I agree with Willingham 100%. Reading for history science geography and other subjects, reading for or a purpose is what raises reading levels. Not reading skill building exercises.  They are necessary nevertheless.

Just as the memorization of X tables is very important critical in fact.

Mr Pondisco is correct that prior knowledge is critical, and that reading and knowledge of the world create a mutually reinforcing virtuous cycle.

He is also right to scorn the idea of teachers teaching comprehension by “modeling a skill or reading habit as her wide-eyed charges gather around her”.

But good readers DO make a picture in their mind while they read.  As with other reading skills, some children pick it up easily and others do not pick it up at all.  It is not clear whether the minimal guidance from the teacher makes any difference.

Building this comprehension ‘model’ is a teachable skill, and there are very specific steps that can develop this skill in students who fail to learn it themselves.  Here is a technique we used for tutoring older dyslexic readers in our clinic (after we had attended to their decoding and fluency skills).

We would work through a book chapter-by-chapter with detailed one-on-one discussions after each reading.  These discussions might focus on story elements (character, plot, setting, theme, and style), connections to the real world (social, economic, political, environmental, technical, historical, and ethical), or connections to the child’s experience.  A successful discussion was at least 30 turns (many attempts did not achieve that). 

Requiring a small written essay for some topic in each chapter also helped a student organize his thinking.

With this framework, the student quickly learned to attend to the details of the story and build a model in preparation for the next discussion.  But working through a book this way is hard work, and far removed from ‘reading for enjoyment’.  It was often a battle, but the results were amazing.

Doug may agree, but he neglects to mentioned that it is NOT the curriculum, pedagogy, instruction, teacher practices and policies of the school. Much prefer Tom’s reasoned explanation, with an example using dyslexics. 

I like the conclusion of the article - “Even the most dedicated teachers cannot cram a lifetime’s worth of knowledge and vocabulary into 180 days of reading instruction. But if our schools are not intentionally and coherently building knowledge, they’re not teaching reading.”  To further the conversation, that comprehension can be taught - “Specific methods for teaching grammar appear to have an effect on comprehension. Strategies that teach sentence combining, a longtime favorite within the special education literature, appears to help students understand what they read, probably because it helps students understand how sentences work. Other research suggests that being familiar with the vocabulary of grammar (noun, adjective) benefits students’ understanding.”
http://www.readingrockets.org/blog/teaching-grammar-reading-comprehension

Grammar is no longer taught in the 21st century schools, and I seem to remembered teaching all my children grammar. In fact, you know the little pronouns such as of her or me, the school of today does such a poor job explaining pronouns, a lot of kids get the short end of the stick when they are reading to understand. http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/pronouns.html

Another area that is neglected by our educationalists and pedagogical theorists, is knowledge. ” How We Neglect Knowledge and Why” http://www.readingrockets.org/article/11767

It is neglected in the older grades, and there is an assumption that the primary students will picked up the comprehension skills on their own as they leave grade 3 and further.

Just a few of the researchers on Children of the Code - http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/perfetti.htm

“Dr. Eric Hanushek: Absolutely, all these things matter. But the ability to pick up a textbook in any area and figure it out relies upon having high levels of comprehension, which relies upon having high levels of knowledge in general: knowledge of history, politics, and society. We are finding that basic comprehension requires lots of basic knowledge, so it all fits together.” http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/hanushek.htm

Tiptoeing To Disaster

What is so, so frustrating about our conversations and debates in education is that we’ve become so overloaded with politeness — not calling a spade a spade — as we did in bygone days.  Political Correctness damages honest conversations and truth- seeking.

That is why I was so pleased to see a column on Jay P Greene’s blog —actually calling our current education accountability— “bullshit accountability”.  This is a guest post by Matthew Ladner (Mar28’14) who deplores testing and fuzzy labels that are not followed up with required attention.  Ladner is behind the concept of Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) where parents do the driving in getting what their kids need.  Ladner is a straight shooter.

I thought I found another straight shooter yesterday amongst the 100s of good, bad, affected, clever, and troublemaking pundits that our education system seems to be spewing out in droves.  Add to the pundits the growing list of Think Tanks also muddying the waters. The field is cluttered with opinions that far too often just add to the despair of beleaguered parents and guardians of young children.

