After reading your post, I belie

After reading your post, I believe that much of your points portray an accurate depiction of reading within the classrooms and issues that many are facing.

If one good thing can come from the latest round of the reading wars, I hope it will be a balanced schedule.

There are years and years of debate, research, publications, and outcomes from which to draw, which, for the purpose of this article need not be repeated. Unlike what was stated in the article, we do place a big emphasis on the phonics portion. Many young children struggle to memorize. Shanahan argues that once kids have a solid idea of decoding through phonics, they learn words very quickly. The International Literacy Association recently posted a home webinar for members titled Instructional Level or Challenging Text: Too Hard or Not Hard Enough, presented by Dr. Timothy Shanahan. Many of us are forced to differentiate our lessons, one mold does not fit all! However, you state that many people overstate the effectiveness of phonics instruction and that there is not a vast difference between test scores with students who have or have not received phonics instruction. My news organization, The Hechinger Report, recognized the importance of Hanfords reporting and immediately republished a print version of the story. I enjoyed reading your article concerning the reading wars. Dear Hechinger Report 2. Instead of arguing over the best method to use to teach reading, the focus should be on the best method to inspire a love of literacy in students.

Eliminated nearly a full year reading achievement gap over three summers. Working with guided reading the teacher is able to determine the students needs and can differentiate the lessons for the needs of the students. The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. This blog does a fantastic job at pointing out all the bad, but I would like to see more of the good. The server responded with {{status_text}} (code {{status_code}}). However, I discovered that this program is designed to be implemented 30 minutes daily, but teachers pick and choose what to use only about three days per week.

A big question is the number of sight words. Instead, we simply hoped that these poor children would be attracted to reading the books they had selected. Vocabulary is the essence to becoming content literate after. The older teachers love the fact that it is almost scripted for them and they have little work to do. The best argument for phonics is that no one is harmed by it and a large subset of students is helped by receiving explicit phonics instruction from kindergarten through second grade. Looking at both your blog and Dr. Schneiders chapter on The Reading Wars one thing that really stood out to me was the difference in the approach of the leveled readers. It has been implemented for two years now, and teachers are seeing huge improvements and gaps closing as students can truly understand what they are reading. Ive never thought of having students only memorize the words that do not follow conventional English patterns. Thus, I can personally attest to the fact that while teachers may emphasize certain trends, each learner is unique in their conquest of reading. These students were then expected to learn other reading skills but were not able, considering they had not even mastered the foundations of reading. This was an excellent, accurate, informative, well-researched, well-written, well-balanced article. In the third and fourth grade classroom, we were having the majority of students unable to read or write fluently due to a lack of a phonics program for much of their education. It is also expected that students will have independent reading time and instructional time with mentor texts. I also dispute the idea that cueing is not what successful readers do. Our new focus should be content area literacy. There are so many conflicting ideas and research based theories that as educators we get lost on what we should be doing, which theories we should follow and try, and which ones are not benefitting our students in the long run. We did not require that the children write book reports or take quizzes on the books they chose. Students need more integrative opportunities and assistance with higher level relative texts; learning to read is more about interest and support in the reading experience; competing with games can also be a challenge. In some cases though, it is not enough to make a noticeable difference. words sight bundle level fun richardson jan based Our studies are currently the only multiple-year studies of summer academic gains/losses. Its as if phonics is a kind of glue that allows words to be learned quickly, he said. However, the children that my peers and I am educating are of a younger generation that do not always have the same phonics-based curriculum.

For some background, at the beginning of each year, my campus assesses each students reading level using a resource that determines students independent and instructional levels and observes and quantifies student reading behaviors.

