This is the Reading Instruction Show. I'm your host as always Dr. Andy Johnson.
Topic of today's podcast, How Science Works for Colon, Reading Science, Reading
Research, and Reading Theories. So let's get into it. Just a bunch of theory you
say. What often happens under the guise of reading science is that one study or
one article or one report is used to prove things or to justify a policy
program or practice. And this is not how science works, science of reading people.
No single study should be the final word on anything. That would be a naive
understanding of research in the social sciences. Instead, each research study
creates a data dot and each data dot becomes part of a dot-to-dot picture,
which is a theory. This is why theories are important. Now, a theory in science
is different from an untested assumption. That would be a hypothesis. A theory is a
way to explain a set of facts. Theories are used to understand phenomena. A
theory is like a dot-to-dot picture connecting a series of research-based
data dots. Theories are made up of many research-based data dots and different
theories explain different data dots differently. Robust theories connect many
data dots. Weak theories connect only a few data dots. Robust theories account for
a lot of facts. Weak theories leave out important facts or have them unaccounted
for. Now, 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
make good decisions about reading instruction. Using research-based theory
to design programs and make decisions is appropriate. However, there's no such
thing as correct theories and incorrect theories. As stated earlier, there are
robust theories and weak theories. When theories are no longer useful in
explaining a set of facts and understanding phenomena, they are
replaced by other theories. Now, there are three views of reading. Let's start
with the simple view of reading. This is a theory. Now, the science of reading is
based on a weak theory called the simple view of reading. It's a weak theory
because it doesn't account for a lot of data. This is sometimes called a bottom-up
theory or the phonological processing model. They're similar. Here, reading is
seen primarily as sounding out words. You sound out the words and then listen to
the sentences being played in your head. And the problem with this is it doesn't
account for a lot of research-based data related to eye movement,
miscue analysis, priming studies, and brain imaging, among other things. It's a
weak theory. The simple view of reading upon which the science of reading is
built provides a very simplistic and inaccurate view of reading and doesn't
fully explain important phenomena or account for relevant facts. Five facts
in particular are left unaccounted for by the simple view of reading. And again,
the science of reading, Clown Club, is based on the simple view of reading. Fact
number one, unaccounted for. Proficient readers do not look at fully one-third
of the words on the page. This indicates that readers are using more than the
words and letters on the page to create meaning. They're using all sorts of other
information, word recognition systems, semantic systems, syntactic systems,
schematic systems. Two, proficient readers often insert words that are
semantically or syntactically correct. Again, this points to the fact that
information besides what's on the page is being used to recognize words and
construct meaning. The third idea, the ratio of corticothalamic nerve fibers to
the thalamocortical fibers is 10 to 1. In other words, during the act of
reading, brain imaging research has shown that almost 10 times more
information is flowing from the cortex down than from the page to the thalamus
and up. This again shows that what's in the head is being used along with text
clues to create meaning. The fourth fact, unaccounted for, the information from
the cortex is used to direct the eyes during the act of reading. In other words,
higher level processes drive or mediate lower level processes. And number five,
and this is a fact misused and misstated by the science of reading clown
club, never have so many, no one's so little about so much. They insist that
proficient readers look at every letter, but proficient readers do not look at
every letter. There's a variety of eye movement research that shows this, not
one study but a whole bunch of it. When they don't, when they read, they don't
even fixate on every word. The brain is filling in the blanks to give you a
sense that you're seeing every word and every letter. All right, the second
theory is called the top down theory. And I include this for a reason. Many of the
clowns in the science of reading clown club keep misrepresenting balanced
literacy as top down, but a lack of knowledge doesn't seem to be getting in
the way of their coming to a conclusion about things. 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 text. Information flows mostly down.
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. And I know a very few
if any that would adhere to this theory today. There are many who inaccurately
call whole language and balanced literacy and psycholinguistic models of
reading top down theories. This would be very, very wrong. Top down theories of
reading are not in alignment with the principles of balanced literacy. So get
rid of that one. The third theory is the interactive theory. The interactive
theory of reading states that what is in the head interacts with what's on the
page to create meaning. Letters, words and sentences interact with what's in the
student's head to create meaning. Louise Rosenblatt called this a trans-actional
theory. And 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 an alignment with schema theory and it supports the idea
that we perceive the salient elements of reality and fill in the blanks with what's
in our head. This is in alignment with constructivist learning theory which
states what we use what's in our head to construct a view of things and our
understanding of things. This is also in alignment with the neurocognitive model
of reading or the psycholinguistic model of reading. Now these two models account
for the unaccounted facts described earlier. These theoretical models define
reading as the process of creating meaning with print. And during this
meaning-making process, the brain uses interactive systems to recognize words on
the page. Interactive and interconnected systems, phonological systems,
semantic systems, syntactic systems, schema systems, and pattern recognition
systems. These are all interacting and interrelated and they're used to
recognize words. And recognizing words means that you see them and you
automatically know what they are. And this is different from identifying words.
