1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,800 Welcome to another exciting adventure of the Reading Instruction Show. I am your 2 00:00:04,800 --> 00:00:10,960 host, Dr. Andy Johnson. Title of today's podcast is called Forward to the Past with 3 00:00:10,960 --> 00:00:19,200 Basils. Now, in the 1980, basils were the main tool used for teaching reading and 4 00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:25,800 they still are today. Now, for those of you outside of education, a basal is a 5 00:00:25,800 --> 00:00:31,760 teaching manual for reading. It includes an anthology of stories for students to 6 00:00:31,760 --> 00:00:38,040 read, a teacher's manual with directions for how to teach reading and 7 00:00:38,040 --> 00:00:46,240 consumable workbooks to use to teach reading subskills. Now, there are things 8 00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:53,240 in these anthologies that some people call stories, but calling them stories is 9 00:00:53,240 --> 00:01:00,560 a bit charitable. They're usually mush designed not to engage readers, but to 10 00:01:00,560 --> 00:01:07,120 avoid offending anybody or causing any political waves. They are tasteless mush, 11 00:01:07,120 --> 00:01:13,280 white bread without butter, watery oatmeal, Lutheran coffee so weak you can see the 12 00:01:13,280 --> 00:01:20,320 bottom of the cup. The publishers of basils want their products to be adopted 13 00:01:20,320 --> 00:01:28,040 by large states you see, some with very conservative agendas. There are state 14 00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:33,640 legislators and other decision makers in these states who tend to take umbrage at 15 00:01:33,640 --> 00:01:41,400 anything that doesn't reflect their worldview. Their squeamishly narrow point 16 00:01:41,400 --> 00:01:46,920 of view about life and about reading instruction affects what they see. They 17 00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:52,480 think that reading is just a bunch of sounding out words and since they 18 00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:57,480 graduated first grade they also consider themselves to be experts on the subject 19 00:01:57,480 --> 00:02:05,000 of reading. I mention this because the publishers of basils want to enhance 20 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:11,960 their profits. That's why they use mush for stories and include a whole lot of 21 00:02:11,960 --> 00:02:17,240 sounding out word stuff in their packages. They want them adopted by these 22 00:02:17,240 --> 00:02:22,200 states so of course they're not going to offend anybody and they're going to put 23 00:02:22,200 --> 00:02:29,600 in them what they think people want to hear. Now they're called basils because 24 00:02:29,600 --> 00:02:36,200 at one time they were thought to provide a base or a foundation for reading and 25 00:02:36,200 --> 00:02:40,440 they were used in the early grades, but today they're used for grades one that 26 00:02:40,440 --> 00:02:47,280 six and that name is not very accurate. So instead of basils we will call them 27 00:02:47,280 --> 00:02:55,200 what they are commercial reading programs or CRPs. That's a much more accurate 28 00:02:55,200 --> 00:03:02,720 indicator of what they are. Now CRPs are not designed to maximize students 29 00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:12,200 literacy potential rather they are designed to maximize profits. Now I'm 30 00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:18,560 about to tell you a well-guarded super secret thing that you are not to share 31 00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:26,320 with anybody. This secret has been buried deep within Area 51 for years and was 32 00:03:26,320 --> 00:03:34,520 only recently smuggled out by space aliens and this is the secret. The 33 00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:41,360 ultimate goal of the educational industrial complex is not to help students 34 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:47,400 develop their full literacy potential or to improve society or to enhance 35 00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:53,360 democracy. Publishing companies don't really care about what research might 36 00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:59,880 say is best practice. Sure they put up a good front but they don't much care 37 00:03:59,880 --> 00:04:07,680 about what's best for the students in your classroom or your kids. Their 38 00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:14,480 bottom line is the bottom