1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,760 This is the reading instruction show. I'm your host as always. 2 00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:07,520 Dr. Andy Johnson, the title of today's podcast 3 00:00:07,520 --> 00:00:13,000 is the science in quotation marks, the science of reading crown club. 4 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:16,240 Now in the usual practice of academia, 5 00:00:16,240 --> 00:00:19,360 research is used to create 6 00:00:19,360 --> 00:00:24,200 theories. Theories are then used to explain a set of facts 7 00:00:24,200 --> 00:00:27,680 and to understand phenomena. And 8 00:00:27,680 --> 00:00:32,600 as new data is encountered and as old theories become obsolete, 9 00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:35,720 these old theories either evolve 10 00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:40,640 or they're replaced by new theories. That's the natural way of things. 11 00:00:40,640 --> 00:00:45,360 And along the way, of course, there is plenty of rigorous academic debate, 12 00:00:45,360 --> 00:00:50,120 debate and respectful discourse over the research conducted 13 00:00:50,120 --> 00:00:53,280 and the application of the theories. 14 00:00:53,280 --> 00:00:58,240 However, as I deliver this podcast, 15 00:00:58,240 --> 00:01:01,480 the science of reading clown club is doing what 16 00:01:01,480 --> 00:01:06,240 any clown club would do when they can't win an argument based on merits. 17 00:01:06,240 --> 00:01:09,560 They are lobbying state legislatures 18 00:01:09,560 --> 00:01:14,760 to force teacher preparation programs at all colleges and universities 19 00:01:14,760 --> 00:01:18,040 in the state of Minnesota to include 20 00:01:18,040 --> 00:01:21,360 clown club principles in their curriculum. 21 00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:24,400 The science of reading clown club. 22 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:29,080 That's an interesting bit of paradox that appears to be based 23 00:01:29,080 --> 00:01:32,280 on a misunderstanding of both science 24 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:35,480 and reading. Now let me 25 00:01:35,480 --> 00:01:40,160 explain the simple view of reading. Despite 26 00:01:40,160 --> 00:01:44,680 a wealth of varying types of research data 27 00:01:44,680 --> 00:01:48,160 from a wide range of sources supporting 28 00:01:48,160 --> 00:01:52,040 a neurocognitive model of reading, 29 00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:55,200 the clown club uses a singular 30 00:01:55,200 --> 00:01:59,240 theoretical construct to understand reading and to guide 31 00:01:59,240 --> 00:02:04,680 reading research. This is the final logical processing model 32 00:02:04,680 --> 00:02:08,720 sometimes called the simple view of reading. 33 00:02:08,720 --> 00:02:12,440 Here, reading is understood to be merely 34 00:02:12,440 --> 00:02:17,520 sounding out words. Theoretical models 35 00:02:17,520 --> 00:02:20,720 are the lens through which phenomena are viewed 36 00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:24,880 and interpreted. However, clinging to 37 00:02:24,880 --> 00:02:28,720 tightly to a singular theoretical model 38 00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:32,880 can constrain the type of research undertaken. 39 00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:36,160 It can limit the research questions asked, 40 00:02:36,160 --> 00:02:40,560 constrict the type of data collected and restrictively 41 00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:45,600 influence how that data are interpreted. 42 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:53,120 And with the thickening of the lens, the theory becomes increasingly data resistant. 43 00:02:53,120 --> 00:02:57,600 Thereafter, only data that supports the theory 44 00:02:57,600 --> 00:03:04,560 are considered valid. This is what life is like inside the science of reading 45 00:03:04,560 --> 00:03:10,240 clown club. New data falling outside the theoretical model 46 00:03:10,240 --> 00:03:13,600 are either ignored or forced into a 47 00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:19,600 reductively inflexible box. In this way, the continued 48 00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:24,880 growth and evolution of the field is stymied. 49 00:03:24,880 --> 00:03:28,720 The science of reading clown club has demonstrated this 50 00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:34,080 by their unquestioning fealty to the phonological processing model 51 00:03:34,080 --> 00:03:38,640 that serves to render irrelevant or non-existent 52 00:03:38,640 --> 00:03:45,840 a wealth of research data collected from a variety of fields. 53 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:51,200 Now this would not be problematic if the clown club practices were largely 54 00:03:51,200 --> 00:03:55,200 successful in helping struggling readers. 55 00:03:55,200 --> 00:04:02,240 But this is not the case. The clown club uses scripted programs 56 00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:08,000 and prescribed approaches that focuses on direct instruction of low level 57 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:14,480 skills, reading sub skills. Now these are highly successful 58 00:04:14,480 --> 00:04:20,960 in producing short-term blips on low level skill scores. 59 00:04:20,960 --> 00:04:26,880 But these scores don't transfer to actual reading conditions 60 00:04:26,880 --> 00:04:34,080 nor do they impact comprehension. Now the simplistic 61 00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:40,000 view of reading this simplistic understanding is interconnected with a 62 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:47,600 simplistic understanding of research in the social sciences. 