Talking about reading has become a bit pass̩ and unfashionable in education circles, but reading is high-stakes for the young people who are the focus of my research Рthose who have exited education early and empty-handed when it comes to reading skills. No form of literacy, whether traditional or postmodern is possible unless children achieve the ability to read. Children do not sit down and literate a book, a newspaper article, an online blog, or the instructions for a new game. They read them. If they are lucky, that is.
Recently, Robyn Ewing, Professor of Teacher
Education and the Arts at the University of Sydney, wrote a blogpost critical
of the Centre for Independent Studies’ Five from Five Initiative I wish to
respond to some of Professor Ewing assertions.
The fact that the Australian Curriculum, Assessment
and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has a particular definition of literacy is all
well and good, but that does not necessarily translate into useful classroom
practices that in turn translate into useful skills for children. The catch-cry
“it’s already in the curriculum” is a hollow defence against the evidence that
indicates that too many Australian children exit primary school with under-done
reading (and writing) skills. There, I used that word again. Reading.
Where is the evidence that Five from Five is
touted as “all-encompassing”? It is ironic (and logically inconsistent) that Professor
Ewing describes this approach as “simplistic” when there is abundant evidence
to indicate that primary teachers in Australia and overseas lack basic explicit
knowledge of the complexity of how language works in order to teach reading*. Dr Louisa Moats has stated through the title of one of her publications, that
“Teaching Reading IS Rocket Science”. However, too few teachers exit their pre-service
education equipped with explicit language knowledge and an understanding of the
science of reading instruction. Instead, they are fed a steady diet of
Whole-Language based approaches such as the Three Cuing system referred to in Prof. Ewing’s blogpost. This approach is used widely throughout Australian schools,
yet was not featured in any of the 20 recommendations of the 2005 National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy.
Teacher knowledge is the elephant in the room
that has to be admitted. Taboos do not make useful contributions to solving
complex problems. There is a sad irony in the fact that much of the literature on teacher knowledge is situated in journals that concern learning difficulties in children.
Similarly, it is not enough that literacy
educators “don’t deny the importance of phonics and phonemic awareness”.
Literacy educators need more than a lack of denial in order for their
students to succeed. They need knowledge and skills that give them access
to decades of cognitive science research on how reading is acquired. How on
earth can teachers be expected to enhance phonemic awareness skills when they
don’t reliably know what a phoneme is, or how to count them in simple
words?
Education is remarkable in two respects: for its
capacity to turn its back on evidence in favour of ideology, and for its wasteful
approach to the evidence already sitting at its feet and being ignored. Both of
these ingrained and indoctrinated responses occur at the expense of the educational
livelihoods of children – most notably those who are starting from behind. When
education academics get on an aeroplane, do they expect the pilot to say
“Good
afternoon ladies and gentleman; there’s probably a particular way that I’m
meant to get this Airbus A380 off the ground, but I’d like to try out a few
ideas of my own on you today. After all, I’m the pilot, and you’re my
passengers”.
Similarly, when education
academics go to hospital with a suspected heart attack, do they expect that an
evidence-based protocol will be followed, or that the doctors in the emergency
department are free to interpret the evidence as they wish? In these examples,
of course, there is a clear link between practitioner actions and outcomes, but
when teachers fail to apply evidence in early years classrooms (because they
were not equipped with it in the first place), there is a creeping, insidious
poisoning of a child’s potential, that decades later is either explained away
as a function of the child’s background, or of the child being “unteachable”
for some intrinsic reason.
Unlike pilots and doctors, teachers do not receive
confronting and immediate feedback about erroneous practices. This seems to
perpetuate a flat-earth belief-system that is impenetrable by those on the
outside begging to be heard.
I am part of an Australian
Research Council Linkage Project research team which reported last year,
consistent with a number of earlier Australian and international studies, that
primary teachers' explicit and implicit knowledge of basic linguistic
constructs was limited and highly variable (see Stark, Snow, Eadie &Goldfeld, 2015).
The 78 teachers who participated
had a wide range of experience, and were most likely to rate their ability to
teach skills including spelling, phonics, comprehension and vocabulary as
either “moderate” or “very good”. However most of them demonstrated limited
knowledge and stated that they did not feel confident answering questions about
their knowledge in these areas.
Bear in mind that these teachers
worked in disadvantaged schools where staff were sufficiently interested and
motivated to respond to a call for Expressions of Interest to take part in a
research study on literacy teaching. A random sample may have produced even
more concerning results. It must be stressed, however, that these findings
should not invite criticism of teachers themselves. They are doing the best
they can with their available knowledge and skill toolkits. We can only imagine
the greater reach of their efforts, however, if they were properly equipped with
systematic skills regarding the phonics and phonemic awareness aspects of the “Big Five”.
How can a child who receives solid,
teacher-guided instruction ranging across phonemic awareness, phonics,
vocabulary, comprehension and fluency be “short-changed”? Seriously?! Many children can but dream of having these
basics in place in their classroom. Having them in evidence is one thing.
Having them based on robust evidence, is another thing altogether. And where
is the evidence that children exposed to phonemic awareness, phonics,
vocabulary, comprehension and fluency “disengage from the learning process”?
What about the possibility that systematic attention to these features might
have the very opposite effect for many at-risk learners?
One of the tired and hoary old chestnuts that is regularly trotted out against those who argue for better and more systematic phonics instruction is that there's more to reading than simply decoding text. That’s a bit like saying that there’s more to making a cup of tea than boiling the kettle. Advocates for evidence-based phonics instruction have always seen learning to decode as a necessary but not sufficient part of literacy learning. The Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) asserts the importance of both decoding and comprehension. So if you can't get words on and off the page, what hope do you have of participating in digital, critical, multi or any other sort of literacy?