And the science of reading Clown Club does not differentiate between
recognizing words and identifying words. Identifying words is a strategy you
consciously apply when you don't recognize a word. During the process of
reading our eyes fixate on approximately 60% of the words on the page. And of
these fixated words, our eyes usually stop at only one or two letters. And since
we can perceive only those things upon which our eyes fixate, it's clear that
our brain fills in the blanks to create meaning during the reading process. It's
clear as well that the eyes are directed by information in the cortex much more
so than information on the page during the process of reading. Proficient readers
use minimal letter clues to recognize words during reading. And as stated
earlier, our brain uses interactive and interconnected systems, phonological,
semantic, syntactic, schema, pattern recognition systems to fill in the blanks
as we read giving the impression that we are seeing every word and perceiving
every letter. So, what isn't research? We talk about the science of reading and
reading science. Oftentimes, data is collected under the guise of research.
Data is collected and then members of the clown club will happily explain that
research supports whatever silly claim they wish to make. But anyone can collect
data. Collecting data is not science, it's not research, it's not reading
science, collecting data. Science is not science unless or until it has been
subjected to blind peer review and published in an academic journal. Now,
when someone has conducted a research study, the process is this. They write it
up and send it out for blind peer review. That means the reviewers don't know who
wrote the study or did the study. Reviewers are experts in the field on
which they are reviewing. They check for the theoretical context, the methodology,
did they get the results right, the analysis right, and are they making
up to conclusions based on the data. And then they vote either to accept the
study, ask for revisions, or reject the research article. So, here is what is not
research. And this is often used to say research supports that. Collecting data is
not research. Anyone can collect data. The for-profits are collecting data and
then they say for a research supports that. And research is not research unless
and until it has been subjected to blind peer review and published in an
academic journal. Siting a famous person is not research. Oftentimes, when I
challenge a statement and ask to see the research, someone says, well, read so and
so or they give me an article where a lot of things are cited. That's not
research. If you think whole language has been debunked, send me a research
study, a debunking study that compares whole language to something else.
Think tanks and white papers are not research. They have not been subjected
to blind peer review. And sadly, the fifth one, these have the most impact, but
they are not research. American public media, Education Week, National
Council on Quality Teachers, teaching, these are not research. Reporters,
anyone puts this together. It's not research. And the last thing, one study
is not the research. Often what happens under the guise of reading science is
that one study or one article or one report is used to justify a policy
program or practice. The clowns will flutter their white glove,
the little fingers in the air and shout, the research says, but this isn't how
science works. No single study should be the final word on anything. Now,
research is like citing in your deer hunting rifle. And before you freak out,
I grew up in a rural Wisconsin area where deer hunting was part of the culture.
And this is the best analogy. I'm sorry I'm using it. But every fall,
we'd cite in our rifles. And this means over the winter, the scope could get
bumped. So, we need to adjust the scope to see if the bullet actually goes
where the crosshairs indicate it will. Now, when you cite in your rifle,
you don't take a single shot and say, oh, there's where my rifle is shooting.
You take a bunch of shots to get a general sense of where it's shooting,
a general pattern. And the more shots you take, the more confidence
you have in your data, in your bullet shooting data. And you realize there's
always going to be outliers. Your hand could have been shaking or you didn't
pull the trigger just right. You can't look at a single research study and
says, that's it. This proves it once and for all. That's a naive understanding
of research. You need to look at a wide body of research,
wide different types of research to get a general sense of things. One study is
not the research. The research actually doesn't exist. Now, yes, phonics
instruction is effective in helping children decode words. Everybody agrees
with this. Everybody. But in these studies supporting phonics instruction, you
have to look closely at the study to determine for what purpose, for who, how,
when and for how long. Yes, teaching phonics is going to lead to higher scores
on phonics measures when compared to not teaching phonics. Absolutely. Everyone
knows that. No one disputes this. But does that phonics bump transfer to authentic
reading experience? This does not mean that phonics is the problem for all
things related to reading. This does not mean that phonics is the answer for all
things related to reading. This does not mean that phonics should be taught in
the same way to everybody all the time. But this is what the science of reading
clown club is pushing. More phonics. Phonics is the problem and phonics
therefore is the answer. But let's finish up with the National Reading Panel
Report. They use the gold standards as they say. They cited when you actually
read the report and look at their studies that phonics has a limited impact.
This is from the report. Phonics instruction failed to produce a
significant impact on the reading performance of low achievers in second
through sixth grade. But what do we do? We give struggling readers more phonics.
Title one, this stuff. The impact of phonics on comprehension is limited.
Phonics instruction contributed only weekly, if at all, in helping poor readers
apply these skills to reading actual text. You do phonics instruction there.
You read over here. There's no transfer or little transfer. The Reading Panel
Report says there were insufficient data to draw any conclusions about the effect
of phonics instruction with normally developing readers above grade one.
Normally developing readers above grade one. Phonics instruction fails to exert
a statistically significant impact on poor readers in second through sixth grade.
The majority of effect sizes for phonics instruction involved reading single words
out of context. That's different from reading. Reading single words. Systematic
phonics instruction should be integrated with other reading instruction to
create a, wait for it, wait for it, balanced reading program. Unquote. Programs
that focus too much on phonics with little time spent practicing reading are
likely to be ineffective. This does not mean that we should not teach phonics.
Everyone agrees that phonics instruction should be taught, should be a part of
every emergent and beginning reading program. It's not the what of phonics
that is in dispute. It's the how and the how much. This has been the Reading
Instruction Show. I am your host as always, Dr. Andy Johnson.