Posted on 02/13/2011 4:44:10 AM PST by IbJensen
-six years ago, in 1955 to be exact, the most significant book about American education was published and, with very good reason, caused quite a stir. It was written by Rudolf Flesch, who had come to America to escape the Nazis in Vienna, became highly fluent in English and got a Ph.D in English at Columbia University. The book was entitled Why Johnny Can’t Read. It became a best-seller and rankled the entire education establishment. In it Flesch explained why so many children in American schools were having such a difficult time learning to read. He wrote:
“The teaching of reading - -all over the United States, in all the schools, and in all the textbooks - -is totally wrong and flies in the face of all logic and common sense.”
He then went on to explain how, in the 1930s, the professors of education changed the way reading was taught in American schools. They threw out the traditional alphabetic-phonics method, in which one learns how to sound out new words, and replaced it with a new sight, whole-word, or look-say method that teaches children to read English as if it were Chinese. He said that when you impose an ideographic teaching method on a phonetic reading and writing system you get dyslexia, or reading disability.
Flesch’s book was the first salvo in the Reading War, which is still going on over a half a century later. The progressive educators, who had introduced the new reading programs, were not about to give up their crusade to use the schools to create a socialist America. Their view, as first stated by their leader John Dewey, was that traditional phonics produced independent, individualistic readers who could think for themselves, while the new whole-word approach produced readers dependent on the collective for meaning and interpretation and were thereby easier to collectivize and control. And anyone who has visited a public school lately will become aware of how socialistic the curriculum has become.
In this socialist crusade, behavioral psychology would play an important role. For example, Dr. Paul Witty, professor of education and director of the psycho-educational clinic at Northwestern University, was interviewed by Nation’s Schools in July 1955. Flesch had singled out the professor as one of the whole-word gurus. So the magazine prefaced the interview with this paragraph:
“How does one tell a gullible public that it is being exploited by a biased writer — as in the case with Rudolf Flesch and his book Why Johnny Can’t Read? It will take time and patience for parents to learn that Mr. Flesch has mixed a few half-truths with prejudice to capitalize on two misconceptions. The first is his superficial notion as to what reading really is. The second is his misrepresentation as to how reading is taught.”
By now we know exactly what the progressives mean by “what reading really is.” The word method is now called Whole Language, and in 1991 three Whole Language professors wrote a book, Whole Language: What’s the Difference?, in which they defined what they mean by reading. They wrote:
From a whole language perspective, reading (and language use in general) is a process of generating hypotheses in a meaning-making transaction in a sociohistorical context. As a transactional process reading is not a matter of “getting the meaning” from text, as if that meaning were in the text waiting to be decoded by the reader. Rather, reading is a matter of readers using the cues print provide and the knowledge they bring with them to construct a unique interpretation.…This view of reading implies that there is no single “correct” meaning for a given text, only plausible meanings.
This is the kind of pedagogical insanity that now reigns in our colleges of education and has filtered down to the classroom teacher. Most parents assume that our educators are sane human beings who use common sense in their classrooms. Unfortunately, few if any parents have access to the writings of these so-called professors of education, and so are totally ignorant of the kind of crackpots who are educating their children.
Of course, back in 1955, the educators had every reason to denounce Rudolf Flesch because he put in jeopardy all of the new programs that were created to deal with the reading problems children were having as a result of the new teaching methods. An article in the May 1953 issue of High Points had described the new world of remedial reading which had come into existence:
Nearly every university in the United States now operates a “reading clinic” staffed by psychiatrists, psychologists, and trained reading technicians, and equipped with novel mechanical devices such as the metronoscope, the ophthalmograph, and the reading rate accelerator…. In addition, an entirely new professional group of private practitioners has arisen, whose specialized training in the field justifies their hanging out their shingles as “reading counselors” and rating large fees for consultation and remedial treatment.
