Here is a thought for you all.  My wife and I are teachers, the admin that directs us were once teachers, and my Director of Instruction was a teacher, so too was the Superintendent. Furthermore, I work with a bunch of other teachers, and my brother is a teacher.  With all of these ‘professionals’ around, I don’t understand why everyone I meet seems to know nothing more than a cursory understanding of the Phonics/ WL war.  Also, many of them don’t even know what constitutes WL as opposed to synthetic phonics, as programs can be bad or good.  I am going to call this THE GREAT MYSTERY.  How can so many ‘teachers’ not know this?

Here are 4 examples of THE GREAT MYSTERY that I can call up from my recent memory with next-to-no effort.

> I walk into any class room in my school today, and I can see WL detritus, such as word walls, word families, reading strategy posters, guided reading bins, word shape lessons (it’s shaped like a truck!) etc.  Attempts at phonic-type lessons are far between, misguided and mixed up. If they exist at all, they are far too unstructured.  (ie. teaching a lesson on words being sound-based, but mixing up long /e/ spelling patterns in the example words: [ea, e_e, ee] ) Reading and spelling continue to be poor.

  > In my interview for my current job I asked this question point blank, ” Are you guys in love with Whole Language up there- because, WL doesn’t work, as they found out in California!” I was feeling my oats, and I didn’t particularly want the job.  By then I was already fairly pessimistic about teaching.  The Superintendent’s answer was ” Well, we think a balanced approach is best.”  They hired my wife and me anyways.

> I currently teach a block of one-on-one reading instruction.  I am teaching a 16 year old who came to me with the designation that he reads at a grade 2 level.  This was according to THEIR testing, but it was clear that he couldn’t read.  He exemplified all of the WL tendencies.  For instance, in my reading test I gave him in September, he read the word ‘tree’ correctly, but missed the word ‘seed’ every time it appeared.  This told me that he knew words by sight, and guessed (or quit) on words he didn’t.  This student is like many others in my school.  All have vast deficits.

>Last week the Principal came to me and was congratulatory and somewhat incredulous regarding my work with this student.  The principal had just re-tested my student’s reading, and was shocked to find “..he’s sounding out words!” and “..he is self correcting when he makes an error!” and “... his reading rate has gone way up!”  The principal said that the student is now reading at the end of grade 6, and that no other student in the school (with the one-on-one instruction of other teachers) has advanced so far.  I told him that the student should be congratulated, and the credit is due to DI’s Corrective Reading program (which I bought myself) and that I could reproduce such results with any student.  Imagine what the school would be like if DI was implemented from kindergarten?  I got a frown and the conversation ended.

  Ok.  Are all of these people stupid, or misinformed, or brainwashed by University? 

1) It can’t be the training/brainwashing at University.  Admittedly, it is non-rigourous instruction, and it preaches progressivism, but I went through that lousy program too.  It didn’t MAKE me believe in their nonsense.  I thought their theories sounded like b.s. on day one.

2) Misinformed?  Well I find that very hard to believe.  There are many examples of scientific proof to be found that indicate what we are talking about.  Many thousands of hours of videos and living examples of the WL method in every school .  These ‘teachers’ can’t be THIS misinformed…unless they actually are….well….there’s only one more option…

3) _____________ (fill in the blank)

I train teachers how to teach Reading/Spelling with a similar program-Remediation Plus System-it`s a systematic synthetic phonics program tha has added phonemic awareness as a precurosr to instruction.

The teachers I have trained,about 1000 to date as our country is dead against doing anything based on research,tell me that during teacher training they recommend the methodology ‘throw everything you`ve got at them.”

It`s just like the Emeror Has No Clothes,nobody dares admit how idiotic the instruction is and how insane it seems and how few learn but once I talk to them about the research and “how to teach Reading and Spelling honouring the research”,the flood gates open.

in 2000, after 2 years of study, the National Reading Panel (NRP) issued its report; it had gathered almost 100,000 research papers on reading, filtering them down to a few hundred rigorous studies, and then analyzing them to determine ‘what works’.  it’s here:  http://www.nationalreadingpanel.org/

the unambiguous conclusion was that phonics works, and a flavor called synthetic phonics works best.  several training programs were called out for excellence, including DI and Jolly Phonics.

it’s more than a decade on.  i wonder how many early-grade educators can clearly define what synthetic phonics are, let alone teach it.

Tom,have you noticed the recommended Reading Instruction for Ontario?

The Universities in B.C.,I know from a very worthy Prof on the inside recommended Early Reading Strategies to the Ministry of Ed,upon request.

There was a horrible quarrel and let`s put it this way,the infestation of W.L. Educators at the Ministry slanted who one.
It is so tough to turn this ship around and it`s NOT the children and parents that are winning the battle,it`s what we like to call here,the Educrats.

But WHY??? What is the reason?  I wrote a fairly smart-assed comment this morning, but there is a real mystery behind this.  Why would ‘professionals’ do this?  When I was first introduced to Guided Reading (WHOLE LANGUAGE"S NEW NAME), I could tell it was not going to teach people to read immediately.  Why would other teachers keep doing something that doesn’t work?
What is the answer?

But what is the reason at the individual level.  Let’s say that the Ministry and the Big Business monsters are working to make our population illiterate… why wouldn’t teachers -people like me and my wife- why wouldn’t they interfere? 

  Surely these teachers can compare today’s instruction to their own.  They must think, “Hello, I wasn’t instructed like this…? Hmmmm?”
 
  It can’t be a conspiracy at the top.  It must be something more insidious that is going on at the trench level.  Is is fear?  Fear of ‘standing out’, is it job preservation?  The Ministry couldn’t control this many peoples’ minds.  The teachers themselves must either not know or not care. 

Thoughts?

I have come to think it`s the Ministry in cahoots with big business,the publishers.

Nothing else makes sense or we could ask Dr.Stanovich- perhaps it`s the infestation of a flawed theory and then amongst the bees there a few Bumble Bees.Very tough to create more Bumble Bees when the bees propegate at that rapidity.

:Joanne, as I discovered earlier this afternoon, Dr. Stanovich and the small core group of other reading researchers in Canada, are still locked in the dungeon. Their work being cherry-picked, and where phonemic awareness can be replaced by an enriched literacy environment. and oh yes, ensure the pre-school children are exposed to a rich literacy environment and a variety of literacy.

Apparently, phonemic awareness can be acquired over time, and that Stanovich has gotten it all wrong, that phonemic awareness emerges after reading begins. For that to happen, a rich literacy environment has to be in place.

I went back to researching Stanovich, for a saner perspective. I see he has been really busy of late, as with the other reading researchers, in Canada and United States. Perhaps, they are winning a few battles, but they got their work cut out for them, dealing with the whole language advocates, who are now into cherry-picking the cognitive science research, A sure recipe for turning quite a few students into pseudo-dyslexics within a few hours.

Excerpts from Stanovich’s essay, Romance and Reality - starting on page 6

  http://www.rrf.org.uk/pdf/nl/50.pdf

“Over nine years after this article was published in ‘The Reading Teacher’, we are still not paying heed to Stanovich’s observations that the reading process should be informed by science, whether or not we like the answers… Stanovich reviews significant findings from his research and speculates on differential responses to his
work. He argues that we must let scientific evidence answer questions about the reading process.”