Teachers should try to minimize the number of sight words to be memorized. For more details, read my colleague Jackie Maders story on what research-based reading instruction looks like in the classroom. Its certainly possible to learn to read through memorization. This article is great at pointing out educational areas of learning but I would love to see more information on how to make learning equal for all kids. Comparatively, one can learn another language through phonics, vocabulary memorization, and fluency reads, it is the content literacy that allows one to read with significant comprehension. I am a fairly new teacher with only 3 years of experience. Another area that this article/blog talks about is the use of balanced literacy. I especially appreciated the historical and current view brought together in clear style. Related: Evidence increases for reading on paper instead of screens. I kept asking myself, have I failed to uphold my literacy mantra? I spent weeks after the webinar thinking, Is this text too easy? or How to do model higher complexity? I laugh at these troubling questions now. Educators have invested money in many reading programs to reverse the trend; however, only time and data can let us know whether these reading programs are going to address our literacy deficiency. Trying to learn lots of words by memory alone is just inefficient and overwhelming to some kids.. Many of the students I serve come from backgrounds where English is not the primary language. You provided a great summary on the current ideas of reading. Secondly, my only experience with teaching literacy comes from the balanced- literacy approach. {{#message}}{{{message}}}{{/message}}{{^message}}Your submission failed. Whole language instruction is based on the philosophy that kids will learn to read naturally if you expose them to a lot of books. It is noticed that the war between implementing reading programs are all about a sense of balance when it comes to the success of the students involved. This approach is commonly called Reading for Pleasure and there is ample research for its benefits, heres one: https://researchrichpedagogies.org/research/reading-for-pleasure I know that we as early educators, in the prekindergarten setting, struggle with this. However, according to this article it states, phonics is marginally better, according to Timothy Shanahan. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. Not only logical, the points are, indeed, scientifically based. Regardless of the current trend, what budding readers need is a teacher that knows and utilizes their strengths to ensure success. Were not going to get anywhere in teaching without engagement. . Students need other kinds of ways to break the code besides phonics because [English is] not a phonetically friendly language, . Literacy teachers use this data to make informed decisions about the best instruction for individual students. My two daughters were only a year apart in school. It was very frustrating to see these students struggle so greatly when much of this could have been avoided if they had had phonics instruction from the beginning of their education. While phonics can be integrated through songs and fun activities, it is eventually exposure to interesting content that captivates and motivates the continual pursuit of reading.

Hanfords radio documentary At a Loss for Words focused on debunking a popular teaching approach called the three cueing system that guides children to guess and look for clues when they confront a new, unknown word. Explicit teaching of oral reading fluency, reading comprehension and writing isnt always visible. As I was reading through this blog, I noticed the very first question, Is phonics really better? Unfortunately, a bit of phonics on the fly isnt terribly effective. The best results happen when teachers use a set phonics curriculum, typically 25 minutes a day, instead of making up their own phonics lessons as they deem necessary. Students will learn to say words before reading them because we are constantly showing word pronunciation unintentionally through our everyday conversations with our students. The fact is that most kids can learn to read with little or no phonics, Shanahan said. Ill bet that is we could restore the balance such that workbooks and skills tests were eliminated and free reading became a one-hour daily block in every elementary classroom we would have kids who not only read better but they also have larger vocabularies, better writing skills, and greater knowledge of the world than kids do today. I do not think there will ever be one way to teach reading that will fit every student but we should never give up trying to reach every reader. This website uses cookies as well as similar tools and technologies to understand visitors experiences. The reading wars are back, reignited by radio journalist Emily Hanford of APM Reports, who in 2018 began arguing that too many schools are ignoring the science of reading and failing to teach phonics. We provide readings that have the same content but at their reading levels. However, two quite different pools of children participated Black urban and rural white children participated in the two studies but even with residences in different states and with different racial/ethnic backgrounds providing the opportunity to read over the summer produced striking academic outcomes. Hi, I think your column Four things you need to know about the new reading wars is a great summary of current thinking on reading that is backed by science and research. As agreed both by Barshay and Scheinders work from The Inside, Outside, and Upside Downs of Childrens Literature: From Poets and Pop-ups to Princesses and Porridge, points out that cultural and age differences can affect the students ability to read. In your post you also mention the student getting frustrated as if thats not a major factor in performance, allowing a student to continually reach a level of frustration does not help them to be successful. Please contact the developer of this form processor to improve this message. I applause this article Four things you need to know about the new reading wars (Barshay, 3/30/20)because it summarizes the issues so succinctly with a great deal of common sense. Students are all different. There needs to be a balance. We want literacy to be an active component in not only language arts, but also science, math, etc. Its well worth archiving. I concur with Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the Learning Policy Institute and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, that intentional systemic integration of content is important for reading. Every student is unique and has different needs. While I agree with much of this, I also disagree with some. Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get stories like this delivered directly to your inbox. This is the time when leveled readers are used. Our school integrates Science and Social Studies with Reading so the majority of our stories are informational. Therefore, since many of my students read these words with the t and h separate and the same with the s and h instead of their combined sounds. gently flipping pages, reading left to right, understanding the parts of a book and what they mean). For 50 years that agenda has failed to improve reading achievement of children. However, we know this to not be the case. I understand and appreciate when you say Learning requires effort and you dont learn much with an easy text, however, getting my students to grow in reading requires them to feel successful.

