From Toronto eh?  Perhaps, a lesson can be taught to the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, by sending them what is being sent home as sage advice for reading strategies. The same type of reading strategies that a primary student who has dyslexia would used, and are called compensatory strategies. The above sage advice, reminds of the research of how dyslexia children compensate, when faced with poor reading instruction. of the whole language kind. All it does, it will reinforce bad habits in reading, and never leads to good reading skills.

It appears to me, that the strategies being used, look very similar to the compensatory strategies that are used by students with learning disabilities.  What a neat way, of delaying the process of identifying children who are at risk for reading, especially the children that have dyslexia symptoms.

Well, you don’t like to be accused of “teacher bashing” but that is what you’re doing here. You’re suggesting to this parent that the problem with the “strategies” suggested is with the teacher who sent home such advice.

However, this is disingenuous in the extreme. SQE knows, or ought to know, that a multi-cueing strategy is mandated by the Ontario Ministry of Education. Students must be taught to use “multiple cues” for “word solving.”  These begin with pictures and “predicting” words from the context. The first letter, or other letters, may also be used, but “sounding out” is only considered a last resort, and NOT the hallmark of a skilled reader.  The MOE simply rejects the two “principles of good reading” that you cite. It subscribes, instead, to the proposition that good readers “sample” print (do not look at every word, let alone every letter) and “predict” upcoming words based on a variety of “cueing systems.” This is the view informing the works of Goodman, Smith, Weaver, Fountas & Pinnell and Marie Clay, and these form the foundations of Ontario literacy policies, enforced by the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat..

Now I know the research (from Stanovich and others) that completely contradicts this, and so do others here. However, the fact remains that the “three cueing systems” (minus the “graphophonemic cues” which have become simply “visual cues”—no reference to sounds) are required in beginning reading instruction across the province, and teachers must assess each student’s proficiency in using these “cueing systems”—but not proficiency in application of the alphabetic code.  Even if teachers thoroughly disagree with this approach, they are obliged to follow it. It is the law.

Of course some teachers sneak in teaching the skill of “sounding out” along with the other “cueing systems” but there is no way to avoid the “mixed methods”  approach. Teams of inspectors come around to ensure compliance, and visit every classroom. They are not yet in every school, but the process is being expanded each year and they will be soon.

It’s no use blaming the teacher for following Ministry of Education requirements. Go after the big cheeses instead. And suggesting to the parent that switching to some other classroom (where the teacher will have to follow the same guidelines) is not likely to yield the desired result. Unfortunately, this parent is likely to have to support the child herself or hire someone else to do so. However, some teachers do offer systematic phonics instruction to kids before or after school. In school is generally impossible due to Ministry and Board regulations.  Even schools that do teach decoding skills explicitly (many of the Catholic boards use Jolly Phonics, for instance) also teach the multi-cueing approach reflected in the “tip sheet” the parent received.

To see what and how teachers in K-3 are required to teach in reading, check this link:
http://www.eworkshop.on.ca/edu/resources/guides/Reading_K_3_English.pdf

Note that any phonics or phonemic awareness activities are to be “embedded” and “in context” of other literacy activities, never taught separately.

As the education system stands, they is not much a parent can do, when confronted with communication on reading strategies. The parent asked a question, making a connection between her son’s struggles in school and the letter of reading strategies for home use. I wish I had that advice long ago with my own child, because I too made the connections with my child’s struggles and the curriculum/instruction.  It is the best advice, on all the other advice, is to get him out of there. I can attest as a parent, one has to be prepared to do battle on all fronts, while the educators, and the educrats defend their methods no matter the costs.  Going after the big cheeses for a parent, even for a parent who has excellent skills and abilities, is an exercise of time, money and frustration, and the time and money could be better spent on getting the child the correct reading instruction for their child.

As TDSBNW has done an excellent job in defending the status-quo in reading instruction, and giving an out for the educators to remain silent to their superiors on faulty reading instruction. If an educator must obey the current reading methods and directives, what makes you think a parent can change things?  All a parent wants, is their child to read well, and not to have their child’s primary years turned into a nightmare.

Children of the Code: A comment: “This intriguing excerpt from Boulton’s Children of the Code website is only the tip of a huge iceberg of information about reading, learning disabilities, and the insidious effects of systemic failures on the futures of kids: “Our literacy problems are the legacy effects of generations of ignorance, negligence and superficial thinking. More than all the other issues combined it is our collective misunderstanding of ‘the code’ and what is at stake and what is involved in ‘learning to read it’ that perpetuates our reading crisis and, by extension, our education crisis,” Boulton says. “We need to completely reframe our thinking about reading.”

See what else he has to say and be as blown away as I was! Then imagine schools designed around these humane concepts . . . .” - From the Ezine of Patricia Kokinos at ChangeTheSchools.com “

http://www.childrenofthecode.org/comments.htm

” Why do you call it rocket science?

