Evolution of Reading Instruction from a Boomer's Perspective
Updated: 7 days ago
For some, learning to read and spell is straightforward, while for others, it's challenging. Why?
Unless faced with the challenge, it is unlikely you thought about ‘how’ to read and spell. You just did it.
As a struggling reader in the 1950's, I did not question memorizing words, copying sentences, or learning spelling lists. I just did my best to do what teachers asked. But I was always in the lower reading groups…never at the bottom, but keenly aware that I wasn’t really in the middle either!
My brother also struggled with reading until 5th grade, when a thoughtful and determined teacher decided he could learn to read with extra one-on-one help. He did. AND he went on to become a schoolteacher and public school principal as an adult.
By the late 1980s, ‘Dick, Jane, Sally, and Spot’ were replaced by whole language. Teachers taped words on everything! Tables, desks, cubbies…nothing was left unlabeled with words. Entire walls were devoted to pictures with word labels. Kids were going to learn to read by being visually immersed in words. The belief supporting this movement was that words would become recognized as easily as icons and logos.
When I began working in public schools as a Speech-Language Pathologist, some of the teachers had adopted the whole language methodology, while others opted to stay with the phonics methods they found successful through experience. As an observer to the different classrooms and teaching methods, I noticed patterns children taught by ‘whole language’ teachers. After a few years the entire staff was required to adopt the whole language methodology. Over the following years the following patterns emerged in the spring achievement test scores and in my caseloads:
1) A significant number of children [around 3-5 in every classroom of 20-30 students] were not learning to read and spell on grade level or even close.
2) Many of the struggling students classrooms were also receiving speech therapy for articulation or language deficits. Not a causal relationship, just a correlation.
3) The Iowa Achievement tests [this was pre-proficiency testing] had national and local percentiles. The local percentiles of older students were lower than the national percentiles. To understand what that means, it is helpful to know how percentiles are created. On a 100-point scale, 50 is the midpoint and is considered average. Student scores on a given test are plotted so that the average score is a 50th percentile. If many students score high on a test, it takes a much higher number of correct answers to reach the 50th percentile. Likewise, if many students missed a significant number of items on the test, they would have an exceptionally low score resulting in children with fewer correct items to score at the 50th percentile
Now consider that, at the national level, schools from across the country are averaged together to find the 50th percentile. One local school might have many students who get more test items right, so the local 50th percentile score may require more correct answers than another school’s. But when the aggregate of local percentile scores are calculated, it is possible that a student with 50th percentile locally might be much lower nationally because it would not take as many correct answers to reach the 50th percentile locally than it does nationally. Likewise, a student who needed to get more answers correct to reach the 50th percentile locally may score a higher national percentile in an aggregate of schools where the majority of students missed more of the test answers. It all depends on the variation in scores from district to district and region to region across the nation.
Since I evaluated and treated students K through 12 at the time, I was reading student files from across the district. A shift began to appear across the grades. The students with 50th percentile and higher locally were scoring lower in the national percentiles, many even below the 50th.
Older students [who were not taught to read by the whole language methodology] tended to have lower local percentiles [ Most students gave more correct answers than peers nationally, so competing with each other required even MORE correct answers to achieve a higher local percentile]. Thus, students with low local percentiles had higher national percentiles.
After about 9 years, I could see that the trend for reading and spelling success was headed in the wrong direction and my caseload was rising. Not good.
3) Parents were asking if the SLP could help their child. The Speech-Language Pathologist has the smallest canoe on the lake. We do not carry any clout when it comes to curriculum, teaching methods, or anything classroom related! Speech pathologists know a lot about how children develop speaking, language, and auditory skills. They can see patterns in children’s language and behavior. They understand how communication skills support classroom interactions and access to instruction and materials. However, they are rarely more than an adviser to a teacher on an individual child basis.
The best and only way to make a difference was to learn what was missing in each child’s perception of reading, spelling, sounds, and letters based upon what is known about their speech and language development. Fortunately, I was not alone. Several researchers published their findings, taught seminars, and gave conference presentations. From them, I learned how to navigate the flood of students passing through in the years that followed. 20 Minute Phonemic Training evolved from what I learned and used over the next 30 years.
The most important key to learning was identifying and remediating the specific phonemes and phonemic skills that were challenging for each student. Knowing how to pass a Friday spelling test does not make a student a great speller when they write. Writing is often avoided and rarely practiced by students who struggle to read.
Finally, reading, spelling, and writing develop hand in hand. The student’s original writing reveals a lot about how they perceive phonemes and letters, and discriminate between similar sounds.
Thus, to help the student improve reading, spelling, and writing, I had to analyze their error patterns in authentic and original writing samples and in reading samples. A step-by-step approach to analyzing spelling and reading errors is included in the online course “How to Teach Reading & Spelling with 20 Minute Phonemic Training.”
If you are the parent, tutor, or teacher of a struggling reader and speller, all the materials and ideas successfully used time and time again are included in the books and online course featured here. Cost has been kept low to make it available to as many people as possible. I hope that many, many children will overcome their challenges and acquire literacy skills.
Best Wishes for Success,
Vickie
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