This is the Reading Instruction Show. I'm your happy genial host, Dr. Andy Johnson.
The topic of today's podcast is called, or the title is called, Burning Witches,
the Three Cueing System, Censorship, and the Literacy Inquisition.
So, this podcast is about burning witches and inquisitions and censorship and stuff.
But first, let's be clear about something upfront about education in general.
The profiteers see education in terms of wealth generation. And I'm talking about
Cambia, Lexia, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, Pearson, McMillan,
Scholastic. These are all part of the educational industrial complex currently
controlling education. And let's not fool ourselves. They are in charge. These are
the profiteers. They see literacy as something that must be acquired. You must
get it from somebody. And literacy instruction must be bought. Instructional
materials must be paid for, you see. It's all a transaction that involves money.
And they are the money changers in the temple of education. But progressive
educators, meaning-based educators, don't see human beings in such a limited way.
To us, literacy is developed. It's manifested. Literacy is learned. It's not
bought. We don't sell literacy. We don't sell literacy instruction. It's not for sale.
It's not a transaction. Now, the profiteers see education in much the same way as a
slaughterhouse sees cows. They're creating products that will be consumed by the masses.
And the masses must acquire their product for it to be consumed. And if a few cows
are killed along the way, well, that's just the cost of doing business, isn't it?
And if there's research that shows that cows are treated horribly in the process
and there are better ways of getting good-tasting protein into our diets and
that something else could be healthier, well, that uncomfortable bit of research
is ignored or dismissed. After all, they've got billions tied up in their
cow-killing machinery. You can't expect them to change just because something
else might be better. They've got responsibilities, you see. They're
responsible to their shareholders, you see. And they've got to make the
decisions that are best for their families, you see. So on with the cow-killing and
the educational cow-killers go on generating tremendous amounts of wealth
while killing the literacy potential of millions. Their wealth-generating
factories continue to crank out high-priced, one-size-fits-all, scripted
curriculum that disproportionately impact disenfranchised populations. And the
achievement gap, which is really an equity gap widens. However, the social
order is maintained with the white majority in charge. And in the process,
the voice of teachers and students are silent. And just so there is no confusion
on this little tidbit, let me state this in the clearest possible terms.
Wealth is being generated at the expense of our children and taxpayers. In the
meantime, the profiteers tell the disenfranchise to pull themselves up by
their bootstraps. And while the disenfranchise explain that they have no
boots, much less bootstraps by wish to pull themselves up, the profiteers
continue. They grab and they take and they manipulate and they hoard. They're
like the rich man who ignored poor brother Lazarus by the side of the road.
And in their Pearson publishing boardrooms, they're oblivious to the
impact that they're having. They feed like pigs at the public trough. That's
what they do. But the question to ask is how much wealth is enough, Lexia? How high
is the sky they ask us? They control the machinery. Wealth is power. Wealth and
power enable the wealthy and powerful to control the narrative sensory. They bought
and paid for the term science and they use it relentlessly. Science. And they
slap us in the face with it like a dead fish every time we turn around. Science,
science, science, science of reading, reading science, research based reading,
science. And who can argue with science? Science is objective. Science is pure.
Science is good. It proves things. It creates certainty. It enables us to
control the world around us. Archimedes said, give me a lever long enough and a
fulcrum on which to place it and I shall move the world. Science. It's all about
leverage, cause and effect. If we do A, B will occur. And if we want B, we just have
to find the right A. It's as simple as that, don't you see? If good reading
performance is B, we simply need to find the right A to make B occur.
Reality is a mechanical device filled with cause, effect, phenomena. It's a
machine with cogs and pulleys where one thing makes another thing happen.
Everyone knows that. Although systems theory and quantum physics would have
something to say about this. But in this mechanical world, to fix a problem, you
just rub a little science on it. Science is our savior. Science is our God. It is
our balm. To fix a reading problem, you just add a little science to it, like
adding a little vanilla extract to frosting, bingo, frosting and reading.
There is a problem, however, with the science of reading, frosting, fixing
scenario. One of the problems is there wasn't really a reading problem to start
with. It was all made up. The crisis in reading was a manufactured crisis created
so that the wealthy and powerful could become more wealthy and more powerful. And
they told us that the reading sky was falling and some people believed it. They
believed that there was a reading problem. Reading test scores are going down,
down, down, they said. And they trotted out colorful graphs and charts to prove
the point. Look, they said, numbers. And everyone in the crowd went, ooh, numbers.
They pulled data out of context to create illusions and used false conclusions
to create a view of reality that did not replicate the reality it reported to
represent. And then they found a media charlatan, Emily Hanford, who was willing
to sell her soul for fame and wealth. She could not resist the temptation. And the
evil ones said to Jesus, turn these stones into bread. And here is the big
sticking point with the science of reading community and the profiteers
selling their science of reading snake oil. The same scientific principles they
ask us to apply to reading instructional methods are not applied to
identifying problems or solutions. Again, the same scientific principles they ask
us to apply to reading instruction. They do not apply to identify identifying
reading problems and reading solutions. That means the idea of a reading crisis
is not born of peer reviewed research data or valid methodology. It's not born of
basic scientific principles. The real problem here is that there is no problem.
