Following is the full panel discussion transcript
Read from the main speakers' comments from the transcript by selecting from the following choices:
| Allington | Gough | Weaver |
Read from other speakers' comments from the transcript:
Sam Gwynne, Correspondent, Austin Bureau TIME Magazine
Frank Jackson, Assistant Director, Houston READ Commission
Michael Sampson, Professor, Texas A&M at Commerce, Texas
John Stevens, Chairperson, Texas Business Education Coalition
Rob Smith, Superintendent of Schools, Arlington, Virginia
Connie Newman, Reading Specialist in Clear Creek Independent School District, Texas
DR. SMITH: Good afternoon.
We have a message for Susan Watson, please call home as soon as possible.
I have a less stern message. It is that we're going to pick up where we
left off this morning with a discussion that I hope lends out for us the
-- the issues that are actually involved in this debate or in this discussion.
In doing that, we're going to follow this -- the following procedure. And
as I understand it, we're -- we're a little bit behind time. Dr. Pearson,
can you make your remarks in 20 minutes instead of 30? DR. PEARSON: I can do it in five. I can name that tune with three
notes. DR. SMITH: Well, good. We'll --we'll carry the panel discussion
until about 2:40 and then turn the program over to Dr. Pearson. We're going
to ask each of the scholars who spoke with us this morning to give us a
reflection for about three minutes and we're going to ask them to do that
in the reverse order of which they -- in which they spoke this morning,
which means that Dr. Weaver would begin. Then we're going to ask each of
the six other panelists, and I'll introduce them in a, to make a statement
limited to about three minutes and embed in that statement, if they choose,
a question for any of the scholars from this morning. Once that's completed, each of the panelists, of the nine panelists,
will be responding in some order that I invent as we go along. Depends
upon how they do in the first responses. Each panelist will respond to
some of the blue cards. Those blue cards have been divided up. So those
are the questions that came from the audience that were evoked by the comments
this morning. And then with each response to a blue card or set of blue
cards, one other panelist may respond as well to a follow-up, in case somebody
says something outrageous that needs to be corrected. And in that way,
we'll go on. DR. ALLINGTON: How likely is that? DR. SMITH: How likely? Not likely all. So we'll start with Dr.
Weaver. DR. WEAVER: Well, I can't resist starting
with my blue cards because it ties in with what I am compelled to say.
And the two blue cards tie together. One of them says in part, "In
other words, how can educators take control of the decisions rather than
politicians?" And the other one says, "If we're unable to dialogue with those
who believe in a single approach to create a literate society, and if we're
unable to speak to Texas Board of Education members who do not show at
functions such as this, how do we try to reach convergence on this hot
topic of literacy?" I have several different responses to that. I do think that probably
the vast majority of the public will be receptive to good information from
teachers and from researchers. Now, how we get that information out to
the public is a really good question. About two and a half years ago, a small handful of us in Michigan started
an organization called Michigan for Public Education and we now have, oh,
close to 300 people on our mailing list, including probably about 50 freebies.
It finally occurred to us that we needed to be sending our mailings to
people in power, whether they care to contribute $10 or not. And when I
was down here last year at the SHARC Conference, I worked with a group
of Texans to start Texans for Public Education. In our capacity with the Michigan for Public Education group, we have,
among other things, networked with other groups. We joined a public education
task force as a group, and this includes members of administrators' unions,
the teachers' union, the Michigan Association of State School Boards, and
also groups like the ACLU, People for the American Way -- no, come to think
of it, that's another network we're in. Scratch that, but include the League
of Women Voters, AAUW, the American Association of University Women. And
we started working towards some common goals that we all had, such as our
concern about vouchers and their potential use for schools with religious
affiliations. And in this way we academics created some credibility for
ourselves, frankly, and we were able then to distribute some fact sheets
about educational issues that were really well received by the leaders
of these other organizations. For example, one person alone sent it out
to the 100 some organizations under her parent organization. So a lot of
these have been disseminated. So one response I would make, I guess, is to really work together to
become more political. And it's obvious that some people -- some people's
minds will not be changed. As Taffy said, there are different paradigms
here. And part of that is they won't even listen. I mean, for example,
I doubt that Mr. Winick was here this morning to hear some of the other
research that was cited, even though it is so-called scientific research.
