelong loss for around half a million kids every year. Just because some teachers have been trained in ineffective methods and prefer them does not mean that those millions of kids should be left out.

Arthur also contends that many kids learn just fine by his preferred memorization methods, so that phonics should be a (distasteful) special method reserved for those “different” kids who just don’t get it and fail at his methods, which he (falsely) characterizes as so much more humane and literary. He is wrong on just about every count. Every study the NIH has examined has shown that all kids at all levels do better in a good program, including but *not* limited to phonics. Weak readers and dyslexics learn to read; average readers work at least on grade level; and superior readers become exceptional readers. A good program started early also improves spelling in general (if started later, spelling resists improvement, by any technique). As far as being humane and literary, classrooms where kids can actually read novels and enjoy them do better than classrooms where kids are frantically guessing; this is a traditional slur cast on phonics advocates by advocates of memorization who have no facts to go on.

When Arthur posts on this board, most of the responsible teachers and providers and knowledgeable parents here tend to ignore his anti-phonics stance and seem to hope he will go away. Unfortunately he keeps making statements that are contrary to fact and a few parents fall into his trap of talking over their heads so they think his advice is truly up-to-date (it’s not, it’s been proven false for decades) and may help their children. Well, never say never; perhaps a few kids here and there can actually gain some benefit out of almost any program; but in general, almost all (well over 90%) people with learning disabilities require a sound structured program including systematic synthetic phonics (and again including does not mean limited to); and almost all other students learn better, faster, more fluently, and more easily with such a program. Again, you need not take my word for it; you can go and check out the NIH study.

Arthur has dedicated an entire career to using and teaching others to use memorization-based methods, and he doesn’t want to change now and see a lifetime’s career as based on false premises. Well, that’s his privilege in retirement, but if he tries to convince others in the next generation to use inefficient and frustrating approaches with their children and classes, the scientific proof that refutes him absolutely should be repeated.

A final note; Arthur in one of these posts states that he is not such a great reader himself, and had to slave over his books while his frat brothers were all out playing football. Perhaps, not knowing what fast, easy, fluent reading feels like himself, he doesn’t understand how to lead others to it and is satisfied when his students reach a level of strained mediocrity. Those of us who know it is possible and comparitively easy to read quickly and fluently and to spell automatically, and to teach others to do the same, feel like we are talking a foreign language to him, and maybe we are.

The kindest, gentlest thing that can be said about Arthur’s posts is that he is confused about reading instruction. He seems to be ignorant of the basic truths about teaching reading. Perhaps, in the spirit of charity, someone can begin to educate him in 2002.

Teachers and parents write to this bulletin board to ask for or to give advice about learning disabilities. Most inquiries are about reading. No one wants Arthur’s erroneous opinions to lead others astray.

Let’s begin at the beginning and make things as simple as possible for Arthur. There is a chance we can get him to agree on a few basic facts.

Arthur seems to think that reading is: (1) looking at printed matter, saying words correctly, and getting meaning. He seems to reject the idea that: (2) reading is simply saying words correctly. He is unwilling (or unable) to come to terms with the possibility that reading could be: (3) defined in yet another way.

What is reading? Tell Arthur, and see if he will agree.

That would be an important first step for him.

Kit Arcos

I generally stay out of these but I would never define reading as just reading the words. Why bother if there is no meaning?

Victoria’s disagreement (along with other folks) with Arthur is not about what reading is but about how it is taught. Disagreement between teachers of reading about methodology are frequent and lively on this board- though we haven’t had one for a while- and are an excellent way for all of us to articulate our thoughts and maybe learn something. Ask some of the Reading Reflex people what it was like a year or so ago here… We are all passionate about what has worked best for us- especially if the research supports it.

Robin

Robin, you have hit upon the exact reason I am here. All I want is to know what works. I don’t have any more time to spend with ineffective materials either at school or with my own child. I see programs, programs, programs used in school with absolutely no thought as to where the child’s skills are lacking. They just ordered Great Leaps for our low level 3-5th graders. Well, I understand that Great Leaps (3-5) is good for fluency, but it will probably not solve underlying phonemic awareness problems. I do like the screening tests provided in RR. At least you can have an idea of where the child’s weakness lies. The school’s approach is kind of like giving an aspirin for pneumonia, slight, temporary improvement but won’t cure the disease.

