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thing. Okay, I'm recording. This is Andy Johnson, the reading instruction channel, and I'm here

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with Claude Goldenberg, and he was saying such good stuff that I said, don't waste it on me.

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We got to let other people hear this good stuff. So Claude, you were talking about the importance

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that we discussed, that we have different views on things.

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Yeah, absolutely. I mean, disagreements are, we shouldn't shy away from them. We shouldn't fear

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them. We should, I mean, not to be polyannish about it, but we should embrace them. But we should

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embrace them in the sense of wanting to understand, understand other people's perspectives, which then

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helps us understand our own perspectives. And so when I reached out to you a couple of weeks ago

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in anticipation of the webinar that you hosted with my colleagues sort of from

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Cabe, California Association for Violent Education, I was just thrilled that you responded positively.

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I asked you to, you know, may you do a guest gig on my sub-stack? You invited me to be here on your

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podcast. And here we are. I mean, I welcome it, and I thank you for it. And I look for people that

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might have different ideas. Because as I was telling Claude, as I encountered new information,

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rational human beings evolve and change their thinking. And the way I think about things

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10 years ago is different than I do today. And I hope it's different in 10 more years. I hope I

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continue to evolve and change my thinking. Does that make me wishy-washy? No, that makes me a good

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human being. I agree. And I want to join you in that category, you know, of not wishy-washy,

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but open to consider other perspectives. And as I was telling you, my frustration is when it's

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difficult to engage with people, when they don't want to hear other perspectives or explain to me

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their perspective. And I was just contrasting the reaction I got from you to the reaction I got

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when I tried to reach out to Edgar Langdon. Somebody else. Okay, fair enough, somebody else

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who was just not interested in discussing with me. And I find that unfortunate because we get

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stuck in our, I mean, we can talk about it politically, there's a lot of that going on

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politically. Enough said about that. But in our own world of literacy research and practice and

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policy, there's just not sufficient engagement to use a political term across the aisle. And I find

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that very disparating, very disparating. So I want to again thank you and applaud you for your openness.

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And I agree as well. When I post online, I do have snarky language. Sometimes I admit that up front.

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But I've tried reason and research for years and I'm pretty much ignored. But if people say,

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if people respond to me, I will respond to their ideas in a respectful way. But it's usually

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demeaning. I haven't taught, I don't know anything. And this or that other thing, which is fine. I

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could be a bad human being. That's a given. But what exactly do you disagree with me about?

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Yeah. And I find it troubling that teachers are afraid to speak out because they fear for the

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jobs about literacy. Yes, that is true. That is absolutely people feel and again, it's true.

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It's not just in our field. It's not just in our domain. It's a kind of a general human condition.

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And again, we're seeing this in many domains and spheres of life. It is really unfortunate when

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people feel like they can't express another opinion, another perspective. It is kind of a

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balancing act because on the one hand, there needs to be cohesion in organizations and

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whatever human endeavors, networks and so forth. Because without cohesion, everything just sort

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of fragments. But at the same time, you need to make room. You want to get away from groupthink.

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From just hanging out with the people who agree with you, reinforce you. And that has problems

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of its own. So we agree in principle, but actually enact that is a challenge. And it's a constant

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struggle to kind of balance the two need for cohesion, but also need space for individual to

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express their concerns, bring different information to the fore, different data, call it research,

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call it perspectives. That's the balancing act that I think is very difficult to pull off. But

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I think we have to aim for all the time. Okay. Well, one of the things that led to this conversation

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was the idea of the reading war. Do you want to start there? Sure. So the question, I guess,

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when you start there, do we start with the question of, is there a reading war? Are there reading

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war? And just to backfill a little bit for you and our audience on the sub stack that I started

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a few months ago, I invited people to a conversation. And what's a sub stack? I'm sorry. Oh, no,

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that's okay. Oh, I thought you seemed to me like you are a social media gonzo. So no. So a sub stack

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is like a, it's like a gussied up blog. Okay. It's a really a wonderful platform where people can,

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you know, post their ideas, invite people to engage. It's very, very similar to a blog,

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but it's got a lot of other attributes that make it sort of ready made for this kind of

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free exchange of ideas. And you have recorded comments and interaction?

