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This is the Reading Instruction Show.

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I'm your host, as always, Dr. Andy Johnson.

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Today, we're talking about an article that was found in the New Yorker, September 1,

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2023, called The Rise and Fall of Vibes-Based Literacy by Jessica Winter.

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Now, part one, this is going to be at least two, maybe three podcasts, but part one is

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about reading workshop.

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Now, Jessica Winters is an editor at the New Yorker, where she also writes about family

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and education.

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She's also the author of some novels, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but we are

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analyzing this article, September 1, The Rise and Fall of Vibes-Based Literacy.

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Now, if I were to give this a title, I would have called it The Rise of Ignorance-Based

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Editors, or The Rise and Eventual Fall of Clown-Based Writers About Literacy, or The

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Rise of Hubris-Based Journalism.

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That would have been more accurate for this article.

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It is written by a clown.

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Now, I mean that in the most complimentary terms.

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A clown in literacy terms is a person who thinks they know much about literacy when

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in fact their knowledge base is very shallow and disjointed.

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And what makes them clowns is their clownery.

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This is when they write or speak as if they know a lot about things with which they actually

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know very little clownery.

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And we laugh at clowns.

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I laugh at Jessica Winter.

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I also laugh at Emily Hanford because they're clowns and they don't realize that they're

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clowns.

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They see themselves as great crusaders for the benefit of our children.

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What about the children?

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Who protect the children?

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Now Jessica, just so you know, the literacy research community, real literacy experts

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are laughing and laughing and laughing because clowns are funny.

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But clowns are also sad.

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And the sad thing about these clowns is that they've been given a platform.

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Emily Hanford at American Public Media and Jessica Winter at the New Yorker.

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Now this platform should be used responsibly, but it's not.

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And the general public assumes that since it comes from one of these platforms that

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it must be true.

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Emily Hanford must know what she's talking about.

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After all, she's on the radio.

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And they don't let just anybody talk on the radio, you know.

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And Jessica Winter's piece was published in the New Yorker.

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That's a magazine.

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And I'm sure the editors would want their writers to check their facts and know a little

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bit about what they're writing about.

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But Emily Hanford and Jessica Winter are clowns.

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Emily Hanford's clown suit is that of a literacy expert.

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Jessica Winter's clown suit is that of someone who thinks she's not a clown.

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And here's the funny, funny, sad thing.

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Some school districts and even academic conferences are silly enough to pay Emily Hanford to

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travel and spread her clownery.

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And that's when the clown moves from funny to sad.

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But let's go back to Jessica Winter and her clown-based article found in the New Yorker.

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Jessica opens up her clown show disguised as a serious article by describing an incident

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that occurred at her home during COVID as part of reading instruction.

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Now keep in mind that during COVID, teachers were all learning how to adapt what they do

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in the classroom to online home instruction.

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Now, Jessica was working with her kindergarten child and she read the term reading workshop

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in her child's schedule.

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Based on her child's failures during this very artificial time of teaching, Jessica

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Winter concluded based on a sample size of one that A, she understood what reading workshop

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was, B, it was a failure for her daughter and C, that it must be a failure for everybody.

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She generalized to a larger population based on a sample size of one.

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Could you imagine any researcher coming to conclusions based on a sample size of one?

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One is the loneliest number.

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You can't generalize to larger numbers, larger populations based on a sample size of one.

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But I understand personal experiences are often used as an impetus to investigate more

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deeply.

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And sadly, I wish Jessica Winter would have done this.

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Do they teach you nothing in journalism school?

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I call it vibes based journalism.

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It's obvious that Jessica Winter knows nothing about reading workshops.

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And I'll explain what reading workshop is in a minute, but let's talk about vibes based

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journalism.

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She uses the term vibes based to demean what she thought reading workshop to be or balanced

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literacy to be.

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So let's talk about vibes based journalism.

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First rule of journalism.

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And I know all about journalism because I took a college class.

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The first rule of journalism is if you're going to write an article in the New Yorker,

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you should know what you're talking about.

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The second rule of journalism is to know about a little bit about what you're investigating.

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So you know what to look for.

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And the third rule of journalism is to try to be objective in what you see and write.

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Now I understand the New Yorker article was not journalism per se.

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It was an article written in a magazine by a journalist, but people were confused.

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And so that they don't get confused, a disclaimer should have been put on top of the article.

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It should have said this article contains just a bunch of stuff Jessica Winter felt

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like writing.

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Any semblance to accurate information is purely coincidental.

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That would have kept people from getting confused.

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So let's talk about reading workshop, what it is.

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Jessica Winter's portrayal of reading workshop is clown based.

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Not only is it not accurate, but it's cartoonish.

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Reading workshop is not a method with step by step procedures that must be followed with

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fidelity like a recipe.

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Rather it's an approach to reading instruction based on research and research based theory

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related to how human beings learn literacy.

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Reading workshop is not standardized.

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In a reading workshop, what you see would be based on the teacher, the students, age

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level, etc.

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And what works with one class may not always work with another.

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Thus, in each teacher's classroom using reading workshop, you would see different things.

