Stephen Krashen is a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California, where he taught linguistics.
He comments here in response to an earlier post about the Common Core standards:
What this excessive detail also does is
(1) dictate the order of presentation of aspects of literacy
(2) encourage a direct teaching, skill-building approach to teaching.
Both of these consequences run counter to a massive amount of research and experience.
There is very good evidence from both first and second language acquisition that aspects of language and literacy are naturally acquired in a specific order that cannot be altered by instruction (C. Chomsky, 1969, The Acquisition of Syntax in Children from 5 to 10. Cambridge: MIT Press; Krashen, S. 1981, Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning, Pergamon Press, available at http://www.sdkrashen.com).
There is also very good evidence that we acquire language and literacy best not through direct instruction but via “comprehensible input” – for literacy, this means reading, especially reading that the reader finds truly interesting, or “compelling.” (Krashen, S. 2010.The Goodman/Smith Hypothesis, the Input Hypothesis, the Comprehension Hypothesis, and the (Even Stronger) Case for Free Voluntary Reading. In: Defying Convention, Inventing the Future in Literacy Research and Practice: Essays in Tribute to Ken and Yetta Goodman. P. Anders (Ed.) New York: Routledge. 2010. pp. 46-60. Available at http://www.sdkrashen.com)
Diane Ravitch's blog 
But what if the reader finds non-fiction to be compelling? English classes will not be the way they acquire literacy.
I find non-fiction compelling. I acquired literacy through all my classes, and also through the library and the bookmobile (where there was no library.
Oz was compelling, and Jim Kjelgaard’s animal stories, and also El Greco’s paintings, and then the whole shelf on the Inquisition in our Carnegie library. Then the Hornblower novels, then Silent Spring and The Sea Around Us. And I, Robot, and the Foundation novels.
I found Scientific American compelling, and even National Geographic.
I remember later finding Ionesco’s Rhinoceros compelling, and Moby Dick, and Shakespear’s sonnets, as well as Dorothy Dunnet’s silly historical novels.
I’m not sure English classes are the way anybody acquires literacy, which is Krashen’s point, but they helped.
I am confused about all the fuss surrounding the percentage of the two types of reading.
Why are you confused? First, there is no research to support the percentage standard. Someone mentioned in at least one previous post that the percentages were chosen because those were the percentages devoted to each type of reading on the SAT(ACT?). Furthermore, the implication is that, other than English/language arts, all other subjects are not (teaching) reading in their disciplines. The standards also take a very mechanistic, skill based approach to literacy instruction to the detriment of examination of the content/ideas in many teachers’ eyes. Finally, implementation has often been far too rushed and not at all well planned. It would be amusing at how poorly CCSS are being implemented if it wasn’t so disruptive and destructive. There may very well be some value in the CCSS, but the marketing has been so poorly done that perhaps too many people have been alienated by the process.
What percentage of fiction and nonfiction do students read now?
There is no previous standard. The call for creation of one is tied up with the accusations about the poor quality of education in the U.S. and poor performance on high stakes tests, about which we have had exhaustive discussions over the past months.
I am not asking about a standard, but trying to understand how big a change this might be. Are students currently reading 50% non-fiction? Is it 20%?
in history class, students read lots of “informational text” in high school — primary sources, secondary sources. English class is their opportunity to read a lot of fiction and poetry.
The Common Core (high school) reduces it to a formula: 70 percent non-fiction, 30 percent fiction.
There is nothing confusing at all. Many of the non-fiction texts recommended by Coleman (love the cult of personality there — one man gets to dictate an awful lot) are covered in social studies.
Many of the people commenting claim that the standards force English teachers to teach 70% non-fiction, other posters say this is incorrect and English classes will continue to teach primarily fiction while other classes will (perhaps) have to increase the amount of assigned reading. Which posters are correct and which are incorrect?
The standards, in their introduction, say that in lower grades students should be reading a 50-50 mix of fiction and non-fiction; by senior year they should read 70 percent non-fiction and 30 percent fiction. That is across all content areas, as David Coleman has repeatedly explained and as is clear from the language in the introduction. This means that largely English teachers are still teaching fiction except where specific standards require non-fiction work. This was done in response to colleges’ complaints that students come to college unprepared to engage in complex non-fiction text.