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Yes. Yes. In fact, that's, that's what I'm, I'm trying to get more, more involved. So my first

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foray into this was to, you know, host a conversation. I was hoping to do it on the sub stack. I mean,

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if anyone's interested, just go to substack.com and you'll find out what this is. And if you

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search for me, you know, you can find my sub stack, which is entitled, we must end the reading wars

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now. So the first conversation I want to have with people, which we actually had on Zoom,

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because sub stack is not a really good platform for the kind of interaction with lots of people

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that I wanted to have. So we started on sub stack, then we moved over to Zoom. Okay. And the, the

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opening question was, Oh, is there a reading war? I mean,

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Let's have that conversation. Absolutely. Because I know our audience wants us to get into reading.

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Yes, absolutely. So, you know, a lot of it is sort of semantics. That's, that's what language is,

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you know, sound and meaning, that's language, meaning semantics. Would you call it a war?

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Would you call it a kerfuffle? Would you call it a series of freighted discussions? And you're

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right. In one of your emails, Andy, you said that was a term that was coined by the media. And,

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and that's actually true. The first, according to my AI bots and the research that I've done,

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the first instance of the reading wars appearing in print was in an Ed Week article

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from 35 years ago, an article by someone named Rothman, Robert Rothman. And he, the title of

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the article in Ed Week was from a great debate to a full scale war disputes over teaching,

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reading heats up. So it was coined in the media. But in fact, it's been picked up by academics. I

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mean, Jeff and Peter Bowers, I'm sure you know them UK academics, they wrote an article in the

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Washington Post on the reading wars. Brian Camborn, I'm sure you know that name. He wrote a brief

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history of the reading wars, our own famous David Pearson, you know, eminent academic in this area.

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He wrote a 2004 article on educational policy called the reading wars. So it's not true that it's a

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purely, how should I say, journalistic confabulation, something constructed by the media

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in order to make people fight against each other. It's been adopted very wide scale, the term.

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Now, is it still has it outlived its usefulness? I think undoubtedly yes. That's why I think we

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need to end it. Whatever you call it, kerfuffle. Now, we still have disagreements, but we have the

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kind of disagreements that you and I are having that we're going to we'll get into some substantive

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issues. But the people on the zoom that we had all agreed. Yeah, there are these wars, and there

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are these wars, and they're not, and they're not helpful to anyone, certainly not the children,

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and need to figure out a way to talk through them, think about them, engage in a way where the war

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like metaphor no longer makes sense. I think that was the message I got. Very good. Very good. So

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I will see your point that it is leaked over to some in the educational context. I will,

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that's given it is used. And I agree with you that it's outlived its usefulness. And I don't like

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the war concept, because that leads to destruction and good argument, an argument not in the case of

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I'm yelling at you, but argument making a proposition and supporting your proposition

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is at the heart of academic discourse, and heart of the academy. And last I checked reading,

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and teaching was an academic endeavor. Yes, last I checked, maybe it's changed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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No, I couldn't have said it better. So I'm not going to repeat it because. Okay. So starting at

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the point that definitely the reading war, let's just leave that aside, because there's differing

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views. And it seems to me those who are meaning first versus skills first approach to teaching

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reading, which are you okay with that or where are you at with that? Okay, great differences,

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the differences in two positions, do you say maybe there's absolutely. Yeah. Well, I think

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really you hit the heart of the matter. There's been this long standing, I mean, long standing.

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In fact, it goes back to Brian Camberns article, it's fairly recent. It was like 2021, I'll send

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you the link, a brief history of the reading wars. And he puts the fundamental debate back to an

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article by a German educator, I'd never heard this in 1779. Now, the interesting thing is that was

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the heart of the enlightenment or, you know, towards the end of the enlightenment. And what it

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came down to was some version of code or phonics or letters and sounds versus meaning, you know,

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what should be the leading edge of teaching and learning reading and becoming literate. Now,

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this has been a binary. This has been a binary that has driven this debate discussion war, whatever,

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for 250 years. And I think the binary is what is extremely harmful. We need to get away from this

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dysfunctional binary because it is not, do you just look at the code or you just look at meaning?