Janis

Dear Kit (my alter ego),

I am not offended by references to my ignorance about reading. It exists. Perhaps I do not even know what reading is.

Let’s be realistic. Some people post at this site with the objective of selling something. Yet no one wants to do anything that would hinder a child’s progress in reading.

A physician once told me, “I don’t have any respect for a doctor who claims never to have lost a patient. That is either a lie, or the doctor only takes the easy cases.”

I have some reservations about the teacher who tells me he or she never failed with a student. I have failed to make reasonable progress teaching reading to students. I would be thrilled if Victoria were to make substantial progress with one of those students using her method.

I suspect that Victoria has failed with a student or two. I rest assured that she would be pleased if I were to make good progress with one or two of them using my methods.

There was an engineer in the early Twentieth Century who did some workplace efficiency studies. I think his name was Henry Taylor. He concluded that there is “no one best way to do a job.”

There are some questions: Can reading ability be measured objectively? What is appropriate progress in reading? When, if ever, can we conclude that a person can read?

Peace.

Arthur

But- they are trying and the steps they are taking are good- even if they are small- and from one good change will come the courage for others:)

A good systematic reading program, taught from the beginning, theoretically will cover issues like training phonemic awareness- and any remedial decoding program worth the money you pay for it and training will address it also. It really is the training of your teachers that the most critical factor. You can’t fly that rocket without knowing which buttons to push… (with a nod to the “Teaching Reading is Rocket Science” report.

Robin

This is the first time I have been flamed. It was a rather mild singeing. It seemed more like an unintentional complement, in part.

Victoria wrote:
> Arthur is being intellectually dishonest.
>This is intellectually dishonest, sorry

At first I thought Victoria meant that she is sorry that her post [3:1926:2129] 12/28/2001 is intellectually dishonest. Then I had the notion she was apologizing to me for branding me intellectually dishonest. Then the idea came to me that she might be apologizing to the Board for finding it “necessary” to have to point out my intellectual dishonesty. I finally theorized that she was simply categorizing me as being intellectually dishonest.

A person has to have an intellect to be intellectually dishonest. I like the sound of that.

Intellect: 1 a : the power of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel and to will : the capacity for knowledge b : the capacity for rational or intelligent thought especially when highly developed 2 : a person with great intellectual powers

If I am an intellect, I will wear the title proudly.

Next we consider the appellation “dishonest.” DISHONEST implies a willful perversion of truth in order to deceive, cheat, or defraud.

Intellectually dishonest equates to “clever liar.” Was it something I wrote?

Victoria: >He [Arthur] writes above that he would like to see scientific proof of what reading methods work,

Arthur: > Perhaps we are finally going to be able to draw some scientific conclusions about the effectiveness of reading materials and methods.

V: >and that he thinks his methods work best,

A: >I applaud every teacher who produces fluent readers with the method of his or her choosing. Yet they [some teachers] are happy to turn to me to tutor the few students they cannot reach. [This does not say my method and materials work best.]

V: >and he thinks that the jury is still out on the issue.

A: [Congress wrote an education law signed by the President that includes nationwide testing.]

V: > Well, simply put, he is wrong.
> The NIH — surely a reputable scientific organization - sponsored a massive
study on reading teaching methids, which was published in 1999.
>(3) The results are absolutely unequivocal. Systematic synthetic phonics is most strongly recommended in every classroom, period. Systematic means an
organized progression and planned curriculum teaching all the spelling-sound
patterns in a planned order.

A: > I teach some phonics because 85 of every 100 words can be accessed by a sound/symbol method.

I would never write, “I believe there is a method and materials that will empower a trained teacher to teach every student to read at a Grade 12 level.” That would be intellectually dishonest. I do not believe it, and I would not encourage anyone else to believe it.

I speculate that systematic synthetic phonics superbly taught and fully mastered does not guarantee fluent reading ability. That is an opinion; not a lie.

There are frequent visitors to this site who tout programs called Reading Reflex (RR) and Phono-Graphix. I would not brand them intellectually dishonest. Would you? The author of that program, Carmen McGuinness, has written some things about phonics and her program. In fairness, she might later have revised her opinions.