One of the tired and hoary old chestnuts that is regularly trotted out against those who argue for better and more systematic phonics instruction is that there's more to reading than simply decoding text. That’s a bit like saying that there’s more to making a cup of tea than boiling the kettle. Advocates for evidence-based phonics instruction have always seen learning to decode as a necessary but not sufficient part of literacy learning. The Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) asserts the importance of both decoding and comprehension. So if you can't get words on and off the page, what hope do you have of participating in digital, critical, multi or any other sort of literacy?
Some children have more limited “past experiences and knowledge of language” to bring to the task of reading than others. Who, pray tell, is suggesting an “over-emphasis” on letter-sound relationships? What would an “over-emphasis” actually look like? It’s hard to escape the conclusion that for many teacher educators, phonics is anything other than incidental, third out of three, last resort assistance, as per the sacred Three Cuing doctrine.
The young people in my research, those in the
tail of the education curve, can “interact” all they like with a range of
literacy materials. If they cannot read, however, such interaction counts for
nought in the real world, in which they will be permanently socially and
economically marginalised.
I do agree with Prof. Ewing that “ongoing teacher
professional learning” is needed in this space, because there is an enormous
short-fall to be made up.
Instead of parking ambulances at the bottom of the
cliff, however, let’s start building fences at the top, in the form of more
rigourous teacher pre-service education. One day, a university somewhere will
break ranks with the zeitgeist and the wheels of change will start to turn.
Just imagine.
*See for example:
Binks-Cantrell, E., Washburn, E. K., Joshi, R. M., &
Hougen, M. (2012). Peter Effect in the preparation of reading teachers. Scientific Studies of Reading, 16(6), 526-536.
Cunningham, A. E., Perry, K. E., Stanovich, K. E., &
Stanovich, P. J. (2004). Disciplinary knowledge of K-3 teachers and their
knowledge calibration in the domain of early literacy. Annals of Dyslexia, 54(1), 139-167.
Fielding-Barnsley,
R. (2010). Australian pre-service teachers' knowledge of phonemic awareness and
phonics in the process of learning to read. Australian
Journal of Learning Difficulties, 15(1), 99-110.
Fielding-Barnsley, R., & Purdie,
N. (2005). Teachers' attitude to and knowledge of metalinguistics in the
process of learning to read. Asia-Pacific
Journal of Teacher Education, 33(1), 65-76.
Joshi, R. M., Binks, E., Hougen, M., Dahlgren, M. E.,
Ocker-Dean, E., & Smith, D. L. (2009). Why elementary teachers might be
inadequately prepared to teach reading. Journal
of Learning Disabilities, 42(5), 392-402.
Louden, W., & Rohl, M. (2006). “Too many theories and not enough
instruction”: Perceptions of preservice teacher preparation for literacy
teaching in Australian schools. Literacy,
40(2), 66-78.
Mahar, N. E.,
& Richdale, A. L. (2008). Primary teachers' linguistic knowledge and
perceptions of early literacy instruction. Australian
Journal of Learning Difficulties, 13(1), 17-37.
Moats, L. (2009). Still wanted: Teachers with knowledge of
language. Journal of Learning
Disabilities, 42(5), 387 - 391 .
Moats, L., & Foorman, B. R. (2003). Measuring teachers’ content
knowledge of language and reading. Annals
of Dyslexia, 53(1), 23-45.
Moats, L., & Lyon, G. R. (1996). Wanted: Teachers with knowledge of
language. Topics in Language Disorders,
16(2), 73-86.
Piasta, S. B.,
Connor, C. M., Fishman, B. J., & Morrison, F. J. (2009). Teachers'
knowledge of literacy concepts, classroom practices, and student reading
growth. Scientific Studies of Reading, 13(3),
224-248.
Podhajski, B., Mather, N., Nathan,
J., & Sammons, J. (2009). Professional development in scientifically based
reading instruction teacher knowledge and reading outcomes. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 42(5),
403-417.
Reid Lyon, G., & Weiser, B.
(2009). Teacher knowledge, instructional expertise, and the development of
reading proficiency. Journal of Learning
Disabilities, 42(5), 475-480.
Spear-Swerling, L., & Brucker, P. O. (2003). Teachers’
acquisition of knowledge about English word structure. Annals of Dyslexia, 53(1), 72-103.
Spear-Swerling,
L., & Brucker, P. O. (2004). Preparing novice teachers to develop basic
reading and spelling skills in children. Annals
of Dyslexia, 54(2), 332-364.
Stark,
H. L., Snow, P. C., Eadie, P. A., & Goldfeld, S. R. (2015). Language and
reading instruction in early years’ classrooms: The knowledge and self-rated
ability of Australian teachers. Annals of Dyslexia, 1-27.
Tetley, D., & Jones, C. (2014).
Pre-service teachers’ knowledge of language concepts: Relationships to field
experiences. Australian Journal of
Learning Difficulties, 19(1), 17-32.
Washburn, E. K., Joshi, R. M., & Cantrell, E. B. (2011).
Are preservice teachers prepared to teach struggling readers? Annals of Dyslexia, 61(1), 21-43.
Washburn, E. K.,
& Mulcahy, C. A. (2014). Expanding preservice teachers' knowledge of the
English language: Recommendations for teacher educators. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 30(4), 328-347.
(C) Pamela Snow 2016
My grateful thanks to Alison Clarke for comments on an earlier draft of this post.
