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     John Davenport Citizen Username: Jjd Post Number: 121 Registered: 2-2003 |
Check out http://www.educationallycorrect.com/Issues/reading.htm Here is their summary: "There has been long-standing controversy about the best way to teach reading. But there is now strong evidence that systematic, explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics is the superior approach to beginning reading instruction. In spite of the convergence of the evidence, "progressive" educators are still resisting this, in favor of "balanced" reading, a euphemism for the misguided whole language approach. Up to 80% of students in special education are of normal intelligence, but have a reading disability as a result of inappropriate instruction. Many reading experts believe that the great majority of these children would have learned to read at grade level if they had been taught to read using scientifically based approaches to reading. Special education remediation occurs too late, is enormously expensive, and techniques currently popular in public schools are generally ineffective. This site offers information and links about the phonics vs. whole language debate." I would also like to attach an excellent article by Ray King of Hartsfield Elementary School and Joseph Torgesen of Florida State. I should also add, in case anyone wonders, that I know neither of these people personally, nor do I have any financial connnetion to them or to this website!
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| nan Citizen Username: Nan Post Number: 1117 Registered: 2-2001 |
John, Are you now officially a member of ACE? And perhaps you can explain how this website can claim that it offers "information and links about the phonics vs whole language debate." Where's the debate? I see two links (listed with cautions) to old documents on reading that may have a more "holistic" perspective and then about a zillion links loudly proclaiming the superiority of "evidenced-based" instruction. This is clearly a website for zealots. Is that what you have become? Then you have this document co-authored by Joseph Torgeson--another psychology/reading disabilities special Ed guy with a history of NIH funding. Here's a list of his areas of interest: Psychology of reading and prevention of reading disabilities; cognitive characteristics of children with learning disabilities; assessment practices with children; computer assisted instruction in basic academic skills. Same "deficit model" stuff you guys are always pushing. Why do you continue to insist that our district adopt a special ed reading curriculum? | |||
| Montagnard Citizen Username: Montagnard Post Number: 378 Registered: 6-2003 |
The following drivel was identified on the website as "A wonderful article by Martin Kozloff criticizing Whole Language. Browse his website for a fascinating critique of progressive education".
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| nan Citizen Username: Nan Post Number: 1119 Registered: 2-2001 |
Kozloff is a famous devotee of Direct Instruction, formally known as DISTAR. This is one of the ACE recommended programs, utilized in the school referenced in John's paper above. Here is a description of Direct Instruction from Lisa Delpit, also a critic of progressive education, but not as an advocate of Direct Instruction as the solution: Perhaps the ultimate expression of explicitness and direct instruction in the primary classroom is Distar. This reading program is based on a behaviorist model in which reading is taught through the direct instruction of phonics generalizations and blending. The teacher's role is to maintain the full attention of the group by continuous questioning, eye contact, finger snaps, hand claps, and other gestures, and by eliciting choral responses and initiating some sort of award system.. . . Direct instruction programs, such as the ones cited in John's paper are intensive and time consuming, about 3-4 hours a day. Compare that to the amount of literacy instruction in our schools and it makes it hard to say one program is better than another without somehow factoring in the additional time. Because of the extra time needed, the school cited in John's paper eliminated social studies, science and some of the math program. I'd like to know how a program that increases the amount of intensive phonics instruction, but eliminates instruction in social studies and science and reduces instruction in math can be said to be serving ALL CHILDREN. Is this really the kind of program we want to see in our schools? | |||
| fringe Citizen Username: Fringe Post Number: 281 Registered: 5-2001 |