Even if we were to narrow it to experimental research that he would consider
scientific, there's a lot of research out there, a lot of research, as
I think all of us tried to indicate. Frankly, we have discovered in Michigan that one of the best things
to do, of course, is work with legislatures and school board of ed. members
and, frankly, to act at the polls. (More
on Weaver) DR. SMITH: Phil. DR. GOUGH: Three minutes. I was very pleased
to receive a number of questions from -- from the audience. I will not
have time to address them in the three minutes. I post my e-mail address,
and anybody whose question I don't answer I would hope would -- would take
note of it and e-mail me. I'm an avid e-mail user. The questions that I would try to address are -- are really three. One,
I was asked the question about R equals D times C and how we measure these
things. Reading in our research has been measured by oral reading and retelling. Decoding is measured by ideally a list of exception words, but we find
that a list of pseudo-words does quite well enough. And comprehension is
measured by reading a child a story and then getting her to retell it. Now, the point I have been trying to make, of course, is that decoding
is an essential part of reading skill and it can be distinguished from
the comprehension part. What is decoding made of? Well, I alluded to it
as being a cipher, and I received several questions about what the distinction
is between a code and a cipher and I have tried to illustrate it in this
-- what have I done? This is the -- I have the backing and not the transparency. If I say to you 007, what does that stand for? (More
on Gough) AUDIENCE: Bond. DR. GOUGH: James Bond. If I said to you KBNFT
CPOE, what does that correspond to? It's James Bond with each letter moved
up one. The former, 007, is a code; the latter is a cipher. It should be
clear to all of us that English is a cipher and not a code. That is, the
letters correspond to the phonemes in a very complex way. Let me show you one more overhead about that [transparency unavailable]. Here -- here, for example,
are some of the uses to which we put English letters. And what you can
see is that virtually every letter in our language depends -- corresponds
to more than one phoneme, some of them to three or four or even five. Which
phoneme they correspond to is context dependent. The only way you can master this cipher is by reading. That is to say,
you get a start through phonics instruction. And I'm not criticizing phonics
instruction in the least, but I think it is an open question how much you
need. I know that you cannot hope to teach the cipher through phonics.
You can instill the cipher, but you cannot install it with phonics instruction. I would submit that you cannot instill the cipher at all in the absence
of phonemic awareness. And here again, what is phonemic awareness? Well,
let me continue to say -- oh, by the way, one point I would make, the reason
I use the word "cipher" is because I find a great deal of dereliction
is accomplished by the use of the word "phonics." Phonics means
different things to different people. To me, it's a method of instruction. What the child knows is not phonics. What the child knows is the cipher,
namely the letter-sound correspondences. And I think it's very important
for us to have different terms to distinguish those two things: one, the
knowledge which the child has and, two, the means by which we implant it.
That's why I use the cipher for the former and phonics for the latter,
all right? Phonemic awareness is crucial in acquiring the cipher. What is phonemic
awareness? It has nothing to do with phonics, nothing to do with phonics.
And someone who teaches phonics does not teach phonemic awareness. It may
accidentally awaken phonemic awareness in the child, but phonics instruction
does not include any phonemic awareness instruction. Here again are questions which tap phonemic awareness. And what I would
have you note is that not a single one of them makes reference to a letter.
It's all about the fact that the spoken words in our language can be segmented
into units called phonemes. That is, the word "sheep," for example, starts
with a "sh," ends with a "p," and has an "ee"
in the middle. There are three phonemes, we write them with five letters. All right. The child's awareness that a word is composed of phonemes
is typically not there. If you take the average four-year-old and say what's
the first sound in "fish," they say, "Fish don't make sounds." That is, what
they're obsessed with is the meaning of words. And what we have to do in
kindergarten or the first grade is draw their attention to the sounds and
words which they have been looking right through to the meaning. So phonemic awareness instruction, I think, is absolutely necessary.
I do not think it should be mandated. I do not think it should be given
to every child. What I do think is that a kindergarten teacher should assess
her children's phonemic awareness and get to work on those children who
don't have it. That is, if you have phonemic awareness, there is no point
in spending any time on it; but if you don't have it, that child is in
deep trouble. It's that simple. That child will not learn to read unless
you can awaken phonemic awareness in that child. And I state that as baldly
as I can. I thought I had another one, but I don't, so I guess I'm done. Thanks.
(More on Gough) DR. ALLINGTON: Well, I had two -- it's on?
