This is the Reading Instruction Show. I'm your host as always, Dr. Andy Johnson.
In this podcast, I examine Ken Goodman, Penguins, the Psycholinguistic
Guessing Game, Emily Hanford, American Public Media, some flawed ideas about
reading instruction, and some flawed ideas about flawed ideas. So let's get to
it. The guessing thing, the Psycholinguistic Guessing Game. In 1967,
Ken Goodman published an article in Reading Research Quarterly with the
title, Reading Full Colon, A Psycholinguistic Guessing Game. Now, eventually, a
herd of angry penguins came along. They would read just the title of this
article, and obviously they never read the article or any other of Ken
Goodman's work. From this title, they selected two words to project onto, kind
of like a Rorschach ink block test. The two words were reading and guessing. The
Rorschach response from this herd of angry penguins, flapping their wings and
swacking about for the last 55 years, has been that whole language teachers
teach students to guess at words. 55 years. You'd think that in 55 years since
the publication of this article, that these penguins might actually take the
time to read the article. And when I say read, I don't mean just sound out the
words. Don't do any decoding, but actually read the article. That is, use the text to
create meaning with this article. Check for understanding along the way. If this
is done, these penguins would soon be disabused of the whole language guessing
at words notion. I would invite the angry penguins who think Ken Goodman is the
reading anti-Christ to actually read his work. What exactly is it that he writes
about with which you disagree? Not what you think he wrote, not what someone else
said he wrote, but what exactly is it that he got wrong? Now, nobody agrees 100%
with anybody and everybody's thinking evolves over time as more information is
encountered. What he wrote in 1967 might be a little different than his later
work 30 plus years later, but he got a lot of things right. So let's look at some
of the basics. Some of the basics that Kenneth Goodman pointed out early on
that have been subsequently reified by research in psycholinguistics, neuroscience,
cognitive science, eye of movement and a miscue analysis and reading instruction.
Here are six things we know based on Kenneth Goodman's work. Number one, humans
use the information in their head to make sense of what's on the page during the
act of reading. What's in their head? Neuroimaging shows that almost 10 times
more information flows from the cortex down to the thalamus during reading than
from the page to the thalamus and up to the cortex. Information is flowing down
more so than is flowing up. Number two, we don't attend to every word as we are
reading. Eye movement research shows that expert readers ignore about 40% of the
words on the page. We skip right over them. Instead, our brain is filling in the
blanks based on semantic, syntactic and phonological clues. We only think we're
processing each individual word. Number three, expert readers use minimal
letter clues to recognize words. Recognizing words is different from
identifying words. Recognizing words is you see a word in print and you
automatically know what it is. Identifying words means that you see a word in
print. It's in your lexicon or the dictionary in your head. You don't
automatically recognize it so you need to use some strategy to identify it.
There's four word identification strategies. Analogy, you look for parts
that you recognize. Morphemic analysis, prefix, suffix and words.
Semantic clues, what word makes sense within the sentence and phonics or
phonological clues. These are four strategies that we use. Number four,
during reading our eyes don't move in a straight line from left to right. We
skip over words. These skips are called saccades. We stop and focus on some words.
The focus points are called fixations and we often counter words or out of order
or go back. These going back things are called regressions. When we read eye
movement research shows that our eyes flitter about like hummingbirds. Five,
expert readers often insert words that aren't on the page but are semantically
and syntactically correct. That is, we often use words that aren't on the page
but make sense within the sentence. This tells us that expert readers aren't
just sounding out words during reading. We're creating meaning with print.
Expert readers don't attend to surface structure of sentences as much as deep
structure or meaning. Just like when you're listening, you aren't attending to
the individual phonemes. You're hearing phrases and ideas, deep structure during
reading and during listening. Your brain is making sense and it's making a
series of micro predictions while simultaneously using metacognition to
ensure that what is being read or listened to makes sense. And the sixth idea,
our brain has a good sense of what the next word is as we're reading before. We
encounter it based on a lot of different types of data. This would be the
information found within the sentence and paragraph. This is semantic
information, the knowledge the reader has about the thing, background knowledge,
grammar in word order clues, this is syntax, and letter clues. This multi-data
hot dish enables our brain to operate quickly and efficiently during reading.