I suppose "deficient model" can mean different things to different people, but at the Tuscan forum on the Achievement Gap, the term I heard most often was "equity model" designed to ensure consistency from classroom to classroom and school to school. In such an environment a child's learning would not be dependent on individual teachers with the widely divergent outcomes evident in the 2002 & 2003 scores. Perhaps a better analogy is the ice cream cone and pyramid. Enrollment in current remedial programs increases as a Class progresses through our district. It would seem desireable to replace this with a pyramid model that ensures a solid foundation from the beginning for ALL students, including those from privileged backgrounds who currently benefit from private tutors to compensate for the current deficiencies in the curriculum. Taken from the Washington forum upon which much of the presentation was based ® Replacement of the former "deficit model" for student achievement, which typically assumed that children of color and low-income children would not perform well, with an equity model that mandates that all districts must attain the same high standards with all students -- thus, altering previous assumptions of who succeeds academically and who does not. ® A shift from input-driven accountability (as measured, for example, by teacher certification and/or the number of books in the school library) to results-driven accountability, which focuses on whether or not students are learning. ® Disaggregating, or grouping, all state testing data according to race and socioeconomic status and making this data accessible to the public. | |||
| John Davenport Citizen Username: Jjd Post Number: 122 Registered: 2-2003 |
Well, this certainly elicited the reaction I was expecting. The unmasking of the rhetoric of "balanced" instruction was particularly revealing, and one main reason for noting this website. Sorry Montnagard but I had not seen that particular passage. My reading in this area is, confessedly, much smaller than Nan's. However, the article I linked to the post seemed to me to make some very important points. Although I'm not recommending Distar for our district, I think we should take a hard look at in that direction, away from what we have now. Nor is this "remedial" education. That is premised on your assumption that phonics-intensive instruction is only proper for catch-up programs, which is exactly what is under dispute (i.e. you are begging the question). The whole point, in fact, is to reduce our overreliance and need for Project Ahead. I'm not a member of ACE by the way, but then, I'm not a member of the NAACP either, and yet I often agree with things that their leaders say (often, not always). So stop trying to "damn by association" (an ad hominem fallacy). One does not have to be a member of a group to have sympathy with some of their key points. Our Lady of Sorrows school school uses a published reading curriculum and still manages to teach social science and math. Please don't attack "straw men" when trying to make your case for keeping our current curriculum. You are working your way through each of the informal fallacies in turn here! | |||
| John Davenport Citizen Username: Jjd Post Number: 123 Registered: 2-2003 |
PS is every ed author with any NIH funding now automatically suspect? Surely this is a bit extreme? | |||
| Reflective Citizen Username: Reflective Post Number: 292 Registered: 3-2003 |
Honestly John D. Do you really think Nan reads everything she posts? Her research on the net and her understanding of the data is the equivalent of several people full time! Think about it. Are other people researching and prompting her mega google efforts? | |||
| nan Citizen Username: Nan Post Number: 1131 Registered: 2-2001 |
John, What's the "unmasking of balanced instruction" other than some smugly laid trap? Last time I checked we were talking about early reading instruction, not philosophy 101. I agree that your unpublished paper gives some interesting suggestions for improving reading instruction. How come the only one YOU seem interested in is the scripted reading program--"I'm not recommending Distar for our district. I think we should take a hard look at in that direction, away from what we have now." Why? Where's the evidence that that was the one element that made the difference when so many others are also mentioned that don't require nearly as much expense or change? I know you want to get rid of Project Ahead, but these programs are expensive and even the ACE folks are now starting to waffle on the promise of no remediation required. Where's the evidence that all the kids in Project Ahead are there just because they don't get enough phonics? It's true that beginning readers lack phonics knowledge--they are after all BEGINNING readers--but how do you know that is the CAUSE of their reading failure? What about attitude and attention span? In first grade, my kid would not pay attention unless someone was sitting next to him. I can't see a different program changing that. You give possible private school examples where this works, but in public schools the implementation of scripted programs often means the loss of other subject matter--and when I see YOU recommending a programs that does that I get worried. After all, John--YOU are the one who came up with this example as one we should look at with no reservations. The same goes for the Martin Kozloff worshiping website. For details on the over influence of NIH, listen to this radio interview with Richard Allington (required Real Media Player): http://www.classroomstruggles.org/currentshow.htm | |||
