[Reading-hall-of-fame] Has brain science changed how you teach about readi

[Cambourne Brian]

My memories are similar to Dick's.
  I  also remember I doing the research for a couple of Keynotes which  
I did at IRA and/or NCTE at the time  on the way the extreme right in  
our both our countries conducted an orchestrated campaign to spread  
dis-- and mis- information about the theory and pedagogy of W/L.

  I  also vaguely remember a piece of Californian legislation called  
"Bill 1086" ( or "Proposition 1086")  and a rather belligerent  
grandmother named Marian Joseph leading the charge against W/L . The  
"1086" sticks in my memory because it's also the name of a deadly  
poison which the Australian government uses to poison dingos by  
putting it into tasty chunks of meat and dropping thousands of such  
chunks from aeroplanes .

"1086" is stored in my mind as a metaphor for the poison which anti-W/ 
L forces tried to use to "kill off"  W/L.

I also  have a similar concern to David concerning the need for kids  
to be "explicitly taught"  letter-sound correspondnences.

I'd take it a step further and add for-- "for reading". I can see how  
letter-sound correspondences are essential for spelling--- but there's  
more and more evidence that the role of phonics in effective reading  
( ie comprehension of meaning) is rather trivial and would be best  
taught as David suggests---(JIT)

Brian C





Assoc. Prof. ( Dr) Brian Cambourne
Principal Fellow
  Faculty of Education
University of Wollongong
Northfields Rd Wollongong
AUSTRALIA
Phone: Overseas callers
Home 61-244-416182
email<brian_cambourne at uow.edu.au
  Mobile/Cell phone: 0408684368



On 02/02/2010, at 8:06 AM, richardallington at aol.com wrote:

> David
> The collapse of reading in scores in CA dates back to the passage of  
> proposition 13 (under Reagan as gov) which limited property taxes to  
> whatever you are paying today as long as you don't sell your house  
> and also limited the tax levies school districts could levy. five  
> years after prop 13 passed scores were down and have stayed down,  
> even with the passage of new laws requiring a phonics based  
> curriculum Iimplemented in last basal adoption where Open Court and  
> H-M were only options) and phonics testing of teachers (virtually  
> all passed).
>
> It is also wrong to call CA curriculum as whole language since it  
> was a literature-based basal adoption and I know of no WL proponents  
> who recommend a basal approach. Additionally, about one in ten  
> classroom teachers ever received any professional development on the  
> new curriculum model. So what I saw there was basal lessons using  
> excerpts from children's books. Nothing really much different from  
> the lessons before WL curriculum.
>
> Dick Allington
> University of Tennessee
> A209 Bailey Education Complex
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Olson <dolson at oise.utoronto.ca>
> To: richardallington at aol.com
> Cc: richardallington at aol.com; tsticht at znet.com; reading-hall-of-fame at nottingham.ac.uk
> Sent: Mon, Feb 1, 2010 3:38 pm
> Subject: Re: [Reading-hall-of-fame] Has brain science changed how  
> you teach about readi
>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
> Can anyone help refute the claim in S. Duhaene's "Reading in the  
> Brain" that "the reading wars culminated in 1987 when the state of  
> Californa... pass bills favoring the whole-language apprroach... and  
> reading scores plummeted" in 1993 and 1994.  Hence, they went back  
> to phonics training.  Perhaps it is true but I would be surprised if  
> the case were that clear.
>
> No doubt children must?  Perhaps they can be taught on a JIT (just  
> in time) basis, ie. when they are needed.  I suppose this was what  
> drove the combattants into the trenches (I hope not again).
>
> David Olson
>
> <ATT00001.txt>

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