Colleges have been complaining that students arrive unprepared for at least the last 150 years. Please see: Why we should stop scolding high school students and their schools. http://www.sdkrashen.com/index.php?cat=2
I truly don’t understand these ratios. They are completely arbitrary. Who will keep track of how many pages of fiction vs. non-fiction students read in all their classes combined? How many times do math teachers and science teachers and civics teachers and social studies teachers assign fiction? Never? Almost never? If you add up all the reading that students do, then English teachers should continue to teach as much fiction as they want.
And who says that kids don’t read enough informational text? Aren’t those seven-pound textbooks “informational text”?
English textbooks are not informational text usually. Yes, the other content areas’ texts are but frequently they are an add-on and lectures repeat what is in them so often students do not read them. The idea is to be more intentional about teaching students how to engage in such text. I cannot speak specifically to the ratios that bother you except to say that if you divide the three core classes with the most reading (English, science and social studies), you get to 60 percent being largely informational from non-English, which leaves 10 percent falling on English. So this is what we are talking about, a push that English more purposefully address non-fiction text. I would add that this is not peculiar to the Common Core, but is also part of recent changes to the IB curriculum as well.
Every high school graduate will have read some ratio of fiction and informational text. Are those ratios (I assume they will differ with each student, school, district, and state) non-arbitrary?
teachingeconomist , if you’re actually trying to understand, consider this. The greatest “percentage” of non-fiction reading middle and high school students do now is in their content area classes.
It’s important that the non-fiction offered them as a class assignment be selected and framed so they can learn to read it to a purpose. There just has to be an active way for them to access the actual content of history or science. Our greatest gift to them is a learning environment that supplies context to motivate specific inquiry, and resources to fuel that inquiry, because that’s the path to deeper learning. Using text in that way is compelling for students, in the sense that Krashen uses the term.
Specific “literacy strategies” required by the Common Core assessment framework follow an entirely different path. Students must approach non-fiction text as a stimulus item, with the purpose of producing an “analytical” essay with certain features which will be scored as proficient. The actual ideas in the stimulus item and the essay are irrelevant to the scoring algorithm and the writing process.
Common Core architects willfully ignore the overwhelming evidence against such an approach, as a content area teaching method. They have no idea how to effectively teach chemistry, and can’t validate any of their products by any standardized instrument demonstrating working content knowledge in chemistry. So, their strategy is to take control of science classrooms anyway, and force teachers to teach to their computer scored literacy assessments, instead of teaching chemistry.
Chemtchr, I have been reading your insightful posts for several years. Thank you!
“Specific “literacy strategies” required by the Common Core assessment framework follow an entirely different path. Students must approach non-fiction text as a stimulus item, with the purpose of producing an “analytical” essay with certain features which will be scored as proficient. The actual ideas in the stimulus item and the essay are irrelevant to the scoring algorithm and the writing process.”
I think you correct with this. As I noted on an earlier thread, my high school is taking a go slow approach to CC, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been in-serviced on CC literacy strategies…last year I attended several such meetings where the CC-trained presenters were discussing analytical writing “strategies” almost precisely as you mention…down to the requirement that a proficient essay must have 11 sentence paragraphs, otherwise whatever arguments presented could not be judged as sufficiently supported. I wondered with a colleague later if she was saying I now need to count sentences when I’m reading and assessing my students’ work… Since I require a great deal of writing in class, I certainly do agree with teaching and reinforcing basic writing skills–but she and I could argue forever whether an 11 sentence paragraph requirement fits the bill…that genre, specific topics, writing style, scope of ideas etc. should be the guide. Like you, I’m now pretty certain that we’re heading toward some sort of rote, across the board computer grading/assessment mechanism when it comes to student writing…
“…for literacy, this means reading, especially reading that the reader finds truly interesting, or “compelling.”
Thanks so much for this post. The links to research have been most helpful. I have arranged my classroom to accommodate the reading preferences of my students. They are making tremendous gains on both qualitative and quantitative measures by simply being allowed choice, access and the time in school to read great books. My class room collection of books include both fiction and non-fiction, although I haven’t calculated the percentage of each.
Stephen Krashen is correct. Books are powerful in the hands of children.
All students should be encouraged to find their reading passion — fiction or nonfiction. I’ve taught a class called Reading for Pleasure for over 10 years. Students choose their own books, as suggested by Dr. Krashen’s ‘free voluntary reading.’ I had one student read thick computer manuals in class — for pleasure. He wrote insightful logs, making connections I could barely follow. Now, he’s a successful IT consultant for a state agency in OK. My students read for pleasure and report higher test scores, lifelong reading habits, and greater confidence. I wish our policymakers would listen to Dr. Krashen. We could solve the reading gap with NO Common Core nonsense.