I was very shocked to learn that the cueing system has no research that supports this teaching strategy. I have been a teacher for 19 years, but I have a personal reason behind my belief. Thank you for your article, it was informative and intriguing. Over the long term, kids reading achievement is driven substantially by whether theyre getting access to the content, the science and social studies and things about the world, said Darling-Hammond, because what you understand from what you read depends on whether you can hook it to concepts and topics that you have some knowledge about.. So, in my opinion, the fact in itself that teachers are having to differentiate and remold lessons simply already means that the lessons were not balanced for all learner to begin with.

I agree that students need to be able to read and write. All classes will now have literacy block on Fridays. As a journalist who regularly covers education research, I wanted to boil down the key points of what we know from the research on reading and answer the big questions that people have been asking me. They can then learn the reading skills they need to have to read and write across the content areas. All students are different and we have to meet the needs of all studentsthat means teaching in a variety of ways. Please contact the developer of this form processor to improve this message. I for one, as do many other educators, feel that phonics really is the very first building block that is necessary to teach our students. Thank you. Kids need other kinds of ways to break the code besides phonics because [English is] not a phonetically friendly language, said Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the Learning Policy Institute and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University.

After reading the article, I have so many contrasting thoughts. The reason as mentioned by this article is the battle between teaching students who learned phonics versus a list of words to memorize.

However, I have to disagree. Readers become successful due to prior mistakes and by equipping themselves with strategies to succeed. but our hands are tied. The way you are explaining the three cuing systems is inaccurate. But its harder. You stated Many children need explicit reading instruction to decodebut reading comprehension can be developed throughout the school day. I couldnt agree more with this statement. Independent reading is all about engagement. To be successful, the children need to be immersed in a strong systematic approach and there should be progress monitoring to see if there is growth or not. Phonics is marginally better, said Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an expert on the research in reading instruction. In addition to the reading component, students have to summarize the reading through a journaling activity. These are questions teachers should always ask, especially if they are modeling reading daily. The attention span of students is a significant challenge.

Nationally, we can expect this trend to continue. By submitting your name, you grant us permission to publish it with your letter. Barriers will arise without students understanding common patterns in the English language (as flawed as they are at times). I also disagree with your comments on independent reading. Every child in China learns Chinese characters this way because its not a phonetic language. Thank you for this posting this writing column; it confirms that literacy educators face many different battles in the War on Reading. Unfortunately, my test scores didnt always look so great. Thank you again for keeping this very important topic front and center!

Many children need explicit reading instruction to decode the letter symbols and read fluently but reading comprehension can be developed throughout the school day. Who is taking the time to implement these lessons at a different pace for our higher and lower learners of the classroom? I am in agreement that leveled readers should not be used at other times and I do not think schools/teachers should rely on programs such as Accelerated Reader to motivate students to read.