Dr. Louisa Moats:  We are never going to get anywhere if our approach is teachers ought to be able to do this simple thing called teaching reading. I think the rocket science of all this has to do with the requirement of a good teacher to understand what is involved in kids learning the alphabetic code and that requires meta-linguistic awareness that speech sounds are different from letters and that speech sound processing is a requirement and underpinning for learning the code. I find that that’s kind of counter intuitive. People don’t get that. They don’t think about it, they don’t know what we’re talking about.

One of the most common findings in my studies of teacher knowledge and teacher proficiencies is that even experienced teachers of reading really do not know speech sounds. If I ask them a simple thing like how many speech sounds are in the word ‘no’ and I spell it k-n-o-w, they’ll tell me there’s four speech sounds in the word because they don’t know how to separate their own knowledge of orthography from a specific awareness of speech sounds. Because we’re wired up to process phonology at an automatic level and extract the meaning from speech, there’s no requirement for the average person to be meta-linguistically aware at the phonological level.”

http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/moats.htm#ReadingisRocketScience 

“Experts agree that reading and writing call
primarily on deep linguistic processing, not on more peripheral auditory or visual perceptual skills. Language knowledge and language proficiency differentiate good and poor readers. As they begin to learn, poor readers are not less intelligent or less motivated; they are, however, less skilled with language, especially at the level of elemental linguistic units smaller than whole words. For this reason, they benefit from instruction that develops
awareness of sounds, syllables, meaningful word parts, relationships among word meanings, and the structures of written text.”
http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/downloads/teachers/rocketsci.pdf

The link is called, Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science. Are the educators at any stage, exposed to the reading research outside of the education field?  It was an eye opener for the educators and the educrats that many have never seen such research crossed their desks, when I decided to send them the information. But it still did not move the powers to be to change, because if they did that, the gravy train will be stopped for all the consultants and high price help that is needed under the current literacy/numeracy policies.

What a go Nancy-

I think what TDSBNW is telling us is smart teachers who would like to teach differently and have seen the research and know so many children are not learning and would like very much to do it differently are being forced to teach this way.

You really have to scratch your head.Why???What do they have to gain?

To expect parents to deal with the school, on learning issues without telling them in the first place that teachers have no choice but to follow the mandates and policies of the ministries and boards, even if the practices are harmful to the children, is malpractice on their part. I wasted a lot of time dealing with the learning issues at the school and board level, and time would have been better spent to provide the correct instruction in the first place. If it was not for the individual teachers in my child’s life, she would be still be regarded as a low-achiever, and more than likely sitting in basic classes.  My child’s potential was hindered at the board and ministry levels, and not with the individual teachers. Two of the teachers who does have the skills to be meta-linguistically aware at the phonological level.,  taught my child her phonemic sounds using the resources at hand until the board pulls the plug. My youngest never did finished the program, because it was deemed by the higher authorities that improvement has been made in reading and writing. And yet at that point,  she still could not pass a written LA test, if her life depended on it. Or for that matter the written portion of the CRT.

The consultants and the high-priced help are making their living on the faulty curriculum and instruction that is being peddled as being research-based. Knowing full well, they are building the framework for their services and expertise further down the pipeline.

One just has to take a look at the stats, concerning how many LD students are in academic programing. Just a few will make it at that level, and the credit can be given to the individual teachers and the parents who sought out help elsewhere, often being urged by the teachers. What is never stated out loud, but understood by both parties, is to keep it on the Q.T., just in case the board or the ministry decides it is not kosher.

You really have to scratch your head.Why???What do they have to gain?

It’s not about science or evidence. It’s about beliefs. Establishment reading pedagogy is similar to the belief systems of religious cults, except that it is more dangerous and destructive because it dominates the mainstream and not simply fringe groups in society.

But the people who espouse these tenets (like the “three cueing systems”) firmly believe that THEY are the purveyors of truth and the saviours of children, and that those who want to see a more evidence-based approach are some kind of child-abusing Neanderthals.  So discussions rarely prove productive, because few underlying principles or precepts are jointly shared.

Nancy states:

As TDSBNW has done an excellent job in defending the status-quo in reading instruction, and giving an out for the educators to remain silent to their superiors on faulty reading instruction.

Horsefeathers. Let’s get this straight: I am not defending the status quo and never have. I have been fighting it for one H*** of a lot longer than you have. As for going to superiors on faulty reading instruction, I have done far more of that than you will ever dream of doing.

Sometimes there have been small victories, that benefit children and parents. Those victories make the struggle worthwhile, but they don’t change the “system.”  It’s no wonder “reform” is going nowhere, when you attack those in the system who support the change you supposedly want to see. The Whole Language people will surely have a good laugh.

But the fact remains, changes must come from the top. Individual teachers have very little power to change current reading pedagogy. The efforts of SQE and other reformers need to be focused on system level change. Or, concentrate on helping individual kids as much as possible.

I think I will focus on the latter; at least it is a job worth doing. I spent more than 15 years fighting for “system” reforms and that was pretty much a waste of time and energy I could have spent helping more kids and parents with what I call “guerrilla instructivism.” SQE probably does not have sufficient clout, but reform organizations need to target the system itself. That’s where the problems are.