Stanovich’s home page
http://web.mac.com/kstanovich/Site/Research_on_Reading.html

Progress in Understanding Reading by Stanovich

http://books.google.ca/books/about/Progress_in_understanding_reading.html?id=hoH9xMSIGr4C&redir_esc=y

“In the final two sections, Stanovich explains how his career took a somewhat political turn.  While in the preceding sections of the book we get a good sense of Stanovich’s passion for the research he has accomplished, we finally get his perspective on the implications of his work on children.  In Part VI he describes the papers that reflect his concerns with using IQ as a determinant of reading disability.  While his theoretical position—that research indicates no differences in reading skills between IQ/achievement discrepant readers and nondiscrepant readers—is clear in these sections, he offers an equally salient argument here about the social ramifications of differentiating between children labeled as reading disabled and children considered garden-variety struggling readers. “
http://www.nrrf.org/ivey_review_TCR.htm

Why the insanity of using whole language?  So teachers like Madteacher will have a lot of future work correcting and remediating of the 3 Rs, as well as ensuring that that kids are sorted and labelled as early as possible, so few it any will ever question the advocates of whole language.

http://donpotter.net/education_pages/

One of the links that I followed today, and is of interest to everyone that is concern about education quality.

“The Hidden Story:
How America’s Present-Day Reading Disabilities Grew Out of the Underhanded
Meddling of America’s First Experimental Psychologist.
by Geraldine Rodgers
Preface to the Quotations”
http://www.donpotter.net/PDF/Hidden Story - Quotations.pdf

I too have thought a lot about why rank and file classroom teachers continue to use methods that don’t work. I don’t think there is one over-arching answer, certainly not a conspiracy. I think it is a combination of an ignorance of a better way (most new teachers were badly taught themselves), pre-service indoctrination, pressure from the whole language police, the lack of appropriate teaching materials, and group think. Another very important factor is teachers’ (and society’s) belief in innate ability: most people believe that there are lots of kids who just cannot learn to become good readers. And a deadly corollary, most teachers believe that great teachers are born, not made, and so there is no point trying to emulate the teacher across the hall who is getting fabulous results.

I commend you Nancy on this excellent post.

I read Romancing the Reality several years ago and I have thousands of copies I`ve given out at different shows we do.

It is an incomprehensible problem,logic does not apply.

The speech pathologists and psychologists also know what is going on but they also stay silent,you can`t talk against the employer.

One more thing-

What about what they are doing to the poor?

“Apparently, phonemic awareness can be acquired over time, and that Stanovich has gotten it all wrong, that phonemic awareness emerges after reading begins. For that to happen, a rich literacy environment has to be in place. “
Fullan,Avis Glaze etc..Literacy Secretariat.

They are doing this in school boards with high First Nations populations.
They`d rather do this you see than follow Stanovich`s proven work or Dr.Jean Chall`s work on how to prevent reading problems.
They`d rather do the above than just teach them.

Thank the good Lord this is one population that wants to ditch whole language theory,the results have been pure devastation.

i’d like to add three more reasons to Malkin’s list, all connected to the ‘marketplace’ for education: 

first, the provision of services is not connected to the results, there is no feedback.  most businesses get feedback from consumers comparing between competitors; businesses also face lawsuits to recover damages from under-performing goods and services.  without feedback, there are fewer incentives to replace poorly built, outdated products with better ones. 

second, public education is “free”.  we wouldn’t make a comparable major purchase as carelessly - we patrol the auto show and pour over technical specs of a car before we buy it (and we race across the city to a gas station that offers cheaper gas).  we spend far more money on a child’s education, but it is opaque to us. 

finally, all readers consider themselves to be experts on learning to read, backed with the evidence of anecdotes, opinions, and sweet childhood memories.  who needs research?  i suspect that even the most ignorant educator knows more about teaching than the typical parent, but there are no thanks for following a research-based curriculum.

I could not believe what I was reading in the towers of edubabble, and their reaction to the research of Stanovich and others.

I posted a research study at Educhatter that is of interest here.

A 2009 research study, with 48 percent of Canadians below level 3 in literacy.

“I have been frustrated by the fact that many
Canadians have failed to apprehend either the
benefits that would accrue to higher literacy levels
or the dire economic risks that are associated with
inaction on the literacy front…............Third, there is some evidence that the current offering of literacy products and services available to potential consumers does not reflect their needs…...........Fifth, public policy has assumed that the K-12
education system would solve the literacy problem.
Sixth, policy makers have underestimated the
contribution of literacy and other essential skills to
economic growth, choosing to focus their attention
and investment on other determinants of
productivity growth, including the elite end of the
skill distribution. Seventh, literacy advocates in Canada have given little weight to the economic rationale for literacy investment, arguing instead for investment as a moral imperative…......Eighth, many of the policy makers who advise
governments   are highly educated to the point where they simply cannot imagine what it is like to
have to function without the tool we know as literacy.
Finally, the simple magnitude of the problem -
with an estimated 48% of adult Canadians in need
of some literacy upgrading - made many politicians
avoid the issue.”
http://www.dataangel.ca/en/cost-benefit-jan26.pdf

Another reason among the many, is that the educationalists in the ivory towers of the public education system, cannot even begin to understand with empathy and understanding why students are struggling in reading, because of their high levels of education attainment and high literacy levels. An argument could be made, in the same way as high income people cannot comprehend the realities of people at lower income brackets.

In the early days, I was confronted by educrats with PHDs, education degrees who made declarative statements of ‘no reading problems’, without the supportive evidence of assessments to back up their statements. Instead, the educrats used their education levels to claimed they were the experts, since they education attainment was higher than myself. Anyone with or without high education levels. would know that my child in grade 1, was obviously experiencing reading and writing difficulties, and assessments would provide the evidence of what are the reading and writing difficulties.

Not only the poor, but I estimate 60 percent of the student population are at high risk for obtaining literacy and/or numeracy at level 2 or below by grade 12 graduation, where the bulk of the 60 percent are just below level 3, and will require remediation as adults at some point in their futures.

Another important piece of data that I learned yesterday in the latest American and Canadian research on literacy, is the greatest risk to children is not cancer, allergies or dropping out of school, but is reading failure and becoming poor readers.

Most of the research pieces, contained stories of teachers, much like Madteacher, who continued to work in isolation using reading programs such as Direct Instruction, and the students within a relative short instruction time, have advanced 2 to 4 grade reading levels and writing as well. And yet the principals, the other teachers inside the schools, and board staff, will continue to ignore the reading science, and will not move to the elimination of whole language approaches in their regular classrooms. ” Last week the Principal came to me and was congratulatory and somewhat incredulous regarding my work with this student.  The principal had just re-tested my student’s reading, and was shocked to find “..he’s sounding out words!” and “..he is self correcting when he makes an error!” and “... his reading rate has gone way up!”  The principal said that the student is now reading at the end of grade 6, and that no other student in the school (with the one-on-one instruction of other teachers) has advanced so far. ”

Thanks for weighing in tom.. I think though, points 1 and 2 of your list still should/could be made moot by the actual teacher.  What I am wondering is why teachers -those who should know better- are using bad methodologies every day.  Point 1 & 2 regarding business and how education machination is opaque are true, but can be eliminated on the ground level by the teacher.  I do it all of the time.  Don’t get me wrong..It’ll cost you though, monetarily and personally. My wife and I went for the plunge and spent a couple thousand dollars on buying DI books for our classes, and we get zero thanks for the effort.

  But point 3 is very close to an extremely important idea that Malkin has also raised.  The idea in essence is the propensity for humans to believe *magical* abilities exist within those people that perform skilled feats.  Malkin called it the belief in “innate” abilities to keep the salient point lodged in realism, but I want to call it a belief in *magic* abilities.  This is in order to explode the concept some, so that the real, self-limiting danger of this common-place mindset can be exposed.

  Some time ago, another poster here named Stephen Hurley and I were discussing music and its performance.  We were debating whether class time should be spent most on tightly controlled exercising (drilling) of skills, aiming towards mastering information, or on more open pursuits such as ‘Critical Thinking’.