>The way that we teach children to read has a success rate of 98% in 12
>contact sessions one﷓on﷓one; and in a classroom 94 to 97% in a school year.
>It is not Phonics. It is not Whole Language. It¹s entirely different. Is
>this difference a paradigm shift in the field of reading instruction?

>Traditional Phonics has the description all wrong. They actually mean the
>same thing, but it doesn’t make sense to children the way they say it,
>describe it, and teach it. They believe and teach to beliefs like these:

>1. sounds are foreign to children and must be taught 2. letters make sounds
>3. letters work together under a system of rules

You have termed me intellectually dishonest (equates to a clever liar). I forgive that insult.

Peace.

Arthur

(a) Only God can give divine forgiveness, and Arthur, you are not God.
Also this is a secular site, and religion should not come into the discussions here.

(b) As usual, when Arthur claims to be refuting my arguments, he wanders off the topic and introduces a number of red herrings. Arthur, please try to stick to one issue, at least for a paragraph or two. Other readers, please note that these distractions are not the point at hand.

(c) This issue is very wrong and offensive: in the middle of trying to refute my points of argument, Arthur suddenly switches to some advertising material from Reading Reflex and/or other groups. Apparently he is attributing this to me. These are not my statements; I disagree with some of them and agree with others, but that is not the issue here. Attributing others’ statements to me is a form of libel, and very inappropriate. Other readers, please take note that he is doing this, and consider what this means about the accuracy of his other posts.

(d) That was not a flame. That was a serious attempt at a serious academic discussion. Arthur’s reply, including false attributions of others’ words to me, and containing a number of put-downs, is a clear attempt at starting a nasty fight or flame war and is very inappropriate.

(e) Yes, I am saying that Arthur is being intellectually dishonest.
He has not yet answered any of the real points I made: Has he read the research? And if he has, how does he reply to it? And how do his replies correspond with his previous statements, which contradict the research? Answering those questions would be a serious academic discussion. It IS possible to disagree with research, if you can put forward a solid argument as to why the measurements are inaccurate or non-representative.
Unfortunately, Arthur has again chosen an intellectually dishonest approach of false attributions and personal put-downs.

ABOUT TEACHING, LEARNING, AND TESTING BEGINNING READING*

There are people who cannot read.
Most of them hope to learn to read.
Many of them can learn to read something.
They make sense when they speak.
They are healthy, and they can see and hear.
They are willing to give time and effort to learning to read.

Some beginners like to have others read to them.
They understand what others read to them.
They want to be able to read by themselves.
Some cannot read because they cannot “say” the words they see.
Some can say many of the words they see, but they cannot get meaning from them.
They have not been able to teach themselves to read.
They need someone to teach them.
Beginning reading has to be taught.
Schools and parents teach most people to read well enough to meet their needs.

There are people who want to teach others to read.
They might not know how to begin to teach reading.
They can learn how to teach reading if they can read.
They might not have a book to use to teach beginners.
They might not know a way to use a book to help beginners learn to read.
They want a book and a way to use it to teach beginning reading.
There are some books they can use to teach reading.

Some people say they know how to teach reading.
They have a book and a way to use it to teach beginning reading.
Parents let them teach their children.
The teachers might tell parents their children are learning to read.

People teach children to read in different ways.
Parents will accept any way that works.
Most bright, cooperative children learn to read in a reasonable time.
The most important factor in the acquisition of reading ability is the student.
The student is much more important than the materials, methods, and the teacher.

Parents want to know if their children are learning to read.
Parents want to know how well a beginner can read.

Beginning reading ability exists in some amount.
Beginning reading can be tested and measured.
Beginning reading can be made simple, but it is not fun for everyone.
Teaching, learning, and testing reading can be hard work.

Parents can test beginning reading.
They can test reading comprehension as well as word recognition.

As with learning to play tennis or the piano, teaching, learning, and testing reading takes time and many short practice sessions.
It is likely that no one can read everything.
Most people can learn to read something.
Joy and opportunity come with the growth of reading ability.

*These comments have been expressed in simple language to serve those who need plain talk. We are confident that you will understand why this was done.

Peace.

