This is the Reading Instruction Show. I'm your host, Dr. Angie Johnson.
The topic of today's podcast. It's a two or three, maybe four part series.
I don't know on the pseudoscience of reading. It's called
the pseudoscience of reading and space alien gravity theory.
Now that I've got your attention, the essence of science is this.
You ask a question and then collect data to answer the question.
This is science. It's a process. It's a verb to science.
With science, the data can't just be collected all higgly-piggly.
There must be an approved method and that method must be systematic.
There are many systematic methods that can be used to collect the data used to answer questions.
And there are many types of data to collect.
Hence, there is no single scientific method. Rather, there are methods of science.
Now in this whole discussion about research and science,
an important distinction has to be made between science and pseudoscience.
Science asks a question and then collects data to answer the question.
Pseudoscience starts with the answer and then collects data to support that answer.
The science in quotation marks, the science of reading is really the pseudoscience of reading.
That's because in examining the questions related to effective reading instruction,
the pseudoscience of reading research starts with an answer, such as sounding out word instruction
or phonemic awareness activity or systematic skills instruction.
Pseudoscience reading research selectively collects only that data which supports their predetermined answer.
Data that conflicts with their predetermined answer is dismissed, ignored,
or considered to be irrelevant flawed opinions or methodologically unsound.
But in order to sound less pseudoscience and more like science,
pseudoscience of reading believers use fancy pants words in terms like orthographic mapping, morphemes, rigorous phonics progression,
graphophonological semantic cognitive flexibility, occipital lobe, parietal lobe, corticothalamic connections,
thalamocortical connections, epistemology, morphological awareness, orthographic lexicon, phoneme grapheme relationships,
diagraphs, morphophononemic awareness, orthomorphographo-femonio awareness.
I made up that last one, but you get the point.
But describing pseudoscience research using only third person pronouns and big words doesn't make you sound scientific.
It just makes you sound silly.
Now, pseudoscience of reading enthusiasts are fond of saying things like the research.
The research says that or the research shows that or the research proves that.
The research, the research, the research, except that there's no such thing as the research.
The research is a product of their pseudoscience imaginations.
There is, however, research scientific research.
Now, let's take a look at theory, all just a bunch of theory and where research scientific research comes in.
Each scientific research study creates a data point.
These data points are used to create theories.
A theory is like a dot to dot picture connecting a series of research based data dots.
And theories, good theories, sound theories are made up of many research based data points or data dots.
And why are theories considered useful?
A theory is a way to explain a set of facts.
Theories are used to understand phenomena.
There are different theories of reading, all of which are made up of data dot research facts.
Theories help us understand the process of reading and to make good decisions about reading instruction.
But here's the dirty little secret about theories.
All theories are a little bit right and a little bit wrong.
As such, technically there's no such thing as correct and incorrect theories.
There are, however, robust theories and weak theories.
Robust theories connect a lot of data dots.
Weak theories connect a few data dots.
Robust theories account for a lot of facts.
Weak theories leave important facts unaccounted for.
Now as an example, let's take some theories of gravity and their theories.
Einstein's theory of gravity made Newton's theory of gravity obsolete.
Newton's theory wasn't wrong.
It was based on data and stood for a long time.
Newton's theory of gravity essentially said it was a force in which bigger things tug on littler things.
But a new set of data dots reconfigured the dot-to-dot picture of theoretic reality.
Einstein's theory said that it wasn't a force at all, rather it was a curvature of space and time caused by mass and energy.
Now picture a bowling ball put in the middle of a trampoline and a ping-pong ball two feet away.
The bowling ball would sink into the trampoline pulling the ping-pong ball with it.
But it wasn't the bowling ball that pulled the ping-pong ball but the curvature of the trampoline.
Now picture a trampoline in three dimensions and you have Einstein's theory of gravity.
This theory explains a lot of data dots and will hold until one comes along and reconfigures this theory and makes it obsolete.
Now consider Ralph's space alien theory of gravity.
Ralph's theory states that gravity is caused by massive magnets buried deep within the earth by space aliens.
These are super special space alien magnets that attract all things, not just metal.
Now there are indeed some facts to support this theory.
However, to be honest, there are far more facts to disprove or refute this theory.
These are facts that are in conflict with Ralph's theory.
But if Ralph wanted to maintain his space alien theory of gravity, he would focus only on those facts that support his theory.
Now do you see where this analogy is going?
Hang on. Let's look at bottom-up theory and the phonological processing model of reading.
The science of reading is based on a theory called the simple view of reading.
The simple view of reading is very simple.
It defines reading as a combination of two things, decoding and listening comprehension.