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They are both important, but in different ways. And I think the difficulty is thinking about

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how reading is a function is a product of navigating the code while at the same time

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making sure meaning is central to the whole operation. It's not a binary. We've got to get

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past the binary. And part of the problem, the interruption of the conversation,

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are those who seek to make teaching an algorithm. A one size fits all. If teachers would just buy

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my fancy product or do these in these steps, then we can guarantee that learning will occur,

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like the Charlotte Danielson model. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of how should I call

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kind of super, I think, superficial thinking, you know, either looking for something off the

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shelf that will solve all of your reading problems or going to some reading guru.

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That's right. Or one product away. If I just buy this product, then my reading problems will be

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solved. And there are no educational messiahs. No, no, there are. In fact, I heard Michael

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full in one time say the people the reason people refer to gurus is because they can't spell charlatan.

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Yes. So if anyone calls you a guru, say, uh, uh, masking charlatan. I always tell my audience,

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I say, I have no answers for you. I have ideas. Take the ideas that work for you. Yeah. Yeah.

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No, I think that's a very important point. I would say beyond that, Andy, that what is really

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what we really need is for people, you know, teachers, certainly parents, of course, the

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public in general, policymakers, you know, God help us to have a deep understanding. God help.

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And I'm an atheist, right? So I'm reaching, I'm reaching for straws here.

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We can agree on that. God help us.

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You're making me laugh too much. I'm going to be able to get anything out.

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Yeah. So we need a deeper understanding of what learning to read involves, what, what,

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what involves inside the brain and what has to happen outside of the brain to facilitate,

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enable, promote that process. We need a deeper understanding. We need to get past

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that dysfunctional binary that it says either this or that or this guru or that guru or this

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off the shelf product or that off the shelf product. We just need to get into that. And if you want to

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get a little more deeper into what I mean by that, I'm happy to go there, but I don't want to keep

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talking. Let me pick up on your concept of God. Hang with me. Oh, God. No, I was sitting in a church

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and I was thinking, even though everyone here kind of thinks they believe the same thing,

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everyone has a different take on things. You cannot assume a monolithic agreement, not by

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teachers, not by educators, not even by people who are adherent of a particular religion.

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So that's probably true. That's probably true. That's what made me think of it when you went

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off on the atheist thing. So, so back to the meaning first versus code. There's always, I don't

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want to call it a pendulum swing, but there's, there's been those who have used the illusion of

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crisis for their own benefit. Part of the change in the early 2000s is a result of the 2002 educational

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act, which said the only knowledge that counts is that which comes from controlled experimental

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studies conducted in an actual classroom. And I would actually, I think that's a very restricted

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view of what counts for knowledge, but that's the only kind of knowledge that the government

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would fund. Therefore, you saw this change in the types of research being published.

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I would be okay with that if it were applied in all cases. And in the case of the science of

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reading, that tends not to be the case. What tends not to be the case? Well, let's take an example.

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For example, letters professional development. That is not used to differentiate the letters thing.

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If that same standard were used, has letters shown to improve the student achievement?

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Has letters been shown to improve teacher effectiveness? Has letters been compared with

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something else? That's the, that's kind of the standard. Yeah. Well, no, I mean, to my knowledge,

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there's been no randomized experiment that has demonstrated that letters versus something else

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will lead to better results. Now, there are lots of explanations for that. Some people

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will call them rationalizations. Some will call them excuses, but it is true. But at the same time,

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I think it's important to try to understand. And believe me, I have no stock in letters

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industries, right? I mean, I do some, I do some consulting for Lexia, like I do some consulting

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and give talks for other people who want me to come and talk to their staff or sponsor

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conferences or webinars, but I don't have stock in any of these industries. So just full disclosure.

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But there is some very important knowledge, teacher knowledge, that letters contains that I

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believe would be of benefit if more people understood. Now, there's some issues with letters.

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For one thing, it's like a two year heavily very, very intensive program that requires that a lot

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of it's expensive in terms of teacher time, in terms of school district time, in terms of all

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sorts of things. And there's really no evidence that I know of that all of that that's contained in

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there is really not even necessary or by no means sufficient to actually be a more effective teacher

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and help kids. So there are some there are some legitimate questions to be asked. At the same

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time, I know from talking to people, teachers, administrators, a lot of people feel like this

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is good foundational knowledge that's helped them understand things that their teacher preparation

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program did not prepare them to understand. Okay, let's let's I think we can't yeah,

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I think we can't lose sight of that. There's a couple things. There's a couple things going back

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there. First of all, I don't consult for anybody. I don't make anybody beyond my university salary.

