I've really been moved by every episode of Sold A Story podcast.
I keep asking myself... Who ever thought Whole language was good? When did it go from whole language to balanced literacy? Why are people trying to sell balanced literacy as "rebalanced" literacy? How did people learn to read before the Reading Wars?
That's when I started down this rabbit hole:
https://www.breakingthecode.com/tipping-the-scale-on-fountas-pinnell/
https://www.breakingthecode.com/resources/
Where I found:
https://phonicsintervention.org/2017/01/16/marilyn-jager-adams-three-cueing-system-origins-tragedy-described-summary/
"The version of the three-cueing schematic that appears in Routman’s (1988, 1994) books is included in Appendix 1. Of note, it is one of only two that I have been able to find in archival journals or books as opposed to, for example, in-service handouts, framework documents, and advertising copy.
The other, which is also the oldest in my collection, is from an article by David Pearson that first appeared in Language Arts in 1976 and was later reprinted in an International Reading Association volume on What Research Says Lo the Teacher (Samuels, 1983). I did not find this article on my own. Instead, it was sent to me by Pearson, himself, in response to one of my end-of-talk queries. He assures me that he created it on his own in 1976.
Nevertheless, he, too, had been unaware of the schematic’s present-day ubiquity-and seemed wholly bemused by the thought that it might have been he who started it. In any case, if this article by Pearson (1976) is the original source for the three-cueing schematic, then, insofar as I can tell, it lay dormant for over a decade."
I kept thinking... "1976? That's way after my parents time... What about before?"
https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-whole-language-approach-to-reading.html
Says, "Constructivist approaches to learning come from the theory of making connections, put forward by the French educational psychologist Jean Piaget." This didn't make sense to me because I knew the history was older than this.
I remember my mom telling me she learned to read in school from Dick and Jane books. I know she started school in 1965.
I kept asking myself... How did my parents get taught the whole language Dick and Jane books in 1965? What was taught before 1965?
I found:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_and_Jane
The characters of "Dick" and "Jane" made their debut in the Elson-Gray readers in 1930, reached the height of their popularity in the 1950s, and continued to appear in subsequent primers until the series was retired in 1965. It was marketed until 1973 and used the look-say method of teaching reading. The irony is that the names "Dick" and "Jane" we're chosen because they were easy to "sound out".
The look-say method used a controlled vocabulary and taught readers to memorize the words through repetition, placing limited emphasis on teaching phonics. Teacher guides accompanying the texts also encouraged adoption of the whole-word (look-say) method of identifying the meaning of words from the illustrations and repeating words introduced in the text.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Gray
The author of Dick and Jane books was William S. Gray. He spent a year (1913–1914) at Teachers College of Columbia University. There, he came under the influence of Edward Thorndike and Charles Judd, both of whom had been influenced by pragmatists William James and John Dewey.
I then looked up Edward Thorndike:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Thorndike
First thing that caught my eye was that he was "a proponent of eugenics." Yuck.
Thorndike was among some of the first psychologists to combine learning theory, psychometrics, and applied research for school-related subjects to form psychology of education. One of his influences on education is seen by his ideas on mass marketing of tests and textbooks at that time. Thorndike's believed there were inborn differences between the thoughts and behavior of men and women included misogynist, pseudo-scientific arguments about the role of women in society. Because of his "racist, sexist, and antisemitic ideals", amid the George Floyd protests of 2020, the Board of Trustees of Teachers' College in New York voted unanimously to remove his name from Thorndike Hall.
Then I looked up Charles Hubbard Judd:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hubbard_Judd
Judd who was known for applying scientific methods to the study of educational issues. He next entered graduate work at the University of Leipzig in Germany, where he studied psychology under the renowned Wilhelm Wundt. Wundt was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt was the first person ever to call himself a psychologist. Recurring criticism is that Wundt largely ignored the areas of psychology that he found less interesting, such as differential psychology, child psychology and educational psychology.
Then I looked up William James:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James
James is considered to be a leading thinker of the late 19th century, one of the most influential philosophers of the United States, and the "Father of American psychology". James was influenced by Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. James studied closely the schools of thought known as associationism and spiritualism. James investigated mystical experiences throughout his life, leading him to experiment with chloral hydrate (1870), amyl nitrite (1875), nitrous oxide (1882), and peyote (1896). James claimed that it was only when he was under the influence of nitrous oxide that he was able to understand Hegel.