  The heart of my argument then is the same point that has been illuminated above.  I was trying to prove that ‘mastery’ of a thing is an achievable end, and that it is the progenitor of any actual chance of intelligent critique.  I argued that the pursuit of mastery is the ends we should strive for in all pursuits, but the discussion wandered away before any consensus could be had.  I don’t think that I could make Stephen believe my points back then.  (Come on back Stephen!  I liked your postings!)

  Why am I bringing this up now?  The reason is because I see Malkin’s ‘innate abilities’ point as perhaps being THE main reason behind the disagreement Stephen and I had. Stephen will have to make a return to clarify his point, but perhaps his belief that some innate ability exists within some -not all- students disallows my example to reverberate.  I recall he stated that he found my examples ‘compelling’ regarding a professional musician’s pursuits.  I meant to draw the parallel towards all efforts, not just professional.  Do everything as well as you are able!  I certainly see the ‘innate ability’ excuse as the source of humankind’s general satisfaction with a laissez faire existence. 

As Malkin succinctly stated for us, If you thought that :

” great teachers are born, not made, and so there is no point trying to emulate the teacher across the hall who is getting fabulous results.”

you could also likely think that great guitar players are born, and great chess players are just born, or great parents are just born.  Insert any skill-based position in the above pattern for a portrait of people that you meet when you’re walking down the street.  This belief in a *magical* power that allows some to achieve a feat, and limits others to being mediocre has a choke-hold on us. 

  When I used to sing solos at Church Choir, church ladies used to come up to me afterwards and say “You have such a great gift!”  with beatific smiles.  I would thank them, but inside I always cast back to the tedious hours of practice that I applied myself to in order to culture my voice.  This was no gift.  I strove tooth and nail to achieve my singing voice.  Now-a-days I have a saying for myself that keeps me from getting mad about such well-meaning, but dangerously ignorant thoughts.  If GOD bestowed any *magic* ability in me that allows me to perform a skilled feat -effective teaching, hitting tenor high C, renovating the interior of my RV, baking a souffle- anything- then it is the ability to STICK WITH IT… To keep practicing when I want to quit. 
 
  Malkin’s innate ability solution is huge.  I see it in teachers every day.  It excuses them from their personal inadequacies… it allows them to go on teaching in a mediocre way.

                                        It is a gift.  A magic ability. A way with kids. A knack.

Bah! I say if you want to be remarkable, put your trust in hard work and the pursuit of knowledge…  but it ain’t easy, and there is no short cut.

Really enjoying your posts madteacher. Very refreshing!

“I say if you want to be remarkable, put your trust in hard work and the pursuit of knowledge…  but it ain’t easy, and there is no short cut.”

so true

the “innate ability” argument, at least in the West, has been used by teachers and learners (and pundits favouring outdated notions of IQ) to quit trying. The research of Carol Dweck and her colleagues (see Mindsets) has impressed me on this for a few decades.

Are there prodigies? Sure there are folks like Superman who can ace the tests and demonstrate powers and abilities far beyond the rest of us (though even they have their weaknesses).

Most of us however are or can be more like Batman: lots of work to develop and use a wide range of tools from the utility belt (Note the word WIDE since direct instruction and phonics are important and necessary but not sufficient for any learner.).

yes, thank you madteacher.

Madteacher, if there are still teachers like you around, there is hope.

Regarding your earlier post
>>
I told him that the student should be congratulated, and the credit is due to DI’s Corrective Reading program (which I bought myself) and that I could reproduce such results with any student.
<<

What happens with reading is also happening with math. The math programs are so bad that most kids get turned off from math before high school.
Nothing could be easier, that to adopt in good faith one of the programs that has had proven results.

From what exists in North America I personally like Singapore math the most, but JumpMath even though has the disadvantage of fitting in the spiral structure of the Ontario math curriculum is very good and has proven results as well.

But hey, much easier to think math is a talent you are either born with or you aren’t, isn’t it?
Much more comfortable. The students don’t have to practice math, the teachers don’t have to understand the math they “teach” provided they follow the approach and the process, the parents have done everything that they can.

And the Asian students just happen to have “the gift” of being good at math. Nobody cares to look at the instruction they receive at home or the tutoring from tutors in their community.

That’s kind advice fromEurope.  I’ll try to keep your compliment with me, but I am seriously considering quitting this ‘profession’. 

In regards to Math, me and my wife also use Engelmann’s DI Corrective Fractions and Corrective Multiplication books.  Like DI’s reading books, the math ones are carefully written so that new information is revealed at a very slow rate.  Much of each lesson is practice and cementing of the previous lessons’ concepts.  I also find that the script is one of DI’s greatest concepts.  Faultless instruction accelerates the pace of student learning so that these students have a fighting chance at catching up before their time runs out.  Also, the script eliminates the horrendous amount of prep that one has to do in order to set lessons up. 

Speaking of prep, I remember the days when I was teaching elementary math w/o any textbook.  What a joke!  I worked my butt off back then, and the lessons were elaborate, creative, fun and USELESS as math instruction.  I was very naive then.  I had no idea about ‘faultless instruction’.

  Engelmann/Carnine explain ‘faultless instruction’ in their remarkable book “Theory of Instruction”.  It is a teaching masterwork.  If I could have studied this book in University…. wow.

Madteacher, please do not give up, teachers like you are on the true pathway that leads to achievement and success for all students. As a parent, I often thought of giving up on the days when the educrats give me another denial and than proceed to tell me how wrong I was concerning my child. The thoughts of giving up, quickly turned to reaffirming my determination for my youngest child to succeed to realized her dream of entering the forensics field.

Educators need to stand up and be heard, and like you, Direct Instruction is very effective for my students, and guess what no prep time, and time could be better spent on ensuring students are making steady progress in their academic studies.

Or on the latest post on WISE math -
“Mathematics Professor and Canada Research Chair

Thank you very much for initiating WISE Math. I became aware of it because of the Macleans cover story in March, which made our family chuckle.

This problem can in theory be fixed by switching back to traditional and proven texts, and by hiring future teachers who fully understand the material they are teaching. In practice, however, I am not very optimistic because this would not be a popular move, and because of the huge influence of the Faculties of Education. While our great country can always rely on natural resources to prosper, it continues to astound me to witness an apparent “knowledge suicide”, especially here in the West. Even my older daughter was puzzled about the mere existence of “Western edition” math school books…”
http://wisemath.org/join/

Knowledge suicide is exactly what is happening when the 3 Rs are not learned to mastery, and the foundation of the 3 Rs are riddled with huge fissures and cracks to block the attainment of knowledge.

In the Macleans March issue -

“Back in Winnipeg, this domino effect is one of Anna Stokke’s biggest concerns. If they don’t know their math facts, she says, they won’t be able to do fractions, which means they won’t be able to handle algebra, which means calculus is out, which means they can’t be engineers, doctors, pharmacists, economists, programmers, or any discipline that requires math, including skilled tradeswork. .”

The madness must stopped in the foundation of the 3 Rs, and below in the Macleans article, an example of the madness in math.

” As one of the designers of the math curriculum for the western provinces, Debbie Duvall now works as a math consultant for the Elk Island public school district near Edmonton, where she gives workshops to parents. If a student can’t remember what 9 x 6 is, she says, they’re lost. But with a deeper understanding of multiplication, students realize they can multiply 10 by 6—an easier calculation—and subtract 6 to arrive at the answer. “We want to provide options for kids,” says Duvall, adding that at least one parent comes up to her after her workshops to say they wished they were taught this way. “

What the kids are not told, what happens if it is 6 X 9, which number to multiply by 10, and the multi-steps to remember if one is dealing with numbers such as 101 x 104 or 12 x11.

Or this one - “And it’s not just students struggling, says Langen. When a parent came to her in tears because she couldn’t help her daughter who was struggling with math, Langen met with the teacher. At the meeting, the teacher sought Langen’s advice—she couldn’t get her students to understand metric conversions, in this case, converting 110 cm into metres. She showed Langen the blackboard filled with an elaborate matrix that neither adult really understood. Langen reached for a metre stick. “I told her she could use this to show there are 100 centimetres in one metre, and she just lit up.”