The alleged problem, the cause of the alleged problem, and the solution to the
alleged problem are all based on I think isms, perception. It's a manufactured
crisis. The profiteers and politicians have used pseudoscience to convince the
masses that there is a crisis and that they know both the cause and solution.
Pseudoscience is when you start with a pre-determined belief and look only for
data that supports your pre-determined belief. For example, because my kid can't
read they say there's a reading crisis. Let's go find some data to support my
preconceived idea. Because there's a reading crisis it must be caused by lack
of phonics. Let's go find some data. I don't think we teach phonics enough. Let's
go find some data. If we teach more phonics we'll fix the problem. Let's go
find some data. Because phonics works for one kid it must work for all kids.
Let's go find some data. Because there's a reading crisis teachers aren't being
prepared correctly. Let's go find some data. But that's not science is it? Here's
the thing about science that the science of reading community seems not to have
grasped. You can't be just a little bit science of reading. You're either a
science of reading or you're not. You can't be just a little bit science of
reading or a science when it's convenient of reading or what I think of
reading. The science of reading community is really the pseudoscience of
reading. For evidence the profiteers and politicians and policy makers try out
emotional stories of parents and children. I can't read the children say
sadly and they show sad pictures with sad children with sad little tears running
down their cheeks. And parents tell sad stories. My kid didn't learn they say
with great emotion and that's proof that there's a problem right there. That's
proof that what we're doing in schools doesn't work. And it's proof that you
literacy professors with all your reason and knowledge and research and experience
are teaching pre-service teachers the wrong things in the wrong ways. There's
the proof right there they say. And when I ask where they say right there.
Weren't you listening to the sad stories? There's a problem they say and we know
the cause they say and then they get very dark like the witnesses at the
Salem witch trials. They point their bony fingers and cry out it's balanced
literacy. I saw them outside dancing naked in the moonlight and practicing
their balanced literacy rituals. Burn them burn them burn them.
Balanced literacy and the three killing systems. They're making our cows sick and
our children illiterate and screams of horror and wails of lament. Cry out burn
them burn them burn them. And I looked in the school window and there they were
guessing at words. No they say burn them burn them burn them. It's the three
killing systems and balanced literacy and whole language and whole word
witches all of them burn them. And one says they looked at me and they gave me
the evil eye. They had our children reading books. They were actually reading
and enjoying themselves. Oh the horror of it all. Satanists burn them. The children
the mothers of Liberty wail. What about the children who's going to protect the
children. And I saw kids selecting their own books.
Blasphemy and the children the children they were they were enjoying reading. No
that can't be. Burn them burn them burn them. And there's the Inquisition. The
members of the literacy Inquisition continue on their holy crusade. They're
banning books and banning words and banning ideas. Books and words and ideas
are dangerous things. They could enable people to think to think about things and
to think critically. And they know we can't have any of that thinking stuff
around here. And there's a law now in Minnesota based on the read act sponsored
by Representative Heather Edelson. It says that I am not to teach the three
queuing systems. I cannot say it. I cannot mention it. I cannot have it on my
syllabus. I cannot even think about it. It's dangerous you see. It's a dangerous
thing. What about the children who will protect the children. But it's censorship.
What else do you call it. Suppression restriction control blotting out. If you
can't win in the arena of ideas you suppress ideas. You censor ideas. You
eliminate ideas. You don't permit certain words to appear. And that's what it's
come to now in the state of Minnesota. Censorship and control. If you can't win
your argument in an academic setting which they can't. If you can't convince
people using reason and research you control. You silence. You threaten. You
bully and you censor. And that's what the science of reading people are doing. In
Minnesota as in other states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Texas. They've passed a
law making it illegal to include things like the three queuing systems. I can't
include that in my courses. I'll be breaking the law you see and they'll
send the reading police into my classroom and drag me out in handcuffs. And
here's the really really sick thing about this literacy inquisition. The
inquisitors don't even know what the three queuing system is. Yet they have
banned it. It's censored. It shall not appear. They've censored and banned
something that they don't even know what is. It is not a strategy. It's not a
method. It's not something you teach. It's not an approach. It's simply an
understanding. A recognition that our brain uses lots of different information
to recognize words when creating meaning with print. And that's what reading is.
