tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-673598978629390697.post8789738482011962444..comments2024-03-28T19:45:30.877+11:00Comments on The Snow Report: Taboo topics: Reading instruction and teacher educationPamela Snow | The Snow Reporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17754222675609183221noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-673598978629390697.post-35052351262347803242023-05-02T20:17:10.000+10:002023-05-02T20:17:10.000+10:00Took me time to read all the comments, but I reall...Took me time to read all the comments, but I really enjoyed the article. It proved to be Very helpful to me and I am sure to all the commenters here! It’s always nice when you can not only be informed, but also entertained!<br /><a href="www.caqa.com.au" rel="nofollow">LLN resources</a><br /> markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353377226903145168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-673598978629390697.post-66471427894253889012015-02-23T04:36:22.976+11:002015-02-23T04:36:22.976+11:00In EdLand we do seem to fight last years war--over...In EdLand we do seem to fight last years war--over, and over, and over. It does appear that the Reading War is very rapidly morphing into the Evidence War. The Ed research lit is such that using Google "research" can readily be found to "refute" any proposition, sound or unsound. And analogous to Gresham's law about money, "bad Ed research drives out good research." We should be able to see this coming, and not be ambushed. No good can come out of the fight. <br /><br />We have to remember that "evidence" once supported slavery, eugenics, and other indefensible inequities. And test results supported the actions. We have an analogous situation today with PIRLS and other commonly used "standardized achievement tests." The tests don't measure " mastery over the process of decoding and encoding grapho-phonemic links." They measure, "comprehension" which is the kitchen sink of general ability that relates to anything academic. To prove that, allyagotta do is look at the correlation of the tests held to measure "reading" and "math" and "science." The substance of the three is obviously different, but the test result in each of the three is largely the same. The tests are used for political purposes both within EdLand and generally, but they have no "value added" use instructionally.<br /><br />The mind-boggling thing to me is the gap between every day information about reading status and "professional" information. Kids know who can read and who can't. Primary teachers in the UK say the Alphabetic Code Screening Check isn't needed because they "already know." Reading is such a transparent act that since its invention, identifying anyone who can't read hasn't been problematic.<br /><br />What is problematic is what to do during the sensitive developmental period of age +/- 4 to 6 to teach all native English children to read. This problem originated in the Post-World War II period, when the goal of getting all kids in school had been accomplished, and the focus shifted from quantity to quality. The rest is the history of the Instructional Wars and Educational Equity Wars.<br />Dick Schutzhttp://ssrn.com/author=1199505noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-673598978629390697.post-77649052236694151042015-02-22T19:34:49.727+11:002015-02-22T19:34:49.727+11:00Thanks for that very interesting and thoughtful co...Thanks for that very interesting and thoughtful comment Dick. You manage to hit several nails on the proverbial head here:<br />- parents send to school the best children they have;<br />- most children are using and understadning full sentences by the time they reach school; so they have the basic linguistic building blocks needed to benefit from "good" phonics-based instruction; <br />- our modest efforts at measurement focus disproportionately on children's "deficits" rather than instructional deficits; and of course<br />- children learn what they are taught.<br /><br />Somehow, most children do seem to gain mastery over the process of decoding and encoding grapho-phonemic links, so they can both read and spell. However, the fact that in Australia, nearly 1 in 4 does not (as per 2011 PIRLS data) seems to be mind-boggling evidence of the fact that something is amiss in the instructional process for those children. No-one seems to be saying (yet) that 25% of Australian students have dyslexia (whatever that is!), so the only place to go looking for answers is surely in what it means to "teach phonics", which of course most teachers have been taught to claim that they do, within a so-called "Balanced Approach" to literacy.<br />The sands are shifting slowly in Australia, but I worry that the "Reading Wars" will be replaced by the equally entrenched and protracted "Evidence Wars".<br /><br />Talk about fiddling while Rome burns!<br /><br />Thanks again - great comments :)Pamela Snow | The Snow Reporthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17754222675609183221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-673598978629390697.post-23772706629019317732015-02-22T02:20:19.037+11:002015-02-22T02:20:19.037+11:00Your and Allison's exposition is spot on. An...Your and Allison's exposition is spot on. And keeping the comments “on topic” for so long Is a rarity in the blogosphere. The thing is, though, the colloquy really didn't move beyond the substance of what you and Allison said in the blog. It's a start, but it seems to me that "more debate" is more likely to fall apart than it is to increase the reliability of reading instruction.<br /><br />As you say in the colloquy, [pre-collegiate] education/instruction is akin to Public Health. However, from a scientific/technical perspective, pre-collegiate education is a couple of hundred years behind Public Health. We're losing kids in the primary grades, but the failure is being attributed to the kids (or their parents, or "society.") rather than to their instruction.<br /><br />The tests commonly used as reading achievement metrics support the belief the problem is with the kids. That is, the results reference student deficits without any illumination of instructional deficits. And because the inadvertent mal-instruction slops over into "literacy" and post-primary instruction, we're addressing an instructional epidemic rather than its source or its etiology.<br /><br />With all their faults, the kids entering school aren't the obstacle. Parents give the schools the best kids they have, and with few exceptions all of the kids they send have minimal assets for making reliable reading instruction feasible: The kids can speak in full sentences and participate in everyday conversation-- demonstrating a sufficient vocabulary and "mastery" of English syntax to make reading instruction feasible.<br /><br />Teachers, as you recognize, have indeed been mis-instructed for decades, but that's not the sticking point either. Teaching a kid to read doesn't take much instructor "knowledge." Although the more knowledge the better, home schoolers with much less education than teachers are teaching their kids to read. <br /><br />We could debate all of the foregoing forever, and the reading wars would go on forever. The proof is in the pudding. And proofing is cheap and easy.<br /><br />The Alphabetic Code (Phonics) Screening Check being used in England with all children at the end of Year 1 and with all Yr 2 children who didn't pass the Check in Yr 1 is a "good enough" psychometrically sound indicator to identify children who need no further formal instruction in reading per se. Yes, they need a lot more instruction to become "fully literate," but they "can read" anything they could comprehend in spoken communication.<br /><br />The UK results to date indicate that the modal score on the Check is the highest score possible on the Check. This is nearly unprecedented in large scale achievement testing, but it's not surprising. Children learn what you teach them, and Reception-Year 1 is sufficient time to get the job done in reading. However, that result is at the national level. At the LEA level, there is wide variability in the results. With the reading war still in play, this is not surprising. The action, though, is not at either the national or LEA level. It's at the school and classroom level. As yet, no one has looked at those results, but all indications are that it's not in the kids or the water; it's in what the kids are being taught. All schools and teachers, by law, in England are teaching "Phonics," but whatever some say or think they are teaching, it's not how to handle the Alphabetic Code.<br /><br />Methodologically, what's going on in England is a Natural Experiment, with the different reading instruction treatments the Independent Variable and the Alphabetic Code Test the dependent variable. The same methodology is applicable at any scale in any other English-speaking country<br /><br />It seem to me that this is the best bet for ending the reading wars, and without any casualties, except to the war profiteers, and not much to them. There may be a better way, taking less time and at less cost. If so, let’s hear it.<br /><br />Dick Schutzhttp://ssrn.com/author=1199505noreply@blogger.com