[Reading-hall-of-fame] Centennial of Huey's book

[Jay Samuels]

Dear RHF,

I like Tom's suggestion in that the Huey's book is special. At a time in
this nation's history,  when psychology was following the rules set down by
JB Watson, and was going into behaviorism, Huey was clearly into what would
become cognitive psych. Huey's understanding of the psychological process of
reading was awesome. How he did it was amazing. Actually without data, he
was aware the the size of the visual unit used in word recognition varied
depending on the frequency of the word and the skill of the person reading.
Data to support his insights came 3/4 of a century later. If the HRF decides
to honor Huey's centennial, I would like to take part in the activity.

However, I do want to raise the red flag of caution.  When the RHF talked at
the Chicago convention, we talked to about 450 people in the audience. I
actually did a rough head count. We attracted many teachers because the
topic we addressed - No child Left Behid - was a topic that grabbed the
hearts and minds of teachers. It was a topic the IRA conventioners knew
about, and the importance of the topic brought them in. And of course, the
panel of speakers were people with high name recognition. I am certain that
if the RHF decides to honor Huey, the name recognition would again attract
an audience, but it is not clear to me how many teachers are familiar with
Huey and his book. So, while I think Tom brings up a mighty interesting
topic, we may be speaking to a much smaller audience. Never the less, the
topic is interestitng. Here is another thought. Maybe given the somewhat
esoteric nature of the topic, maybe it is a topic better suited for the NRC
conference and topics that clearly have a public education flavor should
remain in the IRA convention.  Jay Samuels.   

-----Original Message-----
From: reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of
tsticht at znet.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 12:01 PM
To: reading-hall-of-fame at nottingham.ac.uk
Subject: [Reading-hall-of-fame] Centennial of Huey's book

RHF Folks:

In a little over a year and a half we will come upon the 100th anniversary
of E. B. Huey’s 1908 classic book, "The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading."
 This great tour de force bridged from research in reading, through the
history of reading, into the teaching of reading. In a succinct summary of
reading methods, Huey said, "The methods of learning to read that are in
common use to-day may be classed as alphabetic, phonic, phonetic, word,
sentence, and combination methods."  (p. 265 of the 1968 reprint).

In the century since Huey catalogued the methods of teaching reading, his
account is remarkably apt for the present day. In general, his alphabetic,
phonic, and phonetic methods were grouped by Jeanne Chall under the general
headings of "Code Emphasis" while his word and sentence methods fit well
with Jeanne’s "Meaning Emphasis" grouping. To bring the cataloguing
up-to-date, the "Code Emphasis" methods are today generally referred to as
"Alphabetics" while the "Meaning Emphasis" methods are referred to as "Whole
Language."  Huey’s "combination" methods are referred to as the "Balanced"
approach.

Unfortunately, data from the National Center for Education Statistics
released last year indicate that, despite heroic efforts, with costs easily
in the vicinity  of $1 trillion the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP), the nation’s indicator of the health of the reading
instruction patient, has flat-lined. From 1971 up to 2004, average reading
scores for 9, 13 and 17 year olds are so flat that if you were a patient in
an intensive care unit and had your health monitoring indicators go as flat
as the 30-year NAEP data you would be declared dead! This is true for
children at the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th percentiles, too.

The NAEP data do show that as children go up through primary, elementary,
and secondary school, they do get better at reading across the percentile
spectrum. But in 2004 the bottom ten percent of 17 year olds scored below
the median for 13 year olds, and were just 6 scale score points above the
median for 9 year olds. These poorly scoring students will no doubt be those
who will later discover the real life importance of literacy and will enter
into adult basic education to try to gain skills needed to support
themselves and their families.

This raises some questions that I’m wondering if the RHF might want to
address for the centennial of Huey’s book in its 2008 program at the IRA
meeting:


1. Do we as researchers have any better understanding about how to teach
reading than Huey did?

2. What has reading research contributed to our ability to teach children
across the grades from pre-school to high school?

3. Do we understand how to teach developmental reading programs in colleges
and universities any better today than practitioners did in the early part
of the 20th century?

4. Do we understand how to teach adult reading in literacy programs any
better today than adult teachers did in the early part of the 20th century?

5. Why has reading research had so little impact on reading achievement
scores on the NAEP in the last 30 years?

Maybe RHF members will want to discuss the interest in some sort of activity
related to Huey’s centennial (IRA program; edited book; etc.). The foregoing
questions are just of interest to me. Others may want to suggest other
avenues for celebrating 100th anniversary of the outstanding work of one of
our nation’s earliest and most articulate reading researchers.

See you!

Tom Sticht


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