The Common Core claims to be internationally benchmarked–but to which nations? Shenzen, China, a city of 15 million follows Dr. Krashen’s philosophy–reading for pleasure. Shenzen has the highest university pass rate in China and the Chinese government is, wisely, encouraging the rest of the country to follow suit. By mandating percentages of informational and literary texts, the common core will ensure that we will not have children as enthused about learning as other nations. So will over-testing. Finland does not test every child, nor should we.
I do not know the facts, but I believe one poster on here said that Finland does subject all students that wish to go to college to standardized tests in a variety of subjects. Is that true?
On wikipedia it says that kids can take a “matriculation exam” which consists of at least 4 exams which last 6 hours each and the answers are in essay format.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abitur_in_Finland#Abitur_in_Finland
Those are very high stake exams. If I understand correctly, 5% of the students must be given a failing grade no matter how well they might do on the exams.
Prof Gangi, Please tell us where we can find out more about the reading program in Shenzen.
Regarding the second point, I’m not aware of any research to suggest that direct instruction is counter to research.
Please have a look at papers at http://www.sdkrashen.com, my books, as well as the work of Frank Smith, Kenneth Goodman and others.
Thanks Skrashen – I will take a look at this website and post back!
Please see my response below, and again thanks for the link.
Again, I find that even well-educated people are not educated in the Core. In fact, the pedagogy behind the Common Core standards is not direct instruction but in line with constructivist theory and very much about student discovery. It is in line with the International Baccalaureate program, which in fact is what has impressed me. It expects students to pay attention to the text and analyze the text to understand how they know what they know. Any one teaching “the Core” through direct instruction does not understand the standards. An order of instruction is not prescribed, although my and other districts have created a scope and sequence. As a secondary teacher, I appreciate the recursive and interlocking
nature of the standards which reinforces and builds on learning from one year to the next. It is what I know is effective for students of all ages and abilities.
Finally, I will reiterate what I have heard Coleman say repeatedly: this is an equity issue. When we stick to the text, we have leveled the playing field by focusing on what ever student in the room has access to–the text. Students will make connections to their own lives and experiences. We, as educators, then help them see how those experiences shape and form their responses to and interpretation to the literature. But we start with the text. Such standards, which are not nearly as microscopic as previous ones, are the path to really closin the achievement gap. And everyone must understand that the standardize tests being built around the new standards are not part of the standards but are a wrong-headed perpetuation of a racist, biased dependence on “data.”
Now will we know if the Common Core standards have had the desired impact on students?
I want to clarify my point about standardized tests. I do not want to leave any one thinking that I do not believe that we need to look at how our students are performing. We do, but that assessment should be in the classroom and authentic to the work of the classroom. Such assessments are in the standards. These assessments are significantly different from the standardized tests that have unfairly pigeonholed minorities and speakers of other languages and perpetuated institutional racism.
Will we be able to compare the impact of common core across school districts? Across states?
I have suggested that we keep ONLY the NAEP so we can do the kind of comparisons you mention. We don’t need to test every student every year on every subject.
Unfortunately, NCLB sent us down a path of testing frenzy, that I don’t see abating anytime soon.
I disagree that close reading as per the CCSS is constructivist. constructivism recognizes that the learner makes meaning based on making connections with what she already knows. Coleman insists that the reader not be encouraged to bring in outside information when reading. Frankly, there is one experience when a reader reads a text closely to respond…that is a standardized test. It is also odd that in his NY model he encourages the teacher to read the Gettysburg address aloud to the high school class after they do their first read. How does that facilitate close reading. Mr Coleman appears to know very little about instruction.
The more interesting standards — collaboration, speaking …..the kinds of experiences that the IB encourages, will not be measured by the CCSS tests. They are, however, part of the IB internal assessments. I am the principal of an IB school and their assessments are 1)designed to allow a student to show what they know 2) scaffolded and NOT multiple choice 3) guided by clear rubrics 4) given over time as a natural part of the course 5) often scored by teachers and externally moderated 6) transparent , that is the school gets them back along with a report that clearly explains why each paper received the mark it did. teachers are trusted and the feedback helps to improve instruction. They even ask teachers after the exams to give feedback so that they can improve.
