Funny how almost all reading experts support balanced literacy or straight up whole language. We actually learn to read by reading and we become much better readers much faster by reading for meaning and reading for enjoyment.

Phonics can play a role in reading, a very small role, but as I was often told by the reading experts at the TDSB, “phonics is a reading strategy, a tool. It is not a reading program.”

“Analyzing it to death” what a joke. If we don’t read for meaning, why do we read?

We have now had generations taught by balanced literacy and whole language. They read better than their grandparents who were drilled with phonics.

Do they reeaaallllyy???  I don’t think so.  The grandparents I know read, comprehend, and have vocabularies much better than the grandkids.  Sorry but I disagree.

Anedotal reports are considered useless in serious debate. The adult illiteracy rate, although still high, continues to fall. The farther back you go in Canada, the worse all off the education data is. There was no “golden age” where people did better than today. The 1950’s, Nirvana to some, was characterized by “the drop-out” and “the delinquent.”

For the sake of arguement, children back in the 50’s were encouraged to drop out of highschool.  The manufacturing base in Ontario was thriving, and parents felt that their children were losing years of income by staying in school past the age of 16.  Nowadays, children need post-secondary education.
I’d like to see the children of today pass the exams from the 50’s and prior.  That would not be anecdotal reporting:  it would be plain fact…

Our FOS superintendent told us not too long ago that we have the lowest literacy levels in all of Ontario and we are in crisis mode. The secondary school said math achievement was also a crisis.We know that fewer than half our graduates will finish Grade 10.  It is a serious equity issue in our opinion (teachers) and we worked extremely hard to get the Grade 1 and 2 students reading and writing on level and succeeded for about 3 years in a row, researching things that worked and working together using some effective methods and materials supported by a FOS grant for innovative projects.  Then we became an OFIP school and had to stop doing all that, and our Grade 1 and 2 students are floundering again. 

I’m doing a volunteer afterschool literacy program at a different school and the Grade 1 and 2 students do not even recognize the letters of the alphabet. They cannot read any words, much less “read for meaning.” They are not special ed. It’s an even bigger crisis there.

The correlation between a student being a poor reader at the end of Grade 1 and being a poor reader at the end of Grade 10 is greater than .9. If a student gets to Grade 3 without being a competent independent reader, his or her chance of *ever* becoming a proficient reader is, statistically, only 1 in 25.  Now we can rescue a lot of these older children with enough time and effort but we haven’t got the staff for that, and need to get it right the first time. Children who can’t read become very negative towards school and learning, show signs of depression and may act out and become behaviour problems.  We urgently need to get these kids reading and writing well and easily from the berginning. The stuff the video shows is actually an interference with teaching our students well.  All the increases in the education budget aren’t reaching the classroom. We get $50 a term for classroom necessities.We don’t have classroom libraries or math materials (I do, I bought the stuff myself). Many elementary teachers in low-income schools spend over $1000/yr of their after-tax earnings to buy school materials for the students.

I’ve often thought it would be a great work-to-rule move if elementary teachers removed their personal property from the schools. In well-to-do neighbourhoods it would make no difference, but in schools like the last three I have worked in, the rooms would be bare. No posters, no classroom library, no comfortable chairs and cushions in the reading corner (nothing to read either), no board games, art materials, pencil crayons, markers.  Teachers may even supply most or all of the learning materials—books, reading materials, notebooks for the kids, even textbooks. The public has no idea. If it all disappeared from the schools, it would be quite a wake-up moment.

Literacy levels may or may not be better than in the past —the data is unreliable, and the definition of literacy has changed. What we can say for certain is that there is no future for the illiterate in today’s world.

I am not surprised in the least by anything you say TDSBNW. Northern Etobicoke and the west end of North York is where I taught for many years. Yes there are specific very serious points around education in our case in Ontario.

The critical areas include Aboriginal education mainly a federal responsibility, resource extraction communities and Francophones, mainly in northern Ontario, the Portuguese community, mainly in Toronto, the black community, mainly in Toronto but also Windsor, Hamilton etc. The community you serve is one of the most critical.

I doubt very much that your Super told you the solution is phonics and DI.

It made no sense to me to slash primary class sizes across the board in Ontario when 3/4 of the schools had no particular problems. We need to focus all of our financial and human resources onto those communities struggling as you describe.