Arthur

Arthur, please try to stay on one topic for a sentence or two. To paraphrase an author I like: when asked about the rainfall in Siberia, please don’t reply with a lecture about the price of tea in Hyderabad.

We (ie the other teachers on this board) are also well educated and intelligent, and we do not need your paternalistic and condescending lectures on what you consider to be “facts”.

You take the approach that you have all the answers and therefore anybody who disagrees with you needs first a fatherly talking-to and then a dumbed-down version.

I suppose it’s just too late for you to admit that, when someone disagrees with you, it may sometimes be because that person knows something that you do not — not because the person is stupid.

And you certainly have not been willing to take the opportunity to inform yourself about the research on which we are basing our statements.

If you cannot discuss scientific and factual issues in a reasonable and academically appropriate manner, you are demonstrating that you are not a responsible student and teacher, and you will lose all respect from readers.

Are you aware of reading programs named Reading Reflex and Phono-Graphix?

Are you aware that I have no financial interest in those products?

Are you aware that visitors at this site have purchased and used those products with learning disabled students?

Are you aware that many students have made significant, documented progress in reading ability following instruction based on those products?

Are you aware that many teachers and parents are so convinced of the worth of those products that they have become “disciples” for them?

Do you suspect that many of those teachers and parents have gone to the LD In Depth Board and read the NIH/NICHD study on methods of teaching reading?

Do they continue to use Reading Reflex and Phono-Graphix as their preferred instructional programs?

Are you aware that Reading Reflex and Phono-Graphix are NOT phonics?

Peace.

I kept up the above argument as Arthur went farther and farther from the point partly to see how strange his theories would get and partly to let him demonstrate to the world just how self-contradictory he is.

Phonics is a general term describing the teaching of reading by teaching symbol-sound (or letter-sound and lettergroup-sound) relationships. There are many programs that teach phonics well. Some of them start from different directions and use different methods of presentation, but all teach in the end the same symbol-sound relationships.

All the most effective programs teach in a similar order (although details may vary) starting with the simplest nearly invariable sounds like “d”, and moving through more and more complex relationships such as long and short vowels/ vowel pairs, complicated issues like gh spellings, and finally particular cases and word origins such as Greek root ch = k.

Reading Reflex and Phonographix are one particular format of presenting phonics. The authors of these programs are convinced that they can teach more efficiently by working from oral sound to symbol, rather than teaching letters/symbols and variant sounds they may represent. Teaching sound first and then symbol does not make these programs non-phonics, any more than teaching fractions before versus after decimals would make a program non-mathematical. It’s just a question of the best presentation of the material, but the material IS phonics.

It isn’t worth trying to discuss Arthur’s self-contradictions point-by point here, as he simply veers off the discussion and brings in another red herring, but if anyone has a specific question, please ask.

On 01-15-02 02:30 Victoria wrote:

>Reading Reflex and Phonographix are one particular format of presenting >phonics.

Is that statement at variance with the words of the author, Carmen McGuiness?

The way that we teach children to read has a success rate of 98% in 12
contact sessions one﷓on﷓one; and in a classroom 94 to 97% in a school year.
*It is not Phonics.*

Does any method produce perfect readers?

Do Reading Reflex and Phono-Graphix significantly improve the reading ability of learning disabled students?

Is the following a true and unedited post on this Board by Carmen McGuiness?

A new message, “Re: P﷓G Sounds of Silence,” was posted on the Teaching
Reading by Carmen on Sunday,
16 May 1999, at 1:02 a.m. It is a response to your post, “Re: P﷓G Sounds
of Silence,” of Saturday, 15 May 1999, at 4:45 p.m.

The message reads as follows:

﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓﷓

ARTHUR WROTE:

Dear Michelle, I am not sure that either of my questions qualifies as the
basis for a research study. I do not have the training to set one up. Peace.
Arthur (1) What is reading? (2) Is the following a P﷓G hypothesis?: “Letters
are pictures of sounds.” (3) Do soundless letters exist?

MY RESPONSE:

Dear Arthur, Michelle is having a long weekend with her family. I’ll answer
your questions for her and then you can take this up with her if you’d
like when she returns.

