Kathleen Stumpf Jongsma
Northside Independent School District, San Antonio, Texas, USA
Board Member, International Reading Association
Transcript from Critical Balances: Early Instruction for Lifelong Reading
DR. JONGSMA: Good morning. As a district person, a reading specialist,
a former professor, and a former classroom teacher, I often start a class
or a lesson with a good work from children's literature, as I know many
of you do. Reading aloud allows me to model the practices that I believe
in and those that I want children to know. I don't have time to read to
you today, but I do have time to mention a wonderful book, if you don't
know it. I'm seeing smiles that let me know many of you do. While we're talking about books that have been around for awhile and
statements from the '60s, this one was written in 1989. And if you don't
know Mem Fox's Feathers and Fools, I hope when you leave today you
will stop at a bookstore -- there is one close by -- and take it home
with you. This book, for those of you who don't know about it, starts out with
idyllic scenes of magnificent peacocks living in gardens and eloquent swans
living nearby in rushes and lakes. Soon each group begins making negative
statements about the other. Each group begins speaking fearfully of the
other. Each group continues to maintain its superiority. They begin building
their weapons. They figuratively circle their wagons. Before long, the
inevitable occurs. An innocent happening triggers the first skirmish and
ultimately the swans and the peacocks battle each other to death. Like lots of good stories, however, this one has a happy ending, because suddenly
from the fray emerge two fledgling chicks, one peacock, one swan, and both
decide that they have more in common than they have differences, and they
decide to go forward and work together for the future. Now, many have said that Mem's book is an allegory for the reading wars
today. You can have your own interpretation of that text. We didn't come
here today to fight any wars. We didn't gather to be confrontational. We
didn't come because we know truth and we want to make sure that everybody
has our truth. Rather, we paid our own ways, and that includes our speakers
and panelists. We came to give our own energies. We came because we want
to begin the dialogue. We've come because we are genuinely interested in
early reading and because we want the best for all of our Texas children. We came because we wanted to listen to one another and to explore significant
issues for planning curriculum and instruction for early reading. We came
because we want to be a part of the process, and some of us feel we have
been left out. We have a wonderful opportunity today to hear many different points
of view. This morning we hear from four very prominent university scholars.
Each will have about 25 minutes. And I will ride herd on that and, if necessary,
being a good teacher, I have a whistle in my purse. It's going to be hard
with these four. I have heard them often and I know that they can talk
for a long time, so I may need that whistle. After lunch, we will have a different format. We will have, first of
all, some very distinguished guests who will share some key thoughts with
us, and then we will move to a panel discussion. Now, how that panel goes depends on you, because in your packet of materials
there should be a note card, and on that note card you need to write your
questions. As you leave the room today, there is a punch
bowl just outside the door waiting for your card. So the questions that
our speakers generate today are questions that you need to write, and then
we will use those as the basis for the afternoon. The afternoon speakers are going to assemble at lunch, all of you panel
members, in room 216, to sort through all those cards and try to make sense
of what they're going to respond to this afternoon. So I urge you, if you
have a burning question that's been triggered by something that's happening
here, write it down. This afternoon, also, we will hear from another distinguished professor,
P. David Pearson, who will wrap up his ideas and our ideas and this conference
very rapidly, because he has a plane to catch. Now, that's our format, and it's my pleasure to introduce our morning
speakers. I also wish to inform you that we invited lots of people, and
the people who like to come to Texas wish that they could have been here
but they had other commitments. I do want you to know that we invited Marilyn
Adams, Barbara Foorman, Jean Osborn, and Bill Teale, but all of them
could not fit us into their schedule today. If we had had all of those folks and all of these folks, we would have
all had to have accelerated speech. But we do have some very significant
speakers with us this morning. You will notice they will be speaking in
alphabetical order. We did not want to appear sexist or we did not want
to favor one part of the country over another or by age or any other kind
of classification. Alphabetical order works. I will briefly introduce all of them, and then as quickly as I have
finished, Dick Allington will lead off. Their vitaes are extensive. Again,
we would not hear from them if I tried to give you their detailed vitaes,
but let me just share a few things. Dick Allington will be speaking first.
Dick is from SUNY Albany. He's been a dean and a department chair at that
particular institution. Many of you know Dick from his role at NRC (National Reading Conference) and
he is now past president of that organization. He is a board member currently
of the International Reading Association. Many of you know Dick through his writings over many years. Probably
one of your favorite articles is "If They Don't Read Much, How Are
They Ever Gonna Get Good?" But you know his current books No
Quick Fix, Schools at Work, Classrooms at Work. Dick will be speaking first. He will be followed alphabetically by Phil
Gough. Phil Gough holds the distinguished Barbara Bush Regents Chair at the
University of Texas. He has been at the University of Texas in many different
roles. Many of you have read Phil's work over a long period of time. You
know that he has been an editor of the distinguished Reading Research
Quarterly, along with Dr. Hoffman. He has many, many publications that
I know you have read and shared with your students if you are an university
professor. Currently one in press that many of you will want to be looking for
is called The Decomposition of Decoding. I don't
know when it will be out. He'll perhaps tell us. He's written several things
of late that I think particularly relate to the issues we'll be talking
about today. He will be followed by Taffy Raphael from Michigan State (University). You know Taffy's
writing about book clubs and you know lots of things that Taffy has done
with teachers, because she is an adamant teacher researcher. What some
of you may not know is last week Taffy had -- two weeks now -- a very distinguished
honor. At the International Reading Association convention in Atlanta,
she was presented with the outstanding teacher educator award, and that
is a very distinguished award. After Taffy, we will have Connie Weaver from Western Michigan (University). Connie
is past Director of the Commission of Reading for the National Council of
Teachers of English. She has several books that I know many of you have
used in your college classes, in your university teaching on reading and
language arts, and one on grammar that many of you have used and loved. In
press are two significant books that I think we will all be looking for both
with NCTE, one called Reconsidering a
Balanced Approach to Reading and one called Implementing a Balanced Approach
to Reading. With that in mind, I'm about to begin timing and, Dick,
you are on. Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted October 1997
© 1997-2000 International Reading Association, Inc. ISSN 1096-1232