63 00:04:47,600 --> 00:04:54,480 The clown club engages in paradigmic parochialism as it relates to research 64 00:04:54,480 --> 00:05:01,680 methods within the field of reading. They have determined that only a single 65 00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:08,160 type of research methodology can be used to ask and answer questions 66 00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:14,960 in the field of education. Controlled experimental research, they say, 67 00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:19,120 is the exclusive and epistemologically privileged 68 00:05:19,120 --> 00:05:22,960 way of determining causality and making claims 69 00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:29,760 as to what constitutes knowledge. But this research paradigm 70 00:05:29,760 --> 00:05:34,400 reflects an outdated Newtonian mechanistic paradigm 71 00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:41,520 used to understand and come to no reality. Here things exist only to the 72 00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:48,800 extent to which they can be quantified. And this is ironically labeled as 73 00:05:48,800 --> 00:05:58,720 scientifically based research. However, in true scientific inquiry, 74 00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:06,960 the question discerns the method. The method does not determine the question. 75 00:06:06,960 --> 00:06:10,960 And how can anything be said to be truly scientific 76 00:06:10,960 --> 00:06:15,440 if it ignores or invalidates an abundance of data? 77 00:06:15,440 --> 00:06:19,360 And that's what this simple view of research does. 78 00:06:19,360 --> 00:06:24,000 The clown club insists that the same research methods 79 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:29,520 used to study the physical world in the artificial confines of a controlled 80 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:35,520 laboratory setting are the only methods that can be used to study 81 00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:43,920 and make causal assertions about human beings in real world educational settings. 82 00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:50,560 This methodological incarceration creates a narrow and distorted view 83 00:06:50,560 --> 00:06:56,080 of the very educational reality it seeks to examine. 84 00:06:56,080 --> 00:07:02,000 The result is a paradigmic people through which a complex world 85 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:08,640 is observed. But humans are not standardized products and there are far 86 00:07:08,640 --> 00:07:12,080 too many variables in the real world of education to 87 00:07:12,080 --> 00:07:17,360 control or isolate. As well, the results of large 88 00:07:17,360 --> 00:07:25,040 controlled experimental research don't always generalize to smaller populations. 89 00:07:25,040 --> 00:07:29,360 In identifying scientifically based research in education, 90 00:07:29,360 --> 00:07:33,680 it's not the type of research methodology that's the problem. 91 00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:40,320 It's the exclusive use of one type of research methodology to the exclusion 92 00:07:40,320 --> 00:07:45,840 of all others. This methodological people creates a very 93 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:52,720 narrow and unrealistic view of the very educational reality it seeks to examine. 94 00:07:52,720 --> 00:07:56,240 One of the results of this is that the clown club members 95 00:07:56,240 --> 00:08:02,480 can only understand reading in terms of the phonological processing model. 96 00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:07,520 And this of course is an ununderstanding. 97 00:08:08,080 --> 00:08:11,360 Now, the interconnections between research paradigms 98 00:08:11,360 --> 00:08:15,200 and instructional practices promoted by the clown club 99 00:08:15,200 --> 00:08:19,440 is reflected in the overreliance of direct instruction 100 00:08:19,440 --> 00:08:26,720 used with low-level reading subskills. Using mechanistic research paradigms, 101 00:08:26,720 --> 00:08:32,160 cause-effect relationships are converted into stimulus response instructional 102 00:08:32,160 --> 00:08:35,840 techniques. In much the same way a mouse is 103 00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:39,200 leveraged into pressing a bar in a skinner box, 104 00:08:39,200 --> 00:08:43,680 direct instruction and behavioral learning are used to leverage or 105 00:08:43,680 --> 00:08:48,880 manipulate students into producing predetermined behaviors 106 00:08:48,880 --> 00:08:53,520 that represent measurable learning objectives. 107 00:08:53,520 --> 00:08:57,760 Learning is said to have occurred when students have displayed the appropriate 108 00:08:57,760 --> 00:09:02,560 behavioral response to an instructional stimulus. 109 00:09:02,560 --> 00:09:05,680 Reading is said to have occurred when students display 110 00:09:05,680 --> 00:09:11,920 the appropriate sounding out word behaviors on standardized tests. 111 00:09:11,920 --> 00:09:16,800 Within the clown club a teaching algorithm called direct instruction 112 00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:20,000 is the predominant tool used to leverage students 113 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:25,680 towards measurable objectives. While direct instruction has been shown to 114 00:09:25,680 --> 00:09:29,760 be effective for learning low-level skills, 115 00:09:29,760 --> 00:09:34,880 it's extremely ineffective for developing high-level thinking, 116 00:09:34,880 --> 00:09:40,800 understanding complex concepts and acquiring sophisticated skills. 