Gee, it's just that I -- oh, there it is. Now I can hear it. I had two
questions I'm going to try to respond to with one answer. One was the issue
of what's a decodable text and the other was what NICHD research is being
oversold, overgeneralized, or exaggerated. An issue of decodable text, I'm going to use two sources for -- for
a couple of these answers; one is the Texas Reading Initiative document,
the other is a document called "30 Years of Research, A Synthesis
of Research on Reading" from the National Institute of Child Health
and Development, which is available on the Web site of the Center for the
Future of Teaching and Learning in Santa Cruz, California, and so on. That
document was written by Bonnie Grossen of the Insight Center, the center
-- National Center for the Improvement of the Tools of Educators, a special
education center funded by the Special Education Rehabilitation Act. So, for the first question, what's decodable text, the Texas document
says, "The words in decodable stories are based on the letter-sound
relationships the children are learning. Such stories provide children
with the opportunity to practice what they are learning about letters and
sounds." It then goes on to contrast what a particular pattern story
is and that they shouldn't be confused with decodable text. According to the Grossen piece on the NICHD research, "To teach
systematically means to coordinate the introduction of sound spellings
with the material children are asked to read. The words and the stories
the children read are composed of only the sound-spelling relationships
the children have learned, so all children must be taught using the same
sequence." And she goes on to talk more about decodable texts and
so on. So, as I understand it, the decodable text is being defined generally
as text in which children encounter decodable words; in other words, words
that are phonetically regular, with a small number of sight words or irregular
words that are absolutely necessary if you are going to write anything
that uses the word "is" or "of" or "the, "which,
as Phil pointed out, that would leave out 25 percent of all the word possibilities
in the world, all right. The exaggeration, overgeneralization of the NICHD research -- and I
will argue that there is some substantial amounts of stretching going on
here in terms of what it's shown and how -- I would argue even how scientific
it is, scientific from the standpoint of traditional criteria. I too was
trained as an experimental psychologist, trained to do scientific, empirical,
socially neutral research, manipulating independent variables and variables
across time and trying to measure the effects of different combinations
or omissions and additions to a particular routine or sequence of activities. What I think is being oversold is the research on decodable text. The
Grossen piece says the use of interesting stories to develop language comprehension
is not ruled out by the NICHD research. Only the use of these stories as
reading materials for nonreaders is ruled out. During the early stage of
reading acquisition, children can still benefit from such stories if the
teacher reads to them. It goes on to say the -- a common misconception regarding balance is
that the teacher should teach sound-spelling relationships in the context
of real stories. This mixture of decoding and comprehension instruction
in the same instructional activity is clearly less effective, even when
the decoding instruction is fairly structured. That's again summarizing
the Foorman study or that -- an interpretation of the Foorman study. Findings, the findings of the NICHD research emphasize that children
need extensive practice in applying the knowledge of sound-spelling relationships
to the task of reading. The integration of phonics in reading can only
occur with the use of decodable text. Now, that's -- from that document,
we move back to the Texas document. The Texas document says, "Research strongly asserts that children
benefit greatly from direct systematic decoding instruction and that instruction
should follow with practice in decodable stories." Not as strong a
statement, but one I would still argue there is not even an assertion in
the research, much less a strong assertion. The NICHD research has primarily been intervention researched with add-on,
pull-out programs targeted at the bottom 15 percent of the population.
I work with Frank Vellutino, another NICHD researcher, which has just published
what I think is an interesting study looking at what he calls hard and
easy to remediate kids, finding that about 1 percent of the kids aren't
remediated, aren't reading on grade level, if you provide access to one-to-one
tutoring for as long as they need it, including all summer, starting in
kindergarten. Frank modeled his intervention, which was a pull-out, add-on
intervention after Reading Recovery, with Tunmer's adaptation of Reading
Recovery, with a stronger phoneme segmentation activity. The Foorman study took a commercial reading program that's a conglomeration
of activities, including writing activities, shared reading activities,
rereading activities, some phonics, different types of phonics activities,
and some decodable text, and asserts that they have been able to pull out
the decodable text as the important part. I will simply suggest they have
not manipulated any of those variables in any systematic or scientific
way to measure the effect of any of those things. Whatever small effects
that were observed in that study on some narrow decoding tasks, because
there were no observed effects on comprehension tasks, are, you know, at
best unexplainable by the research design that they used. And I will also
assert that both Dr. Fletcher, Dr. Lyon, and also probably Dr. Foorman know
that. (More on Allington) DR. SMITH: Well, that was fairly stern. I would like to take
just a few moments to introduce the -- the remaining members of the panel
and then we will ask them to respond as well. And I'm -- this is going
to be a brief introduction, so if you would like to say more about you
or your organization, feel free to do that within the confines of the three
minutes that you have. Sam Gwynne, if you'd raise your hand so that you identify yourself,
Time Magazine, the Austin bureau; Phyllis Hunter, who is the Houston ISD
reading manager; Frank Jackson who is the Houston -- of the Houston Read
Commission; Connie Newman, who is a teacher in Clear Creek ISD; and Michael
Sampson, Texas Association for the Improvement of Reading at East Texas
State? East -- I said that wrong, didn't I? Texas A & M - Commerce. Texas A & M - Commerce, sorry. And John Stevens
with the Texas Business Education Coalition. And we'll start with Sam. MR. GWYNNE: Okay. Well, I'm going to --
going to use my time here for -- to ask a question. And I want to ask it
of the three presenters. I have got an empirical problem, I guess, here.
