Back To Reading Basics, And Beyond Tired Of Phonics Debate, Educators Just Want Kids To Learn To Read

At age 30, Glenn Young was reading at a second grade level.

He managed to get through high school and a series of jobs before anyone determined he had a learning disability. He was finally diagnosed with severe dyslexia only after his daughter had trouble learning to read in school.

Now Young, the learning disabilities specialist for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Seattle and a board member for the Learning Disabilities Association of America, is making it his goal to make sure other children don’t lose out like he did.

“I basically talked my way through high school in San Francisco in the ‘60s when all my teachers were hippy-wannabees, and they allowed me to do collages rather than literally having to write,” Young said. “… I rapidly descended into a nonliterate world.”

Because of experiences like Young’s, 25 organizations, including the U.S. Department of Education and the National Education Association, are supporting “Learning to Read/Reading to Learn.”

The study released last week identifies 10 principles necessary for good reading. They include a clear understanding of the alphabet and how it relates to both phonetic sounds and printed words.

For years educators have debated the best way to teach children to read. The traditional phonics approach, which emphasizes the spelling and sounding out of words, as in the “Dick and Jane Reader,” was abandoned by many school districts. It was replaced by a more literary method, known as whole language, which emphasizes complex ideas and issues rather than spelling.

“The debate between phonics and whole language is moot,” said Edward J. Kameenui, director of the study and University of Oregon professor. “It’s not about phonics, and it’s not about whole language; it’s about teaching children to read.”

Kameenui said the new principles should be used by teachers, parents and administrators as a guideline to determine whether a child needs extra help.

The study was conducted jointly by the University of Oregon’s National Center to Improve the Tools of Educators and the National Institutes of Health. It confirms what many school districts have discovered already: There is no single method for teaching children to read, but there are certain skills every child needs to improve.

Fran Mester, curriculum supervisor at the Spokane School District 81, said she believes the district has finally found a balance between the two schools of thought. While she recognizes the need for phonics and spelling skills, she said that some of the early practices used by many schools fell short of teaching reading comprehension.

“Some of the old (phonics exercises) had been so contrived that they didn’t represent literature,” she said.

The method used now incorporates basic skills into a literature-rich environment, Mester said. This fall, the district will start monitoring the progress of students learning to read. The assessment will follow a sample of students through their early reading development.

“We want a consistent way of telling how many of our kids are what level, and we want to be able to back that up with some documentation.” she said.

In North Idaho, the Lakeland School District also will be measuring the success of a new phonics program for kids in kindergarten through third grade. The new emphasis on phonics, which starts this fall, will go hand-inhand with a new batch of reading material.

“I’m excited about this,” assistant superintendent Ron Schmidt said of the national list of reading principles. “It reinforces what we’re trying to do.”

Authors of the 10 principles say they must be applied early, at least by the second or third grade. That way, teachers and parents can identify children with learning disabilities before it’s too late to help them.

“The current practice is that a child has to be two to three years behind in most school districts before they get identified for intervention services, and then the psychological damage to that child is just tremendous,” Young said. “By that time, if they are not physically out of school yet, they are usually mentally out of school.”

But some educators are hesitant about intervening too early.

“It’s a tough issue because kids really do learn at different ages,” said Sharon Mowry, assistant superintendent of the West Valley School District, where courses are more literature-based than phonics-based. “I’ve seen kids at grade four where the light bulb just goes on. The tendency is to think that if a child learns to read later, then they are going to have trouble catching up and that’s not always true.”

The findings will be released to school districts across the country. Kameenui said the cost of implementing the principles into courses is relatively insignificant because many teachers practice them already.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: 10 PRINCIPLES The study says 10 principles must be applied to students at least by second or third grade to ensure future literacy. They include: Develop appreciation for written word. Develop awareness of printed language. Learn the alphabet. Understand the relationship between letters and words. Understand that language is made of words, syllables and phonemes. Learn letter sounds. Sound out new words. Identify words in print accurately and easily. Know spelling patterns. Learn to read reflectively.