This is the Reading Instruction Show.
I'm your host, as always, Dr. Andy Johnson.
The topic of today's podcast is the science of reading, phonics instruction, and the national
reading panel.
Now, in this podcast, I'm going to start with a definition of the science of reading or
reading science that I got from an article written by Tim Shanahan.
And since the science of reading clown club seems so enamored with phonics, and since
the national reading panel is the epitome of reading science, we're going to look at
what the national reading panel report actually had to say about phonics.
And you might just be a wee bit of surprise.
So, let's first define the science of reading.
Now, I have disagreements here and there with Dr. Timothy Shanahan.
That's okay.
But in a recent article in Reading Research Quarterly, he offered what I thought was a
very good understanding and definition of what counts as the science of reading.
In this article, he also described the two different kinds of educational research, basic
research and applied research.
So, let's start here.
Basic research is research that's done apart from the setting in which it's used.
It has the goal of improving the understanding of a particular phenomenon or to improve or
enhance a theory.
In reading, basic research would include things like brain imaging studies, eye movement
research, miscue analysis, priming studies.
These are all important because they add to our understanding of reading and reading
instruction, they expand our theories and make our theories more robust.
Applied research is done in the setting in which it will ultimately be used.
It has the goal of identifying causal relationships.
In education, applied research is done in the classrooms with students to see how something
actually functions or works in the real world setting.
This is the type of research with which most of us are likely familiar.
You typically have two similar groups.
You give treatment A to one group and something different or no treatment to the other.
And at the end, you see if the differences in the two groups are statistically significant.
If they are, you can say with some degree of confidence that treatment A was the cause
of the difference.
Another type of applied research is done to see if the effect of something to a single
group had any effect or had any significance.
Meaning that you give a pre-test, then you administer treatment A to the group, then
you give a post-test.
If the difference between the pre and post-test are statistically significant, you might be
able to say that treatment A was effective in making that something happen.
Now that's a very simple overview of controlled experimental research in education.
The two groups, one experimental and one control or treatment group and control and then the
single subject design.
Now let's take a look at the science of reading to see what if we can understand exactly what
it is.
Let's go out that term and just assume everyone has a common understanding.
Now again, I don't always agree with Dr. Shanahan, but I thought he did a good job in defining
and describing the science of reading.
He says the science of reading is that which is based on applied research using controlled
experimental studies or controlled experimental research.
In a recent blog, he wrote this and I quote, to me, a science of reading, if we are talking
about education, requires that our prescriptions for teaching be tempered by rigorous instructional
evaluations.
If a claim hasn't been tried out and found effective, then the claims, no matter how
heartfelt, aren't part of reading science.
Here are different views and interpretation of reading science, but according to Dr. Shanahan,
reading science is based on the premise that only findings that come from controlled experimental
research using applied research should be used to determine what reading instruction
should look like.
In other words, only strategies that have been shown to be effective using controlled
experimental research and conducted in an actual learning environment should be used
to determine what's effective.
Only this type of research should be used to design reading programs and to make reading
policy.
Now I think this is a very limited view and excludes a lot of important qualitative and
descriptive research, but I could live with Dr. Shanahan's interpretation of reading science
or the science of reading if it was used correctly and consistently, but it's not.
Now let's take the issue of phonics instruction.
Members of the science of reading clown club have consistently claimed that phonics instruction
needs to be included in a comprehensive reading program.
No argument there.
Everybody believes phonics instruction should be included in beginning reading instruction.
It's not the what, it's the how and the how much.
Now the science of reading clown club puts a great deal of stock in the national reading
panel report.
And by the way, Tim Shanahan was a big part of this.
I would encourage everybody to read the national reading panel report.
Actually, read it.
Don't just sound out the words.
Don't just look at the executive summary.
Don't look for someone else to interpret it for you.
Read it.
You can find lots of links to this online.
Now the national reading panel report reviewed over 100,000 research articles and selected
only studies that use controlled experimental research conducted in a classroom that applied
type of research.
They then issued a report on their findings.
And in their findings, there was nothing new here.
The report simply reinforced many of the things that we already knew.
Many of the things that the International Literacy Association and the National Council of Teachers
of English have been saying for decades, but there's some good stuff in there.
So if you need reminding, if you need an official report to tell you things we've known for
decades, well, go ahead and read it.
Now if you are a certified member of the science of reading clown club, I would encourage
you to read the chapter on phonics.
The report says that phonics instruction was shown to be effective.
Absolutely no argument there, but effective in what?
For how long?
For who?
However, the science of reading clown club and other clowns like Emily Hanford and Louisa
Motz have taken that statement to mean that all phonics instruction is effective for all
students all the time and for all purposes and everyone should have it.
They adamantly insist that all students need a healthy helping of direct explicit systematic
synthetic phonics instruction.
They believe that if you're a struggling reader, it's because you haven't had enough
direct explicit systematic synthetic phonics instruction.
And only if everybody had a healthy helping of direct explicit systematic phonics instruction,
all our reading problems would go away.
And the reason why teachers aren't handing out healthy helpings of direct explicit systematic
synthetic phonics instruction is because they haven't been trained in quotation marks
the right way as pre-service teachers.
Teacher preparation programs like the one I work at are to blame.
I'm to blame.
They would insist the science of reading clown club that professors like me should spend
weeks and weeks teaching students how to implement science of reading approved programs that
provide step-by-step instruction for implementing direct explicit systematic synthetic phonics
instruction.
Also all our direct explicit systematic synthetic phonics instruction courses should only be
taught by people certified in direct explicit systematic synthetic phonics instruction.
And certification would be conferred by the National Direct Explicit Systematic Synthetic
Phonics Instruction Association.
Thereafter all schools would be forced to buy science of reading approved direct explicit
systematic synthetic phonics instruction programs.
