[Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: ILA on phonics

Tue Jul 23 21:19:31 BST 2019

Thanks Richard,
 If one wants to discover possible sources bias in these kinds of situations "following the money” usually offers some insights.
Brian Cambourne

On 24 Jul 2019, at 3:13 am, AX NUMBER. <richardallington at aol.com<mailto:richardallington at aol.com>> wrote:

For those of you wondering just who Wiley Blevins was note the following;

sponsored by:
Scholastic Classroom
speaker name:
Wiley Blevins
[https://www.nysreading.org/system/files/styles/limited_to_200px/private/Wiley_Belvins.jpg?itok=rPvGbqKm]
institutional affiliation:
Early Reading Specialist
Wiley Blevins is an early reading specialist who holds a M. Ed. degree from Harvard University. He taught elementary school in both the United States and South America, and was Director of Special Projects for Scholastic in New York City. Wiley has written several phonics resources, including Phonics from A to Z, as well as a new phonics program for preschool to primary school educators. He lives in New York City.

Dick Allington
Professor Emeritus
University of Tennessee

-----Original Message-----
From: Hoffman, James V <jhoffman at austin.utexas.edu<mailto:jhoffman at austin.utexas.edu>>
To: P Pearson <ppearson at berkeley.edu<mailto:ppearson at berkeley.edu>>
Cc: Brian Cambourne <bcambrn at uow.edu.au<mailto:bcambrn at uow.edu.au>>; Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> <Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>>; Shirley B Heath <sbheath at stanford.edu<mailto:sbheath at stanford.edu>>; Diane Lapp <lapp at sdsu.edu<mailto:lapp at sdsu.edu>>; Ken Goodman <kgoodman at u.arizona.edu<mailto:kgoodman at u.arizona.edu>>
Sent: Mon, Jul 22, 2019 7:06 pm
Subject: [Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: ILA on phonics

I’m with Brian on the critical work of the child encoding in writingthat can turn into useful strategies for decoding words in reading.

David, I think your list of questionable claims in the report is slim.   Exposure to explicit, systematic phonics instruction does no harm? What study has even asked this question? My fear in the “systematic” version of phonics is that it is scripted and removes the responsibility from teachers to make instructional decisions that are needed in all contexts.

Also, you might wan to consider the ira position paper on phonics published in 1997.  https://www.literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/where-we-stand/phonics-position-statement.pdf

thanks jim

On Jul 22, 2019, at 4:40 PM, P Pearson <ppearson at berkeley.edu<mailto:ppearson at berkeley.edu>> wrote:

Three points and then I'll shut up for the rest of this month:
1.  Let me apologize for raising the level of rhetoric on this issue, BUT my main concern was less with the content than with the process by which this report became ILA policy. Especially problematic is the impression that it is endorsed by the Literacy Research Panel when, as our colleague Jim Hoffman says, it was not--or at least he was not involved in any endorsement process.  I should have broached that issue with ILA and the LRP.  I did not need to take up the time and energy of the RHF on the matter. Never again!

2.  That said, I am rather enjoying the 'nuances' that are being shared by RHF members on the finer points of phonics in both its orthographic and policy aspects.  So I would disagree with my colleagues who suggest that we don't need to spend time holding a public conversation about a "settled issue."  Sometimes, perhaps often, it is useful to question the status quo and established truths, especially when new and often nuanced perspectives are involved.

3.  Finally, I want to build on the point made by David R about the integrity of the report. And I want to assert that it is good to engage in critique, even, perhaps especially, when something appears to be a fait accompli. We can continue to critique something without engaging in another WAR.  Just a few skirmishes perhaps. From where I sit, the report makes at least two claims for which I see no research base, one about decodable text and a second about a scope and sequence.  The vetting process should have caught these, and would have if ILA had required a full vetting by the LRP.