We need to incentivize our best primary and junior teachers to work in troubled schools. We need to slash class sizes again and again. We need to properly resource them without it coming from teachers’ pockets. But that is what I am all about and have said so since day one.

The problem in education is the results of poor children and some racial minorities.

If we look to the USA, the results of white and asian students is above the PISA, TIMMS average but when you factor in black and hispanic kids they plumet to #25/30 countries.

IT IS A POVERTY PROBLEM PEOPLE.

In the 50’s and 60’s, in Windsor, Ontario (mentioned above) for years I went to a public school in one of the poorest districts.  I remember children with no shoes in winter and hungry.  I remember the weekly inspection by the school nurse for headlice.  What I also remember was that all of us were fluent readers, and when I started at the school, in grade three, the kids teased me because I was behind them in arithmetic, and I had come there from a rich suburb to boot!
The difference was we learned phonics, our times tables, and we had to pass city-wide exams in order to progress to the next grade.
Frankly, it angers me when people simply want to blame race, poverty and ESL students.  All children, when given the chance can learn!
I’m grateful for people like TDSBSW.  Thank you for doing your best despite this
sorry excuse that we call public education in Ontario.

TDSBSW, all that has to be done in order to compare literacy levels from any time period to now is to pull out the old exams (they’re all in the archives) and have today’s children write them:  it’s so easy.
What makes it hard is that the powers that be don’t want any such comparison.

Of course all children can learn but your nostalga is giving you rose coloured glasses. Many more children dropped out and were illiterate theen than now. This is not my opinion, StatsCan has all the date.

Nobody has said children from some classes or races cannot learn given the opportunity. You fail to understand that we are not giving them the opportunity. You have heard what TDSBNW has said. To deny that educational results are directly related to the class position of the family is to make a complete fool of ones self. Even the much loved here EQAO will tell you education results are almost 100% class based. That is not an excuse for not doing more, it is a compass telling us exactly where the effort must go and BTW, phonics and DI has nothing to do with it. It is far too serious for simplistic solutions.

If your memory tells you they all learned in your day then your memory is faulty.

Doug, of course TDSBNW’s super told him/her not to use phonics, that’s why the kids are floundering.

When TDSBNW was using DI and phonics, the kids were reading at or above grade level.  TDSBNW just didn’t tell you what they were doing.
It isn’t always about how much money, it’s about how you use it too.

Nonsense.

If you say so…The evidence points otherwise.

As a parent, and coming from my view point, observations, and dealing with my dyslexia child, balance literacy, does nothing to improve understanding of a text, or promote comprehension or the skills needed to comprehend. The video, is a prime example how education lingo enters the system, and certainly explains why my daughter came home asking for meanings of words, Conventions struck me as a word, that is rather complicated for a grade one student to grasp and understand it.
Conventions:
a meeting or formal assembly, as of representatives or delegates, for discussion of and action on particular matters of common concern.
2. U.S. Politics. a representative party assembly to nominate candidates and adopt platforms and party rules.
3. an agreement, compact, or contract.
4. an international agreement, esp. one dealing with a specific matter, as postal service or copyright.
5. a rule, method, or practice established by usage; custom: the convention of showing north at the top of a map. 
6. general agreement or consent; accepted usage, esp. as a standard of procedure.
7. conventionalism. 
8. Bridge. any of a variety of established systems or methods of bidding or playing that allows partners to convey certain information about their hands.
Would it not be wiser, to use vocabulary that is more in keeping with a 6 year old? For example what is the difference between the two books? My daughter never had trouble telling the difference between non-fiction and fiction material. Both requires the same reading skills needed to comprehend the texts. The only difference between the two, and as my dyslexic daughter says, “It is far easier to read non-fiction material than fiction.”  The reason being the format, and as a result, she is a better reader in non-fiction than fiction.
This is one of the many reasons, why the joy of reading is disappearing in the schools. Reading needs to be taught, just like other skills such as riding a bike, or playing the piano.
Doug, insists that there is no literacy problem and rather insists that the problem lies outside the education system in the social/economic factors that influence and impact teaching. He also insists that the school need to have the proper resources. What he avoids to mention, is the factors on delivery of education, the methodology, and administration of the public school system. A system that supports the needs of the people who work within the system, and where the system demands the users of the system to adapt and accept responsibility for the education of our children for literacy skills beyond the basic skills taught in primary classes. Singling out the poor, without changing the system, will not improve the literacy rate in our country. Nor does it help, when individuals ignores the science-based research over the pass ten years, indicating that literacy rates are dropping, and will be dropping in the near future, unless there is wholesale changes made from the top to the bottom, within the education system.
Doug, it is you that is advocating for simple solutions, and makes me think that you are on the payroll of a text book publisher or a tutoring school. If changes were made as I have advocate, the text book publishers and tutoring schools will not be as profitable as they are today. They growth corresponds to the downgrading and in some cases, the elimination of teaching essential reading, writing, and numeracy skills needed to do advance work. When one weakens the foundation, and in this case language skills, the users of the system are forced to pay for private services that the school no longer provides.
And Doug, there is more to reading than reading a lot of material. A lot more, and as a parent it is a poor excuse for not providing direct instruction on the mechanics of writing and reading. It is about time you provide evidence to prove your stance. I can and a great many on this site can also provide that your stance, has long ago been proved to be the wrong way to approach literacy. Study after study, by the most respected researchers of the world, have confirmed this fact. By the way, here is a little stat for you to muse. Since the middle part of the 1970s, literacy rates have been dropping. There is a correlation between the start of the literacy rates dropping, and the introduction of whole-language approach, and which balance-literacy is another form of the whole language. I also have these studies, along with the Canadian studies confirming this correlation.