However, if we had to move from left to right using only letter clues and attending
to each and every letter and word in a linear progression, we would overwhelm
our short-term memory. We'd remember very little of what we read and we'd have
trouble reading more than 20 words a minute. Now, I wish Kenneth Goodman would
not have used the phrase psycholinguistic guessing game. Instead, I wish he would
have used the frayed psycholinguistic filly in the blanks with multiple kinds
of data before encountering the word game. But this last one doesn't roll off the
tongue as easily as psycholinguistic guessing game. Yes, I wish he would have
used a different phrase back in 1967, but he had no idea back then that hordes of
ill-informed penguins would be so easily whipped into a frenzy by politicians
and profiteers. Now, let's look at Emily Hanford, American public media, and some
flawed ideas about reading instruction. Emily Hanford of American public media
did a whole series about what she determined to be the flawed ideas being
used to teach millions of children to read, millions of children to read.
Flawed ideas, she called them. Ideas like balance literacy and whole language.
Imagine that. She determined them to be flawed. Now, I'm sure Emily Hanford is a
wonderful person and a wonderful reporter. I'm sure she creates some very
fascinating radio documentaries. If I were putting together a radio documentary,
she'd be on the top of my list of experts with whom I might consult. But
for getting accurate information related to reading instruction, she's quite a
bit further down the list. To be truthful, she's not even on the list. In fact, she
doesn't even know there is a list. Now, here's four things I want to tell you
about radio commentators and documentarians. First, radio commentators
and documentarians can say whatever they want as long as they're making good
radio. They don't have to cite their sources. They don't have to make sure
they're getting an accurate picture. They're making good radio. They can use
anecdotal evidence and personal accounts to generalize about things. As long as
it's good radio, nobody seems to care. Anecdotal evidence and first person
accounts are very powerful because we identify with the individual people and
their stories. This is very powerful, but it's not very accurate. This is
sometimes called my grandpa data. My grandpa smoked a pack of cigarettes and
lived to be a hundred. My grandpa did X. Therefore, X is good for all of
humanity or the epitome of human evolution argument. Back in the day, I
learned to read using X. Therefore, since I am the epitome of human evolution, X
must be good. The second idea, radio commentators and
documentarians can ignore anything that doesn't conform to the picture they're
trying to create. After all, they're making good radio. So they start with a
belief, then go out and look only for data that reinforces that belief. Now, if
there's a pesky bit of data that might messy up the picture, they can skip right
over it. Who cares? They're making good radio. They can ignore anything they want
to and include only what they want to so that they're able to create the picture
they want to create. Again, not very accurate, but they're making good radio.
The third thing about radio commentators and documentarians is that
there's no blind peer review. There's no expert looking at their work and
deciding if it's accurate or not. Nobody reviews the methodology behind their
work, the methodology used to collect the data and analyze the data. Oh, sure, there
might be station managers and producers and such, but they're radio experts not
reading instruction experts. And fourth, if there are experts related to the topic,
the radio commentators and documentarians get to select the experts.
Non-experts get to determine who the experts are. They get to put the dots on
the dot-to-dot picture they're creating. They then connect their dots, ignore a
whole bunch of other dots and proclaim it to be an accurate picture of reality
when in reality it's nothing but a warp dot-to-dot picture with a lot of missing
dots. Now, of course, when I contacted American public media after hearing
Emily Hanford's documentary, I wanted to describe how incredibly inaccurate the
information was that was presented. And I told them how I would be willing to
provide an accurate, more some accurate information. But I was shooed away, shoo,
they said. We talked to experts, they said. Go away, you pesky little man you. So, the
non-experts got to decide who was an expert. Talking to their experts made the
non-experts magically become experts. Poof, just like that. However, when Emily
Hanford did her expert shopping, she clearly looked for experts who agreed
with the picture she was trying to create. Excluding views and voices does not
give you an accurate picture of reality. Now, let's look at this podcast. Emily
Hanford produces a podcast. But first, Emily Hanford has a degree in English
from Amherst College, a small private liberal arts college. Not in education,
but English. And there's nothing wrong with that. She's now a senior correspondent
and producer for APM, American Public Media. She also produces a podcast called
Educate. It's about education and such. And there are four things I want to tell
you about her podcast. First, it gets many more listeners than my podcast.
