Recently there has been a flurry of articles criticizing teachers and teacher educators for the way that reading is taught.
But, writes Nancy Bailey, none of them has looked at the effects of Common Core on reading instruction.
She wonders why the omission, why the indifference to the elephant in the room.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you, Ms. Bailey, for drawing attention to the developmental inappropriateness ot children in the early grades of the puerile Gates/Coleman bullet list. The people who hacked this list together under the direction of Lord Coleman were clueless about children–about how they think, about their vastly differing backgrounds and developmental schedules. This is so obvious that for this reason alone, the Common [sic] Core [sic] State [sic] Standards [sic] should have gone down, at its inception, under a barrage of catcalls from the professional community of English language arts educators. That it didn’t speaks to the power of Gates’s money to seduce Vichy collaborators within the profession.
Thank you, Bob!
The Common Core regimen for reading and discussion of literature is “text only,” excluding the developmental levels of relevant personal insight and experiences from reading education and the reading experience.
those who create and promote standardized curricula cannot imagine diversity in student thought: all personal insight and experience mimics theirs
Yes, but Lord Coleman, at the direction of Master Gates, has done the thinking for us, and New Criticism for Dummies is now required by regulations imposed by the Thought Police nationwide. If you have any problems with this, please report to CCSSMiniLuv, Rm. 101.
Well said, Mr. Cacciutto! And, of course, texts exist in context. It makes a difference whether “He’s going up the creek” is said by the person renting kayaks or the one drawing up an indictment against Don the Con.
The Common Core CCSS and the preoccupation with phonics are failing our students. All students need an understanding of the phonemic system of English in order to read it well. Many students, particularly middle class students, enter school with an understanding of phonics. There is no gain in teaching students what they already know. Even students without a clear understanding of the sound system do not need a steady diet of phonics. There are subtle ways to teach phonics in shared reading, in which students are actually reading along with the teacher. I subscribe to the notion that students learn to read by reading, and I have had great results with this approach with very poor ELLs. This does not imply that phonics are ignored, only that a steady diet of one size fits all phonics is deadly dull and unnecessary. We want to entice students to read. Students need to get captivated by narrative and wonder, and intensive phonics kills the excitement of reading.
Cryonics Phonics: Inequalities Little Helper: https://newpol.org/issue_post/cryonics-phonics-inequalitys-little-helper/
This “article” is a crude propaganda piece. “The 60-plus years of the resurrection and failure of phonics” — sadly, it is the constant resurrection and failure of whole language that drags kids down. One reason is loss of profit for the publishers, who publish a ton of “Dick and Jane” books instead of a single phonics book. Another reason are the teachers who feel threatened by a working method, because phonics works even when taught by a less competent teacher. The third reason is searching for an external reason like poverty instead of admitting that the teachers do not do their job, which is not completely teachers’ fault, as their hands are increasingly tied.
Between allowing great teachers to use whatever methods they see fit and creating a single national curricula based on sound pedagogy, the American education establishment chose to choke teachers with stifling yet barely-working methods.
Look. Either teachers have been ignoring Common Core and the phonics that goes along with it, and they say they don’t do phonics.
Or, they have been doing phonics to reach the objectives since 2010 and it didn’t work.
My question is why the reports about teachers not knowing the “science” of reading ignored Common Core.
I’m not sure why you’re defensive about this, but having taught students with reading disabilities for many years, phonics is not always a magical solution. I am not anti-phonics and taught and learned about several programs.
There are also a lot of phonics programs out there.
Kindergartens should still be playing according to most early childhood educators.
You might want to read the report about kindergarten being the new first grade by UVA researchers (it’s online) along with Diane Ravitch’s excellent book suggestion.
Pushing children to read before they’re ready could be harmful. It used to be that first grade began formal reading. Sure it could be done better, but high-stakes testing get in the way.
Looks like your main issue with CC is the requirement to be able to read in K. I already replied to you that CC is not the first standard to require it, for example 1997 California standard required the same, and CC simply followed. If CC moved its requirement one or god forbid two grades up, parents will be up in arms. Parents already feel that CCSM, for example, is one year behind compared to older standards like California 1997 math standard. Moving ELA was not politically feasible.
Blaming Common Core in poor reading achievement is disingenuous. The anti-phonics war is being waged for almost two hundred years, since 1830s, it just changes its names. Nowhere else in the world so much time is spent on reading instruction methods, they just use what works, which is phonetic-based method, and forget about reading instruction after the 1st grade, and switch to teaching grammar, semantics, comprehension and just good literature. Only in this country they continue to pour money into non-working methods and expect results, this is madness.
Regarding the starting age of learning reading, some can learn as early as 4, but I would say that 7 is more appropriate as a baseline. Explaining phonics to 5-year olds primes the whole enterprise to failure. This tells about faulty logic that kids should learn academic skills as early as possible: kindergarten, pre-school, child care. This is fallacy. Let kids play, and then they will come to school at 7 and they will be ready to learn. It will take them weeks to grasp the concepts that would take months if started at 5.
