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Why
aren’t children taught to read properly?
A look at public comments offered about
recently approved revisions to the English
Standards of Learning (SOL) suggests one answer:
The education organizations claiming
expertise are tossing up roadblocks.
Despite
overwhelming evidence that early phonics
instruction helps students learn to read capably,
those representing “professional teachers
organizations” opposed the addition of phonics
in the early grades, as well as the use of
diagramming sentences.
Forty
years of research from the National Institute of
Health were published by the respected National
Research Council (NRC) a few years ago in the book
“Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young
Children,” noting that all five components of
reading – phonemic awareness, phonics,
vocabulary, fluency and comprehension strategies
– were necessary for children to become literate
readers. Although
all five components need to be incorporated, early
instruction should emphasize phonemic awareness
and phonics.
The
NRC also offers benchmarks for students on the
road to accomplished reading.
Yet, when the State Board of Education
incorporated these aspects into recent state
Standards of Learning revisions, a flurry of
complaint arose from the usual quarters concerned
that we expect too much of children:
Should
kindergarteners be able to match short vowel
sounds to appropriate letters?
“Very difficult” opined the Fairfax
County Council of PTAs.
Move it to second grade!
“An unrealistic academic demand,”
declared the head of a major association of
reading teachers.
Be
able to read ten “high frequency words?”
Uh, uh, says the owner of “Progressive
Pathways,” a consulting firm advising schools
and parent groups:
The SOL should identify in advance which
ten words they’re talking about.
Should
second graders use knowledge of vowel patterns?
Nope. “Developmentally
inappropriate,” proclaim the “experts.”
But
the assertions of these education experts defy the
NRC research indicating that kindergarten students
“should learn many of the one-to-one letter
sound correspondences” and “recognize some
words by sight,” and ignores the NRC benchmark
that second grade students should be able to
accurately decode multi-syllable words and read
many irregularly-spelled words with special vowel
spellings.
The
problem isn’t that the “experts” don’t
read the research: It’s
that the research defies their personal belief
systems and those of their professional
organizations. Thus it becomes politically
incorrect to support “what works” over “what
sounds good.”
Over
the past 30 years, the National Council of
Teachers of English has weighed in regularly
against educational accountability.
In 1986, it officially opposed reading and
vocabulary lists. In
1985, it opposed the use of grammar and usage
exercises. In the early 1970s, it endorsed
“whole language” reading instructing while
advising against diagramming sentences.
The
result has been a precipitous drop in student
reading, writing and grammar … which is one
reason why rational thinkers on the State Board of
Education have been listening to the research
instead of politicized “professional
organizations.”
The
other major revision by the State Board was to
require instruction in “diagramming
sentences.” For
years, teachers have been told that sentence
diagramming is difficult, boring, and will turn
kids off from writing.
The
result? “Many
of my students are very bright and have learned to
counterfeit writing proficiency” through
imitation, says Gaithersburg High School (MD)
English teacher Robyn Jackson.
But imitation can only go so far, and when
Ms. Jackson asks how to fix a grammatical problem,
“they give me blank stares.”
Fortunately,
the SOLs are now on the cutting edge of a
diagramming comeback, and for good reason: “I
use diagramming … In this age of multiple
learning skills, I see diagramming as another
tool, a more tangible, graphic tool to teach the
relationship of ideas,” notes Edward Cannon,
English chair at Alexandria’s TC Williams High
School.
Diagramming
will be applauded by many rank and file teachers,
despite their professional organizations’
ideology: “I
am glad to see a greater emphasis on grammar,”
notes one middle school teacher. “It’s been a
long time since some of the older teachers have
done this (sentence diagramming), and many of the
younger teachers have never diagrammed sentences
in their lives.”
Oddly
enough, the language arts coordinator for that
teacher’s school system argued against including
diagramming in sixth grade because “it presently
is included in middle school instruction” --
leading to the possibility that, not only do the
curriculum specialists who oppose phonics and
diagramming not read the research … they don’t
even read their own curriculum.
--
Sept. 9, 2002
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