Imagine that using a ruler, and throw in a simple triangle with 7 divisions, any student will be able to convert millimetres into metres or metres into millimetres. Another crime that I had committed, I was teaching my child to cheat, and she was not permitted to use the triangle method. My child memorized the triangle, as well as the key numbers in the metric and imperial system. If I remember, I spent no more than 20 minutes showing the triangle method, and my child quickly mastered the metric conversion because she had a firm foundation in multiplication, long division and factions.

And my child is the one with the learning disability, and if the educationalists had their way, she would be sitting in basic math class, because math is hard and only the truly gifted can acquire a deep understanding of math concepts.

Just remember Madteacher, for each student that is reached through Direct Instruction, you are giving the gift of unlocking the doors of knowledge, and as you have stated a ‘fighting chance’.

http://m.publishing.rogers.com/macleans/share/2012-10/11a_soc_mathhelp.html

Perhaps I have been in the wrong schools (hundreds)
Or taught in the wrong provinces (only 4)
or even the wrong countries (3) but folks in schools and faculties have not talked about
Whole Language for decades

Learners need BOTH skill and thought, not one or the other
or even one before the other.

False dichotomies as presented above help no one.

Oh yes, in the days of “traditional and proven texts” in the 19560s
the drop out rate was almost 70% (1950s).

Well Nancy… I thought about what you had to say while I was working on my truck today, and then I came home to find the above posting from Mr. Myers… alas,I think I will quit after all.

John,the article is about phonics-we know the schools don`t.

Mad Teacher,I understand your frustration intimately,for everyone of us,there are 50,000 of them.

Mr Myers is a Professor,he wouldn`t be able to open his ears and hear you.

They`re always right except they`re very very wrong on this one!

When I opened my clinic to serve the dyslexic students of Toronto in 1999 I saw 10 percent dyslexia,90 percent victims of dysteachia.That`s when I knew.

I feel for you and all of us who know,Malkin included.

In teaching classes on instructional strategies I begin with direct instruction- one of six we do.
I use a math example and a phonics example- in Icelandic-to show the power.
and none of my student teachers object or claim it is bad.

It is one thing to promote decoding letters using D I techniques- they do work well for decoding and for important basic skills in math.
It is another to embellish an argument needlessly with false dichotomies such as WL and appeals to a “myopic nostalgia”. of a golden age of schooling that never existed.

I use Icelandic spelling in my “phonics” lessons so that my students- K-12 teachers of all subjects among them have to experience a new system of decoding letters
to better think about the implications of teaching. As researcher John Hattie has pointed out (he likes DI too) teachers need to see from the vantage point of students to be better at teaching.

I could use other alphabetic languages, but Icelandic also allowed us to look at thinking- about the country, about volcanoes and about a society that is highly literate and proud of its literary traditions.

Why is phonics now called phonemic awareness? So that learners think about the skills and decoding they have learned. English has enough peculiarities compared to other languages that the thinking part is important.
I learned this decades ago teaching history, with its high literacy demands, to ESL students.

And how did I learn Icelandic when there? Through phonemic awareness using direct instruction, of course.

But let’s not obsess about it as a “magic bullet”. Teaching and learning are way too complex.

John, reaction from within when the topic is on reading instruction and the casualties of whole language instruction and other common education practices that leads to poor achievement.

“Or taught in the wrong provinces (only 4)
or even the wrong countries (3) but folks in schools and faculties have not talked about
Whole Language for decades.”

Whole language is now balanced literacy, but still balanced literacy is just another version of whole language, all dressed up, to mask the whole language elements.

” Yet whole language persists, despite efforts by policymakers and reading experts to root it out. Today, though, it often disguises itself, not using the term “whole language” but, rather, wearing the fig leaf of “balanced” instruction. A lot of people who have a casual acquaintance with the research have persuaded themselves that balanced reading instruction means a little of this, a little of that. Take a cup of phonics from one cupboard, add a half-pint of whole language from the fridge, and the resulting blend will succeed with children while avoiding the battles and conflicts of the “reading wars.” Everyone will be happy, and all will be well.
The problem is that it doesn’t work that way. What’s going on in many places in the name of “balance” or “consensus” is that the worst practices of whole language are persisting, continuing to inflict boundless harm on young children who need to learn to read. How and why that is happening—and how and why such practices are misguided and harmful—are what this report is about. In its pages, Louisa Cook Moats describes the whole-language approach; shows why it doesn’t work and how it has been disproven by careful research; and explains why it nonetheless persists in practice and what should be done about that.
We don’t kid ourselves. Rooting out failed methods of reading instruction from U.S. primary classrooms won’t be easy. Those roots run deep, perhaps now deeper than ever, considering their new coating of “balance.” Yet Dr. Moats persuasively makes the case that this is a task that must be taken on.”
http://www.ldonline.org/article/6394/

Or should the reading approach be called multi-literacies?  A term that I have seen more often in the last two years.

When students have deficits in their reading, their thinking skills relating to academic work are at high risk for low achievement. As for long term consequences of reading deficits, there is a tall mountain emerging from the adult literacy field, that displays the consequences of reading deficits of adults.

Speaking about reading deficits, yesterday I had an odd conversation with a staff member of the school board, Odd in the sense, that my child’s reading deficits should have been corrected starting in grade 1, when it was easier to do so, along with 20 other students or so. And not now, when my child is sitting in grade 11, to correct her low phonemic awareness, but as we both said, it can be corrected even at this late stage. .

Yeah, learners need both skills sets - proficiency in reading, writing and numeracy and the thinking skill sets. Without proficiency in the 3 Rs, the thinking skills will not blossom to reach full maturity, and the full potential of students.

As for false dichotomies John, it is funny how the public education system and those within, likes to keep the final outcomes of students in their separate silo,far remove from the other silos of quality education, instruction, training of teachers and the other related silos. The final outcomes of students matter, and it is in the data streams throughout society, including the parents who are paying for tutoring of the 3 Rs, at prices on average at $45 a hour.

Or the eduction public tax monies being spent on high school students to remediate the deficits in reading, writing and numeracy, and the stuff that should have been taught at the grade school level. Worse, yet the upgrading courses in the 3 Rs at the post secondary level, at the student’s expense and time. 

”

While i agree with some of Nancy’s last post (need for better co-ordiantion among all parts of the education community and the false dichotomy of separating teaching from learning,
- balanced literacy is NOT a synonym for whole language and yes WL is not effective, especially for struggling readers
- in the old days most students did not get past grade 10 using the “old” methods exclusively.
- balance means matching the tool with the job, not a “little of this and a little of that”

To end on another note of agreement. Faculties of education, for a variety of reasons are not as
“thoughtful” as they ought to be.

Why did i not use a different phrase?
Because i do not believe my colleagues are part of some big conspiracy to dumb down learning.

As an historian by training there are reasons why we are they way we are. Some of the reasons are understandable, even defensible. Some reasons do make me shake my head.

John raises a fair point about demonizing WL.  But he is operationalizing phonics quite differently than Nancy or Jo-Anne would.  I can’t comment about goes on in schools, but maybe I can help sort out the phonics part.

Diane McGuinness is the most uncompromising advocate of strong phonics, and what follows is from her book ‘Early Reading Instruction’.  http://www.amazon.com/Early-Reading-Instruction-Science-Bradford/dp/0262134381  I should point out that McGuinness also decries the artificial distinction between WL and Phonics and tells us to move past it. 

