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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 467 299 CS 511 257 Wren, Sebastian AUTHOR Ten Myths of Reading Instruction. TITLE Southwest Educational Development Lab., Austin, TX. INSTITUTION Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), SPONS AGENCY Washington, DC 2002-00-00 PUB DATE NOTE 15p AVAILABLE FROM Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, 211 E. 7th St., Austin, TX 78701-3281. Tel: 800-476-6861 (Toll Free); Web site: http://www.sedl.org. For full text: http://www.sedl.org/ reading/topics/myths.pdf. Opinion Papers (120) PUB TYPE EDRS Price MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE *Literacy; Primary Education; *Reading Instruction; Reading DESCRIPTORS Programs; Research and Development; Student Needs; *Teacher Role Balanced Reading Instruction IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT This paper examines the most damaging myths and misconceptions about reading instruction. The paper begins with what it considers the "most pernicious myth currently influencing reading instruction"--Learning to read is a natural process. Following this "Myth #1" are these myths: (2) Children will eventually learn to read if given enough (3) Reading programs are "successful"; (4) We used to do a better job time; of teaching children to read; (5) Skilled reading involves using syntactic and semantic cues to "guess" words, and good readers make many "mistakes" as they read authentic text; (6) Research can be used to support whatever your beliefs are--lots of programs are "research based"; (7) Phoneme awareness is a consequence (not a cause) of reading acquisition; (8) Some people are just genetically "dyslexic"; (9) Short-term tutoring for struggling readers can get them caught up with their peers, and the gains will be sustained; and (10) If it is in the curriculum, then the children will learn it, and a balanced reading curriculum is ideal. What impacts student performance is a recurring theme throughout this paper--the quality, strength, knowledge, and sophistication of the teacher is what really matters for helping children to become proficient readers. Lists 7 selections for further reading. (NKA) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Ten Myths of Reading Instruction. by Sebastian Wren U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it, Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. N 2 1, kr) BEST COPY AVAILABLE L.) Ten Myths of Reading Instruction Sebastian Wren, Ph.D. Michael Pressley, in his excellent book, Reading Instruction that Works, concluded with a discussion of what he considered to be "Ten Dumb and Dangerous Claims about Reading Instruction." All of the points he made were quite compelling, but one wonders if these are his "top ten" picks for the most dangerous myths about reading instruction. Some might at least argue that the list should be re-ordered (placing some higher on the list than Pressley did), and certainly some would argue that there are a few myths that should have made the cut that he never mentioned. Curious readers are directed to his book to review his "top ten" list (the book is well written and highly informative), but here we will examine a second perspective of the most damaging myths and misconceptions about reading instruction. Let us begin with a myth that Pressley did comes from rich text experiences is not mention, but which is arguably the most surprisingly prevalent in education despite pernicious myth currently influencing reading the fact that learning to read is about as instruction: natural as learning to juggle blindfolded while riding a unicycle backwards. Simply put, Learning to read is a natural Myth #1 learning to read is not only unnatural, it is just process about the most unnatural thing humans do. It has long been argued that learning to read, At the outset of this discussion, it should be like learning to understand spoken language, made clear that there is a difference between is a natural phenomenon. It has often been learning to read text and learning to suggested that children will learn to read if understand a spoken language. Learning to they are simply immersed in a literacy-rich understand speech is indeed a natural environment and allowed to develop literacy process; starting before birth, children tune in skills in their own way. This belief that to spoken language in their environment, and learning to read is a natural process that as soon as they are able, they actively seek SOUTHWEST EDUCATIONAL (800) 476-6861 The Southwest Educational Development Laboratory 211 E. 7th Street Austin, Texas 78701 www.sedl.org DEVELOPMENT LABORATORY Building Knowledge to Support Learning 3 BEST COPY AVAILABLE have not existed long enough to be out and begin to incorporate a language. If described as a "natural" phenomenon. the linguistic environment is not rich enough or if it is confusing, the innate drive to find a Clearly, if reading was natural, everybody language is so strong that, if necessary, would be doing it, and we would not have to children will create a language of their own worry so much about dealing with a "literacy (examples of this include twin languages and crisis" or a "literacy gap." According to the pidgin languages). There is no doubt that National Institute for Literacy and the Center given the opportunity, children will naturally for Education Statistics, over 40 million develop rudimentary language adults in this country alone are functionally comprehension skills with little structured or illiterate, and despite our best educational formal guidance. efforts, approximately 40% of our 4th graders lack even the most basic reading skills. Reading acquisition, by contrast, is not at all These staggering numbers provide evidence It is useful to remind ourselves that, natural. that reading is a skill that is quite