I guess I am just part of the vast left wing conspiracy to keep the kids from reaching their full potential along with most researchers, reading specialists, teachers, school board officials, principals, psychologists, professors of education etc. We form a vast network dedicaed to top all kids from learning to read. We have been so successful that we have stopped virtually every jurisdiction in the western world from adopting the methods you propose.

Of course the alternative is that all of us are correct and you are wrong but it is your choice.

Nice Doug, typical trick when someone is loosing the debate, by avoiding the evidence that is contrary to your line of thinking. As I said, the schools do a good job, on teaching the fundamental basics in reading and writing. What they do not do, is a very good job at teaching beyond the fundamental basics of reading and writing.

I’m not sure the other comrades on the site agree with your first statement.

Doug Little doesn`t know what he is talking about.He is injurious to the 50% of the population that is no longer learning to read,spell and write..Half a billion dollars of synthesized research(30 years of it) from the National Institute of Child Health and Development at Universities like Harvard,Yale,University of Florida,Haskins Labs,University of Texas and OISE-Keith Stanovich,U.B.C.,Linda Siegel have empirical evidence that you are wrong.But,you need to be right,so the children fail.
Take responsibility for your unconscionable opinion and your thoughts that were never tested till the NICHD tested the flawed hypothesis.
Children learn to process language with the following steps-Phonemic awareness(the greatest reading research of the 21st century),phonics is step 2-fluency and automaticity is step 3-vocabulary is step 4 and comprehension is step 5-Learning to read and spell is not a memorization exercise.
You should study the research before you continue to spread harmful information.To not learn to read and spell is emotional abuse and most of these children are behavioural and depressed by grade 4.

Thanks Jo-Anne. As a parent on this forum, I read this forum for knowledge, but it is seldom do you see someone, an educator who spew out the same kind of thoughts, that I faced when my daughter was in the primary. At the time, I knew far less than what I know now, and it was difficult to remain civil, when I knew they were wrong, that is the educators at the primary level.
I also chose not inform him about the reading processes for a reason, I wanted to remain on the narrow topic of balance literacy and what was obvious that Doug, believes that our brains are fixed from birth. In other words, we have a fixed amount of intelligence. Oh yes, this was one of the top reasons given to me, not in those words, but in these words, “Maybe your child is only capable of getting 50s?”, in respond to my question on her reading ability. So when people like Doug come on, I will not ignored them, but do battle with them.
As for reading and writing ability, the best I can do at home is to work on the mechanics, for I too, is a dyslexia. I never did learned to sound out words, but the school I went to made sure that I was provided with the needed lessons over and above the school’s material, that targeted the weak areas in writing. That was back in the 1960s, when learning disabilities was unheard of in the general population. As a result, I need someone well-skilled in teaching her phonemic sounds, and its a real pity that her Orton-Gillingham was pulled near the end of grade 5, based on grades and not on her reading and writing skills. So, now we have to start from scratch and she has to be retaught the sounds and the sounds she did not get taught. I cannot teach her. It will be like the blind leading the blind. I do have the high school on board, but it the educators above the school who is stalling because if they allow it to happen, it will be the first time in that school’s history where a high school student is getting corrective help beyond remedial, and dumbing down tests.
By the way, thanks again. I hope more come on with their opinions.