Common Core ELA objectives involve phonics. I share the link in the post. My point is that I have yet to see the journalists who criticize teachers for not teaching phonics (which I don’t think is always true) not address the phonics in CC. Why?
Is it the fault of Common Core that K has become de-facto obligatory? What do you suggest kids should be doing in K grade? Playing toys? Then K grade should be established outside of school, and should be considered pre-school free of academics. The solution is simple: repeal the K grade and update Common Core standards.
Rereading your point, you are asking why the journalists who criticize teachers for NOT using phonics do not address phonics in CC. Um, why should they, if CC accepts phonics as the proper approach to teaching reading? CC can be criticized for requiring reading skills in grade K, which most kids hit at 6, not at 5. But CC cannot be criticized for requiring phonics because the teachers are being criticized for not requiring phonics.
In other words, if “CC requires phonics” is A, and “teachers use phonics” is B, then A -> B is equivalent to !B -> !A, but we know that the original assumption is A, hence there is no reason for criticizing CC based on the original the assumption.
The journalists say that teachers don’t know the “science” of phonics and that they don’t teach phonics.
But if teachers have been teaching towards the objectives of Common Core, which many of them have been somewhat forced to do so their students will do well on CC tests, then my question is why don’t the journalists mention the phonics that’s involved in CC? Please see my link to the standards.
They claim instead that teachers ignore phonics.
The claim that teachers don’t teach phonics is also a generalization first of all. Because many teachers have taught phonics for years and it isn’t always a magical fix for reading difficulties.
“The claim that teachers don’t teach phonics is also a generalization first of all.” — The NPR pieces do not claim that all teachers have no knowledge of phonics, these radio programs are audio-documentaries; true to the genre they build on several real cases and have interviews with real people. They are very specific.
Your blog post in, in fact, a generalization. You linked to several articles, most of which are coherent in getting their points across and sensible in their arguments. You cobbled it all together, so the message of your blog post is jumbled.
Yes, CC is not a silver bullet. Yes, it is faulty and often makes no sense. Yes, requiring all five-year olds to be able to read is age inappropriate. But it was not the first standard that was broken. For example, California 1997 standards required K students to be able to read single-syllable words. CC simply adopted the same stance. Again, I am asking you, what do you suggest K students should do in school? Play with Play-Doh and Lego? Then just drop K grade altogether.
Kids still have problems learning how to read because they are pushed too early, as you correctly identified. To memorize a hieroglyph “CAT” is easier for a five-year old than to understand that letter “C” when followed with “A” or “O” is pronounced as “k”. This gives an appearance that whole language works better for younger kids. But it is not reading, it is memorizing hieroglyphs. Better start at 7 with phonics, learn to read in a month, and not return to this topic ever again, instead spending time learning science and math and good literature.
You might want to read the new book by Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle, “Let the Children Play.”
Nothing new in Pasi Sahlberg’s book. It is all old news.
How can you say that when you have not read it?
As a writer, I find your arrogance incredibly obnoxious.
You are right. It is old news that play is developmentally appropriate for children in kindergarten. It is old news that people of all ages learn through play.
It is innovative to have the little kids learn to read by the time they are five, even though it will not make them better readers in the long run and might even make them hate reading.
The table of contents says enough, the message is simple and unambiguous. Since I agree with the message, the book is of no use for me: it can neither inform nor persuade me. Other books, say about death of American education, do contain entertaining bits capable of generating a chuckle or two, despite that the message can be understood before opening the book.
That is an insulting comment to me as an author.
No, you can’t tell a book by its cover.
No, you can’t skim the table of contents and skip the book.
People like you rely on Cliff Notes.
You are the death of literacy.
“You are the death of literacy.” — So, you are “as an author” are offended by someone skimming through table of contents to figure out whether a book is worth reading, but feel privileged to make a personal insult? Is this how you bring allies for your cause, Ms. Ravitch?
Please, Dunce, you earn your sobriquet.
No, you cannot judge a book by its cover or even by its table of contents, unless you are looking for a history of Mexico or the Netherlands and you scan the table of contents and discover that you have picked up a cookbook.
You cannot gauge the intellectual content of any book by its table of contents.
And here is something else you don’t know: This is my living room. You are here at my sufferance. You insult me, and you go into moderation.
I answered the question at Nancy’s blog, but I never saw it appear. Perhaps you can sent it to her. Here is what I wrote:
I
am reminded of what happened when I taught phonics, in the sixties, when Dick and Jane, was the text, it was thought that children would magically Look and SEE, words without an introduction to the sounds each letter stands for. In the nineties came ‘Word Walls’, and a new mandate. My supervisors would harass me, and I would lock the door and teach kids to read… and write,
The truth is so simple, because there is no respect for the profession, or for the practitioners whose ‘practice’ is a classroom. Thus, every cockamamie scheme dreamed up by some ‘expert’ or lobbyist, or billionaire is suddenly the ‘go-to’ plan.