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My books don't even pay enough to support the website. So that is said upfront. The letters,

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the knowledge and letters, it has not been shown that this knowledge and tell me about the knowledge

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and orthographic mapping, for example, that's one thing that's been shown to be important. People

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may think it's important, but is it indeed important? Does it contribute to our ability to

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teach and learn? Yeah, I use the phrase that orthographic mapping is a thing, but semantic

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mapping is more of a thing. They're both, they're both things. In fact, if you really, let's talk

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about orthographic mapping, I mean, I don't know how weedy you want to get, we can get really kind

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of weedy and you tell me if I'm going off the deep end here. But this is where breaking down the

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binary, I think is really important. Because if you think about the concept of orthographic mapping,

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you know, one of the linear areas, most important contributions to our understanding,

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what orthographic mapping means literally is that the individual, the learning, the beginning reader,

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and then as you go through your reading development, it continues. You don't leave

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orthographic mapping in the dust once you pass second grade. But what orthographic mapping means

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is that the individual binds or connects or maps the spelling of a word, right? It's orthographic

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representation, it's visual representation. It maps the spelling of the word to the pronunciation

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of the word, the phonemic aspect, the phonemic representation is mapped to the orthographic

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representation. That's orthographic mapping. Now that mapping, that mapping then gets linked to the

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meaning of the word. Yep. So you have the mapping of the phonology to the orthography,

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then to the semantics. You see, that breaks down the binary right there. Because it's like this

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three legged stool. Let's stop right there with word. Three legged stools and whatnot.

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You know, Louisa Maltz has done a lot of quote research and her research essentially is surveys

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and tests that that knowledge, that linguistic knowledge is not essential in reading. When

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you hear the word cat, you don't link it with orthographic memory. And I'll call it memory

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versus mapping because the mapping as she describes it is a form of memory. When you hear the word

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cat, you link it with semantic memory. Now that doesn't mean that semantic mapping does not exist,

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it does. But during the act of reading, we engage semantic memory and we don't,

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we don't see words floating in space outside of context. We always see words in the context of a

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sentence. So that's where I would say, okay, well, that knowledge is of interest. But I think it's

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more important, the human brain creates patterns based on semantic knowledge. Thank you for your

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patience. That's where I would disagree with Aries and Letters that this knowledge is important to

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be a good teacher and it simply is not, has not been proven to be necessary or sufficient

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for helping children create meaning with print. Does it raise course on test?

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Because perhaps on a measure of spelling, perhaps does it raise scores on a phonics test?

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Perhaps. But these are short term games and not long term. Anyway.

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So, okay, so let's, let's dig a little deeper because I mentioned, and I don't know a lot of,

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you know, when I, I'm not a neuro full disclosure, I'm not a neuroscientist, right? I don't know the

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difference between my ear lobe and my prefrontal lobe. So don't ask me any hard questions.

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But what I know, what I believe I know, what I think is true from the neuroscientist I've read

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and interacted with is that certain things need to happen in the brain in order to read, right?

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Now, before I get into that, let me make a kind of statement here that you may or may not agree with.

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And that is that learning to speak and understand oral language is related to, but different from,

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learning to read and write written language. I think I would agree with that.

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Okay, okay, good. Written language and oral language are distinct, related but distinct.

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And I've written, they are, they can inform each other, but they are not the same.

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Okay, perfect. So far, so, so far, so good. See, this is good. We agree on.

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It's good. I knew it. I was very optimistic and my optimism is being borne out, I'm happy to say.

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Okay, so they're, so they're different. Now, we are born, and you know, there's evidence to this

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from developmental neuro biologists and evolutionary developmental psychologists and so forth.

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But there is evidence, and I believe it's true, that we are born wired to attend to and make sense

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of human speech when an individual, an individual, a neonate, a newborn, a very young baby,

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the oral stimulus, the oral signal that most gets its attention is human speech.

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Now, if you have a loud, loud noise, there's a startle reflex, right? That's kind of a reflex.