line. It's to generate profit not create literate 39 00:04:14,480 --> 00:04:21,560 human beings. Now there's nothing wrong with profit absolutely not. I'm not 40 00:04:21,560 --> 00:04:26,320 calling for the dismantling of capitalism or the downfall of the free 41 00:04:26,320 --> 00:04:34,880 market system. There's nothing wrong with profit as long as it doesn't come at 42 00:04:34,880 --> 00:04:42,120 the expense of somebody or something else but too often in education world 43 00:04:42,120 --> 00:04:48,560 that occurs especially when the educational industrial complex is 44 00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:57,680 involved. It's very difficult to be for profit and for people at the same time. 45 00:04:57,680 --> 00:05:06,640 It's hard to serve two masters. Thus the profits of the educational industrial 46 00:05:06,640 --> 00:05:13,960 complex often come at the expense of children, schools, school districts and 47 00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:21,520 ultimately society. And don't be fooled by the testimony of famous people on the 48 00:05:21,520 --> 00:05:29,520 inside cover of these CRPs. The CRPs pay them handsomely to have an opinion and to 49 00:05:29,520 --> 00:05:35,240 have a specific opinion. Imagine that. And I'm talking about hard court trophies, 50 00:05:35,240 --> 00:05:40,080 Houghton Mifflin reading, Macmillan McGraw Hill, Open Court, Scott 51 00:05:40,080 --> 00:05:48,400 Forsman, Big Money, Ka-ching, money being made at the expense of our children. So 52 00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:54,720 let's take a trip back to the future or future to the past. When I started 53 00:05:54,720 --> 00:06:02,960 teaching second grade in River Falls, Wisconsin in August of 1983, I certainly 54 00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:07,840 didn't have any real understanding of reading instruction or the reading 55 00:06:07,840 --> 00:06:15,280 process. I had had one reading methods course in my teacher education program. 56 00:06:15,280 --> 00:06:22,280 Today they got maybe two but that's it. Back then my total knowledge related to 57 00:06:22,280 --> 00:06:27,960 reading instruction consisted of the knowledge that was in the assigned 58 00:06:27,960 --> 00:06:32,880 textbook, much of which I didn't understand at the time and the things 59 00:06:32,880 --> 00:06:39,400 that the professor told me, much of which was ununderstandable. So like many 60 00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:45,000 teachers of the day, I just opened up the commercial reading program and followed 61 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:53,760 the directions. I did whatever they told me to do because the CRPs were scripted. 62 00:06:53,760 --> 00:06:59,560 Everything you are supposed to say to your students was written in bold face 63 00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:07,000 print. Good morning boys and girls. Today we are going to look at the short A-Style. 64 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:14,440 Easy peasy putting in pie. How could anyone fail to teach reading? You just 65 00:07:14,440 --> 00:07:21,120 read the directions and this by the way is exactly what the science of reading 66 00:07:21,120 --> 00:07:26,440 and publishing companies are pushing today. Just open the package and follow 67 00:07:26,440 --> 00:07:32,160 the directions with fidelity. Don't think they tell teachers. We'll have none of 68 00:07:32,160 --> 00:07:39,000 that thinking stuff around here. Just shut up and follow directions. Now back in 69 00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:45,640 1983 these stories like today were basically mush and nobody likes to read 70 00:07:45,640 --> 00:07:51,880 mush and many of the skills and the workbooks back in 1983 just like today 71 00:07:51,880 --> 00:07:59,440 had little to do with helping students to read or to learn to read. There were 72 00:07:59,440 --> 00:08:05,800 just a bunch of reading sub skills that somebody determined to be important. But 73 00:08:05,800 --> 00:08:12,200 who was it and how did they come up with these skills? Well here's exactly how 74 00:08:12,200 --> 00:08:17,080 they came up with the skills to include in these basals, these commercial 75 00:08:17,080 --> 00:08:24,000 reading programs. The designers tried to take the complex act of reading and 76 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:30,880 break it down into a bunch of teeny tiny little parts. This breakdown and 77 00:08:30,880 --> 00:08:37,880 analysis of the complex act of reading makes