Then I looked up John Dewey:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey
Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in politics, education, or communication and journalism. He asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by communication among citizens, experts and politicians, with the latter being accountable for the policies they adopt. Dewey was also a major educational reformer for the 20th century. A well-known public intellectual, he was a major voice of progressive education and liberalism. Dewey went through an “evangelical” development as a child. As an adult he was negative, or at most neutral, about theology in education. He instead took a meliorist position with the goal of scientific humanism and educational and social reform without recourse to religion.
Dewey wrote to his wife Alice about the 1894 Pullman Strike, in which the employees of the Pullman Palace Car Factory in Chicago decided to go on strike after industrialist George Pullman refused to lower rents in his company town after cutting his workers’ wages by nearly 30 percent.
He wrote, "The only wonder is that when the 'higher classes' – damn them – take such views there aren't more downright socialists. [...] [T]hat a representative journal of the upper classes – damn them again – can take the attitude of that harper's weekly", referring to headlines such as "Monopoly" and "Repress the Rebellion", which claimed, in Dewey's words, to support the sensational belief that [ARU leader Eugene] Debs was a "criminal" inspiring hate and violence in the equally "criminal" working classes."
Dewey concluded: "It shows what it is to be a higher class. And I fear Chicago Univ. is a capitalistic institution – that is, it too belongs to the higher classes"
1935 Dewey, together with Albert Einstein and Alvin Johnson, became a member of the United States section of the International League for Academic Freedom.
He directed the famous Dewey Commission held in Mexico in 1937, which cleared Leon Trotsky of the charges made against him by Joseph Stalin, and marched for women's rights, among many other causes.
Dewey was involved in the organization that eventually became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, sitting as an executive on the NAACP's early executive board.
Then I looked up the book editor of Dick and Jane books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zerna_Sharp
Zerna Sharp was an American educator and book editor who is best known as the creator of the Dick and Jane series of beginning readers for elementary school-aged children. She wasn't the author or the illustrator. Sharp designed the format and content. She also selected the storylines from ideas that others submitted. Gray hired Sharp to develop the characters for the readers and to combine her approach with his ideas for a process of learning to read.
To make sure language in the texts were authentic, Sharp also observed children playing and listened to their speech patterns.
The storylines that Sharp selected described the lives and experiences of a stereotypical American middle-class, white family in a two-parent suburban home that included three children and two pets. "Father" wore a suit, worked in an office, mowed the lawn, and washed the car. "Mother" stayed at home, did housework, and raised the children. "Dick," the oldest of the family's three children, was active and well-behaved. "Jane," the second oldest child, was pretty and carefree. She also helped care for the youngest sibling, a baby sister named "Sally." The family dog was named "Spot;" their cat was named "Puff."
Gray's study of worldwide literacy for UNESCO took four years of research and resulted in the book, The teaching of reading and writing: An international survey. Gray was the leading expert on reading in the first half of the 20th century. He promoted the whole word method of teaching reading supported by attention to context, configuration, structural and graphophonemic cues. Educators like Helen Huus found Gray's method comprehensive, because first children memorized a few words by sight, then developed the sight-word correspondence by using these known words as reference points.
So I found out about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGuffey_Readers
McGuffey's Readers were among the first textbooks in the United States designed to be increasingly challenging with each volume. They used word repetition in the text as a learning tool, developing reading skills by challenging students using the books. Sounding-out, enunciation, and accents were emphasized. Colonial-era texts had offered dull lists of 20 to 100 new words per page for memorization. In contrast, McGuffey used new vocabulary words in the context of real literature, gradually introducing new words and carefully repeating the old.
Most schools of the 19th century used only the first two in the series of McGuffey's four readers. The first Reader taught reading by using the phonics method, the identification of letters and their arrangement into words, and aided with slate work. The second Reader was used once students could read. It helped them to understand the meaning of sentences, while providing vivid stories which children could remember. The third Reader taught the definitions of words and was written at a level equivalent to the modern 5th or 6th grade. The fourth Reader was written for the highest levels of ability on the grammar school level.
McGuffey believed that teachers, as well as their students, should study the lessons and suggested that they read aloud to their classes. He also listed questions after each story, for he believed that asking questions was critical for a teacher to give instruction. The Readers emphasized spelling, vocabulary, and formal public speaking, which was a more common requirement in 19th-century America than today.
More than 120 million copies of McGuffey Readers were sold between 1836 and 1960, placing its sales in a category with the Bible and Webster's Dictionary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Holmes_McGuffey
William Holmes McGuffey and his brother were friends with Harriet Beecher Stowe, the famous abolitionist. He came from an intellectual and refined Scottish family. His parents had strong opinions about education and religion. They immigrated from Scotland to the United States in 1774. His mother, Anna Holmes McGuffey, provided their earliest education and ensured that they received a good formal education outside of their home.
