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This is the Reading Instruction Show. I'm your host as always, Dr. Andy Johnson. Topic

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of today's podcast or the title, pictures, word cues, and memorization, foolishness or

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fall to all. And I'm dissecting an article written by Corinne Hess for Wisconsin Public

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Radio published on September 26, 2023. And the title of that article is Teacher Prep

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Programs Not on the Same Page as Wisconsin's New Reading Law. A law about reading. A law

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about how you should teach reading. Now, I'm addressing Corinne's article here

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because the severe un-understandings of this article and found therein is illustrative

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of what we see on the national level. So, as a public service, I'm pointing out the

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comedy of errors and clownery in this article and in so doing pointing out the many errors

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and clownery occurring in states all over the nation and in other countries. And it is

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a comedy without a laugh track. And many of these errors and clownisms are perpetuated

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by what scientists call a clown. And this is a technical term used to delineate those

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who think they know much more about literacy than they actually do. And a gathering of

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clowns is called a clown club and an organized attempt to spread clownery is called the science

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of reading. So, Corinne Hess writes the following, by next year Wisconsin schools will have to

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change the way they're teaching children to learn to read. A sweeping bipartisan bill

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signed into law this summer will shift schools from what has been known as quote, balanced

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literacy, unquote, to the quote, science of reading, unquote, approach. Now, here's

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my question to Corinne and the clowns and the science of reading and all those people.

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What exactly do you mean by science of reading approach and approach? What would I see if

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I were to step into a one hour science of reading reading class? What specific strategies

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would teachers be using? Please, oh, please take me through a 60 minute first grade class.

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What activities would I see? What would they not be doing that they currently are? And

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how do you know they are or are not be using these? Give me a list of exactly what you

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want to see. And another question, what do you mean by balanced literacy? I would posit

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that 98% of those who think balanced literacy is a bad thing, don't know what it is. They've

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been told it's bad by the bad thing police, therefore they think it's bad. But if balance

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literacy is bad, does that mean the National Reading Panel report was wrong? Did they get

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this wrong? Now, in the world of reading research, not the fake kind of research used by journalists,

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but real reading research, you can't just use words. You have to know what the words

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mean. So please, State of Wisconsin and Science of Reading and Corinne Hess and Emily Hanford

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define your terms. That's not too much to ask for. What do you mean by balanced literacy?

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What do you mean by science of reading? What instructional practices do you want to see

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more of and less of? And another question, the assumption here is that balanced literacy

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is a causal factor leading to bad reading scores. The State of Wisconsin has somehow

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determined that balanced literacy is what has caused reading scores to plummet, although

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outside a COVID dip, reading scores have been consistent, if not steadily rising since 1971.

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This idea that there's a crisis in reading is just another hoax, kind of like the Big

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Foot hoax and the fake moon landing. Nonetheless, the Wisconsin State Legislature has listened

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only to the science of reading clown club. They have determined what the variable is.

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They've isolated it. They've determined that they know the cause of this mythological reading

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crisis that really isn't and this variable they have determined is balanced literacy.

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What science of reading? What science was used to determine the causal factor and the

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effect? We know the science of reading clown club loves good science. They're all, science

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see this and science see that. But real reading science does not use anecdotal evidence or

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personal experience. I think isms or data pulled out of context to come to conclusions

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on things. So please point me to any peer reviewed research study showing that balanced

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literacy is the cause of anything other than good literacy instruction. Point me to a peer

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reviewed research article that shows that another approach leads to better results than balanced

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literacy instruction. Show me some peer reviewed research that shows a science of reading approach

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whatever that is is better than another and not anecdotal evidence, not personal experiences

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or perceptions and not data pulled out of context, but peer reviewed research. All you

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sciencey people that's not too much to ask for. And unless I'm going to tell you can

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do this, your arguments are without merit. Well, they're without merit in an academic

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setting anyway. And an academic setting is where academic decisions like reading instruction

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should take place. But the clown club operates outside an academic setting in this dimensional

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plane. The rules of cause and effect don't apply outside an academic environment. The

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only variable that matters is the amount of money you can get for speaking fees or that

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which gives you more attention and higher speaking fees or more profits or more votes

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for elective office is good. That which doesn't is irrelevant. Ms. Hess goes on to say, quote,

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data shows data shows data that most teacher education programs at college and universities

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are still not fully teaching the science of reading unquote data shows this the data shows

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and this kind of makes my point doesn't it? It makes my point in an academic environment.