McGuinness identifies many flavors of phonics, including what she refers to as ‘junk’ phonics which are the chaotic and unstructured teachings associated with basal readers and WL classrooms - all phonics that teaches rules, such as ‘i before e’, or teach the sounds of the alphabet letters, such as ‘the letter ‘a’ makes the sound ‘ah’ are in this category. 

‘Analytic’ phonics eases readers into phonemes by starting with whole words and then word-parts (families, blends, onset, rimes, etc), and then individual phonemes taught overtly or embedded opportunistically.  Both the ‘junk’ and ‘analytic’ styles of phonics produces dismal results according to the NRP.  I think John refers to one of these two approaches when he says ‘phonics’.

Synthetic phonics, which are called out by the NRP, teach the 40-odd sounds of English and their associated spellings - the opposite of letters-make-a-sound phonics; Jolly Phonics is a structured and disciplined example of synthetic phonics suitable for kindergarten and grade 1. I think this is the flavor that Jo-Anne and Nancy refer to as phonics.

Even synthetic phonics doesn’t pass McGuinness’s muster; she argues for an industrial-strength flavor called linguistic phonics that teaches 40 phonemes, 136 additional spellings, and the latin layer of affixes. 

The NRP refers to DI as synthetic phonics, but it is not; it uses an eclectic phonology that mixes sounds and spellings: the /ie/ sound (‘time’) is present in three different forms represented by ‘I’, ‘ice’, and ‘my’.  Four different spellings of /k/ are taught as sounds: ‘c’, ‘k’, ‘qu’, and ‘x’.  DI is interesting because of its Behaviorist design, but is not an exemplar of good phonics.

We read for meaning, and for that we need high-quality connected texts rather than phonics drills, and we also need to read connected texts to acquire sight-words - WL is quite correct in this, and McGuinness directs us to obtain the best texts. 

Some techniques straddle WL and phonics;  McGuinness recommends a technique called ‘Repeated Reading’ which is simply reading a passage repeatedly with a stop-watch.  http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/747699?uid=3739448&uid=2&uid=3737720&uid=4&sid=47698752509037

It is the rest of the WL accoutrements that draw McGuinness’s ire.  From her analysis of the NRP-filtered research, McGuinness argues that time spent teaching onsets and rimes is completely wasted, and time spent teaching sight-words is negatively correlated with reading achievement - ie: kids would do better using that time for just reading.

Reading Recovery seems to mix WL and analytic phonics; it focuses on teaching students to use syntax and context to improve their ability to guess at words.  A phonics advocate would say that it was a WL approach.

As a closing comment, perhaps the chasm between the WL and phonics communities is due to their differing view of research; the phonics advocates are heavily invested in the positivist research paradigm where theories are tested in experiments.  By contrast, WL is supported by constructionist research, mostly case studies; the NRP was unable to find any research on WL that met its positivist standards and simply dismissed it.  If your training and perspective tend toward one direction, then you will not find arguments from the opposing side compelling.

Perhaps not John, a conspiracy but the ones sitting in the education ivory towers are tone deaf, as well as having selective hearing, in the same way as selective mutes are as to who they will speak to, and engage in conversation.

In my e-mail box today, a Canadian educator who is profiting on the backs of the students: “Teachers should work from their students’ strengths, not their weaknesses, was the message from visiting educator –Beth Critchley Charlton.”
http://www.royalgazette.com/article/20120312/ISLAND02/703129972/-1

Never heard of her, until today, but I search when I read the above quote, because it sounded like a Reading Recovery advocate, I was not disappointed,to see her short bio includes Reading Recovery, among her many other accomplishments. Reading Recovery, another sordid tale within the public education world where accuracy and fluency is not important at all, when it comes to comprehension and expressing your thoughts on paper.

“Beth Critchley Charlton has taught all elementary grades, as well as special education, Reading Recovery, and adult education programs. Beth’s wide ranging teaching experience was the foundation of her work as a literacy consultant, literacy assessment coordinator, and lecturer at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax.

In addition to her children’s stories and professional presentations and publications, Beth is a contributing author to several classroom literacy resources.”
http://www.pembrokepublishers.com/bio.cgi?id=146

In her world, reading, writing and numeracy proficiency   is not as important as student engagement. In the CM issue, “She begins by defining reading and then goes on to discuss how to use the reading record and the information that can be gained form the reading record. Once again she provides a sample Reading Record. In the next chapter, Chapter Four: Observing and Recording How the Student Processes Text, Charlton goes into detail about how to analyze the mistakes that a student may make.”

http://umanitoba.ca/outreach/cm/vol12/no17/informalassessment.html

In her world, my child at any grade level would not have any reading deficits, nor would my child have any writing problems. But she would insist, my child is disengage from learning, in the same way the educationalists in the early days, would insist my child did not have any reading and writing problems, but she does have _______________. I allow the readers to fill in the blank, because I had so many excuses and blame put on myself and my child.

If balance as defined by John, means - balance means matching the tool with the job, than why are the classroom practices when it comes to the 3 Rs, uses band-aids for quick fixes of any aspect of the foundation in the 3 Rs, and in reality, the band-aids quickly come off, whenever the students put stress on the band-aids, producing the identical results.

And in SQE archives:
” There is not a great deal of hard evidence on the effectiveness of Balanced Literacy, mainly because its proponents have been unwilling to allow the achievement of Balanced Literacy students to be compared with that of other students. It seems likely that some children, perhaps the majority of children, are learning to read reasonably well via Balanced Literacy. There are, however, some informal observations which suggest that there is a large number of children who are being failed by Balanced Literacy. “
/parents/bkgrnd1.html

Balanced literacy is just another clone for whole language, but it is all dressed up not to look like whole language. Phonics is not phonemic awareness, but in balanced literacy phonics becomes phonemic awareness.

From Reading Rockets -
“So to recap, phonics is an instructional approach that emphasizes the letter-sound relationships (which letters represent which sounds). Phonetic reading and writing is a behavior the child exhibits that involves “sounding out” words the way they are written or writing words the way they sound (again, relating to the way letters represent speech sounds). Phonology has to do with the ability to hear the difference between different speech sounds (and has nothing to do with letters of the alphabet). Phonological awareness is a term used to describe the child’s generic understanding that spoken words are made up of sounds. Phoneme awareness specifically refers to a child’s knowledge that the basic building blocks of spoken words are the phonemes.”
http://www.readingrockets.org/firstyear/fyt.php?SUB=33

John.  In your varied posts you use the terms (capital letters) Direct Instruction interchangeably with (lower cased) direct instruction.  You also talk as if someone were calling for a return to a by-gone era of teaching.  First off, do you know what I am talking about regarding (capitals) Direct Instruction?  It is as different from (lower case) direct instruction as “look-say” is from “reading powers”.  Second, I am certainly not referring back to a time when Direct Instruction was used.  It never had its hey-day on a national scale.  Also, your icelandic letters lesson is at least as old as Rudolf Flesch from 1955.  Siegfried Engelmann also knows it too and writes on this concept. It is a fine example that phonemic awareness works. 
  Regarding your blunt claim that balanced literacy is not WL.  Well, no it isn’t, but it also isn’t Direct Instruction.  Balanced Literacy is a bogus non-entity name for a variety of activities that could constitute any of the same ‘reading’ lessons that WL used.  It is the ‘eclectic mix’ that Flesch also wrote about some 55 years ago, and its incarnations are legion.  It is more like whole language than Direct Instruction by a country mile because of it’s eclectic nature; so much so in fact, that it is just as acceptable to call balanced literacy by the moniker ‘whole language’ in the same way:

    As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
    Shoughs, waterrugs, and demi-wolves are clept
    All by the name of dogs. The valued file
    Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
    The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
    According to the gift which bounteous nature
    Hath in him closed, whereby he does receive
    Particular addition, from the bill
    That writes them all alike.

  Please read Engelmann’s “Functions of Performance and Learning”, or the above mentioned “Theory of Instruction” for further clarification.