Decodable text:
From the Ed Week piece: The new brief also endorses having students use "decodable texts," or stories featuring words that help students practice and reinforce the sound-letter patterns they've recently learned.
From the brief:  Controlled, decodable text (also known as accountable text) at the beginning level of reading instruction helps students develop a sense of comfort in and control over their reading growth and should be a key learning tool in early phonics instruction. The tight connection between what students learn in phonics and what they read is essential for building a faster foundation in early reading. This is especially critical when students encounter less-controlled leveled readers during small-group lessons. These accountable (phonics-based) texts need to be reread to build fluency, dis- cussed to develop comprehension, and written about to provide opportunities for students to apply their growing phonics skills in writing.
Even the NRP suggested that there was NO credible evidence to support decodable over any other sort of text.  I am not aware of any recent studies that would permit us to overturn that conclusion.  And have you ever tried to hold a conversation about the deeper meanings of accountable texts?
Scope and Sequence:
From the brief:  A strong scope and sequence builds from the simple to the complex in a way that takes advantage of previous learning. The sequence allows for many words to be formed as early as possible and focuses on teaching high-utility skills. Although there is no “right” scope and sequence, programs that strive to connect concepts and move through a series of skills in a stair-step way offer the best chance at student success.
As far as I know,  we have never done an RCT on the question of whether a scope and sequence or a stair step approach is more effective than a random or a convenient sequence (e.g., one driven by kids' choices). For example, though people claim that there is a magic order for teaching letter sound correspondences, I know of no research suggesting that any one order is any better than any other.

It's OK to have policies on issues for which there is no definitive research. But when we do so, are we not obliged to let folks know that we are basing the policy on something else--that we are making a "best" (not definitive) evidence claim, or a theoretically-based claim, or a claim guided by the wisdom of experience?

Enough.
pdp

On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 4:41 PM Brian Cambourne <bcambrn at uow.edu.au<mailto:bcambrn at uow.edu.au>> wrote:
I think the profession has confused ( conflated?) “decoding to sound” with “ encoding to alphabetic script”.

What is generically called “phonics instruction” is more necessary for learning to write and spell than it is for learning to read. I agree with Ken and Shirley—  “phonics” is less confusing for young learners if taught in the context of encoding for the purposes of learning to write and spell.

Brian Cambourne

On 23 Jul 2019, at 6:04 am, Shirley B Heath <sbheath at stanford.edu<mailto:sbheath at stanford.edu>> wrote:

Certainly, Ken is exactly right, for unless children have a visual or auditory problem and/or certain cognitive problems, simply being read to, talked with, and having books to read and learn with in plentiful supply will assure that children learn to read.  Dyslexia, of course, does happen, but that is another story, and though special training re phonemic/graphemic matters helps, so do many other recently examined features of interaction by reading therapists.

I know that many of us must feel as Ken does:  why do we never ever learn from or trust long-established, multiply confirmed research studies?  And, moreover, most good teachers already know what Ken and Yetta have told us for years and years and confirmed with numerous other scholars doing research from different perspectives.

Let's move on to other issues about which we need to know!

Best,

Shirley
________________________________
From: reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> <reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>> on behalf of Ken Goodman <kgoodman at u.arizona.edu<mailto:kgoodman at u.arizona.edu>>
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2019 10:26 AM
To: P Pearson <ppearson at berkeley.edu<mailto:ppearson at berkeley.edu>>
Cc: Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> <Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>>; Diane Lapp <lapp at sdsu.edu<mailto:lapp at sdsu.edu>>
Subject: [Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: ILA on phonics

I wrote a book some years ago that I titled Phonics Phacts (Heineman) . In that I explored in some detail the nature of alphabetic language and the mistaken view that learning to read  requires being taught letter sound relationships. This assumes that (1) There is a simple one-to one relationship between letters and sounds (or more correctly graphemes and phonemes)
(2) These realtionships can be learned by young children through "skill and drill" prior to reading meaningful texts (3) Once learned the young reader can use this simplistic phonics to read words and make sense of texts.
In fact the relationships are far more abstract and complex. Whether an approach to instruction is Synthetic <c> <a> <t> or Analytic (cat/ rat / mat) they are undependable abstractions .  and abstractions are difficult for young children to learn. Furthermore the relationships are not one-to-one but pattern to pattern. Site, situate, situation for example shows three related words in which the <t> represents three different sounds. All unaccented vowels in English are reduced to schwa, a further complication.
And all relationships vary from dialect to dialect in all languages. Printers standardized spellings to avoid the need for having to provide different editions for different dialect
 communities.
 But all this complexity is not a problem if young readers are reading authentic predicable texts. In fact research has dependably shown that readers invent spellings in their  writing that show their developing awareness of the relationships between how words are spelled in sound in context.  Grammar and meaning disambiguate phonics complexities.

In  short phonics is developed in the context of reading and writing. In fact even the most behavioristic of researchers (Furman for example) have found that the only factor in instruction that predicts success in reading is- tada: "Time spent reading".