And classroom teachers should be forced to use these direct explicit systematic synthetic
phonics instruction programs and follow the directions exactly as they are written.
Only then will all reading scores across America and beyond be above average.
Okay, phonics instruction important.
But let's look at what the National Reading Panel Report actually says about phonics
instruction.
This report is often referenced again by the Science of Reading Clown Club.
It implements all the reading science described as being important and essential by the Science
of Reading Clown Club.
And on the cover of this report, it literally says this and I quote, an evidence-based
assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading
instruction.
That should give the Clown Club lots of confidence in this report.
So here are some things that seem to be overlooked by the Science of Reading Clown Club.
And the first one is the limited impact of phonics.
This is what this report says.
And if you think I'm making this up, go look at it yourself.
It said, phonics instruction failed to produce a significant impact on the reading performance
of low achieving readers in grades two through six.
Failed to produce significant impact.
And what do we do with struggling readers?
We give them more phonics so they cannot read even more.
It said the impact of phonics on comprehension is limited.
The majority of studies focused on first grade students asking them to read a single sentence.
Now there's a very high correlation between word recognition and comprehension.
So in other words, the impact of decoding single words is very strong when reading single
sentences.
So phonics instruction contributed only weekly, if at all, in helping poor readers apply these
skills to read actual text.
You get a blip in phonics scores, but does that blip transfer to authentic text where
you're trying to create meaning, trying to comprehend?
And the report says, no.
There were insufficient data to draw any conclusion about the effects of phonics instruction with
normally developing readers above first grade.
Yet, what does the clown club insist that we all teach?
Phonics, phonics in more phonics.
Also, the effect size on reading single words out of context was greater than the effect
on comprehension.
Single words out of context.
Now if you instruct students how to decode single words out of context, they're going
to do better on measures of decoding single words out of context.
But when in your real life have you encountered a single word out of context floating in space?
Words are always found in the context of a sentence, a label, a sign, or some sort of
environment.
And the last thing about phonics, the majority of effect sizes involved reading single words
out of context.
Only 24% involved text reading.
And this text reading usually since the majority of students were in kindergarten or first
grade involved reading a single sentence.
So we don't know much about the impact of phonics on comprehension.
Now let's see what the national reading panel said about balanced literacy instruction.
And I know that's going to make the heads explode of the science of reading clown club
because they insist that that's a bad thing even though they tend not to know what balanced
literacy instruction is.
They just know it's bad and they should be against it.
When I asked them to define what it is, well, you know, they once they start explaining
what they think it is, you realize that they don't know anything about literacy or balanced
literacy instruction.
Never have so many knowing so little about so much.
So let's hear what it says.
First, programs that focus too much on the teaching of letter sound relations and not
enough on putting them to use are unlikely to be effective.
Too much on letter sound relations.
Students need to apply their skills in daily reading and writing activities.
Are students reading books, self-selected books every day?
Are they writing every day?
Second, systematic phonics instruction should be integrated with other reading instruction
to create, quote, a balanced reading program, unquote.
Again, quote, a balanced reading program, unquote, not my words, the panel's words.
Quality literature should be included in a reading program.
That means we need to find good books for children to read, help them fall in love with
books so they can practice their skills in authentic reading context.
This is the fourth one, should not become the dominant component of a reading program.
What does the science of reading clown club ask for?
Phonics, phonics, and more phonics.
Fifth, it is important to evaluate children's reading competence in many ways, including
their interest in books and their ability to understand information.
Yet, what do we do? We assign them a number.
We give them a standardized test and we give them a percentile ranking.
Their reading competence is quantified and we give them that number.
And only the things that can be quantified, like scores on sounding out word measures,
are measured.
We measure that which can be measured and if it can't, we say it's not important.
Further, programs that focus too much on phonics with little time spent practicing reading,
like books, are likely to be ineffective.
And again, too much on phonics, unlikely to be effective or likely to be ineffective.
Now, here is a direct quote.
Systematic phonics instruction should be integrated with other reading instruction to create a
balanced reading program.
One quote, page 2-97, balanced reading program.
Again another quote, phonics should not be the dominant component in a reading program,
neither in the amount of time devoted to it nor the significant attached.
Again, page 2-97, quote.
And the last one, it is very likely that phonics programs that emphasize decoding exclusively
and ignore the other processes involved in learning to read will not succeed in making
every child a skilled reader.
And then I found this, a variety of ways to teach phonics.
We tend to think of phonics instruction only as synthetic phonics.
Synthesize, put together.
Letter sounds, letters sounds, letter sounds, you put them together to create words.
Sound it out we say.
But there are several ways to teach phonics, synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, embedded
phonics, analogy phonics, which is sometimes called large unit phonics, onset rhyme phonics
and phonics through spelling.
And the report said that each of these, all approaches are equally effective.
And if I were a reading teacher in first, second, third or fourth grade, whatever kindergarten,
I would try to use a variety of all these things because some children are not standardized
entities.
Some will learn better one way, some will learn better the old.
If you have a variety of ways, you're using more parts of the brain.
And the last interesting tidbit from the report is this, phonics instruction has been entangled
with politics and ideology.
Ideology is using ideas and beliefs to come to a conclusion.
It's the opposite of science, which uses systematic data to answer questions.
So I would posit this to you, my find readers.
The science of reading actually is the ideology of reading because they're not using science
as much as they're using their preconceived ideas and their values of top-down control
to come to conclusions about reading instruction.
All right.
This has been the reading instruction show.
I'm your host, Dr. Andy Johnson.
We've been looking at a definition of reading science or the science of reading.
And we've been looking at what the national reading panel report actually said about phonics.
And I know this will make the heads explode of many of my fine friends in the science
of reading clown club.