1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,800 This is the reading instruction show. 2 00:00:02,800 --> 00:00:05,600 I'm your host is always Dr. Andy Johnson. 3 00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:10,400 The topic of today's podcast is this. 4 00:00:10,400 --> 00:00:18,400 The science of reading advocates that we teach children to guess at words. 5 00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:23,200 They're advocating a graphing phoning word guessing game. 6 00:00:23,200 --> 00:00:26,480 Now, Tim Shanahan, Weasel Mott's, 7 00:00:26,480 --> 00:00:31,600 Linnea Airey, Wilson reading systems, Horton Gillian, him profiteers, 8 00:00:31,600 --> 00:00:37,040 science of reading advocates, the International Dyslexia Association, 9 00:00:37,920 --> 00:00:46,080 and all the other plucky little phonyx penguins are advocating that we teach children to read 10 00:00:46,080 --> 00:00:48,400 by guessing at words. 11 00:00:49,520 --> 00:00:50,480 Now, let me explain. 12 00:00:50,480 --> 00:00:59,360 Their skills first approach to reading instruction is based on the phonological processing model. 13 00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:02,800 Sometimes called the simple view of reading. 14 00:01:03,680 --> 00:01:11,440 This model defines reading as a combination of decoding and sounding out words and listening. 15 00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:18,480 Essentially, you sound out words and then you make a guess and then you listen to the speech in 16 00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:21,920 your head. And here's where the guessing comes in. 17 00:01:22,720 --> 00:01:30,000 If you come to a word you don't recognize, students are taught to put all the sounds to the letters, 18 00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:38,720 then put all the letters sounds together, then to guess what the word is based on the sounds. 19 00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:44,160 This is nothing more than a graphing phonym word guessing game. 20 00:01:44,160 --> 00:01:48,480 The phonics penguins are teaching children to guess at words. 21 00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:53,760 And we've got to put a stop to this horrible, horrible travesty of reading instruction. 22 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:56,000 It's rooting America. 23 00:01:57,360 --> 00:02:00,480 It's causing global warming. 24 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:10,880 Now, you can see this graphing phonym word guessing game take place by listening to children read 25 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:18,480 who've been hyper-foneticized. These are the ones who've been hit over the head day after day 26 00:02:19,120 --> 00:02:26,320 with systematic sound and guess instruction to the detriment of any other kinds of reading. 27 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:34,080 They get so much sound and guess instruction that they come to believe that reading is sounding out 28 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:42,560 words and guessing and not creating meaning. So, during reading, of course, their sole focus 29 00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:51,120 is on sounding and guessing individual words. You can see this during their oral reading. 30 00:02:51,920 --> 00:02:58,800 The hyper-foneticized child will come to an unrecognized word and begin moving down the line, 31 00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:04,800 moving down the line, putting a sound to each letter, putting the sounds together, 32 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:12,080 and then making a guess based on the letter sounds. This is the graphing phonym word guessing game. 33 00:03:13,920 --> 00:03:20,960 The typical scenario goes something like this. The child is reading, then stops at an unrecognized 34 00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:33,040 word. The teacher will say, sound it out, as if the child had never thought of that. And they'll 35 00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:41,200 make a guess. Animal. Then the teacher will confirm or disconfirm the guess. That's right, Sam. 36 00:03:42,320 --> 00:03:48,720 This graphing phonym word guessing game will take six to ten seconds. Then the child will 37 00:03:48,720 --> 00:03:55,600 continue reading until that child comes across another unrecognized word and the graphing 38 00:03:55,600 --> 00:04:02,960 phonym word guessing game will start again. And during this word guessing process, 39 00:04:03,760 --> 00:04:10,560 the child is expected to engage in two cognitive operations simultaneously, 40 00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:20,720 creating meaning and graphing phonym word guessing. But sounding and guessing takes a lot of time 41 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:28,720 and uses a lot of space in short-term memory, putting all the sounds to letters, putting 42 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:34,080 all the letter sounds together to make words, and making a graphing phonym guess. 43 00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:43,360 But short-term memory is very limited. It can hold only about seven entities for about 15 seconds. 