It is sad that ILA has turned back to old phonics mythology and ignorance of what the profession has learned.
Ken Goodman

Galileo Lane
Tucson, Az 85747
520-9909612
Learning is not a Response to Instruction
Effective Iinstruction is a  Response to Learning
READING THE GRAND iLLUSION
HOW AND WHY PEOPLE MAKE SENSE OF PRINT. https://www.routledge.com/Reading--The-Grand--<https://www.routledge.com/Reading--The-Grand-Illusion-How-and-Why-People-Make-Sense-of-Print/Goodman-Fries-Strauss/p/book/9781138999299>Illusion<https://www.routledge.com/Reading--The-Grand-Illusion-How-and-Why-People-Make-Sense-of-Print/Goodman-Fries-Strauss/p/book/9781138999299> How-and-Why-People-Make-Sense-of-Print/Goodman-Fries-Strauss/p/book/9781138999299<https://www.routledge.com/Reading--The-Grand-Illusion-How-and-Why-People-Make-Sense-of-Print/Goodman-Fries-Strauss/p/book/9781138999299>

On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 3:35 PM P Pearson <ppearson at berkeley.edu<mailto:ppearson at berkeley.edu>> wrote:
To be clear about where I think I stand:
I am not objecting to the content.  In fact I agree with a lot of it (85%) in terms of the evidence base as I know it from NRP, BNR, the Adams BtoR book (which I liked at the time and continue to like) and the earlier European reports that Greg Brooks shared with us.  I just don't understand 2 things:
1.  How this becomes a policy document of the LRP/IRA without some official act of endorsement, and
2.  Who speaks on behalf of ILA and LRP (since it appears to be endorsed by them) on matters of polic--and especially who speaks to the press.
In short, I worry about the process by which a position becomes policy and how it gets represented in the press.

I will stop sharing this with RHF and move my complaint to ILA, which is the organization about which I hold these concerns.
pdp

On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 6:17 PM Diane Lapp <lapp at sdsu.edu<mailto:lapp at sdsu.edu>> wrote:
Hello,
Let me clear up the process for being invited to write a Brief. As the chair of the LRP I survey the Board and the Panel asking for topics for Briefs and authors to write them. I also survey What’s Hot topics. I then compile a list of topics and possible authors and again submit the list to the Board and the Panel. They revise or change the topics and possible authors. Once finalized I send invitations.
 Authors do not have to be members of the Panel. This is not a new process. I believe this process must have been established from the onset of the LRP because this is how it was suggested to me by the previous Panel chair.

Wiley Blevins, who I believe studied with Linnea Ehri, has written and spoken quite a bit about phonics instruction and he was highly recommended by both groups to write this Brief.

Please let me restate what Moody McKeown said regarding the Brief.

“ Please consider:

  *   The report is not intended as a broad overview on developing reading ability. It is a Brief (as per the title) and its purpose was to communicate on phonics because the questions of whether and which phonics instruction should occur have come to the fore (again).
  *   Second, the report does not ignore other aspects of reading, including for example:
     *   “Of course, equal amounts of time need to be spent on teaching the meanings of these words,”
     *   Citing the need for “application to authentic reading and writing experiences.”
     *   “The goal of phonics instruction is to develop students’ ability to read connected text independently.”

I understand the frustration of not seeing a full representation of literacy portrayed, but that is not the purpose of this ILA communication."

I hope this adds light to the process, intent,and author's qualification.

Please send to me any topics and possible author names  for future ILA Briefs that you believe need to be written.  I will be happy to add them to a new list to share with the Board and the Panel.

Best regards,
Diane Lapp

On Jul 20, 2019, at 3:46 PM, P Pearson <ppearson at berkeley.edu<mailto:ppearson at berkeley.edu>> wrote:

Different issue...

Just so I know... the last page of this brief lists the members of the LRP.  Am I to conclude that the content of the brief has been reviewed and endorsed by the LRP?

David

On Sat, Jul 20, 2019 at 6:42 PM Shanahan, Timothy E <shanahan at uic.edu<mailto: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<mailto:shanahan at uic.edu>

208 W Washington St  #711
Chicago, IL 60606
(312) 933-2835
www.shanahanonliteracy.com<http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/>

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 Judith Green <judithlgreen at me.com<mailto:judithlgreen at me.com>>
Date: Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 4:51 PM
To: Thomas Sticht <tgsticht at gmail.com<mailto:tgsticht at gmail.com>>
Cc: "Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>" <Reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto: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<mailto: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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