I wonder how the Chinese and Japanese ever learn to read then since their characters are whole words and they have no phonics? Poor devils.

No one ever said we should teach phonics-read my e mail.It is so obvious you don`t know anything about reading research.We should teach phonemically and create phoneme grapheme correspondence-read Diane McGuiness ,Linnea Ehri and Sally Shaywitz-IF you want to give advice and know what you are talking about.

The best results come from balanced literacy. I have always made the case that Basic Phonis is A tool in literacy. Any middle class child can learn to read with either a phonics based or whole language system. It is the children of the poor and marginalized who benefit most from either balanced or whole language systems which emphasise comprehension which is, after all the only real point of reading instruction.

I know exactly what I am talking about. You come from a school of thought, a Skinnerian, Behaviourist, Phonics dominated school of thought. I come from a Vigotsky, Constructivist, reading for meaning comprehension school of thought. We both have a right to our opinions and we can both line up a long list of professors and studies to buttress our opinions.

At the end of the day, most children will learn to read in either system and/or a blend like balanced literacy. To me the critical point is comprehension over word calling. This is where phonics beyond basic phonics is weakest.

You better speak to Dr.Keith Stanovich-You have not seen the research on balanced literacy which is the public relations word for whole language-do you think a struggling reader can comprehend one word?The results show hands down that phonemic awareness training leads to profound literacy success-the results on balanced literacy are very weak comparatively-defer to research-NOT your opinion.
The Conference Board of Canada has reported a 42% adult illiteracy rate 2 years ago-I wonder why?
When did you last teach children to read sir?

If you believe the adult illiteracy rate in Canada is 42% you have no credibility with anybody. The Functional Illiteracy rate is about 19% acknowledged by every expert. Most of these people can in fact read. They just cannot read well enough and it affects their life daily.

My Master’s degree is in Adult Education and my subspecialty in Adult Literacy. I was the chair of the Toronto board Adult Litercy Task Force. Please do not argue with me until you learn what you are talking about.

I really find you annoying-you refuse to defer to research!

If you insist on a 42% illitracy rate you will make yourself a laughing stock. The major literacy groups who campaign on the issue only claim a 19% “Functional Illiteracy” rate, much of it old people and mainly in resource hinterland communities or innercity ghettos.

On “research” on reading, there is at least as much “research” on the other side of the argument, especially when reading comprehension is the question.

Call Ann Golden from the Conference Board of Canada as well as Frank McKenna.

Mr.Little it is sad for all of us who see you see yourself as knowing everything and do not defer to research-of any kind.
You know it all,why should we bother?

UNESCO lists the literacy rate of Canada at 99%, I believe you are talking about the rate of functional illiteracy and again you are wrong wrong wrong which makes the rest of your “research” highly suspect.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/education/canada-shame.html

This report shows the Functional Illiteracy rate at 14% perhaps you reversed the figures? I HAVE WORKED WITH THESE FIGURES FOR MANY YEARS, presented papers on them, and so forth. You are making a complete fool of yourself.

# Four out of 10 adult Canadians, age 16 to 65 - representing 9 million Canadians - struggle with low literacy. They fall below level 3 on the prose literacy scale (Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Survey, Statistics Canada and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2005).
# Considering those adult Canadians with low literacy, 15 per cent have serious problems dealing with any printed materials; an additional 27 per cent can only deal with simple reading tasks (Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, 2005).

You claimed they wer illiterate, they are not illiterate. The 15% that have serious reading problems with higher order reading skills is the only statistic that is important here. The rest are not illiterate. This is like saying that 90% of Canadians have difficulty understanding nuclear physics.

I have been working with these figures for years. You need to know that the FI statistics are going down not up. FI was 19% in the 1980s it is now 14-15%. Is it going down fast enough? No but it is very difficult to get funding for adult illiteracy. The illiterate are for the most part older people who live in hinterland areas, immigrants, and poor people living in urban ghettos as well as Aboriginals.

I have been working with this data for years and given papers to these conferences. 27% or greater have always had difficulty.