There is -- you know, we hear -- we all heard Darv Winick. I mean, a lot
of what's being done here in the state is based, they say, on complete,
absolutely solid, empirical research. The supporters of direct instruction
of phonemic awareness say there is a vast convergence of this stuff. The
-- and now I hear with interest Dick Allington proposing, what was the
button, the button that said "Show Me the Research." Now, you have to forgive me. Journalists are simple creatures. You know,
we don't -- we like things to be black and white, not gray, you know. Gray
-- gray confuses us, so -- but, truly, it seems to get at the heart of
the issue here. I mean, there is -- we heard -- I heard a lot this morning
about empirical evidence that supports one particular -- or it's complex,
but a particular point of view here, and then there is all this other stuff.
It seems to be an empirical war going on here, and I want to ask all three
of you, how is one to make ones way through this? I mean, how -- you know,
other than to have just one side saying the other side is full of it and
the other side saying the other side is full of it? I would just leave it open to all -- I would like to hear from all three
of you, because it really -- I don't know -- I don't know any way out of
this argument if each side's empiricism is better than the other. (Return
to Top) DR. GOUGH: May I -- may I go -- I have been
in the middle of the other side, so let me go first. I wish to speak to
the question of phonemic awareness. I'm not here to defend phonics, nor
am I here to defend the Foorman-Fletcher kind of research. But with respect
to phonemic awareness, I would point out there are three well-established
facts. One is that phonemic awareness in kindergarten is a better predictor
of subsequent reading achievement as much as three years later than ethnicity,
than IQ, than SES. That is to say, it is the hallmark of a child who will
become a successful reader. Secondly, it is well-established that if you look at disabled readers
at the end of the first grade, one of their characteristics is that they
lack phonemic awareness. That is, poor readers don't have it. And many
of us believe that's why they are poor readers. Thirdly, there are now no less than 20 studies which have shown that
phonemic awareness training improves later reading achievement. That is,
phonemic -- training directed explicitly to phonemic awareness, not to
letter-sound correspondences, but to the child's knowledge that the spoken
word can be segmented into phonemes, that that training promotes their
subsequent reading achievement. And not a single study has been found which
contradicts that conclusion. (More on Gough) DR. ALLINGTON: I'll jump in. Just -- one of
the things that I didn't say, that I will now, is that I think to some
extent, Sam, the -- the media doesn't do its homework. I will say that
from -- (More on Allington) MR. GWYNNE: I acknowledge that. DR. ALLINGTON: -- from the standpoint --
and I have mixed feelings here, because I'm not sure that I expect most
journalists to be able to pick up the Journal of Experimental Child Psych
and disambiguate all the factors in a study, which in some cases, given
the claims, is sort of what one would almost have to do. But I do think
that the criteria I set up this morning for -- for how one might evaluate
research claims in terms of convergence, in terms of the quality and in
terms of comparability and so on, is -- are reasonable. And when lots of
media attention is paid to a single study, which has not been made available
for peer review, which - and in which, you know, lots of different versions
of what the findings were, anyway, from that standpoint, that's where I
think the media has been irresponsible or hasn't -- maybe they haven't
pushed hard enough to get to the -- you know, to the basis of where these
claims are coming from. At the same time, I think educators are equally as -- at fault, because
some of our most popular programs in terms of pricing -- purchasing, are
-- have "research" right at the top on the ad copy, and when
you do what I do often, which is write and ask for the research, and that
includes the research on things like alphabetic phonics, which I understand
there is a center here somewhere in Houston that trains in that, there
is no research on alphabetic phonics. Pete Johnson and I have been trying for almost 10 years to get the
Orton Dyslexia Society or any of these other supposed research centers
to send us some research on alphabetic phonics. It ain't there. They send
us clipping about newspaper articles on dead dyslexic brain autopsies.