unnatural while the ability to understand speech and very difficult to learn. Clearly, if we are evolved over many, many thousands of ever to come close to teaching all children to years, reading and writing were invented by read, it will require the most focused and man (about 7 different times and in different artful instruction from the most cultures), and have only been around for a knowledgeable and skilled teachers. Merely few thousand years. In fact, it has really only immersing a child in a literature-rich been within the past few generations that environment is not at all sufficient to some cultures have made any serious guarantee the development of substantial attempt to make literacy universal among literacy skills. their citizens. Reading and writing simply Page 2 www.sedl.org The Southwest Educational Development Laboratory 4 Children will eventually learn to comes from the line in the Bible that Myth #2 read if given enough time essentially says that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That certainly describes what happens as children enter school and This is arguably the second most pernicious begin learning literacy skills. Over time, the myth, and it is closely related to the first. gap between children who have well Many who claim that reading is natural also developed literacy skills and those who do claim that children need to be given time to not gets wider and wider. At the early develop their reading skills at their own pace. grades, the "literacy gap" is This is a double-edged relatively easy to cross, sword because while it Over time, the gap between and with diagnostic, is true that children focused instruction, should be taught to children who have well developed effective teachers can read in literacy skills and those who do not help children with poor developmentally gets wider and wider. literacy skills to become appropriate ways, and children with rich literacy that we should always skills. However, if literacy instruction needs address instruction to each child's zone of are not met early, then the gap widens the proximal development, we should not simply rich get richer, and the poor get poorer until wait for children to develop reading skills in the gap gets so wide that bridging it requires their own time. A child who is not developing extensive, intensive, expensive and reading skills along with his or her peers is a frustrating remedial instruction. The gap reason for great concern. reaches this nearly insurmountable point research has shown that if a very early Research has revealed an extremely child is not reading grade-appropriate dangerous phenomenon that has been materials by the time he or she is in the dubbed the "Matthew Effect." The term fourth grade, the odds of that child ever developing good reading skills are very slim. It is still possible, but it is much more difficult, and the child's own motivation becomes the biggest obstacle to success. Reading programs are Myth #3 "successful" It is extremely common for schools to buy a reading program to address their reading instruction needs, and trust that the program will solve their school's literacy issues. Typically these programs require a great deal of commitment from the school, both in terms of time and money. Page 3 www.sedl.org The Southwest Educational Development Laboratory 5 The right answer is the hard answer However, while reading programs can be there are no quick fixes. To achieve success for all "useful," no reading program has ever been children, teachers need to become extremely shown to be truly "successful" -- not with all children, all teachers, and all cultures. And sophisticated and diagnostic in their approach to reading instruction. Every child no reading program has been shown to accelerate all children to advanced levels of is different, and each child must be treated differently. A program can not be sensitive to performance. There have been a few the varied and rapidly evolving learning programs that have been shown to improve overall reading scores significantly needs of individual children, but a diagnostic, (especially in low-performing schools), but knowledgeable teacher certainly can. that improvement is still a long way from Myth #4 We used to do a better job of what anybody should describe as "success." teaching children to read If 60% of the students in a school are performing unacceptably on the benchmark As the song goes, "The good old days reading assessments, moving that number to weren't always so good." We have, in fact, 40% is an improvement, but it is still never done a better job of teaching children unsatisfactory. to read than we do today. The bad news is, we've never really done a worse job either. People often ask if there are reading We are basically just as successful today as programs that research has shown to be we have always been (which is to say, not effective, and the answer is that there is no very successful). reading program that, by itself, will even come close to ensuring high levels of reading Nothing illustrates this better than the success for all children. There are a few National Assessment of Educational programs that, if properly implemented, could Progress (the NAEP). This assessment has help a school to move in the right direction, been given to children across the country but nothing could ever take the place of a aged 9, 13, and 17 since 1970. Student knowledgeable and talented teacher. performance at those three age levels has not changed substantially in over 30 years Research has repeatedly indicated that the consistently, depending on the age tested, single most important variable in any reading between 24 and 39 percent of students have program is the knowledge and skill of the scored in the "below basic" category, and teacher implementing the program, so why between 3 and 7 percent have scored in the do we persist in trying