Creating meaning with print. Our brain consists of a series of neural networks
that all work together. Our brain is not a set of Legos each working
independently operating separately from each other. Rather there are
interacting and interdependent systems all communicating all providing
information about words and sentences and meeting and letter sounds during
the reading process. This my friends is an empirical fact and empirical means it
can be measured or observed. And how do I know? Did I read a study? Did I read a
book? Do I listen to a famous person? Did I listen to a radio journalist? Did I
read it in a newspaper? Did the moms for liberty tell me? Heaven forbid. I've
spent years reading research from a wide variety of areas doing scholarly work
writing books and articles working with kids not a couple months decades like
many other literacy experts I've spent decades three of them. So my fine friends
let me describe just some of the empirical evidence that informs us that
the brain uses multiple forms of information to create meaning with
print. It uses a system of cues or queuing systems and there are three
prominent ones although a case could be made for others but there are three
primary queuing systems and we've been calling this the three queuing systems
so people know what we're talking about. However now we'll have to call it that
which shall not be named. Spreading activation studies in 1975 Colin and
Lufthus put forth the spreading activation theory suggesting that semantic
information is organized by semantic distance or relatedness. Semantic means
meaning. In other words things are organized in our brain by associations
by how close they relate to similar things in your brain. For example when
you hear the word cat you automatically associate it with cat things soft furry
paws kitty pet. These things are closely related to the word cat. The neural
pathways leading to these things are activated. These things come to mind. What
is not activated when you hear the word cat you don't automatically think of
short a words or CVC words or the AT phonogram. You don't think about letter
sounds or letter patterns you think of things. Clearly we have access to
semantic information when we see the word cat in print and yes there is
orthographic information on the page and stored in the head but semantic
information meaning ideas takes precedent over orthographic information.
Orthographic refers to letter arrangements and spelling. Now the priming
studies let's take a look at this and this is just a basic rudimentary
explanation but Higgins and Franz back in 1977 looked at how something before is
primed how something before primes something that comes after in a sentence.
Something before primes something that comes after and again this is just a
very basic overview but given a sentence the subjects would have to identify a
missing word or they'd be asked to identify words and subjects were able
to identify words that made sense within the sentence and that's semantic
queuing faster than words that didn't make sense and again semantic means
meaning. For example the cat chased a and the sentence would be followed by the
word mouse or a similar word round. The cat chased a mouse the chat chased a
round. I guess that's not a good example because around a round a sound no a
pound a laugh there you go laugh. Subjects were able to identify the
semantically correct word faster. Studying many subjects many times over time
the differences were statistically significant. Clearly readers were using
semantic information the semantic queuing system along with letter information
the phonetic queuing system to recognize words to create meaning and the
same sorts of studies were conducted with sentences that isolated syntax as
a queuing mechanism and syntax refers to grammar and word order. The syntactical
information primed the words that follow. Subjects were able to identify words
relying on syntactical information quicker than words that did not and the
differences between many people on many examples was statistically
significant which is why studying a list of words out of context or words in
isolation may have some value but should always be accompanied by studying
words in the context of a sentence and it shows why these goofy dibbles tests
in which students are asked to identify lists of nonsense words and lists of
words out of context in 60 seconds they're timed is so absolutely kooky and
invalid. Let's take a look at some miscue analysis work. A miscue is when what
students say during oral reading does not match what's on the page it gives us a
sense of reading online. The work of Stephen Cooster is incredible here
incredibly helpful. A meaningful miscue is one that makes sense within the
sentence instead of the dog ran the student says the dog run doesn't match
but it still makes sense. Meaning has not been disrupted. Now in just one of
Cooster's studies students in third grade were given a science text to read
orally and the miscues were noted and students who had who scored higher on
post-test reading comprehension tests had significantly more miscues. That means
they weren't reading for accuracy for surface structure but for deep meaning
and that's the whole purpose not that you attend to letter features but for
deep meaning. And eye movement studies they have devices that track people's
eye movements as they read text. They see where the eye fixates or stop which
words they skip and how often they regress or go back and your eyes do not
move in a straight line from left to right as you read they do not take in
each letter they jump around like hummingbirds. Your brain only makes you think
that you're reading in a straight line it makes it seem like you're reading in
a straight line your brain is filling in the blanks. These studies show that eyes
tend to skip right over words that make sense or are predictable and that's
semantic queuing. This includes function words like of the in and as well as
predictable words and in some instances the eyes fixate right on the
predictable words and still inserted a meaningful miscue. Obviously information
from the head semantic and syntactic information is being used with phonetic
information to create meaning with print. So the big finish what does this mean
in reading practice the three queuing systems. Include writing and sentence
mix-up activities in your reading programs to develop student sense of
grammar and word order. This is writing this needs not be long three to ten
minutes a day and if you're still hung up about phonics okay include words or
writing prompts that reinforce the letter sounds being taught. If I teach the
letter a short a vowel sound I would have a writing prompt that says describe a
time when you were mad mad and again clowns you don't teach the three queuing
systems it's not an either or situation you don't teach these are activities
that develop in the same way include simple maze or close activities which
students have to identify a word based on information on both sides of the
target word. These can be created on power points done quickly three to eight
minutes and they can reinforce letter sounds or patterns. Now if those
conducting the great literacy inquisition here in Minnesota and elsewhere
if they would spend just a little time with literacy experts not educational
psychologists not speech therapists not reading journalists but literacy experts
you'd know these things if you use science science instead of pseudoscience
you'd know some of these things but your predetermined beliefs are such that
your beliefs determine reality rather than reality determining your beliefs.
This has been the reading instruction show I am your host Dr. Andy Johnson.