They send us columns from grandmas out of Long Island News Day. They send
us testimonials written by teachers that appear in their own publications
but they -- with some little chart that says, look, the which average kid
in my tutoring group gained 7.2 years in only 3 days. But there is
no scientific research that supports a recommendation for that particular
program or any particular phonics program. I would also say I don't basically
disagree with Phil on most of what he said. Thank you. (More
on Allington) DR. SMITH: Thank you. Phyllis. DR. WEAVER: I'm Connie. Good afternoon. DR. SMITH: I'm sorry, Phyllis. DR. WEAVER: I get a turn, too. DR. SMITH: Connie, you get to respond as well. I'm sorry. DR. WEAVER: Phil points
out, quite rightly, that there are a number of studies, I believe he said
at least 20, that demonstrate that teaching phonemic awareness does improve
measures of reading achievement, but there are a couple things we need
to realize. One is, just because there hasn't been as much research, anywhere
near as much research on the opposite cause-effect relationship, that doesn't
mean it's any less real. It just means not too many people yet have researched
the possibility that learning to read develops phonemic awareness. (Return
to PI) Another point is that measures of reading achievement are almost
inevitably standardized tests which are timed, so if you happen to be slow
at decoding, you're not going to do as well as your peers on a test that
measures comprehension basically in terms of reading speed. You won't even
get through the test. So when we hear about reading achievement, we need
to remember this is scores on timed standardized tests, which is a good
bit of why, as Phil was reporting, there tends to be a correlation between
ability to decode and comprehension scores. Yeah, it was set up that way,
okay? I do want to mention one particular study as exemplifying this reciprocal
hypothesis. It's a study by Linda Ayres in Michigan and it was on that
bibliography this morning; so far it's been published only in dissertation
form. But one of the interesting things that she found, and other investigators
have found, quite to their surprise, is that when phonological skills are
taught in kindergarten -- and that includes, but is not limited, to phonemic
awareness -- if the study extends through a couple of years, by the end
of first grade there is not necessarily any difference on the assessment
measures between the control group, between that group and the experimental
groups. This is especially true of measures of comprehension: the control
group often does as well as the experimental groups. So one thing we definitely
need is more longitudinal research. We can't settle for research that does
just one or two or even three years probably, although the variables get
more complicated the longer you try to carry out a study. But we can't
just assume that teaching phonemic awareness directly is the only way to
develop phonemic awareness, for instance, because the research doesn't
confirm that. Oh, and one more thing, we need to look at a variety of measures. So
often, reading success is measured, quote, scientifically, just on the
standardized tests, tests of letter recognition, letter-sound awareness,
ability to read words, including pseudo-words, and comprehension of passages,
which is based in large part on whether you can read the words fast enough.
We need to look at those other kinds of things I was mentioning this morning,
such as students' developing strategies for reading, and are they developing
a love for reading. You know, some people think you can postpone that,
but brain research doesn't suggest it. It suggests that motivation is really
important. (Return to Top) MR. GWYNNE: Thank you. DR. JACKSON: I work for the Houston READ
Commission. Many of you in Houston know what the Houston READ Commission
is. Our focus is on adult literacy and family literacy. And I wanted to
talk a little bit in my opening statement about that, but I feel like that
I have to preempt that a little bit to respond to some of Mr. Winick's
remarks. One, I thought it was a really poor choice of words to use "rules
of engagement" in describing what we're trying to do in terms of teaching
kids to read in this state. Earlier, I believe it was Taffy Raphael who
talked about this whole issue kind of being put in some areas, one of which
she said was discrediting public education. And I heard a lot of that in
Mr. Winick's remarks. I heard him say, oh, teachers are really important, but obviously you're
not doing a good job, you haven't been trained well, and you need to be
trained by private people rather than public education. And recently we were told in the READ Commission -- and, you know, we're
a nonprofit agency. We struggle to have enough money to meet payroll. We
have a large payroll. We have a payroll of about $80,000 every two weeks
and we struggle to bring that money in. And we were just told -- and this
has to do with this redirecting of funds for instructional materials --
we were just told the other day that, well, if you want to keep this program,
this is the -- these are the materials that you need to buy, and you need
to have these decodable texts and you need to do this and you need to do
that. So, you know, I don't think -- I don't think we're going to be able
to continue that program. Okay. Now, I got through with that. Let me talk about adult literacy.
Alma Allen this morning talked very directly about the importance of parents
in the literacy of children. Phyllis Gingiss addressed that very directly.