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Now later in her article, Jessica Winter, who obviously knows nothing about literacy

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instruction, she describes reading workshop using very, very confusing terms.

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Leading to the idea that reading workshop is just higgly-piggly, but reading workshop

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is structured, it's planned, and there's very direct and very explicit instruction based

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on the individual students' needs.

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And it's strongly research based using real reading science based on how real humans

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best learn.

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Now during a 40 to 90 minute session, you might see some or all of the following elements.

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You would see independent reading.

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Yes, students selecting and reading real books.

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This is an important part of reading workshop, but it's only one part.

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If you want to get better at a skill, you need to practice that skill.

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We want students to get better at reading.

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They need reading practice.

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This means that classrooms need lots of books in them, lots and lots and lots of good books.

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And students should be able to find these good books, books at their independent level

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and below.

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Second one is literacy logs.

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There's usually a literacy log or a journal of some kind.

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This is where students respond in writing to some aspect of what they've read that

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day.

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Usually the teacher puts a prompt on the board before reading so that students can think

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about that prompt as they're reading.

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It could be a prompt like describe an interesting character or describe where the story took

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place or an interesting problem or event.

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Record an interesting or important word and tell what you think it means.

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Find and record words with the long A sound.

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You're limited only by your imagination.

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You get a sense of how students are processing the story.

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You can use this to reinforce letter patterns or letter skills.

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The third thing is there's usually a whole class mini lesson.

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This is a mini lesson is where you use very direct and very explicit instruction to teach

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things.

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A small mini lesson, mini anywhere from two to 10 to 15 minutes.

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Here you teach phonics or letter sounds among other things.

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Yes, you teach phonics or letter sounds among other things.

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I'll repeat it again so it's not misconstrued.

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You teach phonics and letter sounds among other things and as recommended by the National

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Reading Panel, a variety of types of phonics instruction would be included.

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You'd use synthetic phonics, embedded phonics, large unit phonics, analytic phonics, phonics

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by spelling.

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National Reading Panel says one is not better than the other, all types should be included.

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There would also be mini lessons to teach comprehension skills and word identification

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skills and vocabulary and grammar and all the things you would find in a scope and sequence

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chart and more.

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Yes, you can teach skills based on the scope and sequence chart, but the best scope and

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sequence of all is your students based on what you see happening on what they need, on what

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the students need.

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That becomes the basis of the mini lesson.

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There would also be number four, targeted mini lessons.

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These are small flexible group mini lessons where students that you see who are struggling

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with a skill might need a little bit extra.

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They're called up front to the table to work on targeted skills related to any of these

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things, letter sounds, letter patterns, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension.

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These groups are flexible based on what you see.

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More advanced readers might be called up front for more advanced skills.

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These groups are flexible.

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The fifth thing would be conferences and there are several types of conferences.

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This is where the teacher talks to the reader about what the reading sets goals for the

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types of books and the number of books and listens to the child read.

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As the teacher listens, notes are taken.

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You understand you're keeping track.

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This is good assessment.

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There's also small group conferences where you're talking with students in small group

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and listening to them read, drive by conferences, student to student conferences, all the while

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the teacher is noting and recording what that teacher sees.

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There's also students talking.

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Conversation is important for language development.

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It's an important part of reading workshop.

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Conversation enhances vocabulary, language development, reading fluency and comprehension.

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You would have structured conversations around books, taking place in a whole class setting,

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in a small group setting or in pairs.

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Conversation.

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Let's talk about then, these are just some of the things.

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You'd see some or all of them depending on the day.

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Let's talk about transfer.

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If you think reading is just sounding out words and reading class should just be a bunch

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of sounding out word instruction like obviously Emily Hanford does in Jessica Winters, you're

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not going to understand what's going on in reading workshop.

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But just because you don't understand a thing doesn't mean the thing is not effective just

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because you don't understand it.

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And here's the thing during COVID all teachers were adapting on the fly.

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They're trying to make their classes relevant.

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But it's very hard to transfer the essence of reading workshop to an online environment.

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That's important to understand just because you saw reading workshop in a schedule doesn't

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mean that that was replicated at home.

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Now let's talk about the 10 pillars of effective reading instruction.

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Jessica Winter, Emily Hanford, if you're going to write about reading instruction, I

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would assume that you know and understand the 10 pillars.

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These are 10 elements that should be found in any comprehensive reading program.

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When reading workshop contains these 10 pillars, I'm going to go over each one of them.

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Number one is phonemic awareness, manipulating sounds within words and putting sounds together

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to create words.

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That usually happens at the preschool, kindergarten and early first grade level when students

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are reading comfortably, reading level one it's discontinued.

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Phonics instruction and word work is the second one.

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Phonics instruction related to letter sounds and patterns.

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All teachers believe in phonics instruction.

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It's not the what of phonics instruction, it's the how and the how much.

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Three activities and instruction to develop all three neurocognitive systems used for

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word recognition.

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More on this below, but you need to know that we use more than letters to recognize words

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as we read.

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Letters are found within words.

