This is the reading instruction show. I'm her host as always Dr. Andy Johnson. This is a
re-recording of a podcast I did yesterday. It's kind of a softening of a podcast
But it's all related to an article written by Jessica Winter
published in the New Yorker magazine on September 1st called The Rise and Fall of Vibes based literacy.
Now Jessica Winter is an editor at the New Yorker, but she also writes about family and education.
And I was sent a copy of her article The Rise and Fall of Vibes based literacy and asked to respond.
And as I started reading I realized that she had no idea of what she was talking about.
And the article represented it was a perfect representation and analogy of some of the stuff
we've seen in the larger science of movement over the past couple years, the science of reading
movement over the past couple years. Jessica Winter's knowledge base related to literacy
instruction was shallow and disjointed at best like many of the advocates in the science of reading movement.
Yet Jessica Winter used her platform with the New Yorker to accuse teachers of using
vibes based literacy and that's not a flattering term.
Jessica Winter has 13 pages in the New Yorker. The New Yorker has a circulation of over a million
readers. She can smear and demean on a very large platform to our hearts content.
Me, I've got 20 minutes on a podcast with a few thousand listeners on a good day.
So how is my voice going to get through? How's the voice of some of the others meaning based literacy experts?
Now in some of my podcasts I get a bit pointed. Yes. And some have said that I rant.
Sadly this is the way I kind of talk in my real life. And I admit I use terms like clowns and
penguins and number monkeys and leeches and bloodsuckers to call attention to the argument.
They also become a visual metaphor. Use the whole of the idea. So should I not use these terms?
I don't know. Do I cross over the line sometimes? Absolutely. Should I restrain myself a bit?
Most indubitably. Should I be less sarcastic? I'm not sure. I'm going to think about it.
But sometimes sarcasm goes where reason and research can't. Should I be more polite, full
and respectful in my podcast? And I sincerely wish I could on an individual letter you a level
you will always find me to be polite and respectful. But the question is, should I be more gentle with
my podcast? Well, here's the thing. I and others have tried to use reason and research to no avail.
Our methods continues to be ignored and demeaned by the people who are in the process of being
our methods continues to be ignored and demeaned by those in power. Do you realize how many polite,
reasonable, research-based arguments, YouTube's, podcasts, books, articles, blogs that I and others
have produced? Yet we keep getting smeared, misquoted and silenced by those with larger
platforms. Those in our movement, our literacy experts have had to endure attacks and smears for
years. You should have heard what they said about us at the state legislator, Slater, here in Minnesota.
The self-righteous smears that these state legislators said. And I had to sit back and say
nothing because I had not a platform. We in the literacy community feel like we've had to take it
as people like Emily Hanford and Jessica Winter smear us with their mischaracterizations.
They mischaracterize, cartoonize what we do. They've abused and misused their platforms.
We've had to endure very personal attacks, name-calling and the self-righteous indignation
of people who know nothing of literacy instruction. So what should we say? Thank you. Please insult
me some more. I really love it. Should we continue to sit back and say nothing? Now, I'm sure the
intentions of Jessica and Winter, Jessica Winter and Emily Hanford are good, but intention does
not negate impact. Neither does it absolve one from taking the responsibility of garnering a bit
of knowledge, taking responsibility from the impact of what you're doing. Intention is not a free ride
to ignorance and unknowing. What Emily Hanford and Jessica Winter are doing is severely hurting
real students, real teachers and real schools. What the International Dyslexia Association
letters and the educational industrial complex is doing is damaging to public education and
ultimately our society. This is not an abstraction. Now, there are plenty of people out there pushing
back in a very nice, polite way and they should continue to do that. But I will do anything I
can to stop the flood of misinformation and the abuse of teachers and children that's perpetuated
by articles like the one that Jessica Winter wrote and like all the stuff that Emily Hanford does.