So in addition to the education establishment and the new basal textbooks they wrote promoting the new teaching method, a whole new field of psychological therapy had developed to take care of children’s reading problems. Indeed, as early as 1944, Life magazine was writing articles about the epidemic of dyslexia among American children. The article stated:
Millions of children in the U.S. suffer from dyslexia which is the medical term for reading difficulties. It is responsible for about 70% of the school failures in the 6- to 12-year-age group, and handicaps about 15% of all grade-school children. Dyslexia may stem from a variety of physical ailments or combination of them-— glandular imbalance, heart disease, eye or ear trouble — or from a deep-seated psychological disturbance that “blocks” a child’s ability to learn. It has little or nothing to do with intelligence and is usually curable.
The article then went on to describe the case of a little girl with an I.Q. of 118 who was being examined at the Dyslexia Institute of Northwestern University. After her tests, the doctors concluded that the little girl needed “thyroid treatments, removal of tonsils and adenoids, exercises to strengthen her eye muscles.” No one suggested teaching her to read with phonics.
No wonder Flesch’s book hit a sensitive nerve among the educators, psychiatrists, psychologists and “reading specialists.” They all had an economic stake in the continued use of teaching methods that produced these thousands of affected children.
The result of Flesch’s book is that it awakened many parents who then began to teach their children to read at home. But the public schools continued to use the teaching method that continued to produce reading disability. And by now the full story of the deliberate dumbing down of the American people has been fully documented by such books as Charlotte Iserbyt’s the deliberate dumbing down of America and John Taylor Gatto’s monumental, The Underground History of American Education.
And yet most American parents continue to put their children in the government schools where the dumbing down curriculum is still in place and does its job of destroying their children’s ability to become good readers and successful human beings. And yet, the idea of reforming the public schools still resonates among the public who constantly approve of the government’s efforts of reform by throwing billions of dollars at the educators.
But Flesch knew how difficult the job of reform would be. He wrote:
It’s a foolproof system all right. Every grade-school teacher in the country has to go to a teachers’ college or school of education; every teachers’ college gives at least one course on how to teach reading; every course on how to teach reading is based on a textbook; every one of those textbooks is written by one of the high priests of the word method. In the old days it was impossible to keep a good teacher from following her own common sense and practical knowledge; today the phonetic system of teaching reading is kept out of our schools as effectively as if we had a dictatorship with an all-powerful Ministry of Education.
And the situation today is about the same as it was back in Flesch’s day. My contacts in the teaching field tell me that not much has changed since 1955, despite the fact that many books have been published since then corroborating Flesch’s findings. But it seems that only the homeschoolers have bothered to read them.
Back in the 1970s when I became aware of what was going on in the schools, I decided to write a phonics reading program that could easily be used by any parent to teach their child to read at home. I eliminated the use of any pictures and simply taught the student our English alphabetic system in a rational, systematic way. Its title is Alpha-Phonics. By now it has been used by thousands of homeschooling parents quite successfully, proving beyond any doubt that we can restore high literacy to this country if the will to do so is there. Unfortunately, it isn’t among the educational establishment.
Meanwhile, just about everyone who reads a newspaper knows that we still have a severe reading problem, which is not helping our country compete with all of those students learning English in China, South Korea, Japan, and India.. Indeed, the National Endowment for the Arts was so concerned about our declining literacy that they conducted their own survey which was released in November of 2007 entitled “Reading at Risk.”
According to the Report, the number of 17-year-olds who never read for pleasure increased from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004. About half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 never read books for pleasure.
Endowment Chairman Dana Gioia stated: “This is a massive social problem. We are losing the majority of the new generation. They will not achieve anything close to their potential because of poor reading.” The survey found that only a third of high school seniors read at a proficient level. “And proficiency is not a high standard,” said Gioia. “We’re not asking them to be able to read Proust in the original. We’re talking about reading the daily newspaper.”
Well, as you can imagine the Report had as much influence on our educators as Flesch’s book of 1955. By the way, Flesch wrote a new book in 1983, Why Johnny Still Can’t Read. That book was totally ignored by the educators, who had so completely solidified their control over reading in the schools, that they couldn’t have cared less about what Flesch had to say in his new book.
I disagree on the problem.
Kids can, and often do, learn very well through sight words as long as site words are used to help teach phonics as well.