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We don't walk around saying data shows this and data shows that data Schmada data outside

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a meaningful context is just noise. Data is different from peer reviewed research peer

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reviewed research puts data in a context. It clarifies it and it allows for checks and

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balances. Data you say I say nuts to your data. I mean if data were the bottom line,

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I could get you all sorts of data. I could get you data to show that children who put

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clothes pins on their noses would score higher on a reading test. Absolutely I could easily

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manipulate the conditions where that was the outcome where students who put clothes pins

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on their nose got higher scores on reading tests. Easy peasy. Then I could walk around

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saying data shows that putting clothes pins on your nose results in higher reading test

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scores. And I would be stating some facts but I would not be telling the truth. My data

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would never pass peer review muster. No. And again data shows that most teacher education

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programs at colleges and universities are still not fully teaching the science of reading.

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And if you're using data, okay, but what data? What data are used to come to this conclusion?

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And what do you mean by science of reading? What should we be doing more of and less of?

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And how do you know these more ofs and less ofs are causal factors or variables for anything?

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And do you really want non experts to dictate the curriculum at our universities? And sadly

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the answer to that is yes, you do. And do you really believe that having passed the first

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grade makes you a reading expert? And sadly the answer to this again is yes, you do. Ms.

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Hess goes on to say, quote, instead of learning how to read through pictures, word cues and

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memorization, children will be taught using a phonics based method that focuses on sounding

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out letters and phrases with the hope of addressing the state's lagging reading scores. Oh, they've

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determined that that's going to fix it. They've determined that interesting. But let's unpack

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that first sense, learning how to read through pictures, word cues and memorization. This

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is an off repeated idea. And it's just as naive as it is ignorant. I don't know what

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else to call it. It's not even a talking point. It's just a bunch of talking, a bunch of words

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thrown together to create a word salad full of spoiled cucumbers and stale cheese. So

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what in the hell are you talking about? Learning to read through pictures? Do you seriously

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think that someplace in Wisconsin or in America or in the world, there's a teacher saying,

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boys and girls, we're just going to look at pictures today by just looking at pictures.

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You learn to read today. I will show you how to look at pictures. Then we're going to

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practice looking at pictures and your homework for tomorrow is to look at pictures. Yes, I'm

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sure that happened. And I say this with all due respect, but pull your heads out of your

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collective asses pictures. Nobody teaches reading through pictures. Literacy is a skill

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that emerges as children are exposed to good literacy instruction as well as a good healthy

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literacy environment. And how do I know this? Well, the work of researchers like Brian Canborn

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and others. Effective reading instruction enables this skill, this literacy skill to

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emerge more quickly. Ineffective reading instruction like a purely skills based approach.

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Impedes the development of literacy. I'm not saying we shouldn't have skills based.

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Some students need more, some students need less, but there is no one size fits all. In

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preschool and kindergarten, it is developmentally appropriate. You clowns you to use the pictures

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to retell a story that children have already heard. This is sometimes called pretend reading.

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This helps to develop the concept of print as well as the concept of a word, story, grammar,

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oral language, thinking and vocabulary. And it also exposes them to print. This is much

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different from learning how to read through pictures. Picture reading is an important

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research base step for children from birth to age five or six. And further, some think

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that we should give children books without pictures. The I think is here is that children

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would learn to read faster without looking at the pictures. And I don't know how to

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say this politely, but this is one of the dumbest ideas, one of the dumbest I think

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isms I've ever heard. You think because there are good pictures in children's books, they're

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going to look at the pictures and not the words. How exactly did you come to this conclusion?

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Did you read it on Wikipedia? Did scientists tell you this? Did researchers tell you this?

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Did you go to a psychic or perhaps Emily Hanford called you up on the telephone and told you

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this? Eye movement research looks at the path that people's eyes take as they're reading.

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It tracks the path of their eyes on the text. And when you look at some of this eye movement

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research of early readers, they usually look at the sentence first and then the picture.

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But if they looked at the picture first and then the sentence, what is the problem? If

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you think it's a problem, how do you know it's a problem? In science, you can't just

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walk around randomly assigning variables to various outcomes here and there. Let's take

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a look at word cues. Again, what are you talking about? Word cues. You can't just say stuff.

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What is a word cue? What do you mean here? Isn't every word a cue for something? What

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does it mean to teach reading through word cues? What is a word cue and where in America

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or the world is anybody teaching children to read using word cues? Again, we have rules.

