This is the reading instruction show. I'm your host as always.
Dr. Andy Johnson, the title of today's podcast
is the science in quotation marks, the science of reading crown club.
Now in the usual practice of academia,
research is used to create
theories. Theories are then used to explain a set of facts
and to understand phenomena. And
as new data is encountered and as old theories become obsolete,
these old theories either evolve
or they're replaced by new theories. That's the natural way of things.
And along the way, of course, there is plenty of rigorous academic debate,
debate and respectful discourse over the research conducted
and the application of the theories.
However, as I deliver this podcast,
the science of reading clown club is doing what
any clown club would do when they can't win an argument based on merits.
They are lobbying state legislatures
to force teacher preparation programs at all colleges and universities
in the state of Minnesota to include
clown club principles in their curriculum.
The science of reading clown club.
That's an interesting bit of paradox that appears to be based
on a misunderstanding of both science
and reading. Now let me
explain the simple view of reading. Despite
a wealth of varying types of research data
from a wide range of sources supporting
a neurocognitive model of reading,
the clown club uses a singular
theoretical construct to understand reading and to guide
reading research. This is the final logical processing model
sometimes called the simple view of reading.
Here, reading is understood to be merely
sounding out words. Theoretical models
are the lens through which phenomena are viewed
and interpreted. However, clinging to
tightly to a singular theoretical model
can constrain the type of research undertaken.
It can limit the research questions asked,
constrict the type of data collected and restrictively
influence how that data are interpreted.
And with the thickening of the lens, the theory becomes increasingly data resistant.
Thereafter, only data that supports the theory
are considered valid. This is what life is like inside the science of reading
clown club. New data falling outside the theoretical model
are either ignored or forced into a
reductively inflexible box. In this way, the continued
growth and evolution of the field is stymied.
The science of reading clown club has demonstrated this
by their unquestioning fealty to the phonological processing model
that serves to render irrelevant or non-existent
a wealth of research data collected from a variety of fields.
Now this would not be problematic if the clown club practices were largely
successful in helping struggling readers.
But this is not the case. The clown club uses scripted programs
and prescribed approaches that focuses on direct instruction of low level
skills, reading sub skills. Now these are highly successful
in producing short-term blips on low level skill scores.
But these scores don't transfer to actual reading conditions
nor do they impact comprehension. Now the simplistic
view of reading this simplistic understanding is interconnected with a
simplistic understanding of research in the social sciences.
The clown club engages in paradigmic parochialism as it relates to research
methods within the field of reading. They have determined that only a single
type of research methodology can be used to ask and answer questions
in the field of education. Controlled experimental research, they say,
is the exclusive and epistemologically privileged
way of determining causality and making claims
as to what constitutes knowledge. But this research paradigm
reflects an outdated Newtonian mechanistic paradigm
used to understand and come to no reality. Here things exist only to the
extent to which they can be quantified. And this is ironically labeled as
scientifically based research. However, in true scientific inquiry,
the question discerns the method. The method does not determine the question.
And how can anything be said to be truly scientific
if it ignores or invalidates an abundance of data?
And that's what this simple view of research does.
The clown club insists that the same research methods
used to study the physical world in the artificial confines of a controlled
laboratory setting are the only methods that can be used to study
and make causal assertions about human beings in real world educational settings.
This methodological incarceration creates a narrow and distorted view
of the very educational reality it seeks to examine.
The result is a paradigmic people through which a complex world
is observed. But humans are not standardized products and there are far
too many variables in the real world of education to
control or isolate. As well, the results of large
controlled experimental research don't always generalize to smaller populations.
In identifying scientifically based research in education,
it's not the type of research methodology that's the problem.
It's the exclusive use of one type of research methodology to the exclusion
of all others. This methodological people creates a very
narrow and unrealistic view of the very educational reality it seeks to examine.
One of the results of this is that the clown club members
can only understand reading in terms of the phonological processing model.
And this of course is an ununderstanding.
Now, the interconnections between research paradigms
and instructional practices promoted by the clown club
is reflected in the overreliance of direct instruction
used with low-level reading subskills. Using mechanistic research paradigms,
cause-effect relationships are converted into stimulus response instructional
techniques. In much the same way a mouse is
leveraged into pressing a bar in a skinner box,
direct instruction and behavioral learning are used to leverage or
manipulate students into producing predetermined behaviors
that represent measurable learning objectives.
Learning is said to have occurred when students have displayed the appropriate
behavioral response to an instructional stimulus.
Reading is said to have occurred when students display
the appropriate sounding out word behaviors on standardized tests.
Within the clown club a teaching algorithm called direct instruction
is the predominant tool used to leverage students
towards measurable objectives. While direct instruction has been shown to
be effective for learning low-level skills,
it's extremely ineffective for developing high-level thinking,
understanding complex concepts and acquiring sophisticated skills.
The subsequent problem is that students who are taught by clown club teachers
are force-fed and interminable array of mind-numbing lessons
that use direct instruction to teach low-level concepts
and skills. As a result, these students have few opportunities to participate in
activities that would enable them to develop complex
thinking and deeper understandings of the world.
You don't have to control any variables to understand that if only
low-level skills are taught, only low-level learning occurs.
Thus, in clown club world, the myth of the reading disability is
perpetuated by the very system designed to make it go away.
The predominant use of low-level skills instruction
used in clown club world stands in contrast to the wide array of
pedagogical practices based on a more complex and complete
understanding of human learning that's emerged from fields,
fields like neuroscience, cognitive science,
psycholinguistics, and naturalistic inquiry.
Now, normally I'd be okay with anybody joining any club they wanted
but the science of reading clown club is trying to push their belief system on
others, they're trying to mandate a particular belief
system and they're trying to force unwilling practitioners
to adapt their views and their practices.
They can't win the argument so they try to legislate
beliefs and behaviors. Now, let's take a look at the neurocognitive model.
Sometimes refer as the psycholinguistic model.
I offer this up as an alternative to the phonological model
because it accounts for data ignored by the clown club and their use,
their exclusive use of the phonological processing model.
In the neurocognitive model, reading is defined as a process of creating
meaning with print, creating meaning not sounding out words.
And during this meaning making process, the brain uses
three queuing systems to recognize words on the page
during reading the phonological, the semantic,
and the syntactic queuing systems. As well, readers use what's in their head,
schemata, to make sense of what's on the page.
Also, during the process of reading our eyes
don't fixate on every word or letter. Our eyes fixate on only approximately
60% of the words on the page. In of these fixated words, our eyes usually
stop on only one or two letters. Since we can perceive only those things
upon which our eyes fixate, it's clear that our brain is filling
in the blanks to create meaning during the reading
process. It's clear as well that the eyes are directed
by information in the cortex much more so than information on the page
during the act of reading. Syntactic queues,
semantic queues, and minimal letter queues are used along with
information in our cortex to confirm or revise
words as the brain seeks to create meaning with print. Reading is not sounding
out words. Reading is creating meaning.
What readers need then, according to the psycholinguistic model,
is direct instruction related to meaning making strategies.
Not sounding out word strategies. They need direct instruction
related to the four word identification strategies. These are more
themic analysis, analogy, context clues, and phonics.
Word identification is different from word recognition.
And readers need to have activities in their curriculum to develop all
three queuing systems. And these should occur within a meaningful context
to the greatest extent possible. The science of reading clown club is for
clowns, not for students and teachers.