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Words are found within sentences.

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Sentences are found within context.

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More on this in a minute.

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But four, activities and instruction for word identification.

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If you don't immediately recognize a word, you need to consciously employ some strategy

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to figure out what that word is.

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And there's four strategies that you consciously employ.

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Phonics, context, more themic analysis and analogy.

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The fifth pillar of effective comprehensive reading instruction, daily reading practice.

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We said it before, you need to practice at a skill to get better.

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Reading practice and able students to practice the skills learned in authentic reading context

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so that they're able to transfer those skills to other reading contexts.

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Six, social interaction and conversations around good books.

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This develops higher level thinking and it is stated earlier oral language enhances the

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development of language skills, vocabulary, comprehension and makes creates stronger interpersonal

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connections within the classroom.

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Number seven, authentic writing experiences.

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These are activities in which students describe their ideas and their experiences.

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And writing is the best way to develop the syntactic queuing system.

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More on that in a minute.

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Modern instruction, that's the eighth pillar of effective reading instruction.

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Instruction here is related to the cognitive operations associated with comprehending.

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These are cognitive operations thinking such as inferring, predicting, summarizing, story

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grammar.

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But this also involves study skill strategies related to expository text.

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The ninth pillar is vocabulary or activities to develop word knowledge.

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We don't teach vocabulary as much as we create the conditions where students can learn and

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add depth and dimension to the words.

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Children learn anywhere from three to five thousand words a year.

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They don't learn these using vocabulary worksheets.

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So we need activities to add depth and dimension to get these into students, productive and

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receptive vocabulary.

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And the 10th pillar, the last thing that should be found in a comprehensive reading

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in program is attention to the effective element to motivation and emotions.

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We need to attend to the emotions involved in reading.

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We also need to attend to the desire or motivation to read.

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A reading teacher's number one job is to help students fall in love with books.

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After that, 98% of your instruction is taken care of.

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A reading teacher's number two job is not to frustrate or humiliate students.

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Now the last thing about this first part.

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In her article, Jessica Winter says three very clowny things and you say a lot of clowny

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things here and I'm going to call you out for it.

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I'm sorry.

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Clowny thing number one, the first thing she says, quote, they figure out words based

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on a Q in strategy.

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The reader asks herself if the word looks right, sounds right and makes sense in context.

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What a clowny thing to say.

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Let me clear this up.

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Let me unclown this for you.

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The Q in system is not a strategy.

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It's not a skill.

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It's simply an understanding that our brain uses three interacting in interconnected

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systems to automatically recognize words during the act of reading.

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Yes, we use phonetic information, but we also use semantic information or context and syntactic

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information grammar and word order to recognize words and create meaning.

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Good readers are creating meaning.

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And when we read for meaning, we see letters in the context of words.

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We see words in the context of sentences.

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And we see sentences in the context of context.

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We use context or semantic information as well as syntax or grammar and word order along

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with letter clues to help us recognize words and create meaning.

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She goes on to say as part of clown thing number one, to see if the word looks right,

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sounds right and makes sense.

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And this isn't quite accurate.

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But no matter what approach we're using, we want to develop what's called metacognition.

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That means thinking about thinking.

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We want students to pause to see if what they're reading makes sense.

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Yes, metacognition.

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Clowny thing number two, Jessica Winter also says, my daughter was taught to use picture

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power guess words based on accompanying illustrations.

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Yes, Jessica, this is developmentally appropriate for kindergarten students to do.

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This helps develop metacognition again, thinking about thinking, pausing to see if what you're

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reading makes sense within the context of sentences.

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Young readers should consider a picture.

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Yes.

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Not to guess at words.

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No, guess is a buzzword that's pulled out of context.

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Asking what makes sense in context is not guessing.

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And here's clown thing number three that Jessica Winter says, she memorized high frequency

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sight words using a stack of laminated flashcards and the who, etc.

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Yes, they're called sight words, Xeno sight words, dull sight words, fry sight words.

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There's different sight words and they have different.

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These are the most frequent words that students encounter and students should be able to recognize

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these most frequent words by sight.

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Jessica, if you had ever read a research article about reading, you might have encountered

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the term sight words to reduce the need for processing.

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There are 100 to 200 depending words that students should recognize by sight.

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They shouldn't have to sound them out and you don't memorize them per se.

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You learn to recognize them by sight.

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When students leave kindergarten, they should know anywhere from 25 to 50 sight words depending

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on the study.

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But this is not the same as the look say approach of the sixties.

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These are called sight words, sight words.

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So a little preview of our next podcast.

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This is almost the end of part one.

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Jessica Winter, who knows nothing about literacy instruction, seems not to know the difference

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between units of study, balanced literacy and reading workshop.

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We're going to flesh that out.

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And she mentions the science of reading.

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And here's the big question for you science of reading advocates.

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What exactly do you want to see more of?

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And what exactly do you want to see less of?

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What behaviors or skills do you want to see more of and less of?

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Let's define our terms.

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This has been the reading instruction show.

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I'm your host as always, Dr. Andy Johnson.