Your instincts are right that these are not questions that could be committed
to research. These questions are a priori in nature. They are matters of
fact, not needing scientific inquiry. The important difference between
traditional Phonics and Phono﷓Graphix is the way in which the facts are
described (taught) to the learner. What can be committed to scientific
inquiry is the difference in the affect of one description and another,
or the difference in effect between one description and the norms. The
following is my description of the ‘reading’ ‘sound pictures’ and ‘silent
letters’ in answer to your questions, in keeping with the way Phono﷓Graphix
describes (teaches) this to the learner.

(1) What is reading?

The decoding of a sound symbol code for the purpose of finding meaning.

(2) Is the following a P﷓G hypothesis?: “Letters are pictures of sounds.”

No, not an hypothesis. It is the Phono﷓Graphic way of describing an apriori
fact.

(3) Do soundless letters exist?

Yes, all letters are soundless. People make sounds not letters. We make
particular sounds when we see particular sound pictures… so when we see
we say ‘ee’. And if what we get doesn’t make sense as in “I read until
late last night,” we try something else that we know to be a possible sound
for this symbol, such as ‘e’. Analogically speaking one could ask, “Are
there silent pencils?” There is nothing inherent about a pencil that causes
us to call it ‘pencil’. It is an arbitrary label that we all agree to use
to refer to that thing we write with.” The same is true of ‘sound pictures’.
They are arbitrary. The difference is we need to combine them to gain relevance
and meaning. So we must also teach the child how to do that (blend).

Traditional Phonics has the description all wrong. They actually mean the
same thing, but it doesn’t make sense to children the way they say it,
describe it, and teach it. They believe and teach to beliefs like these:

1. sounds are foreign to children and must be taught 2. letters make sounds
3. letters work together under a system of rules

But the nature of the code and of the child is really simpler than that.
Words are made up of sound pictures. TRAIN, SAID, CHOOSE These don¹t make
sounds, but rather we do, when we read them.

Children needen¹t be taught these sounds, they speak them every day. These
are the sounds of their language. They¹re intimate with these sounds.

What children must be taught is to understand that these are pictures of
the sounds they hear in words, that they recur, and that they must remember
them so as to use them as tools; and they must be taught how to separate
(segment those sounds from one another).

This information is so obvious that Geoff and I have been critisized for
arguing semantics. Indeed semantics is exactly what we’re arguing, and
strongly. That’s exactly the point. What you SAY to a child is everything.
What you really mean to say is for you to know and for him to guess at…
failing to learn to read beacuse of semantics.

Phono﷓Graphix has addressed all the issues surrounding the decoding aspects
of reading while using meaning as the check point, and has done so in an
instructional design that is perfectly natural to the child.

We depart from the sounds he already knows and invite him to learn the
various ways to represent each of these sounds by discovering them in words.

We do not use rules that require systems of logic that children can¹t manage.

Here’s the Phono﷓Graphix instuctional description in a nutshell…
THE NATURE OF OUR CODE IS

1. etters are pictures of sounds 2. a sound picture can be one or more
letters 3. there is variation in the code… more than one way to picture
most sounds 4. there is overlap in the code… some of the sound pictures
can represent two or more sounds

We get this from logic. As I’ve said, it is apriori.

THE SKILLS NEEDED TO USE SUCH A CODE

1. segmenting… why? because to access a sound picture code you must be
able to get down to the sound

2. blending… why? because to use a sound picture code you must be able
to gain meaning from the connected sounds the pictures represent.

3. phoneme manipulation… why? because to use a code with overlap you
must be able to try the various possibilities when meaning can’t be gotten.

THE INFORMATION THAT IS THE CODE ITSELF The 140 sound pictures that represent
the 40 sounds of American English.

THE NATURE OF THE LEARNER

1. concrete… literal… SO we use sensible language… no silent letters,
no rules, no nonsense.

2. uses identification logic… SO, we identify pictures of sounds.

3. learns best in context; not just any context like key words, but THE
context for which a thing is intended… SO we teach the NATURE OF THE
CODE, the CODE and the SKILLS needed to use such a code in the context
of one another.

4. learns best when information is relevant… SO we turn sound pictures
into tools to read and spell words and sentences.

5. learns best through active discovery… SO we offer direct discovery
of the code, it’s nature and the skills needed to use it.