Suggesting to a parent that she can solve her child’s problems with current reading instruction by changing teachers is naive at best, and does nothing to get to the root of the child’s difficulties. Actually, I know that Malkin knows this—it’s why she wrote her book!—but when a child is not progressing with the mandated curricula, it is unfortunately up to the family to take action. Yes, the school can also take action—but it is likely to be more of what doesn’t work (Reading Recovery, Four Blocks, blah blah). So never depend on that being effective.

The best advice to the parent who wrote to “Dear Aunt Malkin” would have been: Ignore those helpful suggestions from the teacher—that is what the Ministry requires primary grade teachers to teach and suggest. Just quietly teach your son to sound out words using the alphabetic code and blending systematically from left to right. If he brings home “levelled books” with undecodable words, YOU read them to him and have him sound out the decodable words. Point out the decodable parts of words in the book, if appropriate. For example, if he brings home a book with “caterpillar” in it, cover up most of the word and have him sound out the “cat” part (then, if he knows the -er and other correspondences that follow, do them in order—but remember that a 5 or 6 year old may not be able to hold all those sounds in working memory long enough to blend them together. However, you are showing him that “long words” are made up of short, decodable parts—a lesson he will use later on.

  Almost certainly, the child is bringing home “balanced literacy” books that require a child to guess words from the pictures.  As noted before, simply read those books TO the child, and then use some decodable story books to help him master sounding out and blending for reading. The best decodable storybooks are the Reading For All Learners “little books” (see iseesam.com) which are engaging and funny as well as fully decodable. They are also available online for free (but you have to print them out—I can get the url if anyone wants it).  The Primary Phonics books are OK but not nearly so well done or systematic. Good decodable books are also available from the UK.

If the parent is comfortable being assertive, she should simply tell the teacher, “We will not be doing the BL reading at home. My son and I will read the [choose your series] books together instead. I can supply you with a reading log if you wish.”  Because homework cannot be counted towards a student’s grades, only towards “Learning Skills,” this will not affect his mark for reading—except, probably, positively as he becomes a more confident and capable reader thanks to systematic practice.

The RALP little books are especially good because they are designed for parents or tutors to use independently of any classroom instruction, and have built-in tips and mastery checks, plus free online support materials.

Doing those things will help the kid much more than changing from one BL classroom to another, where both must follow MOE guidelines, assessments and protocols.

I stand corrected. 

What about the stats of 42% low literacy in adult Canada exposed by the Confederation Board of Canada only 2-3 years ago?

If that`s true,which why wouldn`t it be - there is a big lie in K-12 scores.Frank McKenna speaks of it at TD Bank.

I know of 2 Psychologists in Ontario boards who say"why is Ontario still a bastion of whole language?“We see what the research says…

Why is Ben Levin speaking for reading pedagogy adherence rather than empirical evidence-does this makes sense?

Ridiculous!That has to be exposed.
Also,the publishers play games-as businesses they sell all these low level readers,a new phenomenon someone was telling me about-because of the extent of the reading problem.

The Society for Advancement of Quality Education,now defunct sadly,exposed the fact we don`t train teachers to teach Reading at one of the NSEL meetings-
The woman,a respected researcher who was so brave was treated like a heretic-there was tremendous agitation in the crowd-she did a great thing with her bravery-it`s out there.

It`s very upsetting.They were able to stop the blind use of contraceptive menopausal therapy and reduce breast cance incidence,they were able to stop smoking in public places,if we look at these things we should be able to figure out how to impact on this.What strategies were used?

NCLB had high ideals and if the research had been honoured and less lobbying by the multimillion dollar publishers it might have survived-it made sense-but we can see how very tough it is .

I agree with you dangerous!

Whole Language alive and well at TDSB!

On their website-

Reading Develops Language Skills

Why read:

  * Sharing a book means spending time together.
  * Reading a story teaches good language skills. Use the language you know best.
  * Reading aloud to a child at an early age helps the child learn to read.
  * Children who are good readers do better at school.

What to read:

  * Choose books that have colourful and interesting pictures.
  * Choose books about people and activities that your child likes.
  * Choose books about everyday events, such as going shopping or getting ready for bed.
  * Let your child choose the books you will read together, even if it means reading the same stories again and again.
  * Your child will enjoy hearing the same story again and again because he/she can guess what is going to happen next.
  * Read stories about your own culture.
  * Talk about stories from your own culture.

When to read:

  * Read to your child every day.
  * Find a time when you and your child are relaxed such as before bedtime.
  * Choose a place that is comfortable and quiet such as a bed, chair or couch.

How to read:

  * Read slowly.
  * Take time to enjoy the story. You don’t have to read every word.
  * Point to and label pictures.
  * Read a little of the book, then wait to give your child time to join in.

How to get your child to join in:

  * Wait before turning the page to give your child time to look at the pictures and ask questions.
  * Read the first part of a sentence and let your child complete it.
  * Add actions like clapping, waving or marching to make the story more interesting.
  * Add sounds that match the story (car sounds, animals sounds)
  * Change your voice to match each character in the story.

Where to find books:

  * Public library
  * Book stores/Children’s book stores
  * Borrow from friends
  * Garage/yard/rummage sales
  * Make up your own book using family photos or pictures from magazines

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