Connie alluded to it when she said that 80 percent of the children who
come in go right on by phonics and phonemic awareness and are those parents
-- those kids who have been read to by their parents, have books in their
homes, and I guess my question to the researchers is: Can we afford to
leave out of the equation the illiterate parents? And I want to talk just a second about the statistics that are available
on illiteracy of adults in Texas and particularly in Houston. And in Texas,
77 percent of our African American population adults have been defined
as functional illiterates, 77 percent of our Hispanic population. Phyllis
can tell you that that constitutes the majority of the students in our
school district. I do not believe that we will ever be successful with any program that
leaves those parents out of the equation. And that's -- I guess that's
my little soap box speech. (Return to Top) DR. SMITH: Would one of the -- one of the panelists from this
morning like to respond to that? DR. WEAVER: I agree. DR. SMITH: Good response. Anyone else? Do you agree, Dick? DR. ALLINGTON: Yes. DR. SMITH: Phil? DR. GOUGH: Yes. DR. SMITH: Connie. DR. NEWMAN: Originally my question was to
Dr. Allington and to Dr. Gough, so I'm going to ask a part of the question
to Dr. Gough and part of the question to Dr. Allington. Dr. Allington gave his rather stern opinion of decodable texts and I
would also like Dr. Gough to discuss your view of the use of predictable
text and decodable text in beginning reading instruction. And if Dr. Gough
would -- if Dr. Allington would address predictable text in beginning, not
skilled reading but beginning reading instruction. (Return
to Top) DR. GOUGH: Predictable texts have proven
very useful as -- as a teaching tool. I think there is a danger in them.
I have done a whole lot of research showing that predictability is not
the characteristic of true text. That is to say, most content words are
totally unpredictable. So context is not -- I said this earlier, but context
does not provide the support that you need. (Return
to Top) I don't have really any feeling at all about decodable
texts. I mean, I certainly don't like the linguistic readers of the sort
that Dick illustrated. I much prefer real text. I don't care what they
read, so long as they have phonemic awareness. (Return
to PI) DR. ALLINGTON: Well, let me - let me see
if I can offer a short answer here on that. I do care a little bit about
what they read, but I hope they -- I want them to have phonemic awareness
also. I guess the one -- the reason I tried to or I read the definitions right
out of the papers is that I -- it looks to me like decodable text is being
defined as "Nan, can, fan, Dan" kind of text or "Nat the
rat" kind of text and so on, that I am old enough to have remembered
trying to teach with that stuff and running Title I and LD remedial program
for the kids who didn't learn to read with that stuff and so on. And there's
a wealth of research from the '70s and '80s on the effect of limiting that
kind of text to kids. Now, flip it over to predictable text. I think that -- you know, I can
make -- probably be a stronger critic of many of the predictable texts
as I am of the decodable texts, particularly a text that -- that introduces
enormous range of words and word structures to beginning readers. I
prefer the term "manageable text." I think it's absolutely essential
that kids have texts in front of them that do have some controls. (Return
to PI) I don't want to go back to William S. Gray and 20 -- you know, how many
words and how many repetitions. I don't want to go back to "Nan, can,
fan, Dan." But I think we have in fact at times tried taking texts
that authors wrote to be read to children and we have given them to children
to try to read. And I think that we -- I think there is a fairly wide consensus
amongst teachers and amongst researchers that very early on we need to
be very careful about leveling the complexity and the difficulty of the
text that's there. And I don't think we have been very good at it. We don't need to go back to the old readability formulas
either, but I think there does need to have text that -- that gradually
increases in complexity. I think it's necessary that those texts have some
words in them that reflect the decoding strategies that the kids are being
taught. But to make the whole text off of that -- (Return
to PI) I'll just close by telling you, I talked to Jeanne Chall this past weekend
and I said to Jeanne, maybe I have missed something, because she's a bit
older than me, and I said I was looking for this decodable text thing and
I said, you know, were there old studies, Jean, that supported this. And she said to me, "Heavens, no." She said, "We tried
that once. Did these people all forget? We created these horrible
little texts like 'Nat the rat' that children hated and no one
learned to read with them." So I thought to myself, maybe we did all forget
or maybe it's -- maybe the people that are aging aren't aging as fast as
me or maybe they aged so fast that they forgot. I hope that -- that's an answer. (Return to the Top) DR. SMITH: Thank you. Mike. DR. SAMPSON:Good afternoon. I will
start with a question from the audience and then I will
respond with my comments and two pieces of research.
And, Phil, even you will find this research "scientific and empirical" because it
has the hard numbers and "data" that the empirical researchers
love to average and sum.
But let
me begin by sharing with you that these are the best of times and
the worst of times. They're wonderful times because over the last 15 years
we've seen real books placed into classrooms, and we've seen reading instruction
shift from an overemphasis on teaching isolated skills to an emphasis on developing readers. At the university level, I can see the difference in the achievement of my students.