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And one of the most important rules is that words are supposed to mean things. These are

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the rules. The noise that comes out your mouth and the words that slip from your fingers

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onto the page are supposed to have actual meaning. But you're just blabbering stuff.

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You think sounds right. You're doing that. But instead you're breaking the rules. We

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have rules. Memorization. The same with memorization. Teaching reading to read through memorization

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where in America is anybody teaching children to read using memorization and what would

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that instruction look like? Boys and girls, here are a list of words to memorize for reading

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class today. Form your homework, memorize these words. Now, are you referring to sight

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words? Is that what you mean? Yes, there are a list of words called sight words or most

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frequent words. Is this what you're referring to? The fry list contains the hundred most

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frequent words, the doce list, the two hundred and twenty most frequent words and the zeno

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sight word list contains a hundred and seven most frequent words that students will encounter.

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These are usually function words, words like the, of, he, in, there, and these three lists

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are relatively the same. They're based on different research conducted at different

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times. Sight words are usually addressed in kindergarten, first grade, sometimes early

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second. And there's plenty of research to support the practice of helping students memorize

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sight words, just like you memorize math facts. If students don't have to actively process

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the letters of these function words, more space is available to address the content

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words and to create meaning with text. Learning the hundred, hundred seven or two hundred

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twenty words by sight is one part of reading instruction, one small part, but that does

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not mean we teach children to read by memorizing words. Be serious. Have you ever read any

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research, Emily Hanford, clown clubs, state of Wisconsin, about sight words? Do you know

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anything about how sight words are used in the early grades? Yeah, this is the kind of

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falder all and foolishness put out by the clown club and promoted by the high priest

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of clownery Emily Hanford. Going on, quote, Wisconsin's new reading

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law doesn't explicitly tell the universities how to teach, but it will prohibit the Department

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of Public Instruction from approving teacher education programs unless they include science

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based early literacy instruction and do not incorporate, do not incorporate, they shall

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not incorporate three queuing. A model that emphasizes that skilled reading should include

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using meaning and sentence structure cues to read new words. Wisconsin teachers who do

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not receive this training and they're talking to science based early literacy will not be

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eligible for a license beginning July 1st, 2026. Do not receive science based early literacy

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instruction. So they're going to check and they can't incorporate three queuing.

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Now this Wisconsin reading law doesn't explicitly tell universities how to teach. And right,

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I'm not going to tell you that you have to give me your money, but I'm going to hit

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you with a hammer unless you do give me your money, but you don't have to. I'm not telling

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you it's your choice. And again, what exactly is science based early literacy instruction?

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Are you saying state of Wisconsin that what we currently teach is not backed by reading

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science? Do you mean to tell me that all those peer reviewed academic journals I've been

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reading for over 30 years are nothing more than comic books?

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Now I'll tell you I teach a literacy methods course just across the state here in Minnesota

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at Minnesota State University. And I will tell you as well that every word that comes

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out of my mouth in my literacy methods course can be supported not by data, not by a single

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outlier study, but by a wide range of research. And that's what I teach looks much different

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from what the clown club and the letters lunatics think I should be teaching. And you're forcing

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universities not to teach something just like the state of Florida. You want certain things

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banned from our college classrooms. And this mandate is based on I think isms and data.

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You say that universities must not incorporate the three queuing systems. You're saying

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that this is a model that emphasizes that skills instruction should not include meaning

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and certain structure. And do you see why real reading scientists call you clowns? First

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of all, the three queuing systems is not a model. A model in an academic sense shows

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how theories work in reality. The three queuing systems is an understanding. I'll explain

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this for the last time. I'll explain the three queuing systems. And that's what I said

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about 17 last time ago. But a system consists of interdependent and interacting elements

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or subsystems working together. They are interdependent, meaning that one relies on the other and

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they are interacting because what occurs in one subsystem impacts the other. A word recognition

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system in our brain consists of three interacting and interdependent queuing subsystems. It's

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a system of neural networks working together to create meaning with print during reading.

