WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.279 This is The Reading Instruction Show. I am your 00:00:03.279 --> 00:00:07.200 host, Dr. Andy Johnson. The topic of today's 00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:14.779 podcast is about reading instruction and think 00:00:14.779 --> 00:00:18.079 tanks and having differences and other stuff 00:00:18.079 --> 00:00:21.339 like that. Let's just jump right into it and 00:00:21.339 --> 00:00:23.760 see if we can learn a little something today. 00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:29.679 Now, humans are a most interesting species. we 00:00:29.679 --> 00:00:32.700 walk around with some of the nuttiest ideas bouncing 00:00:32.700 --> 00:00:37.240 around in our head. But according to the Education 00:00:37.240 --> 00:00:41.979 Science Reform Act of 2002, the ideas in our 00:00:41.979 --> 00:00:45.259 head cannot be said to exist because they're 00:00:45.259 --> 00:00:49.500 not based on quote, systematic empirical methods 00:00:49.500 --> 00:00:53.119 that draw on observation or experiment unquote. 00:00:54.119 --> 00:00:58.850 So, It's more accurate to say that we walk around 00:00:58.850 --> 00:01:02.369 with a variety of types of electrical activities 00:01:02.369 --> 00:01:06.549 in our cerebral cortex. Neurons connect with 00:01:06.549 --> 00:01:09.950 other neurons to form and strengthen neural pathways. 00:01:11.010 --> 00:01:14.010 And neural networks are activated and expand 00:01:14.010 --> 00:01:18.170 to create some pretty interesting networks. And 00:01:18.170 --> 00:01:21.890 if we really want to use empirical methods drawn 00:01:21.890 --> 00:01:25.310 on observation or experiment as our ontological 00:01:25.310 --> 00:01:30.069 standard, we might even say that humans are merely 00:01:30.069 --> 00:01:34.129 skin bags full of chemicals sloshing about. But 00:01:34.129 --> 00:01:36.849 sometimes the chemicals are a little off. They 00:01:36.849 --> 00:01:40.250 may be too much of one thing and not enough of 00:01:40.250 --> 00:01:43.879 the other. And when this happens, The neural 00:01:43.879 --> 00:01:47.219 networks branch off in unintended directions. 00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:52.500 Other times we pour, inject, smoke, or ingest 00:01:52.500 --> 00:01:56.519 various chemicals into our skin bags. And when 00:01:56.519 --> 00:01:59.239 this happens, our neural networks can come up 00:01:59.239 --> 00:02:04.079 with all sorts of shit. Which is a long -winded 00:02:04.079 --> 00:02:08.060 way of saying that people hold a variety of positions 00:02:08.060 --> 00:02:13.810 related to reading instruction. natural human 00:02:13.810 --> 00:02:18.509 tendency. It seems that whenever a person takes 00:02:18.509 --> 00:02:22.409 a position on something, there's this natural 00:02:22.409 --> 00:02:26.550 human tendency to want to go out into the world 00:02:26.550 --> 00:02:29.870 and convince others of the rightness of their 00:02:29.870 --> 00:02:34.669 views and the wrongness of others. We insist 00:02:34.669 --> 00:02:37.870 that if they just had our knowledge and could 00:02:37.870 --> 00:02:42.520 see things our way, They'd understand and all 00:02:42.520 --> 00:02:46.259 the problems would be solved. It's so simple 00:02:46.259 --> 00:02:50.759 really. We just get the knowledge in our heads 00:02:50.759 --> 00:02:55.419 into their heads. Then they would see things 00:02:55.419 --> 00:02:58.960 the right way, which is our way, and the problem 00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:02.919 would be solved. So we spend our time talking. 00:03:03.300 --> 00:03:07.180 We talk loudly. We talk a lot. We talk over people. 