I am not against national standards. And I believe that preparing all students to be successful in post secondary education is an important obligation of schools and it should be our aspirational goal. The problem with the CCSS is that they have become rapidly connected with testing, and the same tests are more concerned with evaluating teachers and schools than with informing instruction and guiding learning.
My point: Excessively detailed standards, accompanied by frequent testing linked to the standards, will lead to skill-building methodology.
Ms. Peters, could you elaborate on your last sentence?
“the standardized tests being built around the new standards are not part of the standards but are a wrong-headed perpetuation of a racist, biased dependence on data.'” Which tests?
Ms. Peters, our posts crossed in cyberspace. Are you saying that all testing should be formative? If so, that means the end of the massive testing they have in store for us (please see – HOW MUCH TESTING?
Stephen Krashen
July 25, 2012
Posted on Diane Ravitch’s blog: https://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/25/stephen-‐ krashen-‐how-‐much-‐testing/)
From a teacher who has spent this year implementing CC I can tell everyone it has been a nightmare of epic proportion. We were already a standards based Title 1 school with great success over the past 4 years, and these past 5 months have left my students months behind. I am a great teacher, building the relationships necessary in a TItle 1 school for students to learn. I have always posted 90% and higher pass rates on the state test (not that I give any heed to those numbers – even though my job now depends on them), but I will be shocked if I hit 70% this year following this CC crap. The design and implementation has left my Title 1 students feeling like failures. There is no “leveling of the playing field.” If I am to salvage something from this year I will have to risk my job and fix what CC has done for my students, essentially nothing. There was zero thought given to low income students, how they think or how they learn. You cannot build EVERYTHING on previous learning. Anyone who teaches TItle 1 will tell you it does not work that way. The achievement gap widens, and will become irreparable in just a few years of CC. I sit here over my Christmas Break trying to figure out how to implement CC for the next 5 months and still catch my kids up to level. CC is not about teaching. It is about the creation of two separate educational systems, one for the haves, and one for the have nots. Sadly for my students, and more than 50% of the children in the South, they have not and CC is not helping.
What Dr. Krashen is saying here is extraordinarily important and reflects deeply established scientific findings about language learning. People trained to teach English really need to understand this, and if they did, more widely, understand what he is saying, then they would vehemently, and in a principled manner, oppose the imposition of these “standards,” which are about as scientifically based as, say, astrology is. For too long, linguistics departments, cognitive science departments, and teacher training departments have been separate fiefdoms. The linguists and cognitive psychologists who study language acquisition really need to start talking to their peers in the education departments. There is an appalling lack of understanding of the fundamental science of language acquisition in departments that train reading teachers, for example. If the reading instruction establishment had even a little grounding in linguistics and in the cognitive psychology of language learning, for example, then that establishment would not be promoting the use of leveled readers that present students suffering from having grown up in relatively impoverished linguistic environments to intentionally impoverished linguistic environments. Instead, the reading establishment would be providing compensatory aural (as opposed to written) environments that are semantically and syntactically rich, and once the internal machine for intuiting semantic and syntactic structures had done its work, then students would be taught the code to recognize, in writing, what they already know.
There is a lot of evidence that rich written environments (comprehensible and highly interesting reading material) promote language acquisition. Not just aural input.
Mr. Shepherd, I’d encourage you to review the massive body of research surrounding the “Big 5” areas in reading development, and consider that much of this research supports a direct instruction approach to reading. This is NOT to say that children should not be linguistically rich environments or that motivation is not a variable, as the two are not mutually exclusive.
http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/
And, yes, one of the biggest problems with the “standards” is that they will be mistaken for curricula. They will inevitably lead to textbooks and online learning programs that treat isolated skills, which we have been doing, disastrously, ever since Palinscar and and Brown’s seminal paper on reciprocal learning was dramatically misread and expanded upon to give birth to useless curricula focused on isolated instruction in such “skills” as finding the main idea, recognizing cause and effect, drawing inferences, etc. That’s where much of the field of English education went dramatically wrong. Skills are what we learn incidentally when we are engaged with significant, meaningful content. We need to put the reading back into reading instruction and forget the isolated skills instruction. Mind you, I am NOT talking about instruction in the graphemic system of the language, which does have to be explicitly taught, for there is no dedicated machine in the head for deciphering written symbols as there is for creating semantic networks and constructing grammars.