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But what gets volitional attention is human speech. Let me jump in there just on that point. Sure,

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sure, sure. There are over 200 phonemes in the human language, and at birth, humans can perceive

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all of them. But through the act of pruning, that some of these neural pathways disappear in the

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ones in your language become strengthened. So around age 16 months to 18 months, human beings

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have evolved to be able to attend to the phonemes around it. So this is a little bit different,

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but I think it's an important distinction that we're not hard, hardwired, we're hardwired to

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attend to our environment. Well, more specifically, not just to, it's differentiated. We're hardwired

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to attend specifically to the sounds of human speech. That will get more attention than a truck

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passing by, than the music going on. I mean, I don't say this from my own experiments because

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I don't do those experiments. But the development, I can give you a citation if you'd like, but the

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developmental psychologists who study these things have found that the oral signal, stimulus, call

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it what you will, that most gets baby's attention is human speech, regardless of the phoneme,

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because you're right, we're set up to process whatever and over time, but whatever human speech

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stream comes in, that's what babies most respond to orally, just like visually, the human face

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gets most of their attention. The case is because that's a mother in a human being

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responding vocally to those things around them. In a thought experiment, if some baby

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did not, could not hear, then they would attend to visual signs or whatever. But it's that interaction

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that creates meaning. You know, Andy, I mean, thought experiments are okay, but they don't have any data.

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That's the problem with thought experiments. Well, there's data to support the idea of pruning.

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Well, and there's data to support that we're not hardwired for voices over one thing. You know,

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there's data, it's how we interpret the data. Well, the pruning data, I don't dispute, and I don't

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think it's particularly relevant here, but it's an interesting point. The data that I'm talking about

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is that human speech gets the attention of very young babies more so than any other oral

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stimulus or signal, right? We agree on that, but it's the cause why they do it. Well, yes. How we

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interpret that, the cause. When babies are just out of the womb, how would you interpret the fact

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that they are born more attentive to human speech than any other oral stimulus? How would you

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interpret that? They're born with it. How would you interpret that? So a newborn attends to the

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sound of a voice more than a clicking of the fingers. Is that what you're saying? Correct.

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Well, that could be an innate thing. I don't know that to be true. I don't know that to be true.

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Okay. I'll send you the references if you want. All right. It's been exposed to human voice,

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both in the womb and as first comes out. That could be explained, but it's how we interpret that.

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That's fine. But what you said is key. It's innate. I mean, you offered that as a possibility. I think

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that is the strongest possibility. I won't say settled science. I will say the strongest possibility

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is that attending to human speech right out of the chute is innate. That's the thing that gets most

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attention. Now contrast that with print. Do you know any newborn that attends to print? Does it

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have any innate intrinsic? I don't think comparison is apt because developmentally, they are not

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not ready to be exposed to print. That's right. It takes a while because they have to learn that

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this gets back to your point about how important meaning is. We are meaning seekers. We are meaning

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creators. That's the human brain. Yes. Absolutely. And the best interpretation that I know of these

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data is that intrinsically, we know in quotation marks, because it's unknown what a two-day-old

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knows. But intrinsically, inherently, we know that something meaningful is coming in when human

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speech is coming in. That's why that's more gets children's attention, baby's attention, more so

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than clicking your fingers or a truck passing by or something. In contrast, there's no way for them

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to know that there's something meaningful going on when you put print in front of them. They haven't

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been exposed to it. And again, that is an unfair comparison because children are learning everything.

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And if they're exposed to print over time, we learn print. They're not exactly the same. No one

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says that you learn to read naturally. You learn to speak in part because you are immersed in it.

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It responds to you in a very natural way. And we can use that understanding to help us understand

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how we can better learn to read. Yeah. Well, if I could just one quibble here. You said no one says

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we learn to read naturally. That's not entirely true. I'm sure you're familiar with the Goodman's

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paper, Learning to Read is Natural. Yes. Now they distance themselves from a Russoian position,

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I know. But there is this, and the Goodmans were important in propagating this, there is this idea

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that learning to read is natural. And if you surround children with literacy and engage them

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in print and so on and so forth, they will, it's a false analogy. What I'm getting at is it's a

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false analogy to say that we learn print, reading and writing, how to navigate written language.

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It's analogous to how we learn to navigate oral language. That's the point I'm trying to make.

