[Reading-hall-of-fame] Paper on Paul Witty at IRA San Antonio

[tsticht at znet.com]

RHF Colleagues: At the IRA meeting in San Antonio I will be presenting a 
poster session about Paul A. Witty, a deceased member of the RHF. The 
session is on Tuesday the 3rd of May at 10:45 to 11:45 in the convention 
center exhibit hall D. Drop by if you can. Meanwhile, I am wondering if any 
of you knew Paul Witty and might be able to send me some personal 
recollections of his work or the work of others in World War II. If so, 
drop me a line at tsticht at aznet.net. Thanks a lot. Tom Sticht


Name of Program: Paul Witty and Learning to Read With Private Pete in World 
War II

Objectives of the Program:

Many reading professionals may be familiar with the Paul A. Witty Short 
Story Award that is presented each year. As one of the original members of 
the newly formed International Reading Association (IRA) in 1956, Witty’s 
life and work on reading instruction for children is widely known. However, 
less known is that Witty also played a critical role in the field of adult 
literacy education, particularly during World War II. The objectives of 
this program are to discuss Witty’s role in adult literacy education during 
World War II and its implications for reading instruction.  

Evidence Base: Literature Review

Content to Be Presented:

Across America in the early 1940s millions of children were learning to 
read with Dick and Jane. For many of these children, their dads had gone 
off to fight for the freedom Dick and Jane enjoyed as they played joyously 
around the house with their dog Spot and kitten, Puff. But before they got 
to the front lines, hundreds of thousands of fathers had to do what their 
children were doing. They had to learn to read and write. 

Like their children with the Dick and Jane readers, the men in uniform who 
learned to read also had readers with fictional role models. 

The Private Pete Reader

During World War II the armed services faced the need to utilize hundreds 
of thousands of men who were illiterate or poorly literate. Paul Andrew 
Witty (1898-1976), with an M.A. (1923) and  Ph. D. (1931) from Columbia 
University in Psychology, specialized in understanding the process of 
learning to read and in developing methods for helping students who were 
having difficulties in learning to read. With this background, he was 
called upon to serve as an education officer in the War Department.

In May of 1943 the War Department published TM 21-500, entitled the "Army 
Reader". In this book, which was produced under Witty's direction, soldiers 
in the Army's Special Training Units for literacy instruction were 
introduced to Private Pete, a fictional fellow member of a Special Training 
Unit who was also learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. The idea was 
that soldier's would be able to identify with Private Pete and understand 
what they were reading about him because they shared common experiences, 
such as living in the camp, sleeping in the barracks, eating in the mess 
hall, and so forth. These were all things that Private Pete did in the Army 
Reader. Witty was apparently the first to use this approach of trying to 
motivate adults learning to read by providing a fictional counterpart with 
whom they could identify.

Witty's approach reflected the influence of William S. Gray, one of the 
founders of the famous Dick and Jane series for children, which provided a 
model for Witty's use of Private Pete and Daffy in the Army. Gray was an 
advocates of the "meaning emphasis" approach known as the "word" method. In 
this method students first develop readiness to read by discussing 
illustrations from the readers. Then they learn a basic store of sight 
words used in the readiness training. Then they move on to simple sentences 
made up of the sight words. In this approach, phonics instruction is 
postponed until the student can do quite a bit of reading based upon 
discussion and whole word recognition training.

Positive Outcomes From the World War II Literacy Education

Among the major outcomes of the teaching of illiterates in World War II was 
the repeated demonstration that hundreds of thousands of adults who many 
thought were not capable of learning to read, or learning much of anything 
else for that matter, were, in fact, capable of acquiring at least 
rudimentary reading ability in a fairly brief time, generally less than 
three months.  Furthermore most of them went on to learn and perform their 
Army duties in a satisfactory manner.

There are lessons here regarding factors important in teaching reading. In 
World War II the functional nature of the material, relating as it did to 
the daily lives and needs of soldiers, created motivation for learning that 
may be missed in many instructional contexts. For reading teachers, the 
main lesson may be that what makes the most difference in teaching reading, 
whether with adults or children, may not be reading methods such as the so-
called "meaning" or "code" methods, but rather  an emphasis upon the 
interests of the readers and an understanding of the factors underlying 
their desire for learning. 

The IRA’s Paul A. Witty award for children’s short stories reflects Witty’s 
keen appreciation of the importance of stimulating and interesting reading 
materials in motivating the learning and sustained practice of reading for 
both children and adults. 

Methods of Presenting Content: Poster Session With Discussion