Yes. I agree. But the point is that the difference between the kids who learn to read easily and those who do not is that the latter come from environments where they are exposed to fewer syntactic structures and much less vocabulary. There is no substitute for compensatory linguistically rich aural environments that provide the material on which the innate language acquisition device can work.
No doubt being exposed to rich aural input helps learning to read. But written comprehensible input also stimulates language development. Those who read more read better, write better, have larger vocabularies, spell better, have better control of grammar, etc. Those who come from high-poverty environments develop high levels of literacy if they somehow get access to books and become readers. Hence the importance of having access to easy but very interesting texts (eg comic books).
What we are doing, now, is that we are taking kids who are exposed to linguistically impoverished environments and who enter school, as a result, with deficits, and INTENTIONALLY exposing them to linguistically impoverished environments on the theory that they have to be exposed to that which is simple enough for them to understand. However, if the kid does not hear, say, appositives or subordinate clauses, then he or she is not going to learn to interpret these in speech or in writing. The machine has to work in the way that it was designed by nature to work.
“What we are doing, now, is that we are taking kids who are exposed to linguistically impoverished environments and who enter school, as a result, with deficits, and INTENTIONALLY exposing them to linguistically impoverished environments …”
I fully agree.
The trick is to provide texts that are interesting and comprehensible, but not insipid.
See Carol Chomsky’s work (decades ago) relating the development of complex syntax to reading. And of course Krashen’s The Power of Reading (second edition).
“The trick is to provide texts that are interesting and comprehensible, but not inspid.” Yes. Yes. Yes. I am deeply saddened by the fact that generations of students have now wasted much of their English education time studying lessons on “finding the main idea” and “developing inferencing skills” containing texts that consist of isolated paragraphs written for those lessons about Josie and the canned food drive. And I am not saying that we should use developmentally inappropriate texts. What I am saying is that if we present texts without attending to providing rich aural environments on which the innate language acquisition device can work, then we won’t see any real development. Our minds contain machines for intuiting grammatical structures from the ambient spoken language environment. That has to come first, and it’s almost completely neglected in our current pedagogy, which is bizarre.
I very much wish that this essay were made mandatory reading for any politician or education official with a voice regarding the imposition of a standards-and-testing regime. It’s brilliant.
Click to access SeekingAJustificationForSkill-Building.pdf
Thank you for this. What a wonderful discussion. If only more professional developments encouraged such open exchange amongst professionals/reading experts — instead of the canned presentations to which many of us have been subjected.
This is a very interesting article. I teach “dead” languages (Latin and Greek), and in my field there is an ongoing debate about the merits of the inductive acquisition approach vs. the more traditional grammar skill-building approach.
One of my greatest fears is the death of the essay at the hands of deformers. With the proliferation of high stakes multiple choice teacher evaluation, what teacher wants to dedicate class time to writing an essay instead of memorizing facts? Is writing the best way to raise your test scores? I am a middle school technology teacher. The 1 page long research paper that my students create, along with citations, as the basis for a script that they then create and perform for a video project, is one of the most challenging writing assignments in my school.
I will have a hard time maintaining the days spent researching, writing, and rewriting this assignment if my test scores are too low at the end of the year. Thanks RTTT.
Dear 25 year vet, you will be pleased to know that CC pushes more writing. The curricula designed by the State of Georgia from the CC requires 4-6 full essays every 9 weeks. Of course it also pushes the reading of “The Hobbit” in 2 weeks.
My two cents
http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2012/03/19/tln_colucci_standards.html?tkn=XUYF%2BD%2BXvdTxInGsNZrp8M25cX8KfD/U6lxG&cmp=clp-edweek
Dr. Krashen – thanks very much for posting the link to your website in response to my comment earlier. I have reviewed a few of your articles, and unfortunately I’m not seeing any research demonstrating that direct instruction is ineffective. I do see arguments presented, with some research, that motivation is important when learning to read, along with opportunities to meaningfully engage with reading. However, I haven’t seen any studies which contradict the massive body of evidence supporting direct instruction in the “Big 5” areas of reading (see http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/ for a good list of research).
Could you perhaps provide a reference to a research article which specifically examines direct instruction vs. non-direct instruction instructional methods, and shows a greater impact of non-direct instruction methods on general reading outcomes (e.g., measures of reading fluency, comprehension)? It may be more helpful to evaluate your claims more specifically, rather than talk in broad generalities.