Madteacher and John. 

Here’s a good rundown of Whole Language Lives On: The Illusion of Balanced Reading Instruction. By Dr. Louisa Moats.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=PKCgyXmtBFcC&lpg=PA2&ots=MavPtrrVsM&dq=why whole language lives on&pg=PP2#v=onepage&q=why whole language lives on&f=false

Or
http://www.ldonline.org/article/6394/

Although I do try to stay out of reading debates, I must address one point raised above.  Yes, many students did not make it past Grade 10 in ‘the good old days’, but that was for a variety of reasons:

1)  They didn’t have to.  Anyone not going on to university was further ahead to quit school and start work immediately.  They could go on to a variety of decent paying jobs:  trades, factories, even the police.
2)  Students struggled in school for many reasons - especially the more rigorous math and science (see today’s blog).  In fact, I would argue that students of my generation (even the ones that never finished school) have a greater vocabulary, spelling accuracy and basic math skills than today’s youth that have to look up everything on YouTube.
3)  Family:  because senior high school was seen a mainly a path to university, many students were pressured to quit and get a job.

To posit that we had many dropouts in the 1950’s and 60’s because we taught phonics and therefore many people couldn’t read is a non sequitor.  However, I do find it typical of the kind of thinking emanating from Mowat Block.

There is in fact a distinction between the Englemann’s Direct Instruction and the slightly more flexible variations of direct instruction by Rosenhine and Hunter. I choose my letter cases deliberately.

It makes no sense and does not advance learning when we
- set up “straw men”: the BLOB (silliness imported from the US)
- cherry pick arguments that support our view
- fail to see merit in opposing positions; I chose small letters for “balanced literacy” for a reason
- too much gainsaying for the sake of argument: I am interested in learning not fighting phone wars over phonics, math, or anything else; there is much in the Fordham foundation piece with which i agree

If we had the magic solution, we would use it.
I believe in a post for another thread I proposed a short list for useful approaches to improving teaching and learning.

The list contained a combination of approaches supported by research: lots of tools for the teaching box.

Remember if you only have a hammer you are forced to treat every problem like a nail. That defies logic and reality.

sorry for the typo

I meant “phony wars”

“The list contained a combination of approaches supported by research: lots of tools for the teaching box.”

Nice on paper, but how would it work in reality in the typical classroom?

At present, the balanced literacy of the kind that can be found in the classroom, still does little for a good 40 percent of the classroom, in strengthening their reading core, including phonemic awareness. To make matter worse, despite the increase in funding in SE in all the provinces, the gatekeepers have chosen a strict and narrowed criteria in order for students to meet, to access reading and SE services dealing with language. It leaves the bulk of the 40 percent in the regular classroom, and a teacher or two dealing with the many diverse learning needs. Throw in the resources and the methods of delivering resources to the said schools, resources now become scarce resources, where gatekeepers are attached, and there is no public accounting of the breakdown of the purchasing costs and the distribution of the resources.

Teachers are only as good as their training, and what facilities they have access to the training, and the resources to put their skills to use. What good are the skills, if 15 children in a typical grade one class need solid lessons on phonemic awareness, but the 15 students do not qualified for SE services, but the teacher does not have the training or background and the time,  to teach the students their phonemic sounds?  Out comes the band-aids, pleas with parents to help out at home, classes for parents to learn the new math and reading lingo, as well as telling parents what to do, when, how, under the new label and fad, parental involvement, and than expect parents to accept that their children are low achievers, and things will get better. The gradeless report cards from grade 1 to grade 5, which was put in place a few years ago in the local elementary school, only to have parents spending their nights away tutoring their children on the 3 Rs.

Yes John, as a parent, I no longer feel lonely in my part of Canada.  Parents under the current philosophy of balance literacy, equity and all the other education policies and practices, are doing a fair amount of teaching at home, what was once the duty of the school. What looks good on paper, such as the balance literacy theory, looks much different in the classrooms of schools.

Most parents don’t want magic solutions, just kids with the skills and abilities to move and navigate in life after 12 years of schooling.

I ran into the same problems starting in 2001, as this parent is running into in the year 2012.

On the WISE math site - “I have a daughter here in Moncton, NB who is struggling with math in grade 3. We have tried to get extra help for the last year and a half with no results. First we were told that they assessed her and she knew too much, now since she is in french immersion, we were told that there are no resource teachers available in french immersion math.

We are now sending her to Sylvan Learning centre at $42/hour, which I can’t really afford, and plan to fight the province for full reimbursment when we are done. They cannot supply proper teaching, so I believe they are liable.”
http://wisemath.org/join/

Apparently most kids don’t get the extra help, because they simply are not seen by the 21st public education model, as needing help. Until that is acknowledge by the stakeholders, the idea of making a list of useful approaches to improving teaching and learning, the list will be ignored by the stakeholders who hold the purse strings, the power and in control of the policies.

Sad it is, in the year of 2012, if my child was entering grade one, she would be seen as having mental health issues, rather than a typical kid with an ordinary garden variety reading disorder. A new label would be attached to her, anxiety disorder. The new craze in the public education system, mental health, and a whole new industry to tend to the many students and their mental health issues. But will more students actually get the needed help for the basic foundation in the 3 Rs, so they too can actual participate fully at school, and be able to expressed their own ideas, just like the neighbouring kids that surround his desk?

Time will only tell, but I am too much of a cynic concerning the monopolistic public education system, and 11 years have gone by, and many are profiting by the huge chasms and fault lines where too many kids are falling through the chasms and cracks.

Madteacher, we seem to have very similar mindsets.

I love Engelmann because he makes sense; his concept of ‘faultless instruction’ was an aha moment for me. It helped me finally find the answer to why my schooling was so good.

Engelmann also has a real solution for the disadvantages created by a “poor” - from the point of view of learning - childhood, usually low SES but sometimes just self-absorbed parents.

He clearly explains that such children can learn as well as others, however since they start in a different point, in order to learn effectively they need to be taught what they need at the level they are at. Their instruction has to be even more faultless and they need to be taught longer and work longer at it if they are to catch up.

Unfortunately life is not fair. However Engelmann has put forth a real solution. Appropriate instruction, more instruction, more work and the initial disadvantages can be worked away.

To paper over mastery differences hiding them away and to believe in the miracle that kids just magically catch up if they happen to be in the same room with other kids that know more is just illogical and irrational.

I don’t know, maybe such miracles when you suddenly “get something” without puting any work into it happened to you.
For me, it has never happened. Anything I know and I’m good at I had to study, to practice. Maybe it was a bit easier to me than for others, it was also definitely harder for me than for yet others; easier or harder I did have to study and to practice.

Me too.  Today as an adult I am able to perform many ‘feats’ as a result of the diligence that I have applied to their ends over the years. It sure wasn’t easy!  All of these skills developed over time, and today, when I sit down and play guitar, or draw well-rendered people and animals from my memory, others are always amazed.  I used to be amazed/envious too when I saw someone doing something that I wasn’t able to do.  I used to believe in ‘innate’ abilities and would gnash my teeth over not having them. 
  Now, I am convinced it is just effective practice.  If it is easier for some, I think that those people don’t often take their aptitude to mastery because performing the ‘feat’ has no great worth to them -it has always been easy so it has little worth in their minds. 

Today, I am body-builder fit (I was mostly average all my life) , I can draw and oil paint exceptionally well (I had a knack when younger, but certain limitations), I play lots of instruments (only dabbled)  and sing opera (I hated opera), I have lots of skills with construction and mechanics ( I also hated construction and getting dirty in general), and (after reading Moonwalking with Einstein) am now working towards mastering the power to memorize anything.  (I already have reams of poetry and huge chunks of Shakespeare up there)
  Engelmann has is right.  Detractors and the misinformed may utter thoughts like “DI is good for foundation skills” and ” DI has certain merits for low performers”, but this only indicates how little people know about the program, and learning in general for that matter. 
 