The reasons kids can’t read it because the welfare state has turned school into a daycare center. Kids used to learn Science, Math, History, Reading and Writing. 5 subjects in an eight hour day.
Today we have a ‘health class’ of which only 25% is useful (and used to be taught in science. the other 75% it political agenda.
Today we have X-studies of which almost none is useful. Things like this used to be taught in history.
The focus on making kids ‘feel good’ has throttled education.
They threw out the traditional alphabetic-phonics method, in which one learns how to sound out new words, and replaced it with a new sight, whole-word, or look-say method....
^^^
Fortunately, I went to Catholic school and was taught the phonics method.
The dumbing down of our public school system has been a consistant part of the leftist plan from the start. It is just not acceptable to have a country full of literate individuals, able to decide issues for themselves.
I can remember when the DOE was established. I thought, at the time, that this latest Jimmy Carter “brain fart” would only make a situation that was deteriorating flush that much faster. I’m not always happy when I am right. We now have whole generations of school kids who will truly be “ugly Americans”.
Well, I went to catholic schools when I was a kid, and then made sure my own kids stayed in private school. It was worth the cost. Now, my grandchildren attend private school. I spent several years teaching in an urban area public high school and, frankly, I am afraid for all of us.
I believe we need to abolish most, and scale back the rest, of the federal agencies. But the DOE could be gone tomorrow with no ill effects at all. The fed should not be involved in education, even in the most minimal way.
“I’m a 3rd teacher. Johnny can’t read because there is no cohesive family anymore. There is no one at home who will talk to their children anymore. There are no books in the homes anymore. “
Forgive me if I have a problem with people that always BLAME THE PARENTS, but my wife grew up oversees with ILLITERATE PARENTS, but was taught in a public school that had class sizes of 40 students...and she is far from illiterate.
If teachers don’t want to use methods that DO WORK, like Phonics, that’s fine - the NEA will be happy to turn out another illiterate generation of kids.
- BUT QUIT BLAMING PARENTS!!!!!! It’s getting really, really, old these days.
“There are no books in the homes anymore.”
This is a big one. Kids do what the adults around them do. If the adults around them do not value reading (and there are plenty who do not) then they will not either. Thus, no motivation to learn to do so exists.
I grew up in E. TX, where we have Southern accents. In college I had to take a course in the IPA...writing and transforming sentences.
It ate my lunch because I had never heard the King's English spoken. I couldn't write a sentence correctly when I didn't hear or pronounce the words the "correct" pronunciation.
Luckily, I was taught reading using the "Sight" method. "Run, Spot, Run."
The fact is....different kids learn to read using different "methods." Some benefit by fonics, others by site. I really was lucky that "sight" was in when I started school because that taught to my strength. I'm a visual learner. We learned phonics in Spelling in Third grade. I memorized the spelling test and if the teacher called them out of the order I had memorized, I was in trouble.
I wasn't a genius but I wasn't stupid. I think kids with average or above I.Q.'s learn to compensate and poor teachers/incorrect teaching don't hurt them in the long run.
I had the same experience with my son when he was in kindergarten. The teacher insisted he could not read.
When he was older, I was seriously ill and he did attend 5th grade for a few months. The teacher claimed that there was no evidence that he was advanced in math. My immediate question was, “Well...Have you tested him?” Her response was a dumb stare. (He enrolled in college at 13 and by 15 had finished Calculus III.)
Do you really need to use the s-word to make your point?
Best Statement at the futility of the Written English Alphabet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWN9rTc08GU&feature=related
“Granted you have to have phonics but we need a real alphabet for English”
This is why Korean is the best written language on the planet. Around 500 years ago they dumped Chinese Characters and created a new alphabet specifically for their language.
It’s ridiculously easy to become literate in Korean. About the same number of symbols as the English Alphabet and they *always* make the same sound.
I, too, attended Catholic schools pretty much all my school years, although my parents (who never went beyond high school) taught me to read by the age of four. We learned much the same way you did, plus phonics (this was back in the 70s and 80s). I always tested at least 3-4 grades ahead in reading level and my mom had to pretty much drag me out of the library as a kid.