to develop "teacher - "advanced" category. Other investigations proof' programs? Some would argue that it have found that literacy rates have not really is our over-dependence on such reading changed in this country since World War II, programs that is preventing us from and some studies suggest that literacy rates cultivating more knowledgeable and effective were actually worse before the war. teachers. After all, if you want somebody to become a chef, you can't just hand that While the literacy rates really have not person a cookbook and tell him or her to changed substantially in recent history, the follow a recipe. demand and need for literacy has increased The Southwest Educational Development Laboratory Page 4 www.sedl.org 6 To achieve success for all children, teachers need to become extremely sophisticated and diagnostic in their approach to reading instruction. v markedly. Literacy is essentially a prerequisite for success now, and in the future, the ability to read will be an increasingly indispensable skill. As Marilyn Jager Adams states, "It is not just that the teaching of reading is more important than ever before, but that it must be taught better and that good readers use context cues to guess more broadly than ever before. We are words in running text comes from a method witnessing an explosion in both information of assessment developed by Ken Goodman and technology. Alonglside, the social and that he called "miscue analysis" (which has economic values of reading and writing are given rise to the popular "running records" multiplying in both number and importance assessments). For his dissertation, as never before." Goodman examined the types of mistakes that young readers make, and drew We clearly do not need to get back to the old inferences about the strategies they employ ways of teaching children to read the old as they read. He noticed that the children in ways were really no better than (and some his studies very often made errors as they would argue, "no different than") the current read, but many of these errors did not ways. Relatively recent research has given change the meaning of the text (e.g. us great insights into why some children misreading "rabbit" as "bunny"). He have difficulty learning to read, and the next surmised that the reason must be that good frontier in reading education is to help readers depend on context to predict teachers understand and apply that research upcoming words in passages of text. He information. further suggested that for good readers, Skilled reading involves using these context cues are so important that the Myth #5 syntactic and semantic cues to "guess" reader only needs to occasionally "sample" from the text (i.e. look at the words on the words, and good readers make many page) to confirm the predictions. Children "mistakes" as they read authentic text who struggle to sound out words, Goodman says, are over-depending on the letter / word Research indicates that both of these claims cues, and need to learn to pay more are quite wrong, but both are surprisingly attention to the semantic and syntactic cues. pervasive in reading instruction. The idea Page 5 The Southwest Educational Development Laboratory www.sedl.org BEST COPY WHAM 7 and students were asked to guess the next Goodman's model, that eventually gave rise word. This process was repeated for every to the "Three Cueing Systems" model of word in the passage, so the students always word recognition, is very influential in reading knew the words leading up to the unknown instruction, but unfortunately, it has never word. We found that, given unlimited time to been supported by research evidence. ponder, students were able to correctly guess one out of ten content words in the In fact, repeated studies have shown that passage. That's a ninety percent failure rate, only poor readers depend upon context to try as opposed to the zero percent failure rate to "guess" words in text good readers seen in skilled readers who were not forced depend heavily upon the visual information to make guesses based on context. contained in the words themselves (i.e. the letter / word cues) to quickly and It is clear that good readers depend very automatically identify the word. Keith heavily upon the visual information contained Stanovich has been especially critical of the in the word for word identification (what is three cueing systems model because the commonly called the graphemic information predictions made by the model are exactly or orthographic information). The semantic the opposite of what has been observed in and syntactic information are critical for research studies. comprehension of passages of text, but they do not play an important role in decoding or Philip Gough and I addressed the second identifying words. Good readers make claim and showed that, in fact, good readers virtually no mistakes as they read because almost never make any mistakes at all when they have developed extremely effective and they read, which means the notion of efficient word identification skills that do not conducting a "miscue analysis" is somewhat depend upon semantics/context or syntax. how can you perform a miscue suspect For good readers, word identification is fast, analysis when there are typically no it needs to be so that fluent, and automatic miscues? We had over 400 college students the their attention can be fully focused on read a passage of text from Ken Goodman's Phonics Phacts, using semantics and syntax to comprehend and showed that the book the text. modal number of mistakes made by these almost all of the students was zero students read the passage flawlessly. To Research can be used to Myth #6 suggest that good readers are correctly lots support whatever your beliefs are guessing the words in the passage with one- of programs are "research based" hundred percent accuracy stretched the boundaries