The way that we teach children to read has a success rate of 98% in 12
contact sessions one﷓on﷓one; and in a classroom 94 to 97% in a school year.
It is not Phonics. It is not Whole Language. It¹s entirely different. Is
this difference a paradigm shift in the field of reading instruction?
According to Thomas Kuhn in Structures of Scientific Revolution, a paradigm
shift doesn¹t contain new data, but rather it is…

‹a change in the way things fit together

‹a change in several of the taxonomic categories prerequisite to scientific
description and generalization

‹a central change of model, metaphor, or analogy, a change in one¹s sense
of what is similar to what, and what is different

…In short the reorganization of all the variables or components into
a new way of looking and a new way of doing.

We propose that that is what Phono﷓Graphix has accomplished within the
field of reading instruction.

Kuhn goes on to say, that when the new paradigm begins to shake the old
one, the proponants of the old paradigm… ³do not renounce the paradigm
that has led them into crisis….

They devise numerous articulations and ad hoc modifications of their theory
in order to eliminate any apparent conflict.²

I think we’re seeing a lot of that coming out of traditional phonics folks.
As for me and Geoff?? We’re just trying to help teachers and parents teach
children to read. So far we’ve been hugely successful at doing that in
the US, and Great Britain, and we’re starting to make some powerful inroads
in Canada as well.

As for “proof” that Phono﷓Graphix is the best way to teach reading?…
Speaking as a researcher we could only prove that if we involved every
child everywhere and every method everywhere. A project too rich for my
blood.

As for claiming that we can teach any child to read… every child that
we’ve tried to teach has learned. That’s a better claim.

As for the notion that different children need different approaches…
the nature of the code doesn’t change from child to child, nor does the
nature of the child, nor do the skills needed to use the code. So what
child would you choose to hide the nature of the code from?… or to leave
out one skill? What child would you choose to teach out of context, or
in a logic system that is developmentally innappropriate to his age? Yes
there are blind children who will never see the sound pictures and need
to be given a way to feel them, and there are deaf children who will never
hear the sounds and need to be given a way to see them, and sadly there
are childen with severely low intellect who will never understand the nature
of symbols, but we have not found another population of child who cannot
learn the NATURE of the code, the SKILLS needed to use it, and the INFORMATION
that is the code itself… not the dyslexics of Great Britain, or the CAPD
of the US, or the LD of Canada… not one.

Phono﷓Graphix is the blue print for teaching reading in keeping with the
nature of the code, the skills needed to use it, and the nature of the
learner. It is the description of the code that brings it into focus and
renders it ‘phonetic’. I’ve heard it said that “the code is not phonetic”
or “the code is imperfect”. Phonetic only means ‘sounds’. No where is it
written that a phonetic code can’t have a nature such as the one I’ve described
above. Once you see it’s nature it is perfectly phonetic and phonetically
perfect.

I hope this clears up some of the confusion that’s abounded on this site
about what Geoff and I are up to at readamerica.net.

The only other points of confusion seems to be:

1. Whether or not we’re sarcastic? Come on. That’s too silly. Unlike this
site, our site is a help voice for those using one method. It is confusing
for parents and teachers to get answers from Pandora and others on the
topic of Lindamood or Wilson, or whatever. It’s our right to asign a function
for our site and then perform that function.

2. Why do I “stick up for Reading Recovery”? I only point out that it was
their right to operationalize their goals as they wanted to. If they wanted
to say they wouldn’t treat the bottom 20% than fine. If the cyber lingo
for that is “sticking up” than ok, I stuck up.

3. And finally there has been some confusion over who’s who and who did
what. Geoff and I invented Phono﷓Graphix between the years of 1990 and
1993. Geoff’s mother, Diane McGuinness was only involved in this as an
intersted scientist. She did not invent Phono﷓Graphix and we did not invent
it based on her theories or research. All mis﷓truths. We do not agree with
all contained in her book, one example in point out of dozens… “English
is an imperfect code.”

Please post further questions here, or you can e﷓mail me directly at [email protected].
I hope we can be cordial about continued debate. Perhaps the hour of this
post will convince you of my deep concern for sharing the blue print I’ve
illustrated above, and for being understood in my attempts to share it.
Regards, Carmen McGuiness