sense to an adult mind. That's 78 00:08:37,880 --> 00:08:44,200 because adults have the big picture. We know where everything fits in and more 79 00:08:44,200 --> 00:08:49,880 importantly adults have lots of knowledge and experience and the ability to 80 00:08:49,880 --> 00:08:56,160 analyze things using advanced cognitive operations. We know where the teeny tiny 81 00:08:56,160 --> 00:09:01,680 puzzle bits fit into the larger puzzle. We've seen the cover. We know what the 82 00:09:01,680 --> 00:09:08,320 picture looks like so of course it makes sense to us. But young children have very 83 00:09:08,320 --> 00:09:14,120 little knowledge of reading and very little experience and they are just 84 00:09:14,120 --> 00:09:21,240 beginning to use very rudimentary forms of cognitive operations. But what do we 85 00:09:21,240 --> 00:09:29,960 do? We give them a little teeny tiny piece of the puzzle one at a time and it 86 00:09:29,960 --> 00:09:35,880 makes little sense. These reading subscales, these teeny tiny puzzle pieces, 87 00:09:35,880 --> 00:09:42,120 they have no idea how it fits into the larger puzzle. They don't even know what 88 00:09:42,120 --> 00:09:50,240 the puzzle is. The very important but not really little puzzle piece makes no sense 89 00:09:50,240 --> 00:09:57,360 to them outside the context of the whole. But in 1983 as today it was assumed 90 00:09:57,360 --> 00:10:04,680 that if you put these little teeny tiny reading subscales little parts back 91 00:10:04,680 --> 00:10:11,000 together again you'd get a skilled reader at the end. Just like putting Humpty 92 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:15,840 Dumpty back together again and that's why we call it a Humpty Dumpty an 93 00:10:15,840 --> 00:10:22,160 approach to reading instruction. And this is exactly what Emily Hanford, 94 00:10:22,160 --> 00:10:28,760 Louisa Mott's state legislators in Minnesota, Wisconsin and other states 95 00:10:28,760 --> 00:10:36,320 and the science of reading clown club think we should do. They want us to put 96 00:10:36,320 --> 00:10:43,320 Humpty Dumpty together again one teeny tiny little reading subscale at a 97 00:10:43,320 --> 00:10:52,120 time. And the I think is here is that at the end readers will be able to use all 98 00:10:52,120 --> 00:11:00,400 these teeny tiny little parts to create meaning with print. They think without 99 00:11:00,400 --> 00:11:06,320 any supporting research that all these teeny tiny little reading subscales will 100 00:11:06,320 --> 00:11:13,760 naturally transfer to authentic reading situations. And of course all this Humpty 101 00:11:13,760 --> 00:11:20,760 Dumpty and nonsense is based on a theory a series of I think isms, personal 102 00:11:20,760 --> 00:11:31,640 anecdotes, I think isms. Now back in 1983 the basic CRP reading class went 103 00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:37,840 something like this. You gave students seat work while you called a small group 104 00:11:37,840 --> 00:11:42,320 of students, other students, to the kidney shape table at the front of the room 105 00:11:42,320 --> 00:11:49,840 for reading instruction. Seat work, work done at your seat and it usually 106 00:11:49,840 --> 00:11:57,720 consisted of workbook pages or some other type of lame work not designed to 107 00:11:57,720 --> 00:12:02,200 teach reading but to keep students busy at their seats so you could quote teach 108 00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:10,760 unquote hence the name seat work not reading work but seat work. And you 109 00:12:10,760 --> 00:12:17,160 didn't really teach you just read the directions and followed the scripted 110 00:12:17,160 --> 00:12:25,360 dialogue in the CRP and then you just told students to sound it out when they 111 00:12:25,360 --> 00:12:30,160 got stuck on a word during round robin reading. Sound it out, you'd say. Sound it 112 00:12:30,160 --> 00:12:37,320 out. That was my advanced pedagogical strategy for reading back in 1983 and 113 00:12:37,320 --> 00:12:45,240 I'm not too dissimilar from most teachers. My reading instruction was not 114 00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:50,880 dissimilar to many classes of the time. When students were done with their all 115 00:12:50,880 --> 00:12:55,120 important seat work which really wasn't all that important they could find a 116 00:12:55,120 --> 00:13:01,260 good book to read. Little did I know back then that finding a good book to 117 00:13:01,260 --> 00:13:07,800 read should be the main work of a good reading class. Now there was usually a 118 00:13:07,800 --> 00:13:13,560 three-day