of credulity. Unfortunately, it is true that a lot of people do selectively search and sample the research However, to be sure, we examined how literature, citing only the research that seems accurate people would be if they were forced to support their pre-conceived notions. Often to use semantics and context as their only research results are skewed or biased to cues. We concealed the passage of text and asked our college students to guess each of appear to be consistent with hypotheses proposed. And unfortunately, there are many the words in the passage one at a time; after people who are unwilling to reject a each guess, the correct word was revealed, Page 6 The Southwest Educational Development Laboratory www.sedl.org on interesting issues, but they are not in any hypothesis or a theory even when research way "research" articles. evidence does not support that theory. Adding to the problem of poor research is the Real research is much more rigorous. Real problem that the public is largely uninformed research requires peer review. Real about what the hallmarks of good research research is tested and scrutinized from many are. angles by multiple, unrelated researchers. There is documented Many articles seem to be objectivity associated All of us need to adopt a bit of "research" articles, but are with real research, and not. The article you are healthy skepticism, and we need where possible, there is reading right now, for to demand that a substantial replication. And even example, might be cited research base be provided as after all of that, a as "research" by some, evidence to support claims "healthy skepticism" is but in fact this is not a still adopted by the this is an research article research community. Researchers know that article written by a researcher, and that is an one piece of research evidence is nothing to important distinction. This article, and others get excited about. Several bits of evidence that appear in journals like Phi Delta Kappan might get some attention. But it is only when and The Reading Teacher are typically there is substantial "convergent evidence" created as informative journalistic from multiple sources supporting a theory documents. These articles are meant to be that the research community is willing to analogous to newspaper articles, but are embrace the theory. often more like editorials and commentaries. They stimulate thought, and focus attention Page 7 www.sedl.org The Southwest Educational Development Laboratory 9 In short, we should always remember the It takes years to convince the research researcher's credo: "Remarkable claims community that a theory has merit, but it require remarkable evidence." takes no time at all to convince the public. People outside of the research community Phoneme awareness is a Myth #7 tend to pay attention to unexpected or consequence (not a cause) of reading unusual findings. Cold fusion is an example acquisition of the type of inappropriate attention the public and media pays to unusual research The evidence showing the importance of findings. There is a mountain of evidence phoneme awareness to literacy acquisition is showing that cold fusion is not possible given overwhelming. Still, there are some that are our current technology and understanding of not convinced. Some claim that teaching physics. But when one research team children to develop phoneme awareness is circumvented the normal "channels" of peer not necessary or even beneficial. They review and claimed that they had found a usually accept that children do develop solution for cold fusion, they were celebrated phoneme awareness as they learn to read, in the media, and the public payed a great but they claim that phoneme awareness is deal of attention to their claims. nothing more than a byproduct of reading acquisition that arises as a result of learning When there is a preponderance of evidence not the other way around. Further, supporting a theory, the research community to read it is often argued that phoneme awareness puts a great deal of faith in that theory, but instruction is "inauthentic" and "unnatural," when there is one claim that refutes the and is therefore inappropriate. preponderance of evidence, the public tends to pay inordinate attention to the exceptional The research evidence, however, does not claim while ignoring the substantial evidence support this view. First, it is quite clear that that would refute that claim. A wall of phoneme awareness is a necessary pre- mundane consistency fades to the requisite for developing decoding skills in an background when one incongruent speck alphabetic writing system such as English. appears. Phoneme awareness in the early grades is one of the best predictors of future reading It is true that new "research based" fads and success. All successful readers have programs come and go, but that stems from phoneme awareness. People who do not a misuse of the term "research based." All of have phoneme awareness are always poor us need to adopt a bit of healthy skepticism, readers, and poor readers almost never have and we need to demand that a substantial phoneme awareness (almost never research base be provided as evidence to phoneme awareness is necessary but not support claims. And we also need to learn to sufficient for reading success). However, the pay more attention to the research evidence most compelling evidence for the importance and less attention to the messenger the of phoneme awareness stems from the credentials of a researcher are important, but research that has shown that when children even researchers can editorialize and put are taught to develop phoneme awareness, forth unfounded opinions. Just because a they are more likely to develop good word well-known researcher said it, that doesn't decoding skills, and they develop those skills make it so. 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