[Reading-hall-of-fame] Please read this person and ignore the earlier one

Sun Jul 21 01:04:04 BST 2019

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Judith Green <judithlgreen at me.com>
> Date: July 20, 2019 at 5:03:21 PM PDT
> To: "Shanahan, Timothy E" <shanahan at uic.edu>
> Subject: Please read this person and ignore the earlier one
> 
> Hi Tim
> 
> Thank you for your definition of ILA. I have been or had been a member of it since I was a reading specialist in the state of California in the 1960s. So I understand the practical issues. I also understand the research base and the research committee given that i was on several for IRA but in the 1980s. Also I served as editor of the RRQ When the board requested that we open the journal for different traditions. Therefore, I am more than aware of the research basis of ILA what is and is not available.
> 
> I am puzzled by some of your statements about careful and systematic observations since there have been many ethnographic studies that have undertaken. I have a 10 year studying in a fifth grade bilingual class that focuses on pre-and post-bilingual education. This study shows How small policy shifts in six areas removed the opportunities for learning in and through language and literacy processes and practices.
> 
> I am not ignoring the need for phonics. I taught phonics as a teacher in grades four through six and has a reading specialist in grades one through three but the question is how we teach it not that we teach it.  I’m finding many of the arguments repetitive and the failures are going to be very current and we will lose another generation of readers based Very limited view of what is needed.
> 
> As a reading specialist, my team diagnosed every student in the school on four different measures, including standardized assessments and phonemic awareness before it was named to  Reading writing relationships. We also assessed the phonemic abilities of the students and their awareness by reformulating the Wide Range Achievement Test and adapting for pronunciation in Spanish. I also met with teachers in the whole school weekly and worked with them in their classrooms in pull in programs not pull out programs.  
> 
> Everything we developed was deconstructed In the name of standardize assessment rather than local and situated assessments of the growth and development of students. I share this because your message seems to think that I have not had or understand the scope of reading research and the earliest grades through higher education.
> 
> I understand that when a report like this is developed without cross referencing to other dimensions of import as you point out, you are leaving open the possibility that only this report will be taken up. That is what I saw happening with the PBS special and their response to our letter Which was carefully crafted. Which of the studies, which of the pieces people take up, is critical and will reinforce the PBS program which many of us have voiced concerns over.
> 
> When Paulo Freire visited with her community here in Santa Barbara where are you that if we use the old language we are reinventing victimization. Is it time with him but to how to build those links across show the range and scope of what we’ve learned. There is a movement internationally to have researchers directly share with teachers the potential i strategies that have value for teachers. . It will be out in December I believe it is an important model. Emmanuel Manolo Has brought an international group of scholars together.
> 
> I remember one issue of the RRQ in the 1990s that had four or five articles on small group interactions and reading but with a little cross citation. Do we as a research community need to show that we the value different traditions and that we can make visible what each has made available to the teachers or with teachers. 
> 
> Our ethnographic work is with teachers From the national writing project, who are themselves researchers and engage their students in inquiry-based programs. Perhaps it’s time for us to situate reading instructions within the broader curriculum processes in particular contexts.
> 
> Perhaps it is also time to build what they call research networks within our organization to Address these concerns. This is something that the World Education Research association sponsors as well as the international association of applied linguistics. These groups have a goal of producing texts within limited periods of time say three years. I also do research panels and presentations together.
> 
> Just sharing Some of what I’ve learned over the past six decades and work in illiteracy that I’ve experienced, observed and edited.  If you remember, We did some of that for NCRLL And the volumes you and I collaborated on with Rick Beach and  Michael Kamil Capture some of that. Perhaps what we need to do is re-visit some of those and build an informed archive for those new to the field so that they can trace the history rather than repeat it.
> 
> Just some thoughts. I just found a special issue today of the language in the elementary school journal in 1983 on Whole Language—so there are many routes and foundations of work that could support a more holistic and integrative approach for teachers or rather for students in the context of teaching.
> 
> Thanks for raising the questions as always. I also appreciate the opportunity to engage in these discussions and the work that the Reading Hall Of Fame members are doing to address these concerns. Is a privilege to be part of this community.
> 
> Judith
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>>> On Jul 20, 2019, at 4:09 PM, Shanahan, Timothy E <shanahan at uic.edu> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Judith,
>>>  
>>> ILA is professional group largely populated by teachers, who by definition are not observers but interveners. And we have a large body of research carefully examining the learning impact of particular regimes of instruction, evaluating the outcomes of those efforts. Descriptive and interpretive research can be valuable, but to recommend practices based on such studies without bothering to try those out and carefully observing the results is reckless. There is a substantial base of research (linguistic, neurological, and pedagogic) showing both the hypothetical value and the practical value of including phonics as part of a beginning reading program. Given that, it is not unreasonable to recommend that it be part of a beginning reading program as ILA has done.
>>>  
>>> You might not care about the performance indicators of how well kids can read, but most kids and their parents do. As the ILA publication points out, phonics isn’t the only thing that children need to become literate, but it is a valuable component of beginning literacy instruction that provides clear and long lasting benefits.