And I would propose that independent reading shows students why they need to learn phonics. My second grade son attends a high performing district public school in NYC that has adopted the Teachers College approach, but added Wilson Fundations a few years ago to address the lack of phonics. Shanahan said the theory came from analyzing students reading errors, not from studying what successful readers do, which is figuring out what the letters actually say. An important buzzword in classes, schools, and districts is differentiation and leveled readers provide that while allowing all students to learn the same concepts. However, once a child is hooked, they should be able to explore texts above or below their level to encourage them to continue reading. But word memorization programs that also teach phonics do well too. However, your first point about the limited benefit of phonics is somewhat misleading. The cueing systems tell how a reader is thinking about text while reading and can show a skilled teacher how to coach the thinking for self monitoring. At the book fairs each child was asked to self-select 12 childrens books and these books were delivered to the children on the final day of the school year. No research supports this teaching technique.

I do believe that the balanced literacy approach can help those same students if it has the added phonics component. Dozens of studies show that students who receive explicit phonics instruction, on average, score higher on reading assessments than students who havent been taught through phonics. I think for a younger age group, phonics should have less restrictions and be implemented more into the classroom atmosphere. My only issue is that many educators are aware of this, but what do we do to ensure our students get the literacy instruction that they deserve and need in order to be successful? Lastly, I believe that many teachers of balanced literacy teach phonics in a systematic way. I have two jobs and at my secondary job I work with students at the elementary school level.

As we know that students are not all the same, this is why the studies help show that combining the different methods instead of battling for a predominant system will help the students learn how to read. Content literacy has escaped us because students do not have a relative vocabulary. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. I agree that a bit of phonics on the fly is not beneficial to students. Help us keep doing that. Stronger readers get harder texts and weaker readers get easier texts. Their guided reading level should be one (no more than two) level(s) above that.

The article states that phonics only helps readers be marginally more successful; however, I find that statement hard to believe.

Maybe some instructional personal learning tips (one on one work with the teacher). You stated that phonics is helpful to a large group of students, yet that many of these students may never learn to read without it. Overall, I think that literacy instruction has ways to go before it will become exactly what children need, although, there is research that supports some strategies versus the use of others. I also live in the world of differentiating with questions, not every text needs to be at a different level, but the questioning will vary to allow for a deeper understanding and a greater ability to analyze a text. It takes a lot of repetition and the words are quickly forgotten. Required fields are marked *. It is not guessing. I feel that comprehension would increase if students were invested in what they were reading. She can write the most beautiful, eloquent pieces, but she must rely on spell check (or her mom) to proofread her writing for her. Although they both grew up to be great readers, my daughter that did not receive phonics instruction is a horrible speller. I grew up on being taught phonics and many of my peers as well. Learning requires effort and you dont learn much with an easy text. So many schools have bought into this concept and they have spent so much money on materials and trainings that I do not see this ever leaving the schools. This must be explicitly taught and practiced since they cannot get that from their family members. I teach Kindergartenwhere are the nursery rhymes and fun books that capture their attention and make them WANT to read??? For years, educators have felt pressure to cut time for science, social studies and the arts in order to carve more time for the basics: reading, writing and math. With that being said, our county now has a reading curriculum that includes phonics. Indeed, many kids figure out how to read on their own before reading instruction even begins at school. In my school we take a balanced literacy approach with our students. Evidence backs some phonics and other strategies to help children read in the early elementary years. The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education. I have seen firsthand the downfall of test scores and students ability to read the moment our school system chose to do away with phonics instruction. While I have seen educators talk about cueing and heralding independent reading, I agree with the writer that these two concepts do not provide research into what successful readers do. Read Jan Richardson. While I appreciate your perspectives, I disagree that the best results happen from a set phonics curriculum occurring for 25 minutes daily. Learning requires effort and you dont learn much with an easy text. Allowing all students to read texts about the same topics helps create a community in the classroom, but also allows my students to perform and grow within their own levels. Although there have been and will be many different approaches to teaching reading, they all seem to be well intentioned and have the same goal. While everyone deserves high quality text, what is appropriate to their grade has nothing to do with their age or grade level and everything to do with their abilities. Cueing. Basically, easy access to summer books eliminated the rich/poor reading gap! My school has just kicked off a new literacy pilot in the school.