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We use three queuing systems to recognize words during reading. And recognizing words

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is different from identifying words. Recognizing words is seeing a word in print and instantly

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knowing what it is. To recognize words, we use phonetic cues. Yes, that's phonics. But

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we also use semantic cues, which is context or meaning and syntactic cues, grammar or

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word order. These interact and are interdependent. And that's empirical. There are plenty of

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studies in a variety of fields showing that people recognize words quicker when they're

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found within a meaningful context. That's a semantic cue. And when a word, when readers

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read a word, when they can use grammar in word order to determine what that word is,

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they read it quicker. That's syntactic cues. Words presented in isolation or outside meaningful

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contexts are not recognized as quickly. And there are plenty of studies. But if you think

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that reading is just a sounding out words, and if you only look for sounding out word

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studies, you get a very narrow view of the reading world. You're looking at reading

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reality through a people. And this essentially is what Emily Hanford and the science of reading

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clown club are doing. They're looking through their people and declaring that what they

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see is the truth. Now, what they see is a real picture of reading reality. But the things

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they see through their people are indeed there, but it's just a very narrow view. And this

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very narrow view, this reading as sounding out words view leads to a distorted view of

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reading reality. And it's based on what it doesn't include. Now, let's look at syntactic

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cues. Writing is one of the best ways to develop the syntactic cueing system. The reading and

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writing connection has been firmly established. Writing, authentic writing should be part of

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literacy instruction of a reading program. There's plenty of research that shows that

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children use context, semantic cues enhances their ability to read. Plenty of evidence

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to say that show that writing influences reading. And there's plenty of evidence showing that

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using letter sound cues, phonics is essential. Now, this is what research conducted by real

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reading science tells us that yes, we should be teaching phonics as well as including activities

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to develop these other cueing systems. And as far as phonics goes, we should include

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various types of phonics instruction, including synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, large

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unit or analogy phonics and embedded phonics. And the National Reading Panel report tells

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us this. Are you saying that the report is lying that they got it wrong? Here's the

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thing, Emily, clowns, you've become research resistant. I and others can provide and have

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provided you with plenty of research demonstrating that skilled readers use all three cueing

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systems when reading. We can provide and have provided you with research that shows a bad

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balanced approach to literacy instruction is more effective than a skills-based perspective,

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but you've become research resistant. As I said, recognizing words is different from

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identifying words. Identifying words is when a word is in your lexicon, but you don't recognize

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it. So you have to consciously apply a strategy. And there are four strategies, phonics, morphemic

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analysis, analogy and context. And there is an abundance of real research showing that

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it is in children's best interest to teach all four word identification strategies,

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not just phonics. And let's go on. In our article, quote, I do believe that universities

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have been one of the major causes of the problems we see in reading, said State Representative

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Joel Kitchens, Republican Sturgeon Bay, one of the lead authors on the reading legislation.

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They now seem to be moving in the right direction, but change is hard. Now, I do agree with one

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thing here that representative Kitchens says, he says he believes universities have been

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one of the major causes of the problems we now see in reading. And I agree that he does

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indeed believe this. He believes he has found a causal factor and he believes the causal

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factor is university. He may also believe in unicorns and believe the moon landing was

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fake. But just like he believes universities have been one of the major causes of problems

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in reading, believing something doesn't make that something so. And it has not yet been

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established that there is a problem in reading. You're just saying the stuff. It's a hoax.

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So in summary, one, nine points. It is not clear exactly what they mean by science of

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reading or science of reading approach. Two, most who are against balanced literacy do

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not know what in the heck it is. Only that it's supposed to be bad because somebody

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told them so. Three, doubt it is very different from research. Four, no legitimate research

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has been provided showing that science of reading approaches, whatever they may be, are

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better or worse than other approaches. As a matter of fact, it's been consistently pointed

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out that there is no magic formula, no one size fits all approach. Five, the state, the

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Wisconsin state legislature and the science of reading clown club seems to go about randomly

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assigning variables to what they think is poor reading outcomes. They do not use the

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very science they purport to advocate. And six, the idea that children are being taught

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to read using pictures, word cues and memorization is clownishly silly. Pictures, word cues and

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memorization are merely words that people heard were supposed to be bad. And these people

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are using these words without understanding what they mean. Number seven, three queuing

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is a model. We use a system of neural networks to recognize words. There are three interactive

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and interdependent systems that work together. The phonetic system, the semantic system and

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the syntactic system. And we create activities to develop these three systems. We don't teach

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them. Number eight, recognizing words is different from identifying words. Recognizing words

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is seeing a word and instantly knowing what it is. We create activities to develop this

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ability, the ability to do this automatically. Nine, identifying word is seeing a word and

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not recognizing it and applying a strategy. And there are four strategies that should

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be taught explicitly to all children. This is what we do teach. We do teach phonics.

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Yes, we teach also morphemic analysis, analogy and context clues. If we only taught one of

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those, we'd be giving our children one fourth of a reading education. This has been the

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