>>>  
>>> tim
>>>  
>>> Timothy Shanahan.
>>> Distinguished Professor Emeritus
>>> University of Illinois at Chicago
>>> shanahan at uic.edu
>>>  
>>> 208 W Washington St  #711
>>> Chicago, IL 60606
>>> (312) 933-2835
>>> www.shanahanonliteracy.com
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  
>>> From: Judith Green <judithlgreen at me.com>
>>> Date: Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 5:53 PM
>>> To: Timothy Shanahan <shanahan at uic.edu>
>>> Cc: Judith Green <judithlgreen at me.com>, Thomas Sticht <tgsticht at gmail.com>, "Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk" <Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>
>>> Subject: Re: [Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: ILA on phonics
>>>  
>>> Hi Timothy,
>>>  
>>> True. What we need a conceptual volume that shows what each of these dimensions makes visible.  I keep wondering where literacy is in ILA, given the anthropological studies of literacy processes and practices over the last six plus decades internationally.  There is a new international volume on (re)theorizing literacy (not just reading in school) practices in honor of Brian Street.  Check it out.
>>>  
>>> We have empirical research that shows from the preschool years on how teaching of literacy frames issues.  You might want to revisit https://www.amazon.com/Inquiry-into-Meaning-Investigation-Learning/dp/0807740853
>>> https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/author/bussis-anne-m-chittenden-edward-a-amarel-marianne-klausner-edith/
>>>  
>>> This is a multi-year set of studies that traces students learning to read from earliest entry into schooling context through grades 3.  There are also longitudinal studies.  We have an extensive data set of dissertations in elementary grades but the focus is on literacy processes and practices within and across times, configurations of actors, in classes from preschool through higher education.  Might be of interest to explore with others studies that also focus on these dimensions of the social and discursive processes, not just performance indicators. Happy to share.  Perhaps if we brought different traditions together and (re)analyzed the work, we would be able to build the meta-discourse or what Smith & Ennis called for— Language and Concepts in Education with a focus on reading in the context of the whole day, not just micro events.
>>>  
>>> Just some thoughts.
>>>  
>>> Judith
>>>  
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Jul 20, 2019, at 3:42 PM, Shanahan, Timothy E <shanahan at uic.edu> wrote:
>>>  
>>> Judith—
>>>  
>>> I only skimmed your letter, but I noticed that you failed to mention morphology, epistemology, motivation, evolutionary language studies, neurology, phrenology, text structure, epidemiology, morality, or any of the dozens of other topics that could have been mentioned. 
>>>  
>>> Given this highly revealing failure, I don’t see how anyone could take this criticism seriously given its lack of proper contextualization. Obviously, there is no way that anyone can ever abstract a single idea and focus on it for a few pages profitably, so writing anything on literacy (including this kind of criticism) is reductionist and misleading.
>>>  
>>> I don’t think your letter gave enough weight to the empirical research that has been done with beginning readers—and can’t imagine how teaching them to decode text will prevent them in any way from a lifetime of event learning within or across disciplines. Can’t wait to read your next ethnography on that.
>>>  
>>> tim  
>>>  
>>> Timothy Shanahan. 
>>> Distinguished Professor Emeritus
>>> University of Illinois at Chicago
>>> shanahan at uic.edu
>>>  
>>> 208 W Washington St  #711
>>> Chicago, IL 60606
>>> (312) 933-2835
>>> www.shanahanonliteracy.com
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  
>>> From: <reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> on behalf of Judith Green <judithlgreen at me.com>
>>> Date: Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 4:51 PM
>>> To: Thomas Sticht <tgsticht at gmail.com>
>>> Cc: "Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk" <Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>
>>> Subject: [Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: ILA on phonics
>>>  
>>> Hi Tom, 
>>>  
>>> Thank you for sharing this.  I skimmed it and it is scary and re-inforces my 6 decades of understanding that ILA (then IRA) did not understand how children learning language, how to analyze reading processes and practices, or how to trace developing literacy processes across time and opportunities for learning.  This does not situate phonics in the more complex understandings of meaning construction, prediction of meanings from text or how literary text shape us to be particular kids of readers.  This could lead those who seek phonics as the center to dismiss once again the complex nature of engaging authors in the text and learning to engage with texts.
>>>  
>>> Really does not reflect what we know about what constitutes a reading process or language processes or event learning with and through texts within and across disciplines, educational contexts or social worlds.  Scares me as it seems to ligitimize one approach as READING.
>>>  
>>> Just sharing,
>>>  
>>> Judith
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Jul 20, 2019, at 2:33 PM, Thomas Sticht <tgsticht at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>  
>>> Folks: Regarding discussions on phonics, the ILA has put out a report calling for explicit and systematic phonics instruction:
>>>  
>>> https://www.literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/where-we-stand/ila-meeting-challenges-early-literacy-phonics-instruction.pdf  
>>>  
>>> Tom Sticht
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