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They are really acquired in different ways. And I would say a couple things. We learn to read

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naturally. That does not mean there's instruction, there is not instruction in the code. Okay.

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Okay. It's a natural inclination to make sense. Children are sense making beings.

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And children try to make sense of things, pre-decoding children try to make sense of that

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print. So it is a natural thing to want to learn to read. That does not mean there's an absence

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of phonics instruction. And I would say as well, what the Goodmans wrote in 67,

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they evolve. They're thinking changed over time. And the whole language of 1975,

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or the psycholinguistic theory, is different than the psycholinguistic theory of 2025.

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Okay. Fair enough. So let's talk about that. Because related to all of this is whole language,

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psycholinguistic theory, three-queuing, balanced literacy, all these kind of charged terms.

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Yes, charged terms.

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People up in arms and communicating. Yes.

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So let's talk about and tell me if you agree with this. I mean, I think, and a lot of people think

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this is not an original observation, that in this evolution, what you're calling an evolution,

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and I completely accept that, that what was whole language in the 80s, 70s, 80s, into the 90s, maybe,

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has since evolved into something like three-queuing, balanced literacy. It's kind of like the latter day

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progeny, shall we say, of whole language. Would you agree with that general conception?

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I would say people are confusing the terms. Whole language can be, is it a theory? Is it a philosophy?

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Let us say that it's, I'll call it a theory that humans best learn within the context of the whole,

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when languages whole and complete. That does not mean, and a lot of people understood it as, oh,

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no phonics. Your phonics or your whole language, no. Phonics instruction is included in whole

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language, absolutely, but within a holistic context to the greatest extent possible. Meaning,

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some isolated word study, but we try to minimize that.

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And you minimize it. Why do you try to minimize it? What's the rationale for that?

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The rationale is that it can best be understood. It's less than an abstraction if you're doing

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phonics instruction within the context of a sentence. So they're not, they're not reliant on

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letter cues, that they're able to use semantics and syntax as well.

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Right. So this actually gets back to how the difference between acquiring oral language

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and acquiring written language and the, let me just say the premise or the hypothesis

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that acquiring oral language is innate. I mean, we're kind of wired to acquire it,

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whereas learning written language, and you're right in the sense that it's not unnatural,

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because learning and teaching are natural. Right. I mean, this is the point that David Pearson has

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made in discussions I've had with him. And it's an error to make this distinction between learning

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to speak and understand is natural, whereas learning to read and write is unnatural.

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I mean, that's another false dichotomy, a false binary. Yes. It's learning to speak,

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learning to read and write is no more unnatural, or I should say is no less natural than any kind

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of teaching and learning that we do. I mean, teaching and learning is part of the natural

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human being psyche. People want to learn absent development, anomalies, but even kids who have

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disabilities and I mean, people want to learn, they want to grow, they want to understand,

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they want to make meaning, they want to communicate. To build on that, I would say that human language

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is not innate. It's the learning that's innate, learning to make sense of patterns to fill in

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the blank, to get stopped. So, okay. So oral learning is as natural, it's the learning,

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it's the trying to make sense of things that is the natural. Right. That's right. But also

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teaching. I mean, I think we're where our disagreement lies is in the extent to which

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in order to learn to read and write, you need to at some level be taught, be taught in an

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explicit way in a way that is not necessary for learning to speak and understand. Sure, you learn

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things for modeling when we're speaking, when children are learning to speak way before literacy

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per se is an issue. They learn to speak, they hear people speak, they engage in speaking,

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they make utterances that are meaningless, but they're interpreted by their parents as,

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oh, isn't that cute? He's trying to say, right. It's a meaning making and constructing activity

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because the word again, absent developmental anomalies, you're trying to communicate and

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understand and have people understand you orally. But learning to navigate written language

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is a different sort of thing because it requires and it varies. Some kids need very little. It seems

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to some, you know, as well as I do, that some kids learn to read as if, as they learn to read

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and speak and understand. I mean, I agree with two things that you said. Yeah, sure. You said it's

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different. Children learn differently. I would agree with that. It varies. And I'm sorry. I said

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they learn to read and write and speak and understand differently. Okay. But the amount and type of

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instruction varies that they need. Yes. Yes. That part. And I would say that all human beings need

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that instruction, need that explicit instruction. I agree with you. It's not the what of phonics

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instruction. It's the how and the how much. Yes. And I think lies the difference. Yes. I agree. And

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part of the thing that makes it difficult is, you know, we were talking about how we all have a

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tendency. This is a good thing, by the way. We got to the heart. We found kind of the heart of a

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disagreement. I think so. I think so. I think there are actually several hearts, but this is

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definitely an important one. It's a big heart. Let's beat this one. You've got a big heart, Claude.