McGuffey and his wife Harriet had as many as three slaves while at Virginia. One of these enslaved people was William D. Gibbons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_D._Gibbons
Gibbons was literate. He was said to be self-taught and also said to have been instructed by McGuffey's daughter Maria. McGuffey allowed Gibbons to preach to students, even though this was against the law in Virginia. During the American Civil War and the Reconstruction era, McGuffey was generous in his donations to the poor and African Americans.
McGuffey is remembered as a conservative theological teacher. He interpreted the goals of public schooling in terms of moral and spiritual education, and attempted to give schools a curriculum that would instill Presbyterian Calvinist beliefs and manners in their students. These goals were considered suitable for the relatively hom*ogeneous America of the early- to mid-19th century, though they were less so for the increasingly pluralistic society that developed in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
The content of the readers changed drastically between McGuffey's 1836-1837 edition and the 1879 edition. The revised Readers were compiled to meet the needs of national unity and the dream of an American melting pot for the world's oppressed masses. The Calvinist values of salvation, righteousness, and piety were excluded from the later versions, though they had been prominent in the early Readers. The content of the books was secularized and replaced by middle-class civil religion, morality, and values.
The desire for distinct grade levels and less overtly religious content, and the greater profitability of consumable workbooks all helped to bring about their decline. McGuffey's Readers never entirely disappeared, however. Reprinted versions of his Readers are still in print, and may be purchased in bookstores across the country.
In the late 20th century many evangelical homeschooling parents used the McGuffey Readers to recapture 19th century conservative values for their children.
So I asked myself... How did people view McGuffey Readers?
I found: https://www.theedadvocate.org/story-american-education-mcguffey-readers/
The two best-known American textbooks are the New England Primer (18th century) and the McGuffey Reader series (19th century).
The McGuffey Readers became cornerstones in establishing America’s moral values. The books were not overtly religious, they did stress religious values and emphasize moral lessons intended to develop students into good citizens. For 124 years, the books encouraged moral values and conveyed a distinctly American cultural framework, with an emphasis on allegiance to the nation. To illustrate the concepts, the McGuffey Readers presented stories emphasizing strength of character, truth, and goodness. The stories distinguished between good and bad by introducing varying viewpoints on many issues and topics, and they concluded with morals, often concerning goodness, truth, and untruth.
I found out:
https://www.theedadvocate.org/understanding-historical-roots-todays-public-education/
The progressive education movement paved the way for significant education reforms. The movement began in the 1880s and has persisted in various forms to the present. Proponents of progressive education stressed the emotional, artistic, and creative aspects of human development. The movement emphasized learning by doing and the creation of curricula to suit children’s interests. This was a departure from previous educational approaches, in which the interests of children mattered very little. John Dewey was a principal proponent and supporter of the movement. He proposed new ways of thinking about education that emphasized pragmatism rather than reliance on moral and religious principles. This new way of thinking about education included educational theories based on scientific models, which paved the way for a more secular approach to education.
So at first I thought "How did America go 124 years with science of reading, phonics, and structured literacy... Only in 1960 to have a shift?" They didn't have a huge shift, Dick and Jane books were created from 1930-1965 with the intention of succeeding McGuffey books. As McGuffey books dissolved, Dick and Jane books evolved along side of them. Yet, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, critics of the Dick and Jane readers began to point out its stereotypes; concerns about class, gender, and racial bias; and errors in content and illustrations. Increasing social changes, including the civil rights movement in the 1960s, also made the characters of "Dick and Jane seem increasingly irrelevant to some."
Scott Foreman made changes in their readers in the 1960s in an effort to keep the stories relevant, updating the series every five years. The 1965 edition, the last of the Dick and Jane series, introduced the first African American family as characters in a first-grade reader.
Despite the challenges and criticisms of these readers, their content, and the look-say format they used to teach reading, Sharp's characters of "Dick," "Jane," and "Sally" became household words and the primers became icons of mid-century American culture, as well as collectors' items.
So if both McGuffey (structured literacy) and Dick and Jane books (whole literacy) disolve in the 1960's-1970's what replaced them both?