44 00:04:44,720 --> 00:04:50,560 You can't hold all these letters and letter sounds, put them together, guess at the word, 45 00:04:50,560 --> 00:05:00,400 and try to make sense of your reading all at the same time. It's just too much to do in a small, 46 00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:11,680 cognitive space. So instead of creating meaning, the child focuses on what their sounder, 47 00:05:11,680 --> 00:05:18,720 guesser's instruction has taught them to do, focus on individual letters and sounds. 48 00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:29,040 Put all the sounds together and make a guess. This is preposterous. Yet this is what the science 49 00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:36,800 of reading promotes. The science of reading is based on the phonological processing model. 50 00:05:38,560 --> 00:05:44,880 This perspective is based far more on conjecture than actual science, but the science of reading 51 00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:54,080 advocates still using the term scientifically based reading instruction, when in reality it 52 00:05:54,080 --> 00:06:00,560 should be conjecture based reading instruction. Instead of the science of reading, they should 53 00:06:00,560 --> 00:06:09,680 call it the conjecture of reading. The graphing phonym word guessing game. Now just some basic 54 00:06:09,680 --> 00:06:18,960 things. The difference between real reading teachers and sound guessing teachers. Real 55 00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:29,600 reading teachers teach phonics in a systematic fashion. Yes, they do. Now systematic instruction 56 00:06:29,600 --> 00:06:38,000 is different from standardized one size fits all instruction. Systematic means they teach 57 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:44,800 letter sound skills as students are ready for them in meaningful context to the greatest extent 58 00:06:44,800 --> 00:06:53,440 possible. Also they use direct and explicit instruction and they use some system to keep 59 00:06:53,440 --> 00:07:01,360 track of what is taught and when students have mastered each letter sound. And they now students 60 00:07:01,360 --> 00:07:08,560 have mastered the skill when they observe them using the skill in an authentic reading or writing 61 00:07:08,560 --> 00:07:16,800 context. As opposed sound guessing teachers are given a list of letter sounds and patterns. 62 00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:25,360 Sound guessing teachers start at one end of the list and march all students through the same list 63 00:07:25,360 --> 00:07:32,720 in the same order whether they're ready for the skill or not. Advanced readers are moved through 64 00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:39,520 this list a little faster and struggling readers are moved through the list a little slower so 65 00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:48,160 that they can catch up. Real reading teachers create activities to develop all three queuing 66 00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:56,320 systems so the child doesn't have to guess at words. Instead the child can use three types 67 00:07:56,320 --> 00:08:03,040 of informations to recognize words and create meaning. This is what real reading teachers do. 68 00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:12,480 If the child is able to use semantic information, syntactic information, and graphophonological 69 00:08:12,480 --> 00:08:19,280 information, that child is better able to recognize words and doesn't have to guess at words. 70 00:08:19,280 --> 00:08:26,400 Instead the child uses metacognition to see if the unrecognized word makes sense. 71 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:35,920 Sound guessing teachers teach children to use only one source of information to recognize words, 72 00:08:36,720 --> 00:08:43,680 graphophonological information. This leads to sounding and guessing. 73 00:08:43,680 --> 00:08:51,760 Real reading teachers immerse children in real authentic reading and writing experiences 74 00:08:51,760 --> 00:09:02,000 as soon as possible. The purpose here is to read and write for pleasure. Children do a lot of this 75 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:09,040 with real reading teachers. Hence they are able to practice their systematic instruction 76 00:09:09,040 --> 00:09:17,360 in authentic reading and writing contexts. Sound guessing teachers believe that children need to 77 00:09:17,360 --> 00:09:24,640 be made ready before they're able to read. So they're given a lot of fake books to read 78 00:09:24,640 --> 00:09:30,000 with controlled vocabulary that sounds nothing at all like the language around them. 79 00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:38,480 Dan the man sat on a fan. Look, look, Dan sat on a can. The can belonged to a man named Stan. 80 00:09:39,120 --> 00:09:46,000 That's called a controlled vocabulary. Sound guessing teachers believe that children need 81 00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:54,880 to be made ready to write before they're able to write. Any writing they do is these students 82 00:09:54,880 --> 00:10:03,360 write words on worksheets. Real reading teachers do not teach children to guess at words like the 83 00:10:03,360 --> 00:10:13,840 sound their guessers do. We focus on teaching children to create meaning with print. Now I'd 84 00:10:13,840 --> 00:10:21,600 like to end with four points of clarification. And first of all, you'll have to admire those 85 00:10:21,600 --> 00:10:28,720 plucky little phonics penguins who are so adamant in their opposition to anything other than sounder 86 00:10:28,720 --> 00:10:37,040 outer word guessing instruction. Here's a bit of pin Guinery I recently came across. 