My kids attend Catholic schools now, and wouldn’t you know it, they are learning to read the same way I did (and the school librarian is a nun, lol). All of my kids who are old enough to read do so above their grade level. Regular trips to the library are a part of our existence. I have several shelves for books surrounding our faux fireplace in the front room which are full and always increasing. I have stacks of library books just for me in both the living room and bedroom.
My oldest has participated in Battle of the Books for three years straight—it is the most popular activity in the school—over 65 kids (grades 4-6 are eligible) in a school of just about 300. They consistently place at the state level every year.
As you can see, reading is very much encouraged in our house and the school. I joked that my husband doesn’t like to read, which isn’t true, but until recently, he never really had the time. I bought him ‘Atlas Shrugged’ for his birthday in November. He just finished it this week and is now trying to figure out what to read next. Now he’s not allowed to tease me about the 700 page biographies and historical novels I bring home from the library ;)
Considering the flood of new books targeting young readers that turn up at the library, those home school kids who check books out by the dozens per week offset the nincompoops. It's a thriving, exploding, market -- and someone somewhere is creating the demand!
It's the education wing of the Cloward-Piven building.
When my children entered school, one first grade teacher bucked the educational bureaucracy and taught phonics to our son. When our daughter entered school we got her into that same teacher's first grade class, but by this time the bureaucrats had forced her to largely give up phonics, though thankfully she did manage to slip it in from time to time. There was a considerable difference in reading skills between our kids as a result.
I fail to understand why this whole language approach to reading which has been so widely discredited persists in our schools.
As a matter of fact, yes I did. I’d be happy to use it again, if you wish.
Are you wearing the “Word Police” badge today, as you conduct your hall monitoring duties?
If so, congratulations. I’m sure the promotion amounts to a milestone in your life.
“I fail to understand why this whole language approach to reading which has been so widely discredited persists in our schools.”
I think you know why, it’s pretty obvious. What annoys me is similar to what annoys you - which is people saying: “different strokes for different folks” meaning that phonics works on some, whole language on others - so a mix is best.
LOL. That might be the case if Whole Language had ANY MERIT, but it doesn’t. It’s like saying teach one bunch of kids their times tables and let the other bunch play cards - and the results will be about the same. LOL.
I too, was early identified as an advanced reader by the educational powers-that-be, and after testing me over that and the other subjects in the first grade curriculum, I was placed into a third grade classroom. This might have been fine from a strictly academic standpoint, but it was a personal disaster from a social standpoint in the world of early-1960's small-town Iowa. Sanity prevailed and I was returned to my peers (such as they - and I - were), with damages limited to those already done.
A year later, the family moved to a more "progressive" district where "theories du jour" were warmly embraced, with one of the results being that I was thrown from one method to another over the years and never did understand some subjects well enough before being uprooted for a different angle of attack. My inclination towards laziness didn't help matters, and to this day I am ashamed at my lack of mathematical prowess.
I still like to read though!
Mr. niteowl77
“The textbook publishing industry has always seemed to be a bit of a scam. After all, how much have English or math actually progressed in the past 100 years which have required complete the textbooks to be rewritten every three years or so?”
Same here, I’ve wondered the same. You can take what you said at least through Calculus. If you ever get a chance, get a look at some hardcover Saxon Math books. They’re only about 10 or 15 years old, but they look like they’re out of a time warp. One author (sometimes two), all black and white, no pictures of Nelson Mendela (as I saw in a public school math book), no calculators (until real late in the sequence). Needless to say, the books are AWESOME and got my kids YEARS AHEAD of their age level.
Unfortunately the hard-cover books are no longer published (or at least the home school editions), so you have to get them second hand...and I suspect even that might start getting tough, because, if I know the NEA, which I do, they’re likely buying up as many as they can get - just to have book burning parties with them. They’re that dangerous (to them).
My older sister taught me to read before I reached kindergarten. She set up a little blackboard and played school.
May I suggest you teach them Hebrew while you can. The ability to read bidirectionally while dissecting words for roots learned as conceptual ideas is extremely powerful. It is an amazing language.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.