| J. Crohn Citizen Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 861 Registered: 3-2003 |
"I know you want to get rid of Project Ahead, but these programs are expensive and even the ACE folks are now starting to waffle on the promise of no remediation required." More mendacity, Nan. Neither John nor Ace has ever proposed to "get rid of" Project Ahead. No one is waffling about anything, certanly not your imaginary "no remediation required" promise. The only person who has said anything about the possibility that Project Ahead, a euphemism for pull-out instruction, may not be as helpful as other kinds of (perhaps equally expensive, "push-in") remediation is me. When I have done so, I have never mentioned ACE, which as far as I know hasn't said much at all on the subject of PA vs. other types of remediation. | |||
| nan Citizen Username: Nan Post Number: 1132 Registered: 2-2001 |
You are technically correct--I don't think I've every heard an ACE member directly say "Get one of these programs and we will be able to eliminate Project Ahead." But that's what it sounds like you are promising when you attribute the rate of remediation directly to the lack of one of your pet programs. And right on the ACE brochure it says: "In another schools's second grade, 41% was in remediation. It does not have to be this way. National Institutes of Health experts on reading say the percentage of students in remediation should be close to 5%" These NIH experts are the same ones ACE hired to tell us to use one of those programs. But, as we have discussed on MOL before, the 5% is a fiction, based on studies utilizing pull-out tutoring--the very thing you say you want to eliminate. | |||
| J. Crohn Citizen Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 862 Registered: 3-2003 |
"But, as we have discussed on MOL before, the 5% is a fiction..." Well it sure isn't a fiction for some students, nan. The percentage of white students in our district who score below proficiency on state exams has hovered around 5% or less for at least as long as disaggregated data have been made public. The percentage of black kids scoring below proficiency is three to four times that. Are you suggesting that black kids—who I believe make up about two thirds of the Project Ahead population—can be helped by nothing but remediation? Are you really going to insist that our kids at the lower end of the achievement scale are just so far beyond help that committing to more systematic teaching of the basics in a regular classroom will do nothing to bring them up to an achievement level their more educationally advantaged peers enjoy? I simply do not believe that black kids MUST require remediation at rates so much higher than whites’. Yes, there are special circumstances, especially in economically poor communities, where one would expect a lot more remediation would be needed. But that's not the situation in this district. We should expect to require less remediation than we do, and odds are that we would require less remediation if we did a better job of teaching decoding in K-3. You will notice that no one has argued with you at all that children also need intensive vocabulary development in order to avoid the fourth grade slump. In fact, as I think you know perfectly well, vocabulary development in the early grades is listed in ACE’s FAQ, right alongside “explicit, systematic phonics instruction” and “access to a variety of high-quality children’s literature and nonfiction,” as one of the key things ACE says “need to be done to make sure our children learn to read.” But despite the existence of a grant-funded summer program for disadvantaged students at Seth Boyden (in support of which Mrs. Davenport has quoted none other than E.D. Hirsch), I know of no district-wide program designed to provide intensive vocabulary development in the regular classroom. Do you? ACE wants a systematic phonics program for grades K-3. ACE is in no way opposed to supplementation of such a program. As for me, personally, I have acknowledged that you and others have doubts about whether a published phonics program would really help us. I have said we're never going to discover whether it will or won't help the kids in our district by arguing about what the science says. So, for the umpteenth time, I bring up the possibility of a trial run. Anyone who is truly interested in finding out whether it would help to use a published LA curriculum in K-3 ought to support the folks in our schools who would like to try one on a pilot basis. (I'm just guessing, as I haven’t spoken to anyone there about the subject lately, but I think perhaps a ready candidate for such a trial might be Clinton.) | |||
| Diversity Man Citizen Username: Deadwhitemale Post Number: 608 Registered: 5-2001 |