cycle. Day one I'd introduce the vocabulary words then we'd do round 119 00:13:13,560 --> 00:13:20,240 robin reading with a new story and then I teach a skill do a workbook page and 120 00:13:20,240 --> 00:13:25,200 send them back to their desk to do another really important but not really 121 00:13:25,200 --> 00:13:32,880 workbook page. On day two we'd silently reread the same story. I teach another 122 00:13:32,880 --> 00:13:38,600 skill and then send them back to their seats to do another really important but 123 00:13:38,600 --> 00:13:44,640 not really workbook page. On day three we do some other lame skills work that had 124 00:13:44,640 --> 00:13:49,800 nothing to do with real reading. I teach the lame skill that had nothing to do 125 00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:55,240 with real reading and send them back to do yet another really important but not 126 00:13:55,240 --> 00:14:01,120 really workbook page. I'd go to the next story rinse and repeat and repeat and 127 00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:08,280 repeat. The problem was that with all these really important but not really 128 00:14:08,280 --> 00:14:15,720 workbook pages students had no time to practice reading good books. How do you 129 00:14:15,720 --> 00:14:22,480 get better at anything if you don't practice? We did far more workbook pages 130 00:14:22,480 --> 00:14:32,680 in 1983 than actual reading. That's what they want today. Now looking back it 131 00:14:32,680 --> 00:14:37,920 seems that some students learn to read not because of our teaching but in spite 132 00:14:37,920 --> 00:14:45,480 of our teaching. Now good reading instruction in 1983 was good direction 133 00:14:45,480 --> 00:14:51,080 following because the basal had everything laid out for teachers. After 134 00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:58,560 all the basals were put together by reading experts. Who was I? A little 135 00:14:58,560 --> 00:15:06,640 teacher to question them. These reading gods up high. Even if a skill or 136 00:15:06,640 --> 00:15:12,560 worksheet seemed totally lame or useless and not at all something that would 137 00:15:12,560 --> 00:15:19,560 benefit our students. Our job was to implement what the writers of the basals 138 00:15:19,560 --> 00:15:26,760 told us to implement and in the way they wanted us to implement them. Within the 139 00:15:26,760 --> 00:15:35,720 CRP stories and skills were grouped into things called units. There was a test at 140 00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:41,440 the end of every unit to test students on the really important but not really 141 00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:49,680 skills from their workbook pages. And in 1983 good reading was good unit test 142 00:15:49,680 --> 00:15:58,880 taking. Good reading instruction was good unit test passing. It didn't really 143 00:15:58,880 --> 00:16:04,560 matter how effective a student was at creating meaning with print or how much 144 00:16:04,560 --> 00:16:13,080 reading that kid did outside a class. If the student could successfully complete 145 00:16:13,080 --> 00:16:19,440 the end of unit test by Gully that kid was a good reader and by Gully I was a 146 00:16:19,440 --> 00:16:25,520 good reading teacher. That was gosh darn good literacy instruction for many 147 00:16:25,520 --> 00:16:35,200 teachers back in 1983 except it wasn't good at all. Looking back now I know that 148 00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:40,680 I failed a lot of students because I didn't have me as a literacy professor 149 00:16:40,680 --> 00:16:45,800 and I didn't have my books to read and it would be another 40 years before my 150 00:16:45,800 --> 00:16:55,880 podcast became a thing. So two questions to ask. First did students enjoy reading 151 00:16:55,880 --> 00:17:02,560 class back then? Reading is supposed to be enjoyable and interesting that's why 152 00:17:02,560 --> 00:17:08,360 we do it but did they enjoy it? Were they interested? Did they look forward to 153 00:17:08,360 --> 00:17:15,440 coming to class every day? And I have to say hell no not really. Who gets 154 00:17:15,440 --> 00:17:20,360 excited about the schwa sound or dip thongs or stories about net and dead on 155 00:17:20,360 --> 00:17:26,840 a bed that was red? Yay! They say I get to go to reading class and do worksheets 156 00:17:26,840 --> 00:17:36,800 and read mush out loud. I can't wait. And second did I enjoy teaching reading? And 157 00:17:36,800 --> 00:17:43,840 again hell no. It was boring. It was lifeless. It was dull. Nothing fun or 158 