Today's students, unlike those I taught 15 years ago, are proficient readers,
writers, and thinkers. Thus, the proof of the educational reforms of the 1980s and
1990s is in the product. And I'm not speaking of just anecdotal data like I
just provided. If you examine the data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress,
if you look at the RAND report, if you consider rising SAT scores, it becomes
obvious that today's students are excellent learners and problem solvers. But in spite of this progress, these are the worst of times. Suddenly,
in Texas, we're being thrust back to the 1960s and the debate that existed
then. Jim, thanks for sharing the quote from Botel this morning. I thought
it was you making the statement. I think everyone did. You shocked us. It is amazing that the 1960s and 1990s are parallel in the debate we are
engaged in. One common factor is a product called DISTAR. And that old, ineffective
DISTAR product is re-entering Texas in terms of philosophy this year. The other parallel from the 1960s, in a positive vein, are the Instant Readers that were developed by Bill Martin, Jr.
Bill Martin was ahead of his time because he called these 30 little books Instant Readers.
The name was insightful; children could read these books instantly.
They were easy for children to read because of the text qualities of predictability
and structure. Thus, beginning readers had instant success with real books and real
stories -- stories that delighted them and welcomed them into the world of reading. Well, the phonics lobby didn't like that then, and they don't like it now,
because they believe
that children don't learn "real" phonics skills because the text gives
away the words. In truth, they don't want children to have access to words
unless that access comes from the phonics cueing system. So, they have a
problem. Stories provide so much context that the words virtually "leap"
into the mind of the reader. So -- they came up with a solution -- contrived,
artificial text. In the DISTAR manual, and I still have
a copy in my office, there is actually the statement "do not
let children read stories until they are in second grade because if they read stories
they will use context to pronounce words and true decoding skills will not
develop." But that was written in the 1960s. Well, the past has returned. Two weeks
ago in Dallas, Texas, the Dallas Area Reading Summit was held, and the people from Oregon
who represented the DISTAR philosophy were there. And they were saying exactly
the same things that
they said in the 1960s. What was wrong and out of date in the 60s is even
more incorrect and out of date for the 1990s. Now, my question is this: Do we teach reading skills to develop
readers or do we teach reading skills in and for themselves? And how do children
learn phonics -- by reading or by studying the rules? A research study
that I have been involved in over the past several
years posed the questions, "How are literacy skills developed in kindergarten and first grade?"
and "How do children learn phonics?" This research was conducted in a process
classroom where reading and writing acts were authentic. No contrived texts were
used and children did not do worksheets and phonics skill sheets; instead, students
wrote and read and shared stories and real texts. Skill development was very natural as children would write and use
exploratory spelling with first drafts, and then use the editing process to
refine their work. Skills developed naturally. At the
end of two years, we administered a number of evaluation instruments, including
the TOPS (Test of Phonic Skills). The results? Every student mastered every
phonic skill. The preliminary report of that research is on the Internet; see
The International Institute of Literacy Learning homepage (http://www.tiill.com). SO -- how did they learn the phonics? They learned phonics through the language. They learned phonics by manipulating
the language -- by reading and writing and listening. Thus -- do we have to
explicitly teach skill one, then two, then three? No. Actually the best way to teach phonics skills is in the context of reading
and writing. And this research study documents this fact. The other issue that I want to mention briefly is the question of
so-called "decodable" text. Ironically, predictable text, which is the
most decodable of all text because it provides readers multiple cueing systems for
decoding, is termed "non-decodable" by the phonics lobby. Thus, the
phonics lobby is opposed to children reading predictable texts because they
want to restrict children to the use of the only graphophonic cues -- they do
not wish them to use the cueing systems of meaning, language structure, or
environment. Thus, they have created text they coin "decodable" text,
and are attempting to mandate the use of such text as part of the TEKS, the
state curriculum in Texas (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills). Decodable text, in my opinion, is inferior text. Here's an example: "A
seed is in the sea. The seed and the sea play. The sea can plant the seed."
Children who read such text encounter strange syntax and little meaning. But the
text does succeed in making the reader simply "sound out" each word --
which makes it decodable text to the phonics lobby. But at what price? Vocabulary
development is stymied, and children lose their desire to read for recreation and
enjoyment.
In addition, such text is in fact the most difficult text to read. In a study
reported in The Pursuit of Literacy: Early Reading and Writing (published
by Kendall Hunt), we looked at second graders and their reading of three types
of text: (1) predictable text, (2) decodable text, and (3) child-authored text.
A traditional readability analysis revealed that the child-authored text was the
most linguistically complex, followed in difficulty by the predictable text.