00:03:07.259 --> 00:03:12.000 We talk and talk and talk. And I admit that I 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:15.879 am as guilty of this as the next person regarding 00:03:15.879 --> 00:03:21.879 this natural human tendency. I am convinced that 00:03:21.879 --> 00:03:25.539 people who have vastly differing ideas from me 00:03:25.539 --> 00:03:30.080 are misguided and full of baloney. But at the 00:03:30.080 --> 00:03:33.719 same time, I realize that they're convinced of 00:03:33.719 --> 00:03:39.879 the same about me. And it's all good. Like frogs 00:03:39.879 --> 00:03:44.159 in a pond, having different views on things can 00:03:44.159 --> 00:03:48.979 be a sign of a healthy academic ecosystem. But 00:03:48.979 --> 00:03:52.039 only if the entities within the system are willing 00:03:52.039 --> 00:03:57.520 to listen to differing ideas and continually 00:03:57.520 --> 00:04:03.639 reflect on and evaluate their own. This is what 00:04:03.639 --> 00:04:10.340 enables us to evolve our thinking. Now differences 00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:15.020 become problematic when people create bubbles 00:04:15.020 --> 00:04:18.819 around themselves to insulate their group from 00:04:18.819 --> 00:04:24.699 all these, quote, bad ideas. This results in 00:04:24.699 --> 00:04:28.180 an inbreeding of ideas that can lead to some 00:04:28.180 --> 00:04:33.100 rather disturbing mutations. And you ask, are 00:04:33.100 --> 00:04:36.060 we talking about politics, religion, or reading 00:04:36.060 --> 00:04:39.750 instruction? and I would say all of the above. 00:04:41.430 --> 00:04:47.470 Academic discourse. In academia, having differing 00:04:47.470 --> 00:04:53.089 ideas about things is a good thing. The greater 00:04:53.089 --> 00:04:57.850 academy is based on having differing ideas followed 00:04:57.850 --> 00:05:02.449 by argument. And as stated before, argument here 00:05:02.449 --> 00:05:06.670 is not the yelling disagreeing kind. Rather, 00:05:07.050 --> 00:05:10.649 it's the academic kind, where you state your 00:05:10.649 --> 00:05:14.889 case and support your position using reason and 00:05:14.889 --> 00:05:20.230 research. We don't try to silence opposing ideas. 00:05:21.290 --> 00:05:26.470 We don't try to demean opposing ideas. We let 00:05:26.470 --> 00:05:30.069 our ideas carry the day, not the volume of our 00:05:30.069 --> 00:05:34.990 voices or the harshness of our words. And this 00:05:34.990 --> 00:05:39.870 has worked pretty well in academia. You put forth 00:05:39.870 --> 00:05:44.810 an idea and you expect lively discussion. And 00:05:44.810 --> 00:05:48.949 at the end of the day, the idea is supported 00:05:48.949 --> 00:05:54.129 or rejected. Within the academy at large, you 00:05:54.129 --> 00:05:57.069 conduct research or write an academic article 00:05:57.069 --> 00:06:01.589 and submit it to a jury of your peers. These 00:06:01.589 --> 00:06:05.449 are experts in your field. who do a blind peer 00:06:05.449 --> 00:06:09.110 review. This means your name is removed from 00:06:09.110 --> 00:06:13.310 the article so the jury won't know who wrote 00:06:13.310 --> 00:06:17.149 it. And the names of the jury are concealed as 00:06:17.149 --> 00:06:22.129 well. And it's either accepted or rejected based 00:06:22.129 --> 00:06:27.209 on the quality of your work. And if it's accepted, 00:06:27.269 --> 00:06:30.629 it will be published. It then becomes available 00:06:30.910 --> 00:06:34.730 to all in the field, who then can conduct research 00:06:34.730 --> 00:06:38.149 or write articles to either support or refute 00:06:38.149 --> 00:06:43.949 your ideas. The same process is used for conference 00:06:43.949 --> 00:06:48.250 presentations