Check this out.  Mr. Myers posts this:

            In teaching classes on instructional strategies I begin with direct instruction- one of six we do.

Then in the next paragraph this:

            It is one thing to promote decoding letters using D I techniques- they do work well for decoding and for important basic skills in math.

When I asked him later if he was talking about Engelmann’s DI in his varied use of capitals and non-capitals, he claimed (in a huffy way) that he knew the difference.  I maintain that the examples above allude to the fact that he is loosely indiscriminate.  If he does know, then he writes in an unclear way; to jump from direct instruction in one paragraph then into a reference about Engelmann’s DI after 10 or so words- without a preamble - is confusing to say the least.  Aside from that, to summarize Engelmann’s entire program with this claim:

    they do work well for decoding and for important basic skills in math.

cements the fact that he doesn’t understand the Engelmann/Carnine “Theory of Instruction” which is the underpinning of all of their programs.  Direct Instruction is not about foundation skills, people only popularly use it for correction of weak foundation skills because so many other programs leave students dead in the water by grade 9.

“When I asked him later if he was talking about Engelmann’s DI in his varied use of capitals and non-capitals, he claimed (in a huffy way) that he knew the difference”

In response to this
“Huffy?”  silly comment not to mention, untrue or at the very least unproven

a number of sources looking at instructional strategies (and Englemann himself) distinguish between the generic field of direct instruction
and the Capital Letter version.

While DI is an important tool, it is not the only one.  I can suggest a number of sources to check out the evidence

Marzano and colleagues from the US on Classroom Instruction that Work
and
John Hattie’s Visible Learning.
Both speak to the power of practice but also note that it is not the only tool needed to teach effectively and summarize decades of research and hundreds of studies to support both statements.

Why pick a fight when it is not necessary. The point of disagreement is not in our support for direct instruction in its various forms, or our belief that is is an important and necessary tool, but that is is not the only tool for an effective teacher.

Help me out a bit Mr. Myers.  So, it is called ‘fighting’ in your book when others write refutations to your claims.  Ok, that’s fighting.  Well, what shall we call it when you post statements that are departures from clarity, or when they contain blunt opinions masked as Truth? Shall we call that ‘pontificating’? 
  I also missed the part when you were granted to power to mediate what I interpret as ‘huffy’.  My perception of what you write is not silly.  If ‘huffy’ wasn’t your tone, you need to modify how you write.  That’s how I would explain/teach something; modify the instruction so it is ‘faultless’, not aim at the receivers as having the fault. 

Now, in regard to what you define as our disagreement, I more pointedly must ask the following: have you or have you not read “Functions of Performance and Learning” and “Theory of Instruction”?  To someone that knows the works very well, it sounds like you haven’t. 

“Visible Learning” is good, but Hattie doesn’t have the field time like Engelmann -outclassed.  I also have read “Classroom Instruction That Works”, and it is not even in the running with “Functions of Performance and Learning” or “Theory of Instruction” or even “Preventing Failure in the Primary Grades” all by Engelmann.  The proof you cite and your point are made nearly impotent by Engelmann’s 42 years of field work and study.
  DI is not a magic bullet, but you are trying to make it less important by using a middle of the road type argument.  The truth is, if even 50% of the students that I teach had a competent handle on basic things that DI corrects, such as gleaning main idea, or multiplying fractions, I would be more willing to spread out and use your other “tools”. 
  I am a carpenter, and you said in an earlier posting that relying on one method is like using a hammer over and over again.  Well, in today’s public schools, it’s framing time.  We’ll call you when it is time to bring out the wire cutters and plastic conduit.

refutations ought to be based on evidence
not assertions

we have learned a lot since Project Follow Through and the books that came from it that you cite.
It does not negate their value, but the work since then explain more completely why and how we learn.

Very true John, and too bad the public education system does not expand their learning on the advances being made in learning disabilities, reading disorders, and the other learning disorders, where Direct Instruction, and other instructional practices have been developed, and thoroughly tested with excellent results in academic standing and achievement.

Children with the learning problems are still viewed by the education system, as something that needs to be repair so the children will act and behave more like the children who fall into the norm. What never happens is the remediation of the learning deficits, to support the strengths of the child. Direct Instruction is frown upon, like all other instruction methods that have been developed outside of the control of the education system,

And it sure shows up in the achievement stats and standardized testing, where almost all students with learning disabilities are sitting at the bottom of the achievement charts and scores. Along with a healthy percentage of other children .without learning deficits, because of deficits in reading, writing and numeracy foundation.

Why and how we learn, will always be expanding, but the public education system and the people in charge will always eschew the science, for some fanciful philosophy of edubabble. It creates busy work, as well as adding to the small army needed to put out the many fires and fallout when students are not achieving as they should.

Mr. Myers, just to let you know, for me a lot of your posts are not very clar. The way you present your thougths is ambiguous a lot of times.

I also find it interesting that although you are a teacher you are not following the standard conventions of writing, which tells me that for you following them is not an automatic process.

Or perhaps you don’t deem this discussion worthy of your best effort!

I am not sure of this “lack of clarity”.
I refer specifically to a comment or assertion.
I offer evidence, sometimes with logic, sometimes with experience, sometimes by suggesting a further source for readers to consult.

It is not my job nor is there space to present a dissertation-like response (done that and am currently looking at one en français). As for my
“on the one hand . . . . on the other . . .” style- it is because
- there are no simple or single solutions for education
- sometimes, as Nancy and others have noted, the ed biz is really sloppy in its use of language; hence, my distinction between some of the variations of direct or is it Direct instruction.

To continue with Nancy’s thinking in the previous post,
- a generation ago spec ed kids had NO chance to graduate; my parents had to argue with the school to let me try kindergarten since I have a disability (actually 2)
- while I have seen great strides, there are in my experience four areas that need attention, not just for spec ed but ALL kids
1. If going into spec ed is supposed to help kids move past, why do so many not do so?
2. Whatever improvements there are, society’s needs have moved further. Schools have not kept up.
3. Better teaching is always needed.
4. #3 likely through better professional learning: it is foolish to expect the faculties of ed to do it all. The common model of *drive by workshops’ is a waste.

Education is complex stuff. I do my best to state clear positions while recognizing the lack of certainty on so many important things.

There are no magic solutions. Sometimes schools and school boards fall prey to this thinking. Sometimes bloggers and advocates of a particular position fall prey.

The evidence in both cases refutes both groups.

I hope I have made myself clear.

I have wondered, why bother with these blogs since the vitriol and stereotyping and blame is both insulting and discouraging?

It is because many non teachers and some teachers operate in this way and believe these things.
And since we live in a democracy and since schools need to have supportive connections with their communities, we need to talk.

“a generation ago spec ed kids had NO chance to graduate; my parents had to argue with the school to let me try kindergarten since I have a disability (actually 2).”

If so John, let the public know how many actual pass with a diploma, and not a certificate. I have a feeling not many do received a diploma that is useful in obtaining a placement in some post secondary institute.

But alas, only a few of the insiders of any public education system,  would actually know the dismal achievement stats.of the identified students with a disability that affects achievement. Even today, the very education system is designed to keep the stats under wrap and key, due to the legal ramifications and confidentiality consideration of the students.

If not the faculties of ed, why would professional learning be left up to the other stakeholders, on stuff that should have been learned in the first place in the faculties of education. or at the very least in the under-graduated degrees of teachers. The professional learning of the stuff dealing with the 3 Rs, and the importance of a firm foundation for kids to stand on.