It all goes back to the reading wars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonics
1841 Horace Mann, the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, advocated for a whole-word method of teaching reading to replace phonics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Mann
Horace Mann was an American educational reformer, slavery abolitionist and Whig politician known for his commitment to promoting public education. His goal was to establish in the minds of the American people the conception that education should be universal, non-sectarian, free, and that its aims should be social efficiency, civic virtue, and character, rather than mere learning or the advancement of sectarian ends. Mann's endorsem*nt of "word method" for reading instruction made a lasting impression on other reformers of the period, and "by 1890 the alphabet method had virtually died out". Francis Parker and John Dewey used the "word method" as one of the features of the "Progressive" system of education.
Nancy Millichap notes, "Despite the enthusiasm of educators for their new methods of teaching, the illiteracy rate remained high. Among American soldiers enlisted in World War I, 24.9% proved unable to read or write, and during World War II approximately the same percentage of British servicemen [who were taught using the same method] were found to be similarly handicapped. In 1940, one-third of high school students were incapable of mastering reading and writing well enough to profit from textbook instruction, and one half of the adult population in the United States was functionally illiterate"
In 1944, Time Magazine put the issue of Dyslexia on it's front cover. This is included in the school report published by the organization, Made By Dyslexia just last month.
https://www.madebydyslexia.org/learn-dyslexia/
Rudolf Flesch advocated for a return to phonics in his book Why Johnny Can't Read (1955). The backlash against "word method" culminated in this book where Flesch condemned this method for "treating children as if they were dogs" and recommended returning to teaching phonics. Nevertheless, the "ill-informed, ineffective reading instruction" remains the norm in American colleges of education and, accordingly, in American elementary schools.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Flesch
Flesch was also a readability expert and writing consultant who was a vigorous proponent of plain English in the United States. He created the Flesch Reading Ease test and was co-creator of the Flesch–Kincaid readability tests. Flesch advocated use of phonics rather than sight reading to enable students to sound-out unfamiliar words.
His book was a critique of the then-trendy practice of teaching reading by sight, often called the "look-say" method. The flaw of this method, according to Flesch, was that it required brute force memorization with no theory behind it so that when confronted with an unknown word, the learner became confused. As a solution, Flesch advocated a revival of the phonics method, the teaching of reading by teaching learners to sound out words using rules. The book inspired Dr. Seuss to write The Cat in the Hat (1957).
The whole-word method received support from Kenneth J. Goodman who wrote an article in 1967 entitled Reading: A psycholinguistic guessing game.
Although not supported by scientific studies, the whole-word method theory became very influential as the whole language method.
Since the 1970s some whole language supporters such as Frank Smith, are unyielding in arguing that phonics should be taught little, if at all.
Flesch's 1955 book inspired: Why Johnny Can't Add: The Failure of the New Math is a 1973 book by Morris Kline. In this book the author severely criticized the teaching practices characteristic of the "New Math" fashion for school teaching, which were based on Bourbaki's approach to mathematical research, and were being pushed into schools in the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math
As a result of this controversy, and despite the ongoing influence of the New Math, the phrase "new math" is often used now to describe any short-lived fad that quickly becomes discredited. In 1999, Time placed it on a list of the 100 worst ideas of the 20th century.
https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/understanding-the-new-math-your-children-are-learning
This is relevant in 2022 because parents and teachers constantly have issues with common core as the "new math" of today.
Flesch wrote a sequel called, "Why Johhny Still Can't Read" and it was released in January of 1983.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2018/05/19/why-johnny-still-cant-read-and-what-to-do-about-it/
In 1995 this letter was published:
In 2000, the US National Reading Panel identified five ingredients of effective reading instruction, of which phonics is one; the other four are phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
In 2017 study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology compared teaching with phonics vs. teaching whole written words and concluded that phonics is more effective.
A survey in 2010, 68% of K–2 teachers in the United States practice balanced literacy; however, only 52% of teachers included phonics in their definition of balanced literacy. In addition, 75% of teachers teach the three-cueing system (i.e., meaning/structure/visual or semantic/syntactic/graphophonic) that has its roots in whole language.
Neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg, state that struggling readers should not be encouraged to skip words they find puzzling or rely on semantic and syntactic cues to guess words.
So who did replace McGuffey & Dick and Jane books? Was it Dr. Suess books?
Theodor Seuss Geisel published books from 1937 - 1990. I grew up in the 1990's and I remember every year since kindergarten celebrating a Dr. Suess book week with usually a crazy d.i.y. hat contest. Today we know they aren't perfect either. I wouldn't say I learned to read from Dr. Suess books either. I learned from hooked on phonics.