and book contracts. Your work becomes 00:06:48.250 --> 00:06:52.310 public. People react to your ideas using research 00:06:52.310 --> 00:06:55.490 and reason. Then they go on to make careers, 00:06:55.790 --> 00:06:58.589 explaining to other people how right or wrong 00:06:58.589 --> 00:07:04.050 you are. However, they do this using reason and 00:07:04.050 --> 00:07:09.009 research. And it was a pretty good system until 00:07:09.009 --> 00:07:14.110 it wasn't. Today the words of a journalist carry 00:07:14.110 --> 00:07:16.889 more weight than that of a serious scholar in 00:07:16.889 --> 00:07:21.550 the field. Journalists are even invited to speak 00:07:21.550 --> 00:07:26.589 at academic conferences. What's up with that? 00:07:28.449 --> 00:07:33.379 The reading was. As stated before, there never 00:07:33.379 --> 00:07:37.620 was a reading ward in the academic field known 00:07:37.620 --> 00:07:42.319 as literacy instruction. The term reading wars 00:07:42.319 --> 00:07:47.259 was coined by the media. Now you might see this 00:07:47.259 --> 00:07:52.939 term used in academic circles today, but it originated 00:07:52.939 --> 00:07:57.899 outside the field of literacy instruction. There 00:07:57.899 --> 00:08:01.560 wasn't a reading war until the media decided 00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:05.759 they wanted to invent one. Instead, there was 00:08:05.759 --> 00:08:09.959 a natural clash of theories as psycholinguistic 00:08:09.959 --> 00:08:14.019 reading theory began to emerge and expand in 00:08:14.019 --> 00:08:19.139 the 70s and 80s. And like all theories, this 00:08:19.139 --> 00:08:23.160 new theory didn't show up fully formed. It took 00:08:23.160 --> 00:08:26.500 a while for it to grow and to take shape. and 00:08:26.500 --> 00:08:30.480 it continues to evolve to this day as new research 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:34.580 knowledge is generated. Now let's take a look 00:08:34.580 --> 00:08:39.659 at basals. This new emerging theory began to 00:08:39.659 --> 00:08:42.019 crowd out the behavioral learning theories of 00:08:42.019 --> 00:08:46.080 the day which were used to support a basal approach 00:08:46.080 --> 00:08:50.659 to reading instruction. And a basal is the name 00:08:50.659 --> 00:08:54.399 used for a teacher's manual for reading instruction. 00:08:54.960 --> 00:08:59.019 It's called a basal because it was originally 00:08:59.019 --> 00:09:02.940 designed to deliver a base level of reading instruction. 00:09:04.059 --> 00:09:08.259 And when I started teaching second grade in 1983, 00:09:09.700 --> 00:09:13.960 teachers were given basals. We used our basals 00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:17.259 to deliver a scripted reading program to students 00:09:17.259 --> 00:09:21.539 who sat passively at kidney -shaped tables so 00:09:21.539 --> 00:09:25.389 they could be learned at. Learning was something 00:09:25.389 --> 00:09:29.049 we did to children, not something children did. 00:09:30.610 --> 00:09:33.669 These Basel reading programs contained a variety 00:09:33.669 --> 00:09:36.850 of skill and drill activities, round -robin read 00:09:36.850 --> 00:09:40.190 -alouds, an approved canon of leveled stories, 00:09:41.210 --> 00:09:45.049 and comprehension questions focusing on the recall 00:09:45.049 --> 00:09:51.450 of story details. Sadly, the current science 00:09:51.450 --> 00:09:54.649 of reading mandates have us rushing forward to 00:09:54.649 --> 00:10:01.190 the past. In 1983, I followed the basal and taught 00:10:01.190 --> 00:10:05.009 all the skills. I met all my behavioral objectives. 