00:17:43,840 --> 00:17:50,640 creative about it. I just opened the manual and did whatever was in the CRP 159 00:17:50,640 --> 00:17:57,680 boring as hell. So students didn't really like reading class and I didn't 160 00:17:57,680 --> 00:18:02,700 really like teaching reading class. We were creating a whole bunch of not 161 00:18:02,700 --> 00:18:08,560 liking but instead we could have been reading and celebrating good books and 162 00:18:08,560 --> 00:18:13,720 learning skills in the context of good books and writing stories and sharing 163 00:18:13,720 --> 00:18:18,960 stories. We could have actually been learning how to read and to be and 164 00:18:18,960 --> 00:18:27,280 become literate. What a waste. But forward to the past this is exactly what the 165 00:18:27,280 --> 00:18:33,640 science of reading clown club is advocating today. They want us to go 166 00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:40,200 back in time to adopt what wasn't very effective in the 80s and bring it back 167 00:18:40,200 --> 00:18:49,480 with a vengeance to 2023 and 2024 back to the future. Hey Doc Brown can you help 168 00:18:49,480 --> 00:18:59,160 me find a flux capacitor? Now whole language. In the late 80s I began to 169 00:18:59,160 --> 00:19:06,600 hear about a different type of reading instruction called whole language. 170 00:19:06,600 --> 00:19:15,080 Now I realize the instant reflective reaction that some have when they hear 171 00:19:15,080 --> 00:19:21,840 whole language. The reaction is debunked. They proudly 172 00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:27,240 exclaim as they march around the room with high knees. It's a reflexive 173 00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:32,760 reaction for some especially within the science of reading clown club. 174 00:19:32,760 --> 00:19:40,800 Vygotsky would call this a lower mental function. These include sucking, grasping, 175 00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:46,200 attention, involuntary behaviors, elementary perception and debunking 176 00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:54,120 things. Debunked. It's been debunked. It's debunked. Movement from lower to higher 177 00:19:54,120 --> 00:20:00,960 mental functions occurs through language, culture and social interaction. So one 178 00:20:00,960 --> 00:20:07,440 has to ask what is it that keeps clowns using this lower level reflexive mental 179 00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:13,400 function instead of moving toward the higher mental functions such as logic 180 00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:18,840 and planning, decision-making and other advanced cognitive operations. And the 181 00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:25,760 answer is simple. They're not exposed to a great deal of culture or social 182 00:20:25,760 --> 00:20:32,600 interaction related to reading instruction. They're stuck at this lower level 183 00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:39,240 reflexive mental function because they reject reason and research and they 184 00:20:39,240 --> 00:20:46,440 won't listen to any idea that may contradict their own. So the science of 185 00:20:46,440 --> 00:20:51,560 reading clown club ends up living in echoing silo screaming debunked debunked 186 00:20:51,560 --> 00:20:59,720 debunked debunked debunked debunked debunked debunked debunked debunked. Every time they encounter certain words that don't fit in their restrictive reading 187 00:20:59,720 --> 00:21:08,160 paradigm. Now, let me be honest. When I first heard about whole language, I had no 188 00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:14,360 idea what they were talking about. Couldn't wrap my head around it. It made no 189 00:21:14,360 --> 00:21:22,680 sense. How was it possible to teach reading without worksheets? And how could 190 00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:28,080 you teach anything without a teacher's manual? What do you do for 60 minutes if 191 00:21:28,080 --> 00:21:33,600 you don't have a teacher's manual to tell you what to do? And how do you know 192 00:21:33,600 --> 00:21:39,560 what to say to students? And how do you know if children are learning without 193 00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:47,240 end-of-unit tests? And how could students possibly learn if they were enjoying 194 00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:53,120 themselves? They shouldn't enjoy themselves. And how was it possible to 195 00:21:53,120 --> 00:21:57,900 learn to read if students