So was there a reading program during this aftermath?
http://hackeducation.com/2015/03/19/sra
The SRA Reading Laboratory Kit was first published in 1957. "SRA Reading Laboratory 2.0 is an interactive, personalized reading practice program based on the classic SRA Reading Laboratory print program created by Don H. Parker, PhD. now featuring innovative 21st century digital and social skills."
The cards were purposefully designed as an alternative to whole class instruction, so that students could focus on activities aimed at their particular (reading) level and move forward at their own pace. “I wanted, somehow, to individualize instruction,” Parker says in his story. Individualized instruction is often branded as “personalization.”
The author of the article states, "I don’t share that fondness. I remember thinking mostly that the reading passages were incredibly dull. The behavior I learned: burn through the cards as quickly as possible and once you finish the last color – was it purple? – the teacher shrugs and lets you choose your own reading."
IBM acquired SRA in 1964. It sold SRA to Maxwell Communications Company in 1988, and when the latter tried to stage a hostile takeover of CTB/McGraw-Hill the following year, the SRA assets became part of a new company, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill.
McGraw-Hill continues to publish the SRA Reading Laboratory – in print and as software – to this day. Over 127 million children have used the product.
I used McGraw-Hill books in school, but I only knew them as a textbook company.
I didn't have the same experience because I only had a short period of reading instruction in kindergarten with hooked on phonics and then I was free to choose my own books. I read the spot dog book series by Eric Hill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spot_(franchise)
I read Dr. Suess and Clifford the big red dog books in kindergarten. I remember I read Junie B. Jones book series in first grade. I remember the older I got I'd move up to baby sitter's club series and then the American diary series. I don't remember ever being told I couldn't read a book. I just remember having to read a certain amount of books that I knew I could pass through an AR test.
Full disclosure. AR tests weren't a perfect evaluation of reading comprehension either. I knew my friends who developed a system that if they read a book, then they'd take the test for the book they read, and then swap computers and take the same test under their friend's login and pass. So if a librarian or teacher saw them it looked like they were just taking a test for themselves. In actuality they had just gotten a passing grade for at least 2 books. I was too scared to do this, plus I never liked any of the books my friends read (valley girl high books) so I knew I would get caught.
Nevertheless... the debate between educators and scientists became so virulent it was known as the Reading Wars, and it raged on.
What's the answer to the reading wars?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_view_of_reading
The simple view of reading is a scientific theory about reading comprehension. The creators of the theory hoped it would help to end the reading wars. According to the theory, in order to comprehend what they are reading students need both decoding skills and oral language comprehension ability; neither is enough on their own.
The main argument against it says it needs to be more structured....
Enter: The Science of Reading. It's a holistic approach. It's not indoctrinating anyone with a religious or political viewpoint. Everyone should be happy right? Nope. Unfortunately when money, ego, and fame is involved it's important for teachers, parents, and schools to come together and decide that yes, learning to read is a human right.
We know the main problem is that teachers don’t get good training in foundational skills. Another is teachers’ fear that drilling kids in phonics will kill their love of reading. But if teachers incorporate games, songs, and physical activities, phonics can be fun. And if kids don’t learn to decode at an early age, they’re unlikely ever to enjoy reading—or become successful students.
Hooked on Phonics, ABC mouse, Nessy Learning, IXL, and many other computer programs are offering fun ways for kids to learn to read. Without a teacher.
Cox Campus is the only program I've seen that gives parents and teachers free courses into how to implement the science of reading in a fun, easy, and simple way. I've talked to parents online who have made their own literacy boxes and tools from dollar store items. I can search Science of Reading on Pinterest and find multiple activities, worksheets, and games that help to learn not just phonics but all aspects of structured literacy.
If me, as a parent, has access to these resources. What excuse do schools have? I get it. Reading wars history is complicated. Usually phonics is on the side of George W Bush, religious, conservative, school choice, and home school upper white middle class people. Historically Whole language has had good intentions being aligned with Bill Clinton, secular, liberal, public school, remediation in school, and in diverse populations.
Tribalism doesn't apply here. It's 2022. We can't afford to believe in this "I'm right, you're wrong mentality". We have to trust the research. Whole language doesn't improve literacy scores. It doesn't provide equality. It's a partial approach to a holistic problem that needs a holistic solution. Whole language doesn't apply to English learners or students with learning disabilities. We also have a problem with under identified Dyslexic students that are disproportionately affected by the Matthew effect and the school to prison pipeline.
The time to fix this problem is now. Join Cox campus, take a free course. Share it with your school district. Shift the paradigm today.
