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

[kgoodman at email.arizona.edu]

I like Tom's suggestion of devoting a 2008 session to Huey's book centenial.
Maybe Rob would want to appoint a committee.
Ken Goodman


Quoting tsticht at znet.com:

> 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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