117 00:09:40,800 --> 00:09:45,840 The subsequent problem is that students who are taught by clown club teachers 118 00:09:45,840 --> 00:09:50,560 are force-fed and interminable array of mind-numbing lessons 119 00:09:50,560 --> 00:09:54,240 that use direct instruction to teach low-level concepts 120 00:09:54,240 --> 00:10:01,840 and skills. As a result, these students have few opportunities to participate in 121 00:10:01,840 --> 00:10:05,600 activities that would enable them to develop complex 122 00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:10,800 thinking and deeper understandings of the world. 123 00:10:10,800 --> 00:10:14,640 You don't have to control any variables to understand that if only 124 00:10:14,640 --> 00:10:20,480 low-level skills are taught, only low-level learning occurs. 125 00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:25,760 Thus, in clown club world, the myth of the reading disability is 126 00:10:25,760 --> 00:10:31,040 perpetuated by the very system designed to make it go away. 127 00:10:31,040 --> 00:10:34,320 The predominant use of low-level skills instruction 128 00:10:34,320 --> 00:10:39,680 used in clown club world stands in contrast to the wide array of 129 00:10:39,680 --> 00:10:44,480 pedagogical practices based on a more complex and complete 130 00:10:44,480 --> 00:10:51,600 understanding of human learning that's emerged from fields, 131 00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:55,840 fields like neuroscience, cognitive science, 132 00:10:55,840 --> 00:11:00,080 psycholinguistics, and naturalistic inquiry. 133 00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:07,040 Now, normally I'd be okay with anybody joining any club they wanted 134 00:11:07,040 --> 00:11:13,200 but the science of reading clown club is trying to push their belief system on 135 00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:16,720 others, they're trying to mandate a particular belief 136 00:11:16,720 --> 00:11:21,040 system and they're trying to force unwilling practitioners 137 00:11:21,040 --> 00:11:24,960 to adapt their views and their practices. 138 00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:29,600 They can't win the argument so they try to legislate 139 00:11:29,600 --> 00:11:35,200 beliefs and behaviors. Now, let's take a look at the neurocognitive model. 140 00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:40,400 Sometimes refer as the psycholinguistic model. 141 00:11:40,400 --> 00:11:44,240 I offer this up as an alternative to the phonological model 142 00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:50,640 because it accounts for data ignored by the clown club and their use, 143 00:11:50,640 --> 00:11:55,200 their exclusive use of the phonological processing model. 144 00:11:55,200 --> 00:12:01,520 In the neurocognitive model, reading is defined as a process of creating 145 00:12:01,520 --> 00:12:07,520 meaning with print, creating meaning not sounding out words. 146 00:12:07,520 --> 00:12:11,840 And during this meaning making process, the brain uses 147 00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:16,320 three queuing systems to recognize words on the page 148 00:12:16,320 --> 00:12:20,240 during reading the phonological, the semantic, 149 00:12:20,240 --> 00:12:26,720 and the syntactic queuing systems. As well, readers use what's in their head, 150 00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:31,120 schemata, to make sense of what's on the page. 151 00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:34,960 Also, during the process of reading our eyes 152 00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:40,640 don't fixate on every word or letter. Our eyes fixate on only approximately 153 00:12:40,640 --> 00:12:47,440 60% of the words on the page. In of these fixated words, our eyes usually 154 00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:53,520 stop on only one or two letters. Since we can perceive only those things 155 00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:58,480 upon which our eyes fixate, it's clear that our brain is filling 156 00:12:58,480 --> 00:13:02,560 in the blanks to create meaning during the reading 157 00:13:02,560 --> 00:13:06,480 process. It's clear as well that the eyes are directed 158 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:11,520 by information in the cortex much more so than information on the page 159 00:13:11,520 --> 00:13:15,360 during the act of reading. Syntactic queues, 160 00:13:15,360 --> 00:13:20,240 semantic queues, and minimal letter queues are used along with 161 00:13:20,240 --> 00:13:23,680 information in our cortex to confirm or revise 162 00:13:23,680 --> 00:13:30,800 words as the brain seeks to create meaning with print. Reading is not sounding 163 00:13:30,800 --> 00:13:35,840 out words. Reading is creating meaning. 164 00:13:35,840 --> 00:13:40,400 What readers need then, according to the psycholinguistic model, 165 00:13:40,400 --> 00:13:45,440 is direct instruction related to meaning making strategies. 166 00:13:45,440 --> 00:13:49,280 Not sounding out word strategies. They need direct instruction 167 00:13:49,280 --> 00:13:55,520 related to the four word identification strategies. These are more 168 00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:59,440 themic analysis, analogy, context clues, and phonics. 169 00:13:59,440 --> 00:14:04,320 Word identification is different from word recognition. 170 00:14:04,320 --> 00:14:11,200 And readers need to have activities in their curriculum to develop all 171 00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:17,840 three queuing systems. And these should occur within a meaningful context 172 00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:24,240 to the greatest extent possible. The science of reading clown club is for 173 00:14:24,240 --> 00:14:35,200 clowns, not for students and teachers.