To the general public reading, I would highly encourage you to view the research link above and draw your own conclusions regarding direct instruction, as Dr. Krashen (and apparently Dr. Ravitch) are in the extreme minority when it comes to perceptions regarding the literature base of direct instruction.
Please keep looking. Many of us have published research showing the extreme limitations of direct instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, grammar, in direct response to the claims of the big 5 and National Reading Panel, and supporting the hypothesis that PA,phonics, vocabulary, grammar and competence in text structure are the result of reading (especially self-selected reading). Much of it is summarized in one place: Please see Comments on the LEARN Act, http://www.sdkrashen.com/index.php?cat=4. (A lot of it has been published in major journals, eg Phi Delta Kappan, Reading Research Quarterly, Garan’s papers in Language Arts, Kappan.)
Thanks for your response Dr. Krashen. Certainly one of the difficult aspects of this discussion is that it’s so broad. It’s not very easy to making sweeping generalizations about broad categories of interventions, as any particular side can start pointing at particular niches in the research, or studies within those niches, to prove points.
As such, I’ll respond to your comments on the LEARN Act specifically related to Phonemic Awareness (PA). Your main citation is a review of studies cited by the NRP about phonemic awareness, where you cite an insignificant effect of PA training on reading comprehension. In response, I’d direct you to this meta-analysis which shows a moderate effect size for PA on reading skills, and a large effect size for PA training on phonemic awareness skills:
http://nichcy.org/research/summaries/abstract53
I’d also point out a limitation of the parameters of your meta-analysis:
You only examine the effect of PA training on reading comprehension, as opposed to more component skills such as decoding, word reading, and reading fluency. It is entirely possible that PA training would have little or no direct impact on reading comprehension in later years of a child’s educational career, but have a more significant impact on more basic, foundational skills such as decoding. As such, it may be that phonemic awareness training is not sufficient in producing effects related to reading comprehension, and perhaps not even necessary with some (or many) kids, but it may nevertheless be a necessary component for some struggling readers in terms of acquiring beginning reading skills. As such, citing evidence that PA instruction fails to single-handedly produce long-term reading gains is not evidence that PA training is unnecessary.
Consider this analogy: a beginning swimmer receives instruction on how to breathe properly, but receives no additional swimming instruction. Is breathing instruction sufficient to producing good swimmers? No. Do all good swimmers breathe well? Mostly. Did all good swimmers learn, through explicit instruction, to breathe properly? No. Is any of this evidence that explicit instruction related to breathing properly is unnecessary or unhelpful to beginning swimmers, particularly those who struggle with breathing? Absolutely not. In fact, instruction on breathing may be absolutely critical to swimming, but may show little if any effect on a swimmer’s ability to swim a 500 meter butterfly stroke fluently, as beginning breathing is not sufficient to produce those gains.
As I mentioned before, it’s very difficult to discuss in blog comments a topic so wide as “direct instruction.” As such, my main point here is not to debunk your entire statement that there is no support for direct instruction as such a discussion would have to be much larger. Rather, my point is to highlight to other readers that your assertions (and Diane’s assertions) about direct instruction are not “givens” in research, that most folks do support the use of direct instruction, and that your research links/comments are not without challenge.
I’d also like to add a note of thanks for your willingness to engage in discussion on this blog – too often there is a gap between research and practice, and your willingness to engage in discussion with the “average reader” is a testament to your desire for research to be actually used rather than simply created. I’d also welcome follow-up comments and challenges, as I think those reading this blog post would be most informed by a more specific discussion of the research, as opposed to general statements about broad categories of interventions.
The failure to find a clear relationship between PA training and reading (reading comprehension) is consistent with the meta-analysis you cited. Also, there are other arguments, eg: some people learn to read quite well with very little PA, PA develops without instruction, adult illiterates have low PA, then their PA improves after they learn to read. Also we have to ask how millions of people learned to read before experts “discovered” PA. (We have made similar arguments for PA in second language development,
Krashen, S. and Hastings, A. 2011. Is Phonemic Awareness Training Necessary in Second Language Literacy Development? Is it Even Useful? International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 7(1). Available at ijflt.com)
Again, PA training may not have a significant, direct impact on the general outcome of reading comprehension, but may have an impact on component, foundation skills such as word reading. Simply because an intervention is not sufficient in producing a general outcome does not mean that it isn’t a helpful component. There has been a causal link established between PA training and development of word reading skills, between word reading skills and reading fluency, and between reading fluency and reading comprehension. As such, it appears that PA training is mediated by variables such as word reading and reading fluency, and thus does have an impact on reading comprehension, if only indirectly.