The war is over. Whole Language lost. It is like a boxer who was on the receiving end of a knockout blow, but who fights on from instinct until collapsing. Or posting like an email savvy chicken with its head cut off? DWM | |||
| CageyD Citizen Username: Cageyd Post Number: 71 Registered: 6-2003 |
A personal observation via my second grader at Marshall. I taught him to read - the basics - using a phonics based series of books given to me by a neighbor the summer before he went into first grade - just to give him a head start. I didn't have a preference for phonics, these were just the books that were given to me. My son understood the sounds and was doing a good job at early reading. I stopped using the phonics instruction books when he got into first grade and relied upon the school to teach him the rest with us of course reading to him and having him read to us at home. Now, in second grade, my son can't sort out the "a" from the "e" sound or the "o" from the "u" sounds - things he pretty much understood before going to first grade. He guesses at words based upon what he thinks will happen next in the sentence and is usually wrong. At this point, it seems certain that he will need remedial help - this from a kid who all educators agreed has above average intelligence. I have to conclude that the system being used is without a doubt failing my child. | |||
| Diversity Man Citizen Username: Deadwhitemale Post Number: 609 Registered: 5-2001 |
Ask the superintendent, Susan Wilson, Davenport, and the Board of Ed for an explanation of how they have caused the district to avoid the 1998 Board mandate to implement teaching of explicit phonemic awareness in K - 2. Listen for the true believer explanation that they have, then tell them what you know, and vote in the board of ed elections. DWM | |||
| nan Citizen Username: Nan Post Number: 1134 Registered: 2-2001 |
Cageyd-, As a parent whose child also struggled with reading I know how upsetting it can be when they don't catch on. Hopefully, you will be able to get your kid some extra help with the vowels and with the understanding that reading must always make sense so he does not fall behind. Good luck with that. ------------------------------------- Jennifer, Seems like mention of the word, "fiction" really inspired you. How else could you decide that the National Institute of Health was using the white kids in Maplewood South Orange as a benchmark! And then you conclude that low remediation rates of white kids in our district, none of which were taught with "scientifically proven" reading programs, proves that black kids need "scientifically proven" reading programs to achieve the same low level. Huh? I thought you said that you did were against proscribing specific curriculums for black kids? After that you float off into the thread drift zone. What is your intent here? If you are trying to rationalize ACE's exploitation of NIH propaganda then you have failed. If the goal was to create deflection and confusion than you did a real bang up job. | |||
| breal Citizen Username: Breal Post Number: 294 Registered: 6-2002 |
CageyD--The phonics vacuum in SOMA K-2 classrooms catches a lot of parents off guard. You just assume that phonics will be directly, explicity, and systematically taught in school. And in many districts, it is. Just not here. Your child is not alone in needing such instruction, and his need for such instruction should not be cast as a "catching on" problem on his part. Sad to say, the true believers in our present whole language program prefer to label the kids it fails as somehow lacking, rather than admit that their program is not giving kids what they need. This is classic blaming the victim, and it's especially offensive when the victim is a child. | |||
| J. Crohn Citizen Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 867 Registered: 3-2003 |
"I thought you said that you did were against proscribing specific curriculums for black kids?" Fine pretzel logic, nan! We already have a special curriculum for black kids. It's called Project Ahead. | |||
| nan Citizen Username: Nan Post Number: 1136 Registered: 2-2001 |
That was a cheap shot, Breal. I don't know CageyD and I'm not going to speculate on what the problem is and whose fault it might be. Every situation is different. I just feel bad because I've been there (as I know you have too) and for my kid who was at the bottom of his first grade class in reading it WAS a matter of catching on. He was just not ready to really learn to read until he turned 7 and then his improvement seemed to happen dramatically overnight. What my kid needed was just lots of reading of books where he could read about 90% of the words and someone sitting next to him giving assistance with the 10% he struggled with. He did not need what you think everyone needs. In second grade, he's now at the top of his class in reading. | |||
| lumpyhead Citizen Username: Lumpyhead Post Number: 650 Registered: 3-2002 |
You need help. You are part of the problem, not the solution because you are not open to any ideas except your own. |