00:10:05.710 --> 00:10:08.750 The students completed all the worksheets and 00:10:08.750 --> 00:10:11.169 most of them passed the end of the unit test. 00:10:11.769 --> 00:10:15.029 And I thought I was a good reading teacher because 00:10:15.029 --> 00:10:18.889 I was doing what the teacher's manual told me 00:10:18.889 --> 00:10:23.480 to do. And it wasn't until I saw a good reading 00:10:23.480 --> 00:10:28.059 workshop classroom that I realized how incredibly 00:10:28.059 --> 00:10:35.259 wrong I was. Meaning -based approaches. Theories 00:10:35.259 --> 00:10:39.639 aren't designed to be eternal entities. They 00:10:39.639 --> 00:10:43.100 exist for as long as they continue to explain 00:10:43.100 --> 00:10:48.039 facts and help us understand phenomena. Then 00:10:48.039 --> 00:10:53.710 they either evolve or slowly fade away. And it's 00:10:53.710 --> 00:10:57.110 natural to have multiple explanations of the 00:10:57.110 --> 00:11:01.029 same thing. This does not mean there's a war. 00:11:02.250 --> 00:11:05.230 It means there's an academic discussion going 00:11:05.230 --> 00:11:10.149 on. Bottom -up theories of reading and behavioral 00:11:10.149 --> 00:11:13.970 learning theories began to be replaced by interactive 00:11:13.970 --> 00:11:16.950 reading theories, psycholinguistic reading theories, 00:11:17.309 --> 00:11:21.509 and constructivist learning theories. These resulted 00:11:21.509 --> 00:11:24.610 in a variety of meaning -based approaches to 00:11:24.610 --> 00:11:27.470 literacy instruction, such as reading workshop, 00:11:27.789 --> 00:11:30.950 writing workshop, and literature -based reading 00:11:30.950 --> 00:11:35.990 instruction. And not only were these effective, 00:11:36.590 --> 00:11:41.190 but they were infinitely more enjoyable for teachers 00:11:41.190 --> 00:11:47.190 and students. And they did not cause scores to 00:11:47.190 --> 00:11:52.070 go down. And when I say this, the user responses, 00:11:52.309 --> 00:11:56.269 oh yeah? Well, show me the research. And I say, 00:11:56.529 --> 00:12:00.409 show you the research for what? Show me the research 00:12:00.409 --> 00:12:03.169 that proves that whole language didn't cause 00:12:03.169 --> 00:12:08.179 reading scores to go down. Well, first, you can't 00:12:08.179 --> 00:12:10.980 disprove a negative through research. Second, 00:12:11.139 --> 00:12:14.360 a single study or even a couple of studies doesn't 00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:18.019 prove anything. That's a simplistic understanding 00:12:18.019 --> 00:12:22.039 of research. Third, there is no the research 00:12:22.039 --> 00:12:26.200 that's read like a holy canon. Fourth, we've 00:12:26.200 --> 00:12:29.710 been showing you the research all along. But 00:12:29.710 --> 00:12:32.509 anecdotal evidence that journalists have a louder 00:12:32.509 --> 00:12:35.889 voice than a body of research and research scholars. 00:12:36.750 --> 00:12:40.210 Fifth, the proposition that whole language caused 00:12:40.210 --> 00:12:43.169 reading scores to go down. That was the proposition. 00:12:43.690 --> 00:12:47.409 The onus is on the proposition maker to support 00:12:47.409 --> 00:12:53.090 it. And sixth, searching for causes by making 00:12:53.090 --> 00:12:55.990 random correlations to things occurring at the 00:12:55.990 --> 00:13:02.700 same time. is superstition, not science. Again, 00:13:03.080 --> 00:13:07.320 there never was a reading war. A war assumes 00:13:07.320 --> 00:13:10.360 there are two armies meeting on a field of battle, 00:13:10.720 --> 00:13:15.159 and this didn't happen. But there was a reading 00:13:15.159 --> 00:13:19.120 coup. There was a hostile takeover of the field 00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:23.220 of literacy instruction by profiteers who saw 00:13:23.220 --> 00:13:27.210 public education as their own private ATM machine. 