This webinar explores the research on the instructional level and teaching with complex text. This story about the reading warswas written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused oninequality and innovation in education. In my experience, with so many different models and recommendations for teaching reading, there is little time for actual reading to take place in the classroom. While I fully understand the reasoning behind incorporating Science and Social Studies into Reading, I sometimes feel as if the students would excel more in Reading if they were allowed to read fiction or books they enjoyed. The teachers also read during this time in an effort to model the expected behavior. Education certainly has a way of keeping us on our toes and striving to be the best we can for all of our learners. Our district is currently evaluating our reading curriculum ( a balanced literacy approach program yes we swallowed the believable pill a few years back when we adopted it) and we have been reading and discussing the research to figure out our next steps. Additionally, as a past first grade teacher, I didnt know anyone who taught hundreds of sight words, or taught words that were phonetically regular as sight words. Its about monitoring and can begin the process of teaching students to self-correct. How to measure the value of a childs personal reading experience or their understanding of reading as an important cultural practice? Your column featured this process to differentiate students reading levels. Allowing them to be successful will motivate them to work harder and want to attempt the harder texts. Tell us what works and how do we implement it. Home integrative support is expedient along with tapping into relative media can extend the learning. When I asked the principal about it, she said Well, the teachers find it kind of dry. The school has a large performance gap in reading between high and low income families and English language learners, which I suspect has a lot to do with the failure to effectively teach phonics. I believe it is important for us to teach students how to read, however, if students cannot comprehend the material to understanding of the content, then we have only reached them half of the way. Related: Mining online data on struggling readers who catch up. Instead, I learned that these compromise curricula often retain three teaching strategies for which there isnt good research evidence: cueing, independent reading time and leveled reading. Thank you. Three lessons from data on childrens reading habits, Education Week survey of early reading instruction, Mining online data on struggling readers who catch up, Evidence increases for reading on paper instead of screens, Kids struggle to read when schools leave phonics out, What parents need to know about the research on how kids learn to read, Weighing the best strategies for reading intervention, https://researchrichpedagogies.org/research/reading-for-pleasure, Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic. Although many of these students are in the 6th grade, some are far behind on their reading levels. Are we as educators doing the best we can to ensure that reading and phonics are taught on the appropriate level for every student? Its not about guessing. They feel that if they follow along exactly as it says, everyone will do a great job and learn. Thank you so much for continuing to write about the Reading wars and making sure to include the research. We are forbidden to teach letters in isolation. Its better for all students to be working with high-quality texts that are appropriate for a students grade. It is unbelievable that something so important is ignored by so many. Whats wrong with balanced literacy? Not only did students begin struggling with reading, but I also saw a huge deficit in their ability to spell and write. If you want students to read at a higher level, model what that looks like, plant that seed. I just think the student will become good readers if they are exposed to texts sentiment doesnt go far enough for our most vulnerable students. Kids who read more tend to score higher on reading assessments but research hasnt been particularly supportive of using classroom time for unstructured, independent reading. Let me also add that I do think that students need a model and that time must be set aside for read aloud time. I had a very hard time with reading comprehension when I was in school. In both experimental studies the children who were randomly selected to receive summer books outperformed their classmates who had not been selected to receive summer books. But its not a huge difference. While I agree with the statement, I think we should be careful to find the distinction between challenging students and making students struggle.

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