As a paid public employee and I work at a public university, it's my obligation to speak out for
the public good. Now, do you think people would be more apt to listen to my podcasts if I were just
nice and polite? I don't know. But if you think so, I'm happy to change the tone. But in this
podcast and the ones that follow, I'm going to go line by line to point out all of Jessica Winter's
heirs and myths, mistruths. And I'll do it in a way that calls attention to it. But with this one,
it's kind of a redo of what I did yesterday. I'm going to be a little bit more polite.
So, Jessica Winter opens up her article, Vibes-Based Literacy Instruction, by describing an incident
that occurred at her home during COVID as part of reading instruction. Now, keep in mind that during
COVID, teachers were all learning on the fly how to adapt what they do in the classroom with online
home instruction. Now, Jessica Winter was working with her daughter who was in kindergarten and she
read reading workshop on her child's schedule. And based on what she perceived as her child's
failure is during this artificial time of teaching and she wasn't accurate in her perceptions. But
she came to a conclusion based on a sample size of one that she understood what reading workshop was
and that it was a failure for her daughter. And she concluded that it must be a failure
for everybody. Now, could you imagine any researcher coming to conclusions based on a
sample size of one? You can't generalize to larger numbers based on a sample size of one.
Yes, I understand personal experiences make connections and are often used as an impetus
to investigate more deeply. Sadly, I wish Jessica Winter would have done this, but she didn't.
And it's obvious she calls it vibes based literacy. It's obvious Jessica Winter knows nothing about
reading workshop. She demeans it by calling it vibes based literacy. So let's talk about what
reading workshop is. The first thing to know is that Jessica Winter's portrayal of it is cartoonish
in inaccurate. Reading workshop is not a method with step by step procedures that must be followed
with fidelity like a recipe. Instead, it's an approach to reading instruction based on research
and research based theory related to how humans best learn and how humans learn literacy.
Reading workshop is not standardized. In a reading workshop, what you would see would be based on the
teacher, the students, the age, the level and what works with one class doesn't always work with
another. Thus, in each teacher's classroom, you might see different things. Now, later in her
article, Jessica Winter went on to mischaracterize balanced literacy and other things. But reading
workshop is structured. It's planned. There's very direct and explicit instruction based on
individual students needs. And it has a strong research base using real reading science based
on human beings based on how they best learn. And in reading workshop, during a 40 to 90 minute
session, you might see some or all of the following. You would see independent reading.
Absolutely. That's the heart of reading workshop, but it is not reading workshop.
Here, students are selecting books. This is an important part, but only one part.
And if you want to get better at any skill, playing piano, playing shortstop, dancing,
you need to practice that skill. This means that classrooms need lots of books in them,
lots and lots of good books. So at different levels. So students can find books at their
independent level or below to read and enjoy. The second thing you might find is a literacy log
or a journal of some kind. This is where students respond to some aspect of what they've read.
Usually the teacher puts a prompt on the board before reading so that students can think about
their prompt as they're reading. The prompt could be something like describe an interesting character,
tell us where the story took place, identify two interesting or important events, record an
interesting or important word, tell us what you think it means, find and record words with a long
A sound. Those are the kinds of prompts to think about what you've read or to reinforce a skill
of some sort. The third thing is whole class mini lessons. Mini lessons are lessons that are short.
Anywhere from two to 15 minutes, they use very direct and very explicit instruction to teach
phonics, letter sounds, among other things. And it's recommended by the national reading panel
a variety of types of phonics instruction are included here. Synthetic phonics, analytic phonics,
embedded phonics, large unit phonics, phonics by spelling. The national reading panel says
all of these have equal effect. You should use all of them. There'd also be mini lessons related
to comprehension skills, word identification skills, vocabulary, maybe even grammar.