00:13:28.269 --> 00:13:32.330 This group of profiteers is part of the educational 00:13:32.330 --> 00:13:36.629 industrial complex, and it includes Cambria Lexi 00:13:36.629 --> 00:13:39.870 learning, Pearson education, Cengage learning, 00:13:40.870 --> 00:13:44.269 McGraw -Hill education, Voyager Sopras learning, 00:13:44.950 --> 00:13:48.049 TAL education group Bright Horizons, and such. 00:13:49.669 --> 00:13:53.870 They're armies of well -paid toadies, or consultants, 00:13:54.519 --> 00:13:58.860 Promise schools simple solutions to complex problems. 00:13:59.639 --> 00:14:02.899 Just buy our shiny new products, they say. Pay 00:14:02.899 --> 00:14:05.820 for our services, they say. Get trained by our 00:14:05.820 --> 00:14:09.259 experts, they say. And all your literacy problems 00:14:09.259 --> 00:14:12.720 will go away. All your students will be reading 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:16.639 above grade level. Well, I don't know, the school 00:14:16.639 --> 00:14:20.190 says. That's a lot of money. Look they say look 00:14:20.190 --> 00:14:23.789 at all the colorful charts and graphs look at 00:14:23.789 --> 00:14:27.250 all the pretty pretty numbers Well, the school 00:14:27.250 --> 00:14:31.090 says you do have numbers that must mean the real 00:14:31.090 --> 00:14:34.169 Wouldn't you like to have colorful charts and 00:14:34.169 --> 00:14:39.570 graphs like this? Wouldn't you like wouldn't 00:14:39.570 --> 00:14:43.049 wouldn't you like that? Wouldn't you like to 00:14:43.049 --> 00:14:46.429 have pretty pretty numbers? Yes, the school says 00:14:46.429 --> 00:14:51.220 yes, I would And that, my friends, is how education 00:14:51.220 --> 00:14:56.799 lost its soul. Think tanks, the hostile takeover 00:14:56.799 --> 00:15:00.080 of literacy instruction, also included those 00:15:00.080 --> 00:15:03.539 who wanted to control public education for their 00:15:03.539 --> 00:15:08.700 own political or philosophical purposes. These 00:15:08.700 --> 00:15:12.940 includes conservative organizations, such as 00:15:12.940 --> 00:15:16.240 American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, 00:15:16.440 --> 00:15:19.519 Brookings Institute, Rand Corporation, and the 00:15:19.519 --> 00:15:24.259 Thomas B. Fordham Institute. However, there can't 00:15:24.259 --> 00:15:26.860 be a lot of thinking going on in these think 00:15:26.860 --> 00:15:30.679 tanks if you're expected to come to predetermined 00:15:30.679 --> 00:15:35.159 conclusions about things. For all their questions, 00:15:35.419 --> 00:15:39.620 they have a predetermined list of answers. For 00:15:39.620 --> 00:15:44.029 all their problems, They have a predetermined 00:15:44.029 --> 00:15:48.809 list of solutions. These include privatization, 00:15:48.970 --> 00:15:52.529 testing, accountability, competition, mandated 00:15:52.529 --> 00:15:55.529 curriculum, mandated teaching strategies and 00:15:55.529 --> 00:15:58.909 approaches, getting rid of unions, parental control, 00:15:59.169 --> 00:16:01.889 charter schools, prayer in the school, vouchers, 00:16:02.149 --> 00:16:08.370 and the Ten Commandments. These think tanks fund 00:16:08.370 --> 00:16:13.360 these non... fund non -profit organizations who 00:16:13.360 --> 00:16:16.379 then claim their non -profit status as a badge 00:16:16.379 --> 00:16:21.740 of objectivity. However, these non -profit organizations 00:16:21.740 --> 00:16:24.820 would lose their special funding friends in a 00:16:24.820 --> 00:16:29.340 heartbeat if their think tanks didn't bark like 00:16:29.340 --> 00:16:33.440 trained seals. Now let's look at the Education 00:16:33.440 --> 00:16:37.539 Science Reform Act. In the 80s and 90s, there 00:16:37.539 --> 00:16:40.600 was an influx of qualitative research and education. 