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You're a big hearted man. Yeah. Well, thank you. Likewise, I'm sure. So yeah. So this is true. It's

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tremendous variability as there is in all sorts of human activities. So some kids need very little

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direct instruction. Other kids need a whole lot. Most us normal mortals are, you know, somewhere

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in between. I agree with you on that. You. Yeah, absolutely. And so the question is, the question

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is how much, as you said, how much and how to provide the necessary instruction in the act of

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reading. And by reading, I'm going to define reading right now very narrowly. Okay. And I

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realize it's a much more expansive thing. We can talk about reading. Yeah, let's get our

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definitions of reading first. That might help. Yeah. I mean, reading can be defined very narrowly

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as being able to pronounce a word that's written on a page. Right. That's a very narrow definition

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of reading. But reading is also metaphorical all the way up to reading the room. Right. I mean,

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in all points in between, we say someone is literate. And we don't mean necessarily they

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can read and write, but they're familiar with a certain literary canon. You know, how many times

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we hear, oh, he's barely literate. What does that mean? Well, they haven't read the important books.

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And so they're not really literate, even though they can read and write. Back to reading. I would

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define reading as creating meaning with print. Okay. You can sound out words in Latin, but you are

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not creating meaning in the same way. Children read and have meaningful miscues, but are still

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generating deep meaning. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's that's that's fine. I mean, how many people,

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how many times have you heard people say, and I have a lot. Well, I can read it.

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I can read Latin. I can read Spanish. I can read Finnish. But I don't understand it. Are they using

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reading incorrectly? No, they're not using reading in the way that you're saying reading

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means. They're not reading. They're sounding out the words and there's a difference. But people

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but people say, I can read, but I don't understand it. In which case you would say, no, no, no, no,

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you're not reading. If you're not understanding, you are incorrect in saying you can read it.

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Did you correct them? No, I would say you're not comprehending. There's a lot of comprehension.

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But you said you're not reading. You can attempt to read. They are not comprehending what they

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say. Fair enough. They're attempting to create meaning. They're just a little short. My only

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point is that there are different definitions of reading, which are operative, depending on what

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you're talking about. So let's go with your definition that reading is making meaning and

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comprehending, creating meaning with print, creating meaning with print. That's right. Now,

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and this gets back to the difference between acquiring oral language and acquiring written

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language. And I just I just want to delve into the brain for just a minute. I gave my disclaimer

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about not being a neuroscientist. But what I believe is true, and I think has been demonstrated,

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I'm not going to say subtle science. I mean, it's a toxic term, but it's been demonstrated

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the data support, the proposition that in order to be able to read, there's got to be

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created something that's known as the reading circuit, or the literacy circuit, where areas of

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the brain that are involved in processing sound phonology, and process the visual representations,

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the orthography, connect with oral language, how that makes meaning the semantic aspects.

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I said, I said something about a three legged stool with respect to orthographic mapping.

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I did. I did. I did. That three legged stool has an analogy in our brain. You've got to connect

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phonology to orthography to semantics. That connection is what makes reading possible.

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Without that connection, reading is either extremely difficult, or some might say impossible.

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That's what needs to happen in the brain. Phonology, orthography, semantics, reading circuits.

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Let me respond. I too am not a neurologist, but I have tried to bring myself up to speed on the

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brain research. I know a lot of this stuff. Dennehe, is that Stanislav? The methodology,

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when they look at one word out of context and find which parts of the brain light up,

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that's not reading. That's what they study. Andy, that is a

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misrepresentation of those studies. That is many of the studies. We must look at the methodology

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behind these studies. Are they studying reading online as it occurs? Are they studying a variety

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of people? Are they studying one or two people? No. Words lighten up. Words in meaning, in context,

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in sentences. Yes, absolutely study that. 100%. Don't believe me. I mean, don't believe Dahan.