These skills would be based on a could be based on a suggested scope and sequence that you might
find in a basal or a set of standards. But they would also be based in part on what the teacher
sees, what he or she sees the students as needed. The fourth thing there would be targeted mini
lessons. Yes, there are whole class, but targeted mini lessons would be small, flexible group mini
lessons. As the teacher sees students struggling with the skill, they might be called up to the
front table to work on targeted skills related to letter sounds or patterns, vocabulary,
fluency, comprehension. In the same way, more advanced readers who need more advanced skills
might also be called up for small flexible groupings. These are flexible, meaning that the
students and number of students change according to what skills they need. There would be one,
two, three, four, the fifth thing, conferences. There are several kinds of conferences, but this
is where the teacher talks to the reader, listens to the reader, sees what they're reading, listens
to them read, sets goals for the types of books to read. And as the teacher listens to the child
read, notes are taken to see how they're doing, what skills they need. There are different types
of conferences. There's also small group conferences, drive by conferences, student, student conferences,
individual small group conferences. And as these are taking place, the teacher is noting
recording what they see and hear. And also the last one, there is students talking. Structured
conversations are important for language development, vocabulary, read, fluency, comprehension.
Structured conversations around books. These take place in the whole class, small groups, or in pairs.
These. So, Jessica, did you see all these things? Or did you see a cartoonist version? You realize
that this doesn't transfer well in an online environment. But if you think reading is just
sounding out words and reading class should be just a bunch of sounding out word instruction,
you're not going to understand what you see going on in reading workshop. And just because you don't
understand the thing doesn't mean the thing is not effective. But here is the thing. During COVID,
all teachers were adapting on the fly. They were trying to make their classes relevant
in this new medium. However, it would be very hard for anyone to transfer the essence of reading
workshop to an online environment. So, if you're going to write and speak and create radio documentaries
about reading instruction, I would hope at the very least you would know and understand about the
10 pillars of reading instruction. 10 essential elements that a comprehensive reading program
or literacy program should have. And reading workshop contains these 10 pillars. And I'm going
to go through each one. Phonemic awareness. Manipulating sounds within words and putting sounds
together to create words. That's usually found at the pre-K and early grade one. Phonemic
awareness activities discontinued when students are reading comfortably at the first grade level.
Second, phonics instruction and word work. Yes, instruction related to letter sounds and patterns.
Three, activities and instruction to develop all three neurocognitive systems used for word
recognition. I'll talk about this more in just a minute, but we use more than letters to recognize
words. As we read, because letters are found within words, words are found within sentences,
sentences are found within context, we need to use more than letters. Number four, activities and
instruction for word identification strategies. If you don't immediately recognize a word when
you're reading, you need to consciously employ some strategy to figure it out. And there are four
strategies, phonics, context, morphemic analysis and analogy. The fifth part of a comprehensive
reading program is daily reading practice. Students need to be, skills need to be practiced in
authentic reading context if they are to transfer. We teach skills in reading, not so they can be
good in reading class, but so they can use these skills in authentic reading and writing context.
The sixth one, social interaction and conversation around good books. As stated earlier, oral language
enhances the development of language skills, vocabulary and comprehension. It keeps students
engaged and makes them more motivated to want to read and talk about what they're reading.
Authentic writing experiences number seven, these are activities in which students describe their
ideas and their experiences. It reinforces letter sound patterns, but also writing is the best way
to develop the syntactic acuying system. Number eight, comprehension instruction. Instruction
related to the cognitive operations associated with comprehension, like inferring, predicting,
summarizing, story grammar. Comprehension also involves study skill strategies related to reading
information or expository text. Number nine, vocabulary activities to develop word knowledge.
Now, we don't teach words as much as we develop the conditions that enable students to increase
and enhance their vocabulary. Students learn between three and five thousand words a year,
depending on the study. And teachers need to create activities to add depth and dimension to words,
as well as to get new words into students vocabulary. And number 10, attention to affect.