00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:44.320 Brian Camborn, Shirley Bryce Heath, and others 00:16:44.320 --> 00:16:48.919 helped us go beyond the numbers to understand 00:16:48.919 --> 00:16:54.379 the people behind the numbers. The lens of qualitative 00:16:54.379 --> 00:16:58.200 research enabled us to see things that simply 00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:01.840 were not visible when looking through the narrow 00:17:01.840 --> 00:17:06.920 lens of controlled experimental research. Instead 00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:12.480 of measuring, quantifying, and comparing, qualitative 00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:16.519 researchers used observations, interviews, action 00:17:16.519 --> 00:17:19.920 research, surveys, ethnographies, grounded theory, 00:17:20.099 --> 00:17:24.420 case studies, and phenomenology. The result was 00:17:24.420 --> 00:17:29.059 that real people began to appear on the pages 00:17:29.059 --> 00:17:34.910 of our academic journals. These real people were 00:17:34.910 --> 00:17:37.849 much more than pre - and post -test numbers. 00:17:39.289 --> 00:17:43.349 The real people moved from being subjects to 00:17:43.349 --> 00:17:47.890 participants, and the quiet voices of teachers, 00:17:48.450 --> 00:17:53.309 students, and parents began to be heard. As the 00:17:53.309 --> 00:17:57.009 who's in Whoville said in Horton Hears a Who, 00:17:57.369 --> 00:18:02.470 we are here. The rich conversations that were 00:18:02.470 --> 00:18:05.829 taking place within the Academy in the 90s were 00:18:05.829 --> 00:18:09.910 disrupted by the Education Science Reform Act 00:18:09.910 --> 00:18:15.150 of 2002. The federal government made a decree 00:18:15.150 --> 00:18:19.970 declaring what research in education must be. 00:18:21.210 --> 00:18:24.849 The result was a narrow, parochial view of educational 00:18:24.849 --> 00:18:29.460 research. Only knowledge generated by controlled 00:18:29.460 --> 00:18:34.859 experimental research was counted as valid. Only 00:18:34.859 --> 00:18:38.039 projects and programs supported by this very 00:18:38.039 --> 00:18:41.319 restricted view of educational research would 00:18:41.319 --> 00:18:46.259 be funded. It wasn't long before the Who's and 00:18:46.259 --> 00:18:52.059 Whoville were squashed by a giant federal Grinch 00:18:52.059 --> 00:18:58.740 foot. The Education Science Reform Act of 2002 00:18:58.740 --> 00:19:02.420 represents a simplistic understanding of research 00:19:02.420 --> 00:19:06.859 in the social sciences. It says that research 00:19:06.859 --> 00:19:10.279 methods used to study bacteria in a petri dish 00:19:10.279 --> 00:19:14.220 must be used to study children in a classroom. 00:19:15.599 --> 00:19:18.960 Controlled experimental studies is the only way 00:19:18.960 --> 00:19:22.440 of establishing causal relationships, it says. 00:19:23.309 --> 00:19:27.789 And the result was that researchers began asking 00:19:27.789 --> 00:19:31.990 only questions that could be answered by controlled 00:19:31.990 --> 00:19:36.269 experimental research. Questions like, is this 00:19:36.269 --> 00:19:38.849 thing better than that thing? And does this thing 00:19:38.849 --> 00:19:44.269 make scores go up? The frogs are no longer chirping 00:19:44.269 --> 00:19:48.589 in the ponds. We don't have the healthy academic 00:19:48.589 --> 00:19:53.640 ecosystem we once had. This has been The Reading 00:19:53.640 --> 00:19:56.319 Instruction Show. I'm your host, Dr. Andy Johnson.