Evidence-Based Reading Instruction In 1967, Ken Goodman published an article in Reading Research Quarterly with the title` Reading: A Psycholinguistic Guessing Game (Goodman, 1967). Here he applies Psycholinguistic Theory to the reading process. A pretty good article, yes? I highly recommend reading it. However, two words have been pulled from the title ‘reading’ and ‘guessing’. These two words have become a Rorschach inkblot test for those who would disagree with or who don’t understand Dr. Goodman’s ideas. All sorts of dark and scary images have been projected upon them. These Rorschach-ian projections have been used for the last 50 years to misrepresent whole language and to discredit the work of Ken Goodman. Evidence Based The common idea is that whole language went away because it was “debunked.” But in real reading science we don’t go around debunking things. We support or reject hypotheses. Results of that supported or rejected hypothesis are used to build theories. Results can also be used to provide evidence for certain practices. This is called evidence-based practice. However, evidence-based practices or evidence-based instruction does not mean that something has been proven to work. This is a common misconception of that term. It simply means that you can provide research-based evidence to support a strategy or practice. In other words, there is research someplace in the world showing that something works. But keep in mind that there may also be research someplace in the world showing that the same thing doesn’t work. Evidence without context is meaningless. Evidence is evidence of a particular thing, for a particular purpose, at a particular time, with a particular population, in a particular setting. It's not evidence for everything. We must be very particular with our understanding of evidence. When the term, ‘evidence-based’ is used, we must always consider: 1. for who? 2. for what? 3. collected in what context? 4. collected in what situations? 5. for students at what level? 6. determined by what kind of measure? 7. determined by who? Evidence for Phonics Instruction. For example, we can say that direct and explicit instruction of phonics is an evidence-based practice. There is ample evidence that if you teach phonics, students are going to score higher on measures of phonics. All well and good. But we can’t say phonics instruction has been proven to work. We can’t say direct instruction of phonics is a settled science. We can’t say more phonics instruction is better than less phonics instruction. We can’t say that a particular type of phonics instruction is better than another. We can’t say that all students need direct instruction of phonics. We can’t say direct and explicit phonics instruction is better than something else. We can’t even say that phonics instruction improves students’ ability to create meaning with print. We can’t say any of these things. We can only say that if you teach something, posttest measures of the something that you taught are most often going to rise. But we already knew that didn’t we. I’m going to provide an extreme example here that illustrates the point I’m trying to make: Let’s say a researcher conducted a study where an experimental group of first-grade students were given electric dog collars to wear. Every time they misbehaved, they would get zapped. A control group of first-grade students were not given electric dog collars to wear. After 3 months, if you compared the experimental group to the control group you might find that there were significantly fewer misbehaviors in the experimental group. You could technically say that putting electric dog collars on first-grade students and zapping them is an evidence-based practice. (For the record, this is something I’m strongly against.) But it has nothing to do with reading instruction, and it doesn’t consider a myriad of other factors including the considerable emotional damage done to children. This is an extreme example of evidence, but it illustrates my point. Just saying that something is said to be “evidence-based” does not end the discussion. It begins the discussion starting with an examination of the research studies cited. This is the first step in becoming a responsible consumer of educational research. This is why I’m devoting a whole chapter to reading and understanding educational research. The Debunking of Whole Language Let me tell you the story about how whole language became debunked. Once upon a time, children were reading real books and writing real stories. It was a magical time. Teachers made decisions about their students based on their students, not what somebody else said their students should be or do. There was joy in our classrooms as children talked about the books they read and shared the stories they’d written. But, sometime in the 1990s, the profiteers realized that with this new whole language stuff, there was not a step-by-step method that could be marketed. Teacher knowledge and autonomy was not a commodity that could be sold. And there were far fewer consumable workbooks and overpriced reading programs that schools needed to buy. So of course, the educational industrial complex and their armies of toady-consultants were against it. It was bad for profits. They just couldn’t stand for that sort of thing. They declared it bad. They declared it to be ‘debunked’. “Aha!” they’d say anytime a score went down (or even if it didn’t). “We told you. It’s that whole language stuff. They’re teaching kids to just guess at words.” And anytime a kid couldn’t sound out a word anyplace in the world, someone would pop up and say, “It’s all that whole language stuff. It just doesn’t make sense.” But here’s the thing: whole language is all about making sense. It’s about keeping language whole and meaningful so that students can learn to use phonics and other information to make sense of what they read. It’s instruction that aligns with the human brain’s natural tendency to see patterns, make predictions, fill in the blanks, and make sense of things. So the profiteers from the educational industrial complex convinced the tale-tellers in the media that a crisis in reading had fallen upon the land. The educational overlords were likewise made to think that there was a reading crisis. They were told that the cause of this crisis was that schools were not buying and using their products “with fidelity”. As well, teacher preparation programs were not teaching preservice teachers to use their products “with fidelity”. Today, across the land, it is a bleak and dreary literacy landscape. You’d be hard-pressed to find a reading workshop, a writing workshop, or even a Four Blocks classroom. There is no joy in Mudville. The profiteers and their toadies laughed as they sat on their yachts smoking their fat cigars somewhere in the Gulf of Lexia Learning. “What a bunch of suckers!” they said. “I can’t believe they fell for it again!” But upon this land, there rose up a mighty bald little knight. He was armed with sarcasm, snarky comments, and a body of knowledge related to literacy learning and related research. “I shall stop them!” he boldly declared in his high, nasal voice with his pointer finger thrust high into the air. He marched confidently into the principal’s office at Mudville Elementary School, slammed his latest book upon the desk, and said, “I am here to save you.” He was ushered out of the building by the armed school security officer.