The decodable text was the most simplistic. Well, guess what? The highest comprehension and the highest
reading scores occurred
with the with the child-authored text and the predictable text. In other words, kids can
read stories that other children have written better than decodable text. Thus,
material with simple vocabulary and regular sound-symbol correspondence was in
fact harder to read than better written, more complex material. Why? Because
decodable text denies children access to the reading cueing systems. Children
become crippled readers when forced to read such text. (Return
to PI) So how does it work? Why is harder text easier? I think it's because, as Connie Weaver
mentioned this morning, learning is reciprocal. As children interact with
language through writing and as they read predictable text, they develop and master
phonics skills. But more than that, they develop a love and appreciation for
reading. And I think that's the key. Now, the second question was what's the debate? Well... (Return
to Top) DR. SMITH: Mike, excuse me, could you hold that question? I want
to make sure John gets a chance. DR. SAMPSON: Sure. DR. SMITH: We'll move on to John. MR. STEVENS: Thank you. I'm used to that.
Actually, it's E-V-E-N-S. I never thought of spelling it E-P-H to move
ahead in the alphabet. I represent the Texas Business and Education Coalition. That's a group
of business executives and educational leaders that have been working together
since 1989 to improve the performance of the Texas public schools. We're
committed to public education because we know that whatever is done to
educate children anywhere, the vast majority of them are going to be educated
in the public schools. And the kind of place Texas becomes in the future
will depend more than anything else on the performance of our public schools.
So we are committed totally to the public schools, and I want to establish
that. I think it's -- I think it's important also that we bring business and
education together, because these two institutions will shape our future.
The kind of businesses, the kind of jobs, the kind of economy we have are
interdependent with the success of our schools. So that's the reason for
the whole thing. I want to tell you, too, that I have one question here I'm going to
slip in. People have said why aren't people of different persuasions in
this reading war included in various things? Well, I have been on the English,
language arts writing team for the TEKS and I know that the wars have been
fought there, so there have been all kinds of people there. We've also
had the Commissioner's advisory committee on reading and people from different
persuasions have been there, and the advisory committee for the Texas Center
for Reading and Language Arts has a variety of people there, too. But that's
really not what I really want to talk about. We're firmly of the belief that the state ought to set standards for
student learning and leave the job of figuring out how to get there to
you. (More) AUDIENCE: Thank you. MR. STEVENS: I appreciate everything that's
been said here today by these experts. I once worked with a guy -- actually,
he worked for me. I have a bachelor's degree and he has a Ph.D. We'd argue
about everything from communism to whatever it was and he would quote this
expert or that expert. And every time that I -- in exasperation, at times
I'd would ask him, Rich, I want to know what "you" think. And
I would suggest that as teachers and as people at the campus level, take
all of what you have heard here today. When you go back to your campus,
what do you think? What do you do? The title of this is "An Institute on Research-to-Practice Connections
for Early Reading Instruction." Well, I have looked at a lot of test
scores, and I have here a new kind of run and I've got a two-inch stack
on my desk at home of TAAS results analyzed in different ways. We're working
on using test results as feedback to you, as a tool that shows you the
growth of learning from year to year of the students in your district provide
teachers direct feedback, not on some research conducted somewhere else,
but action research, direct feedback to you on the learning results in
your classroom. I would suggest to you that the important -- the most important
researchers on what works in reading are you. What do you think? I have a question here that says -- one of these rhetorical questions,
could the truth be that different children learn differently? (More) DR. ALLINGTON: Yes. No. MR. STEVENS: All the aggregated -- all
the aggregated results in the world, all the averages in the world don't
mean a thing to parents. Parents care "is my child learning to read?"
They're the customers. To satisfy the customer means not all children should
learn to read, but each child should learn to read. And you have to go
back and look at the results you're getting. And I have looked at the results
and I can tell you the range of performance is wide with the same kinds
of kids. Some people are doing a better job. Learn from one another. Work with one another. Ask yourself what works practically with my kids
and my classroom and make the commitment to understand the needs of each
and every single child and do what will work for them. That's what we want. End the wars. Don't worry about, you know, what
the media is going to report, because, although you can help educate them,
if you all can't figure it out, how do you expect them to? (More) MR. SMITH: Thank you. MR. STEVENS: Don't blame someone else.
Don't say "I'm doing what somebody else told me to do." Don't
say "I'm just following some guru in some far off university."
When you close the door, you're in charge of the learning experiences of
your children. You do what you know best. Work with your colleagues. Use
the test results not as the end of the discussion, but as the beginning
of the discussion about your school, about your classroom, and do it for
the kids and do it for our future. Thank you. (Return
to Top) DR. SMITH: I would like to take this moment to thank the panel.
I'm sorry we won't have time to go through the next round. We'll be convening
here again at 6:30 for those of you who want to -- no? Apparently we won't
be. Our concluding remarks are going to be made by Dr. Pearson. Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted October 1997
© 1997-2000 International Reading Association, Inc. ISSN 1096-1232