With your “other route” concept – that some people learn to read quite well without PA training, consider mapping directions from your house to the mall. There are likely multiple routes, and the existence of one route does not imply the lack of existence of all others. You might take the highway, or the back roads. Those supporting PA training are not claiming that PA training is the only way to become a proficient reader, but that it is one route, particularly for struggling readers. In fact, it’s a common assertion that MANY readers do not require direct, explicit instruction in PA, phonics, etc., and that other, informal processes are at play.
In terms of PA developing without instruction, consider the case of a diabetic not producing insulin. The fact that many healthy people produce sufficient insulin is not evidence that diabetics do not. Similarly, that some children develop PA in a healthy manner is not evidence that other children do not.
In terms of PA developing as a result of other reading processes developing, I agree that there is not necessarily a unidirectional influence of PA (or many reading variables). For example, phonics instruction contributes to PA. However, that phonics instruction contributes to PA is not evidence that PA training does NOT contribute to phonics skills.
Again, bringing this discussion back to a point of relevance to this blog post, my hope is that those reading this discussion will not take for granted Diane’s comment that direct instruction “run[s] counter to a massive amount of research and experience.”
Credit/blame where credit/blame is due: the comment that direct instruction “run[s] counter to a massive amount of research and experience” comes from me, not Diane Ravitch.
Ah, I apologize – I was reading what I thought was her interpretation. Again, I’ve enjoyed the discussion. Looking forward to more exchanged in the future hopefully…
RE: PA, may have an impact on component, foundation skills such as word reading.
Maybe word reading is not foundation skill but also a result of reading experience. (The comprehension hypothesis).
I think I understand you theoretically, but how do you make sense of evidence that phonics instruction improves word reading, that better word reading results in better fluency with connected text, and that fluency with connected text is what (in part) enables comprehension?
EDED asks: I think I understand you theoretically, but how do you make sense of evidence that phonics instruction improves word reading, that better word reading results in better fluency with connected text, and that fluency with connected text is what (in part) enables comprehension?
SK response: complex phonics, word reading, fluency are all the RESULT of real reading for comprehension.
Starting a new post below in response.
You L.A. teachers can do what you want – as a high school math teacher for 7 years in a 70%+ FRL of 1400, as a 53 year old who grew up on welfare and is career 3, as someone who got their math B.A. when he was 37 in ’97, when I see defense of “constructivist” CRAP and people cite the garbage that is edu-babble research against direct instruction,
oh gawd.
Let me sidetrack a bit. Warning, if contempt, disdain and ridicule hurt your teletubby sesame street world view, don’t read what I write.
WHAT have the college educated elites of America accomplished in the last 30, 40 and 50 years? Is the USA exporting the the expertise to the rest of the world for people to run the most awesome fair justice systems? Is the USA exporting the expertise to run GREAT health care systems? Is the USA exporting the expertise for other societies to run fabulous housing systems, energy systems, food growing and distribution systems, water and sewage systems? Banking, Finance and Regulatory systems? Cough, hack, blech, YAWN … educational systems?
NO. We’re the largest arms exporter in the world. If a model of our political system were sold as a video game, it would called “Rotted Empire, Grand Theft Parasitical Elites 2013”.
So – what does this have to do with math / arithmetic ?? YOU are completely screwed if 12/16, 24/32 and 3/4 are constantly different percentages and decimals. Want to insure that masses of the population never have the solid basic skill foundations to do really creative problem solving? Want to insure that large swaths of the population NEVER have the opportunity to compete in the mess of our economy, nevermind CHANGE that mess – teach kids using constructivist crap like Everyday Math and the other garbage from reform math people and their phake ‘research’. Period. You can hide your venality, or, complete ivory tower cluelessness, by citing noblerer selfesser gooderer odes to higher order thinking. Make sure you trash the fact that lots of basic skill aquisition is NOT exciting and just takes work, frequently even boring work. When you pop off with your erudite sesame street – tele tubby happy happy educated trash talk against … ha ha ha … ‘drill and kill’ – stick your nose in the air.