weren't reading Marsh designed to reinforce teeny 196 00:21:57,900 --> 00:22:02,720 tiny reading subskills? Those all-important scub skills which really 197 00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:09,480 aren't. And won't all that reading good books stuff and talking about books and 198 00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:13,880 writing their own stories and sharing their own stories, won't that get in the 199 00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:21,080 way of learning to read and write? And who is going to tell children to sound it 200 00:22:21,080 --> 00:22:27,160 out when they come to a word they don't recognize? Students shouldn't talk to 201 00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:35,680 each other. Are you crazy? They have to be quiet. That's how learning happens. They 202 00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:41,680 have to sit quietly and absorb all the words that come out my mouth. That's how 203 00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:48,000 it works you see. My vocal cords they vibrate and produce a sound. The sound 204 00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:52,960 waves float through the air magically and vibrate the eardrums of students and 205 00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:57,600 go on to carry electrical signals to their brains that are converted to words 206 00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:01,280 and the words are converted to sentences and ideas and learning takes place. 207 00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:07,560 That's how it happens. Don't you know? None of this talking and reading and 208 00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:14,000 writing and thinking and enjoying. Learning should not be enjoyable or 209 00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:21,200 conversational. It should be quiet drudgery. Damn it! Students should not talk to 210 00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:26,240 each other. They should not be able to choose what to read and they should not 211 00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:33,120 be able to read enjoyable books and any oral reading mistakes should be 212 00:23:33,120 --> 00:23:39,440 corrected instantly with a loud sharp voice. That's the way God intended it 213 00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:46,760 to be. However, just because you don't know about something or don't understand 214 00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:52,680 something doesn't mean that something is bad. It just means you don't know or 215 00:23:52,680 --> 00:24:00,200 understand. Hence whole language. Today the science of reading people, state 216 00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:07,040 legislators and clowns consider whole language to be something horrible. But 217 00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:13,600 they don't know what that horrible thing is. But I'll tell you what is horrible 218 00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:20,800 is coming to conclusions on things with absolutely no knowledge of what that 219 00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:28,560 horrible thing is. And that's not science and it certainly isn't reading science. 220 00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:36,800 It's witch doctorry. But to give you just a little perspective on whole 221 00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:43,080 language and commercial reading programs at the height of whole language in the 222 00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:49,960 90s, commercial reading programs began including the words whole language on 223 00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:55,560 the covers and in the descriptions of their products. Imagine that. Isn't that 224 00:24:55,560 --> 00:25:05,760 hilarious? Slimey bastards for 600 Ken. The category is slimy bastards for 600 and 225 00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:11,200 a chance to move ahead. This is on the cover and in the descriptions of CRPs 226 00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:18,920 today. Oh, what is science of reading? That's right. This has been another 227 00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:23,880 adventure of the reading instruction show. I'm your host, Dr. Andy Johnson. Our next 228 00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:49,200 podcast, little examine reading workshop. Thank you.