Decoding plus listening comprehension equals reading.
And what could be simpler than that?
Well, the phonological processing model is a little simpler.
The phonological processing model is a theoretical model.
Models are representation that show how things work in reality.
The phonological processing model of reading posits that reading is sounding out words.
It represents reading as being a one-way flow of information from the page to the thalamus and up to the cortex.
You just sound it out. That's reading.
Sometimes this is called a bottom-up theory.
The bottom-up theory of reading.
Simple view of reading, phonological processing model, the bottom-up theory of reading are all relatively the same.
All see reading essentially as sounding out words.
But it's a weak theory.
It provides a very simplistic and inaccurate view of reading and doesn't fully explain important phenomena or account for relevant facts.
Now, four facts in particular are left totally unaccounted for by the simple view of reading.
And remember, the science of reading is constructed around the simple view of reading theory.
Four facts.
First, proficient readers do not look at fully one-third of the words on the page.
Now, this indicates that readers are using more than the words and letters on the page to create reading.
They're using semantic and syntactic information along with background knowledge to fill in the blanks as they read.
The second fact, proficient readers often insert words that are semantically or syntactically correct as the reading.
Again, this points to the fact that information besides what's on the page is being used to recognize words and construct meaning.
And third, the ratio of cortical thalaminic nerves moving from the cortex down to the thalamus is more than thalidomococortical fibers moving from the thalamus up to the cortex.
There's more nerves going from the cortex down to the thalamus during reading as from the thalamus up to the cortex by 10 to 1.
In other words, during the active reading, almost 10 times more information is flowing from the cortex down to the thalamus than is flowing up from the page to the thalamus and up to the cortex.
This shows that what's in the head is being used along with text clues to create meaning.
And finally, the fourth fact, information from the cortex is used to direct the eyes during the active reading.
In other words, higher level processes drive or mediate lower level processes.
Now, how do I know these four facts? Did I just make them up? No, you can read them in my book, all based on research, scientific research that did not start with the answer.
Now, let's look at a second theory of reading called a top-down theory of reading.
The top-down theory states that during the act of reading, readers use primarily what's in their head to identify words and make sense of the text.
In other words, information flows mostly down.
Now, top-down teachers would want students to have a whole lot of knowledge about what they're reading and memorize a whole bunch of words.
Now, I know of very few, if any, that would adhere to this theory today.
The top-down theory.
There are many who inaccurately call whole language and balanced literacy and the psycholinguistic model of reading.
They call these top-down theories, but they are very, very wrong.
The top-down theory of reading is not in alignment with the principles of whole language, balanced literacy, or the psycholinguistic model or neurocognitive model of reading.
It just isn't.
So, let's look at a third theory or set of theories called the interactive theory.
The interactive theory of reading states that what's in the head interacts with what's on the page to create meaning.
In other words, letters, words, and sentences interact with what's in the head during the process of reading to create meaning.
Louise Rosenblatt called it a transactional theory.
Now, in any transaction, both parties give something to get something.
So, this theory states that reading is a transaction between the reader and the text.
And this is in alignment with schema theory.
And that states that we perceive the salient elements of reality and fill in the blanks with what's in our head.
And this is in alignment with constructivist learning theory, which states that we use what's in our head to construct our view of reading or to understand what we're reading.
And this is in alignment with a neurocognitive model or a psycholinguistic model of reading.
So, let's take a look at these two models.
The neurocognitive model of reading or the psycholinguistic model of reading accounts for the four unaccounted four facts described earlier.
And here, reading is not defined as sounding out words, but it is the process of creating meaning with print.
During this meaning making process, the brain uses three queuing systems to recognize words on the page.
Recognize means you see them and instantly know what they are.
These three queuing systems are the phonological, the semantic, and the syntactic.
These are three interacting and interrelated systems.
They're used to recognize words to see them and automatically know what they are.
This is different from identifying words.
Identifying words is you see them, you don't recognize them, and then you employ a strategy.
Also, with this model, readers use what's in their head, their schema or schematic to make sense of what's on the page.
This model, this theory accounts for the fact that during the process of reading, our eyes fixate on only approximately 60% of the words on the page.
And of these fixated words, our eyes usually stop or fixate on only one or two letters.
Since our brain perceives only those things upon which our eyes stop and 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, not by information on the page, but by information in the cortex.
Synthetic cues, semantic cues, and minimal letter cues are used along with the information in our cortex to confirm or revise words and create meaning with print.
Now, here's the analogy. Wait for it.
Space alien theory is to gravity as the simple view of reading theory is to reading.
This has been the Reading Instruction Show. I'm your host, as always, Dr. Andy Johnson.