I do believe WISE math will be a power to reckon with by the fall of 2012, and the ministries of education along with the various departments below the ministries will they engage in honest and frank talk with WISE?  Or will the powers to be in education circle their wagons, like they have done in the current case being heard in the Supreme Court of Canada, to defend their stance of discrimination can take place, providing that no other student is receiving the education service. The big guys of education in Ontario came out in force to have their say in a Supreme Court case, that is all about the basic 3 Rs and the foundation skills’ And very much like the scenes that are being played out daily in the rooms where IEP meetings are being held. The big guys from the board comes in, waving the excuses why little Suzie does not have a reading problem, even though the psycho-educational assessment, says otherwise.

Is the education of kids that complex John?  Or is it really complex because the stakeholders within the education system, have made it complex by designing the education policies around 19th and 20th century thinking, to ensure busy work for one and all, and to retain the power and authority over all things in the education of students.

Heard far too many excuses over the last 11 years John, not to remediate the reading deficits of my youngest child.  The education of children is not complex, but the very public education system and the stakeholders within strives for complexity based on premises of learning and intelligence based on 19th and early 20th century thinking. Hard work but not complex.

A 1999 article, rather famous outside of the public education establishment, but the papers are sitting on dusty shelves across the education ministries and school boards and education faculties. 

”  Reading is the fundamental skill upon which all formal education depends. Research now shows that a child who doesn’t learn the reading basics early is unlikely to learn them at all. Any child who doesn’t learn to read early and well will not easily master other skills and knowledge, and is unlikely to ever flourish in school or in life.  Low reading achievement, more than any other factor, is the root cause of chronically low-performing schools, which harm students and contribute to the loss of public confidence in our school system. When many children don’t learn to read, the public schools cannot and will not be regarded as successful—and efforts to dismantle them will proceed.
Thanks to new scientific research—plus a long-awaited scientific and political consensus around this research—the knowledge exists to teach all but a handful of severely disabled children to read well.”
http://www.aft.org/pdfs/teachers/rocketscience0304.pdf

Nancy asks, “Is the education of kids that complex John?”

Yes.

Some who have studied how professionals work such as Lee Shulman and Dan Lortie note how the only professional who might parallel teachers are doctors working in an emergency room during a natural disaster.
- a large degree of chaos
- many competing and varied demands and needs
- many of these unknown at least on first sight

Two centuries ago the tools were simple in wartime, saws and knives for amputation, trepanning for brain injury: no anesthetics, no penicillin, no x-rays or MRIs.

Teaching has an additional challenge since seeing a mind decay or bloom is much harder than seeing the physical signs in a body.

And faculties of ed have programs that last less than a year.

We know so much more that we did even 40 years ago in the head days of Project Follow Through.
Research is better and more complete.

The National Academies Press How People Learn offers a useful synthesis.

And yes, when I was diagnosed the only alternative to school was making brooms or leather belts.

If I have a choice of 2012 or 1812
there is no choice.

Well at least you had an alternative John. Where in Ontario back in 1960 like to send the mental deflects to the schools of basket weaving, but thanks to some enlightened and university educated from assorted Canadian and.American universities, the old Ontario boy’s network, and no doubt my father’s former duties in the Royal Canadian Air Force played a role, as well as my mother’s former contacts from previous employment during the WW2 and I was admitted to a regular elementary, without verbal speech in place.

I sometimes wonder, if my old grade one teacher was alive today, if she would do circles around the primary teachers of today. She was still at it, in her 80s, tutoring the youngsters very much like me, to read and write well, using what is called today explicit teaching of phonemic sounds, Even though I only remember bits and pieces, I still remember the 15 or 20 minutes spent during the day, working on my sounds, and the funny symbols on the pages.

I realized now, that it was fortunate in timing and location and parents, very much like your parents, determine to change things for their children, over the naysayers within the education system. But what is sad, and absurd in the 21st century, considering all the knowledge and advances being made in and will continue in learning, the public education system’s refusal to follow the science in the 3 Rs, and yet I had a grade one teacher, a principal and a superintendent following the science of the time and their fair share of hard work on their part. The schooling I had, was what my youngest child should have had experience, except using the 21st century advancement and knowledge in reading and the learning sciences.

If so, she would probably be a very good reader and writer today, and would not be dealing with assessments in grade 11, to see if she qualifies for alternative accommodations for the public exams. And even here, a 16 year old who has been identified as a mild to moderate reading disorder, or fill in the ____________ blank for the many disorders that falls under the category of reading disorder, may not meet the narrow criteria to meet the threshold to receive accommodations for the public exams. So perverse and backward the public education system is, when it comes to neglecting the proficiency and skills of their students in the 3 Rs in grade school, in an inclusive classroom that welcomes all, but does not provide the necessary corrective and remediation for students identified or unidentified with learning struggles in the 3 Rs.

So, is the Moore case at the Supreme Court of Canada, an excellent indicator of a sick public education system, that is no longer interested in the education of children? Some would agree with the statement, including most of the parents, teachers and other interested persons joining WISE math to seeks changes to the math curriculum and a return to the basics, the foundation in math.

>> Some who have studied how professionals work such as Lee Shulman and Dan Lortie note how the only professional who might parallel teachers are doctors working in an emergency room during a natural disaster.
- a large degree of chaos
- many competing and varied demands and needs
- many of these unknown at least on first sight
<<

Yes, that may describe the teaching environment that is common today in most classrooms.

However it does not need to be that way.
It is so chaotic because of the choices we’ve made in education.

- We group together in a class students at wildly different levels of mastery and we make believe that there is a way to teach them so that each student makes the progress that he is capable of.
How contrary to reality!

- A lot of elementary teachers have not mastered the subjects they are teaching. As a result of this and of a curriculum that’s very vague the differences in the students’ level of mastery in a subject grow bigger and bigger. So the teaching needs in the same class keep getting more and more varied as the students advance through the elementary grades.

- The teachers have almost no authority to expect and impose minimum standards of civilized behavior in the classroom. If they are unlucky to have disruptive students in their class those students will continue being disruptive. So not only the disruptive student doesn’t learn, he stops his classmates from learning. That is blatantly unfair to the other students.

- There are no standards so the students and the teachers have no incentives to do their best.
Is it any wonder that they lose interest, coast, that they are bored and that they start believing that school doesn’t matter?

So, yes, the teaching environment may well be chaotic, but that’s because these were the choices we made. There are other choices.

Nancy states: “Well at least you had an alternative John”
How utterly disrespectful!!!!!!

From what I heard when I was younger, it was basket weaving skills in my area, compared to making brooms and leather belts..

But I did not make it very clear in my writing, and to that I am sorry if I had offended you. What I did not expressed very well, is that children who were the misfits, had alternative pathways that were often force upon them, but some parents back in the 50s and 60s fought to obtain admittance into the regular school, in the best way they knew how to.

My own dry sense of humour will be the ruin of me, I would rather be making brooms and leather belts than weaving a basket, but it fell flat. I can see why, but the public education system of the 21st century is still somewhere back in the 50s and 60s, where the new dumping ground is the inclusive classroom, and the kids that need remediation beyond the classroom, still do not received the remediation that is needed to bring them up to their grade level in the 3 Rs and enabling kids to reach their own potential.

And to repeat a statement in my last post, So perverse and backward the public education system is, when it comes to neglecting the proficiency and skills of their students in the 3 Rs in grade school, in an inclusive classroom that welcomes all, but does not provide the necessary corrective and remediation for students identified or unidentified with learning struggles in the 3 Rs.”

I think posters need a reminder to be respectful of each other.  Please. 
Perhaps it is time to move on to another posting.

Just one more, because some stories are truly inspirational - http://lifestyle.sympatico.ca/home/man_learns_to_read_at_age_96_and_publishes_book_at_98/c5a487e1

I agree with Doiretta, but in my case
too late
I cannot forgive.

I am outta here!