That is why I suggested for this SQE blog the article by Robert Pondiscio on Literacy Is Knowledge.  It’s a good thought-piece, especially in this era when “transformations” are being thrust upon us and parents are still being bamboozled and get their hands burned when they try to get near the steering wheel. 

This is the Pondiscio statement I found on Twitter yesterday that really impressed me and gave some hope:

*** The greatest unfairness in education is to be told to be patient while well-meaning people fix things for the good of all.*** (Mar 27, 2014) 

He referred to another of his articles — Choice Is Messy.  So Be It.  It is here that he highlights and deplores this damaging point of view, held by “liberals” or “progressives” as we know them — that it is our “duty” to send kids to the designated public school. 

Pondiscio links a manifesto from SLATE which argues that schools won’t get better till we all fight for them — even it takes several generations.  This is the POV of those who deny choice and hold this poisonous view that our children are to be sacrificial lambs to a system, which first and foremost serves its own needs.

I think we all should print out this manifesto, see it for the POV that fuels the public school system.  Even to educate your children at home is to violate progressive principles!  Thank you Pondiscio for bringing this forward!
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/private_school_vs_public_school_only_bad_people_send_their_kids_to_private.html

Nancy, educators have no respect for the educational opinions of untrained educators no matter how autodidactic they may be.

Rather amusing or the fate of God and his angels working against Doug, and his statements using discredit tactics. More on that later, Tunya comes to the rescue or would it be fate, to delivered the blow or supplying the material so I can delivered the death blow. Pondiscio twitter statement - “*** The greatest unfairness in education is to be told to be patient while well-meaning people fix things for the good of all.*** (Mar 27, 2014) ”  I can think of a few Shakespeare quotes that would fit in nicely. As the Slate article attests to, parents who sent their kids to alternative education facilities other than public schools, are just bad parents. However, the writer Allison Benedikt, presents an illogical argument, preaching ethics while it is obvious she doesn’t have any ethics. Don’t take my word for it, she made quite a few enemies, namely parents of many different sizes and shapes.  Just one suffice, to serve as an example. -  No, It’s Actually Allison Benedikt Who’s A Bad Person - http://ethicsalarms.com/2013/08/30/no-its-actually-allison-benedikt-whos-a-bad-person/

The discrediting tactics of Benedikt are in full bloom as well as Doug’s. Earlier this evening, I came across this knowledge all in one place. At the Community Tool Box - 1. Section 1. Overview of Opposition Tactics: Recognizing the Ten D’s
2. Section 2. How to Respond to Opposition Tactics
http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/advocacy/respond-to-counterattacks/respond-to-opposition/main

Getting to know the ten Ds is very helpful for parents whose children are stuck in a public school. It will also make the parent-teacher interviews a lot more interesting watching the teacher get frustrated. What normally is a very polite affair, with the smiles fixed on the faces of parents, is turning into a session of holding the teacher to account, without one raise voice. It is helpful for the IEP meetings where it is one or two parents against six to a dozen assorted educators intent in dumbing down the school work, while denying access to the education services such as grammar or spelling lessons or math tutoring of the old fashioned kind that would benefit a child with a disability.

As one can see - ” Some days, it seems like you can’t win: almost any time your organization is successful in making an impact on the community, someone is sure to dislike the results you have worked so hard to bring about. These “grinches” may launch an attack against your organization or its members. Based on Public health advocacy: Creating community change to improve health, this section provides a basic overview of attacks from opposition and how to respond to them.” As one can see, it can be applied to all kinds of situations, even if the organization only consists of one parent against the school.

So learn them well the ten Ds - the public education system employs the ten Ds, when parents start to get uppity and demanding. “The ten D’s of opposition tactics are: Deflect, Delay, Deny, Discount, Deceive, Divide, Dulcify, Discredit, Destroy and Deal. One of the biggest problem as displayed in Doug’s post, the public K to 12 truly do think no one outside of the educator community do not have any right to criticized their practices and policies.  However they seem to think they have the right to lord over students and parents, issuing out edicts and yes even call parents, bad parents. As one parent sees it - “. Making sweeping generalizations and lumping everyone together into one bad parenting pot if they don’t do it your way or the highway doesn’t lead to a thoughtful discussion on the state of our nation’s public schools. It leads to divisiveness and rancor.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-cowie-king/i-am-sending-my-kids-to-private-school-i-am-not-a-bad-person_b_3886989.html