87 00:10:37,760 --> 00:10:44,000 The writer was very adamant and stating that the queuing approach to reading instruction 88 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:51,920 doesn't work. That's what the penguin said. The three queuing approach to reading instruction 89 00:10:51,920 --> 00:11:01,840 has been debunked. She said it doesn't work. So clarification number one, there is no such thing 90 00:11:01,840 --> 00:11:11,920 as a queuing approach or a three queuing method. The three queuing systems is not an approach to 91 00:11:11,920 --> 00:11:20,800 teaching reading. It's not a method. It's not a technique. It's not even a strategy. But knowing 92 00:11:20,800 --> 00:11:27,920 this will not prevent the penguins from stating this over and over again. The three queuing systems 93 00:11:27,920 --> 00:11:35,760 in reading refers to the three systems the brain uses to recognize words during the act of reading. 94 00:11:35,760 --> 00:11:44,320 As we encounter text, we use three queuing systems to recognize words, phonological, 95 00:11:44,320 --> 00:11:53,280 semantic and syntactic. These systems work together to enable us to quickly and efficiently 96 00:11:53,280 --> 00:12:00,880 recognize the words on the page so we don't have to guess. Second point of clarification, 97 00:12:00,880 --> 00:12:09,280 reading programs that use only a phonics based approach develop the least efficient of the 98 00:12:09,280 --> 00:12:15,600 queuing systems while ignoring the development of the two more efficient queuing systems. 99 00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:23,760 The most efficient are the semantic and syntactic. The least is the phonological or the graphophonological. 100 00:12:23,760 --> 00:12:30,240 Doesn't mean we don't address all of them. It does. But addressing just the graphophonological 101 00:12:30,240 --> 00:12:36,960 actually makes it harder for children to learn to read. You're asking them to create meaning with 102 00:12:36,960 --> 00:12:46,960 print using only one third of their word recognition brain. All students benefit most from instructional 103 00:12:46,960 --> 00:12:56,640 programs that simultaneously develop all three queuing systems. Point number three, word recognition 104 00:12:56,640 --> 00:13:04,800 and word identification are not the same. And this is the basis of a lot of confuser 105 00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:14,720 rate going on. Again, recognizing words is different from identifying words. The three 106 00:13:14,720 --> 00:13:23,200 queuing systems work together to recognize words, not identify words. Let me clarify. 107 00:13:23,200 --> 00:13:32,960 Why? Recognizing words is when we encounter a word in print and we automatically know what it is. 108 00:13:32,960 --> 00:13:39,840 We recognize it instantly. We don't have to process the individual letters and put them 109 00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:47,760 together in short-term memory to form words. Identifying a word is when we encounter a word 110 00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:55,920 in print and we don't recognize it. It's in the dictionary in our head or our lexicon, 111 00:13:55,920 --> 00:14:03,520 but we don't immediately know what that word is. We don't recognize it. So we have to consciously 112 00:14:03,520 --> 00:14:13,680 employ a strategy in order to identify it. We have to intentionally decide to use some sort of plan 113 00:14:13,680 --> 00:14:21,760 or tactic to figure out what in the heck that word is. And there are four word identification 114 00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:30,800 strategies. The first one is word parts or analogy. Looking for familiar word parts or patterns within 115 00:14:30,800 --> 00:14:39,200 the words. Sometimes this is known as large unit phonics. More themic analysis. Looking for familiar 116 00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:47,040 prefixes, suffixes, affixes, and roots within the word. Context clues. Looking to see what makes 117 00:14:47,040 --> 00:14:53,600 sense within the sentence. And letter clues. Sounding out the letters and putting the letters 118 00:14:53,600 --> 00:15:02,000 together to create words. We teach students to use all four of these strategies. And the fourth idea 119 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:12,160 related to what I just said. We teach the strategy to develop the skill. We teach the word identification 120 00:15:12,160 --> 00:15:23,600 strategy, those four, explicitly using very direct and very explicit instruction. We teach this strategy 121 00:15:23,600 --> 00:15:31,200 so they do it automatically. Teach the strategy to develop the skill. We teach and practice them. 122 00:15:31,200 --> 00:15:37,920 All four of these strategies and eventually these cognitive operations become internalized 123 00:15:37,920 --> 00:15:45,600 and automaticity is achieved. A strategy and a cognitive sense is something we consciously 124 00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:56,240 employ. A skill is something that occurs automatically. We teach the strategy to develop the skill. 125 00:15:57,600 --> 00:16:04,560 All right. This has been the reading instruction show. We've been focusing on the graphing, 126 00:16:04,560 --> 00:16:11,040 phoning, word guessing game that science of reading advocates are teaching children. They're 127 00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:16,640 teaching our children to guess at words and we must, must stop that.