The truth is so simple. Because there are 15,880 separate school systems in 50 states, the power-elite in each school system can do what it pleases. Moreover, since everyone went to school, and everyone thus had a teacher, then everyone knows what should go on in that classroom, but the one professional who is responsible for MEETING THE LEARNING OBJECTIVES has NO authority, and in fact must do as required by the latest ‘curriculum… which today comes from Gates,
The truth is so simple, as I learned when Pew chose my NYC practice for the standards research on Harvard ’s PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING. From day one, the LRDC staff from the U of Pittsburgh, that ran the seminars, made it clear that the classroom teacher is the one who must decide WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE, because it is that practitioner who must evaluate the many kids who sit in that room —in order to meet their needs. NO bogus test will show the teachers what the child needs to learn next. Their performance will dictate the next step, not some curricula dreamed up by yet another ‘expert.’
I remember when, in the 60s, the experts in my suburban school system, loved ‘open classrooms’ which had been adopted in some oshkosh district in Ca. Suddenly, a new school, had classrooms with the fourth wall missing… the noise was horrendous.
The truth is that WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE is essential for the genuine educator to know. The third “principle of learning” , from the Harvard study, was “GENUINE evaluation and AUTHENTIC assessment for PERFORMANCE. (Don’t ya love the adjectives genuine and authentic?)
When learning instruction is genuine —when the classroom professional practitioner, evaluates using authentic practices (i.e. NOT mandated tests based on memorizing facts) then the next lesson can be planned so that every child in that classroom can move to the next step, and learn.
But then, what do I know… I was only the NY State “Educator of Excellence,” in 1998, when ‘they’ came after me, as they silenced the voices of all the experienced professionals who knew what learning actually looks like, and what they should use to reach the objectives. I write at Oped News. https://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html?sid=40790
See my series on:
Teacher Professionals: All About Learning. https://www.opednews.com/Series/TEACHER-PROFESSIONALS-All-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-852.html
The War on Teachers: https://www.opednews.com/Series/War-on-teachers-and-the-pr-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-150217-827.html
At OpEd , I post much of the incredible information which I find by daily reading of the Blog of Diane Ravitch https://dianeravitch.net/about/comment-page-27/#comment-2808102
After so many years of successfully teaching reading to young children I cannot comprehend the devotion to phonics expressed here. The major function of phonics is to divert readers from getting meaning and pleasure from reading by driving them toward the difficult analysis of word structure.
The natural process of learning reading –over many ages–is the ability to recognize the shapes of words and familiarity with their meanings. Just as children easily learn to recognize by sight different types of food, colors, animals, family members, toys, their homes, and so many other things they experience, they also learn to recognize and remember the shapes of written words connected to their experiences and interests.
Using phonics is basically a difficult type of analysis that increases only with practice. Basically, letter sounds have no meaning or value for children. Identifying words through phonics is a struggle–not pleasure or familiarity–and the tasks involved in doing it often make children forget what they have already read and understood in a story.
Thank you. I agree. It is especially concerning to hear of young children being introduced to reading at an early age by intensive phonics. I’ve seen programs advertising this.
In case of interest, new from the International Literacy Association:
“Literacy Leadership Brief: Meeting the Challenges of Early Literacy Phonics Instruction”
Click to access ila-meeting-challenges-early-literacy-phonics-instruction.pdf
Article about the ILA brief:
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2019/07/influential_reading_group_makes_it_clear_students_need_systematic_explicit_phonics.html
Dunce Me,
A defective earlier 1997 standard to push kindergartners to read doesn’t make the same standard written later right. Wrong is wrong.
Forcing kindergartners to read is developmentally inappropriate.
Common Core ELA is lousy in many ways especially the early childhood standards.
I’m questioning why journalists who claim teachers don’t know about the “science” of reading (phonics) ignore that the CC phonics standards have been around since 2010.
Certainly if CC worked, we’d be seeing significant reading progress by now. Phonics has not been missing from the classroom like they try to make it appear. It has been there for years, even before Common Core.
http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RF/K/
Certainly if CC worked, we’d be seeing significant reading progress by now.
And after the failure of this magic formula becomes evident even to the dunces, there will be plenty of Ed Deform types around to sell the magic elixir.
If everyone including you is driving 80 where speed limit is 60, and you are getting stopped and fined, don’t you feel singled out unjustifiably? CC is not much worse than what existed before it. Why don’t you ask why journalists did not report about earlier so-called standards?
IMO, CC ELA can be largely ignored because unlike CCSM the requirements it has cannot be verified except for whether a school starts teaching reading in K vs grade 1 or 2. Everything else is unverifiable.