That would be motivation and emotions, which is at the heart of everything we do. We read and
emote with the same brain. So when we need to attend to the emotional element involved in reading,
as well as desire and motivation, a teacher's number one job is to help students fall in love
with books. The number two job is not to frustrate or humiliate students. Now, the last thing I want
to say today, Jessica Winter in her article, and I just got through the first two pages,
says some very inaccurate things. Now, in my first podcast, which was a little bit insensitive,
yes, yes, I call them clown things or clowny things. And that maybe was a little much. So I'm
going to soften that a bit and instead call them ignorant things. Ignorant means without knowledge,
because that is in truth what they are. What else can I say? How else can I soften that term?
They are ignorant things. So here's ignorant thing at number one that Jessica Winter wrote in her
article. She says, I quote, they figure out words based on a queuing strategy. The reader asks herself
if the word looks right, sounds right, and makes sense in context. That's what she said. Now,
in my first podcast, I use kind of a sarcastic voice. I said, they figure out words based on a,
and maybe I shouldn't do that. I admit that was probably a little much, but it's kind of fun for
me. I like doing that. But that is an ignorant thing to say, Jessica. I'm sorry. I don't know
what else to say. The queuing system is not a strategy, Jessica. It's not a skill. It's a
recognition that our brain uses three interacting systems to recognize words during the act of
reading. Yes, we use phonetic information, but also semantic information and syntactic information
to recognize words and create meaning. And good readers are not sounding out words. They are
creating meaning. And when we are creating meaning, instead of barking at print, we see letters in the
context of words. We see words in the context of sentences. And we see sentences in the context of
some context. And we use context or semantic information, as well as syntax or grammar and word
order, along with letter clues to recognize words. Recognizing words and reading means you perceive
it and you automatically know what it is. You recognize it. Ah, I recognize you. And part of
this, the last part of it, she says, to see if the word looks right, sounds right, and makes sense.
And this isn't quite accurate, but the idea to see if it makes sense. And she somehow demeans
that if that's a bad thing. No matter what approach we're using, we want students to do this. It's
called metacognition. We want students to pause to see if what they're reading makes sense, Jessica.
Jessica, you should understand that. All right. Ignorant three thing number two. And again, I'm
sorry, Jessica, but you should know better. And if you don't matter, know better, you should contact
a real literacy expert. But she says, my daughter was taught to use picture power, guess words
based on accompanying illustrations. And her daughter is in kindergarten. But yes, Jessica, this is
developmentally appropriate for kindergarten students to do this sort of thing. Reading literacy
is a developing skill. This helps develop what's called again, metacognition, thinking about,
thinking, pausing to see if you understand what you're reading. If what you're reading makes
sense within the context of the sentence, young readers should consider the picture as well.
But to guess at words, that term guess is a buzzword pulled out of context. Asking if it makes sense
is not guessing. Okay, here's ignorant thing a thing number three. She says, quote, she memorized
high frequencies, sight words, using a stack of laminated flashcards, and the who, etc. And again,
yes, they're called sight words. There are Xeno sight words, dull sight words, fry most
frequent words, sight words, these are the most frequent words that students encounter, like in
the of or we want students to be able to recognize these words automatically
to reduce the need for processing here for sounding to, you know, our short term memory
can hold only about seven things for about 15 seconds. We don't want them to have to process
the individual letters. So to reduce the processing, there are about anywhere from 100 to Xeno has
to 20 sight words that students shouldn't recognize by sight, you shouldn't have to sound them out.
And you don't memorize them per se, you learn to recognize them and flashcards are very appropriate,
just like you use for your number facts in first and second grade. And leaving kindergarten,
you should know anywhere from 25 to 50 sight words again, depending on the study. This is not the
same as the look say approach of the sixties. And I don't know of anyone who advocates the look say
approach today. I don't know you're using these buzz terms pulled out of context.
So in our next podcast, a little preview, Jessica Winter seems also not to know the difference between
units of study, balanced literacy and reading workshop. I hope to disambiguate these. I hope to
to point out the differences between these things. This has been the Reading Instruction Show. I'm
your host, Dr. Andy Johnson.