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If you don't want to. Kenneth Pugh. There are many, many neuroscientists who are studying this

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and will tell you they study small bits, but they study semantics, sentences, paragraph reading.

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Yes, they study that. They absolutely study that. Again, there are many, many neuroscientists in the

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literacy world that have come to different conclusions and find problems in the methodology.

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So which ones would you say? Huh? Yeah, who like for example,

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who has found problems with methodology? Stephen Strauss? He is not a neuroscientist.

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He is a PhD. Oh, he's a neurologist. He's an MD neurologist. He has, he's a clinician. And I'm

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sure he's a very good clinician. I'm not going to say a single bad thing about him other than the

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fact that he doesn't know what he's talking about when he when he disputes the findings based on

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methodology of the neuroscience. I mean, he just doesn't know. He's not a neuroscientist. Try to

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find a single article by him on any research he's done. You cannot. I've looked up and down. I've

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asked him. I've asked the people who push his theories and anti theories forward. No one can

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come up with a single piece of research that this gentleman has done. He must be, I'm sure he's a great

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clinician, but neuroscientist, I guarantee you he is not. All right. That is my, that is my homework

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assignment to look at a neuroscientist, look for research by a neuroscientist that comes to a

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different conclusion. Yes. Yes. Yes, please. And I'd love to see it because like you, I'm always

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looking for things that challenge what I've come to conclude for whatever reason. Yes. So yeah,

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please find it and send it to me because I'm being completely on the level here. I've asked around.

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No one can come up with something that he's actually any research he's done. And I'm

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if I find some research that says something different, I'm happy to make a whole podcast saying

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I was wrong. I admire you, Andy. I complete I really admire you. I really do because you know,

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people are not sufficiently circumspect about the tentativeness of a lot of our knowledge. It's

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tenuous and we got to deal with it. And I admire that. And it's very hard to change. Yeah. Once

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you're embedded in a certain worldview of paradigm. Absolutely. It would be very hard just like to be

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very having that political discussion with my brother. I'm not going to change his mind.

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Well, let's hope we can rise above the politics of the moment. Do you think we can?

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I don't know. Jesus could come back and write in big mile high sky letters that I'm right.

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And my brother still wouldn't believe me. I'm not going to touch that. I'm not going to touch that

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I'll take your word for it. Or Claude could get a airplane and write

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in big big letters. I can't afford one. So you don't have to worry about that. We've come to and

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I don't want to get too far, but we've come to some very good points where we disagree.

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Yeah. And let's see if we can summarize the things where we have different views on.

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What do you think we have different views on?

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I think we have I think what I would identify as different view is

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what and how much direct and explicit. I don't want to say

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phonics but really foundation I think more of foundational literacy skills from phonemic

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awareness, letters and sounds, phonics and decoding and fluency, right? That little basket of things

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goes by the shorthand of phonics, but it's really more than just phonics, foundational literacy

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skills. And I think where we have a disagreement is how much direct and explicit and I'll throw in

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systematic foundational skills instruction is necessary for children or just normal people,

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anyone who can't read or doesn't read, how much of that is necessary to facilitate and propel

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literacy, acquisition and development? How much of that is really necessary?

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And I would think number one, it's possible to have a conversation with people who disagree.

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That's one. I think our definition of reading differs and our definition of how and how much

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we'll call it phonics instruction. Is there a better word phonology?

437
00:49:56,560 --> 00:50:01,120
Well, I just think of foundational literacy skills, foundational literacy skills because I think of

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those as the things that connect the sounds of the language to the written representation.

439
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I mean, that's what phonics is about in the final analysis, connecting sound of the language

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to its written representation. Do you see my facial expression? I do. I see you grimace. I'm not

441
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quite comfortable with that, but I understand. That's where we disagree. That's where we disagree.

442
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:31,200
No, I get it. I completely get it. But this is good. All right. You're right. That's an area

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where we disagree. And on the efficacy of neurological research. Yeah. All right. That's a good one

444
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as well. All right. I want to make sure we maintain our listeners so I don't want to go too long.

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That's the only reason why I'm cutting this off. I can go for another two hours with you, Claude.

446
00:50:50,640 --> 00:51:06,560
I really like wise, Andy. All right. So let me end the recording here.