EVERYONE should read some shakespeare and know what beethoven’s 9th is – and everyone should have some skills to be f’king useful. IF you’re fortunate to live a long life, in your youth you’re going to need support from the community to get educated to be useful. In your adulthood you’re going to get sick and you’re going to need retraining to stay productive, both of which will require support from the community. In your dottage you’re going to need the community’s support so you can enjoy your remaining sunsets. NONE of this community support can happen when the community is run by a bunch of parasitical elites, for the parasitical elites, of the parasitical elites – or a bunch of ivory tower really clueless theoreticians.
Good luck all you language arts teachers!!
rmm. .
Do not equate parasitical elites with (college) educated although we certainly have our share of such examples. The equation is much more complicated than that. The same with various educational camps: I was introduced to “new math” when I moved to a progressive district in junior high/middle school (another camp). It nearly killed me not to mention that it destroyed my confidence in my mathematical ability. I have similar stories to illustrate one of the debates in reading, phonics vs. whole language. I was a voracious reader, but I started in the “bluebirds” (the low reading group) in first grade. My first big word was “something.” If I had formal instruction in phonics, I don’t remember it. I do remember the excitement of getting my first library card and the regular visits to get new books. As a special education teacher, explicit instruction has been very important to my older struggling students as has application to every day situations. My classroom library got extensive use by my students where they could choose books according to their own interests and ability. I rewrote a geometry text for one of my children to get him through high school geometry. In later years, he regretted not applying himself when he saw the application to carpentry and taught himself. My middle school math students were convinced they were stupid and kept trying to reduce math to memorizing algorithms at which they had already repeatedly failed. They came out my class at least understanding fractions even if they still needed further drill on basic facts (which was nightly homework). The point is that learning is never as simple as this or that approach to “it” no matter how much someone (in power) may want the latest initiative, program, philosophy,…to be “the answer.”
Dr. Krashen, in response to your last comment in our discussion above about phonics, word reading, and fluency being the result of comprehension as opposed to building toward comprehension, I’d again return to my “multiple pathways” comment: Some if not many children do not require explicit phonics (or other) instruction to read fluently and comprehend – they may independently acquire those skills, facilitated in part by being provided motivational and engaging reading contexts. However, with struggling readers (and others as well), research has suggested that explicit instruction in foundational reading skill areas (e.g., phonics) can lead to acquisition of more advanced skills such as reading fluency.
In other words, we both seem to be right, in that kids seem to be able to learn to read with both direct instruction and non-direct instruction. The question then becomes which modality to use in different situations, which would be directly answerable by research investigating the differential effects of DI vs. non-DI approaches in different instructional contexts. I am familiar with a variety of studies which support DI in across contexts, and am not familiar with any studies which examine DI and non-DI approaches side-by-side, and find greater effects for non-DI approaches. Could you provide any links to studies that would suggest favorable results for non-DI approaches over DI approaches?
EdEd to avoid clogging up Diane’s blog, please write me off line and I will send you some sources and papers. My email: skrashen@yahoo.com.
Thanks Dr. Krashen – I appreciate the continued conversation, and I will send you an email shortly.
Is Dr Krashen appear to be hiding evidence about DI in his arguments, perhaps he never saw this article?
Does Learning to Spell Help Beginners Learn to Read Words?
Linnea C. Ehri and Lee S. Wilce
Reading Research Quarterly
Vol. 22, No. 1 (Winter, 1987), pp. 47-65
The real problem with Common Core is that the closest thing they have to the real fundamentals of DI is Standards Plus which doesn’t appear to follow all the behavior analysis research done for DI. I f COmmon Core was ever going to be any good they should have gotten together with the DI people at Oregon or the associated groups NIFDI or ADI. Let’s not forget Project Follow Through.
also see 2013-4: The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Review Process: An Analysis of Errors in Two Recent Reports
I tend to agree with Stephen Krashen when he states that there is very good evidence from both first and second language acquisition that aspects of language and literacy are naturally acquired in a specific order that cannot be altered by instruction. This is simply what comes naturally to us as humans. He also states that there is also very good evidence that we acquire language and literacy best not through direct instruction but via “comprehensible input” – for literacy, this means reading, especially reading that the reader finds truly interesting, or “compelling.” Many courses in language development present research supporting giving students read time. This means to spend a significant amount of time reading in a text that is of interest to the reader. Once a student has taken ownership of finding materials that interest them, they are more likely to engage in the reading and grow their literacy skills simply because they are interested. One gets nothing from reading Old English poems that are required of them if they are simply reading the passages because it is assigned to them. This holds true for literacy development as well and must be considered when designing education methods that are required by the state.