You are attempting to say our present school policies are related to this question. Only a tiny % of this data is graduates of public schools in the last 20 years. Read your original post. You say they are illiterate. They are not illiterate.

The point is that the illiteracy rate however defined is heading down, not up.

I believe the above stats speak for themselves-besides,how is a person a little bit illiterate?

Call Dr.Don Jamieson at Canadian Literacy Network for his stats.You create your own materials-I stand back and look at the research.

Ann Golden-“Adult illiteracy rates in Canada are shockingly low”.2007

What is your stake in your vehement objection to research findings?

Doug, this is an article on a political blog, where it is a rare sight to behold, talking about the literacy rate.
“According to the International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey (IALSS), adult literacy can be described on a scale of 1 to 5, and has three components – prose literacy, document literacy, and quantitative literacy. The IALSS study showed that 48% of adult Canadians score a level of 1 or 2. Fortunately, very few Canadians are considered to be completely illiterate (ABC Literacy). Level 1 is considered to be below middle school skills. Level 3 is described as “the minimum skills level suitable for coping with the demands of everyday life and work in a complex, advanced society…roughly the skill level required for successful secondary school completion and college entry”. I was surprised to learn that only 21% of Canadians are considered to be highly literate and that this number is actually on the decline. Levels in the United States are even lower. The other fact that surprised me is that literacy skills, if not used regularly, will decline over time. I have been a voracious reader all my life, and I never knew that literacy skills will fade if not continually nurtured. It is not enough to only teach the young to read – we have to create an atmosphere of life-long learning.”
It concludes, “
The cynic in me fears that governments are not terribly worried about low literacy rates. Of course they pay lip service to “improving skills” and positioning Canada at the forefront of an emerging global economy, but I want less talk and more action. Canada’s literacy rates have been falling for the last ten years and the government needs to recognize this for the crisis that it is. I fear that this issue is not even on the radar of the major political parties. It seems far easier to govern a population that is uninformed and uninvolved. Governments don’t like being questioned and they don’t like being held accountable – two things that educated, highly literate people are more prone to do. I have often wondered why so much of the Canadian population seems uninterested and unengaged in politics. I never would have thought that much of the problem could be due to literacy issues.”
I and parents who are fighting for education services in the areas of reading, writing,  inside the public education system, are face with the very same problem, that it is far easier for the public education system to pay lip service on the essential components of education and the skills, than to ensure that each and every child receives a firm foundation to be able to participate and be engage in today’s society.
Doug , you are an advocate of education policies and theorems that has more to do with controlling children, managing children than providing an education, with a firm foundation.
It is apparent and obvious, that you maintain your stance strongly, because it is in your best self interest to do so. To advocate otherwise, you might be out of a job.
http://tinyurl.com/y8d32jr
or

Canada’s Poor Literacy Rates – Reminding Politicians That Literacy Skills Matter to our Economic and Social Success
at: http://www.informedvote.ca

Nancy, I don’t really have a job to be out of, I am retired and run a newsletter by myself.

I have fought against adult illiteracy in this country for many years. People need to know what they are talking about however.

1% of the population cannot read
15% of the population can read the Toronto Sun grade 6 reading level but not the Globe and Mail at a grade 10 reading level.
The rest of the 42% listed above cannot read at the level required to read for a living on complex text.

There are few that believe in giving children basic skills more than I do. I am widely read on these topics and profoundly believe in early childhood education.

I do not subscribe to the Skinnerian, Behaviourist, phonics dominated DI school of thought. You confuse that with people who do not care about children and reading.

I subscribe to the Goodman, Vigotsky school of thought, Constructivism, whole word recognition, reading for meaning not word calling.

Please do not confuse the fact that people do not believe the tenets of your philosophy with people who do not care about children or their reading success. You are attacking a lot of people, the vast majority in fact, who have dedicated their lives to the educational success of our children.

Your 1%rate is RIDICULOUS!
I travel and train school boards across Canda-they themselves tell me that in some sectors of their boards,80% of children cannot read and spell in Grade 3.
Your stats are erroneous,you cannot care about children-you find it too important to be right.

Google Children of the Code and learn a few things.
My final e mail,you`re not worth it.

UNESCO rates every country in the world by literacy rate. Canada 1%. Google it or I will find it for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

Before you say you cannot trust Wikipedia, they are UNESCO rates.

I’m not worth it because I know this field more than you perhaps?