Therefore, it must be better than mine. I don't have writers, producers, directors,
researchers, sound engineers and such. The second thing, she must know a lot more
about reading instruction than I do. After all, she's on the radio and I'm not.
Third, she'll never have me on her podcast as a guest. If she does, she'll cut and
paste what I say out of context. So I'll sound like a punch-drunk walrus. By the
way, I'm hoping she hears this and does have me on as a guest. And the fourth
thing, she has much better bumper music than I do. Bumper music is the intro music.
It's the bumper between one thing and the next. Hers is much better than mine
because I don't have any. I haven't had the time to figure out how to do this with
my podcast yet. I've been too busy doing meaningless stuff like scholarly work
related to reading instruction. So who should you believe? Emily Hanford has
released three documentaries investigating what she describes as
problematic approaches to reading instruction. Many are inclined to believe
her because after all, she is a senior correspondent and producer. On a LinkedIn
page, this is what she writes about herself and I quote, I've been working in
public media for more than two decades as a reporter, producer, editor, news director,
and program host. I've been at American public media since 2008 where I produce
education documentaries that air on public radio stations nationwide and
can also be heard on the Educate Podcast. I've written and produced for many
publications including NPR, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times,
Washington Monthly, MindShift, and PBS NewsHour. My work has won numerous
honors including a DuPont Columbia Award, a Casey Medal, and awards from the
Education Writers Association and the Associated Press. In 2017, I won the
Excellence in Media Reporting on Education Research Award from the
American Educational Research Associations. I am a frequent speaker and
moderator and host of the Ways and Means Podcast. I graduated from Amherst
College and lived in the Washington DC area. Unquote. Wow, very impressive, no? So
who should I believe about reading instruction? One radio reporter investigating
something that is clearly outside her area of expertise, using cherry-picked
data, including anecdotal evidence and ignoring data and experts that have
views that do not align with her preconceived perceptions. Should I believe
her? Or an organization, let's say like the International Literacy Association.
The International Literacy Association has come to a much different conclusion
than Emily Hanford. The International Literacy Association is comprised of
thousands of expert teachers, researchers, and scholars who've been
investigating reading instruction and publishing their findings in blind, peer
reviewed journals for over 65 years. Emily is one person, an English major,
investigating something outside her area of expertise using dubious sources, but
she has won the DuPont Columbia Award. Or should I believe the International
Literacy Association, which is comprised of thousands of experts,
investigating things within their area of expertise, using a variety of research
methods, and publishing their findings in peer reviewed journals for over 65
years. Which source should I believe? That's a tough one. But since Emily is
good radio, this is the source that will reach parents and lawmakers. After all,
all you have to do is listen to Emily. With the International Literacy
Association, you actually have to read things. You have to think about things.
With radio documentaries, all the thinking is done for you. In the meantime,
the only things saidlier than Emily Hanford's documentaries are those
people who cite Emily Hanford's documentaries as if they mean something.
Now, I'm sure Emily Hanford made a name for herself, which I guess is the
important thing here. I'm sure her documentary series about flawed reading
instruction ideas has moved her career forward. Be it at the expense of children
struggling to learn to read, but at least she got her three-part documentary
series on NPR, which is the important thing. This radio documentary, even though
it was filled with mistruths, untruths, semi-truths, and distorted information,
was a good career for her. So good for you, Emily Hanford. Now, I don't mean to be
dumping all over Emily Hanford. I know she's a very competent person. I'm sure
she's a very good person. I imagine she wakes up every day and says to herself,
look at you, Emily. Look at all the good things you've done for reading instruction
and for children. However, documentaries like Emily Hanford's do more to
misinform the public and promote bad reading instruction. As a result of
Emily Hanford, millions of dollars and countless hours are spent on programs and
curriculum that focus on teaching a series of meaningless low-level reading
skills and sub skills. Time and money could instead be spent on things that
would actually help children learn to read, like books, like good teachers, and
good professional development. This has been the Reading Instruction Show. I'm
your host, an actual reading expert, Dr. Andy Johnson.