Free Republic

A real OMG moment occurred last week when the New York Times awoke from a long sleep and published the truth about reading. Yes, it’s true. The New York Times came right out and told the world that if you want children to learn to read, they need phonics. No ifs, ands, or buts. No weird digressions into context and balanced this-or-that. No claims that people can learn to read simply by picking up a good book and reading. The article is titled “Why Are We Still Teaching Reading the Wrong Way?” Why, indeed? Here’s the gist of it: “First...

Rudolf Flesch, writing in 1955, noted that “things have changed in the last 10, 20 years. For the first time in history, American parents see their children getting less education than they got themselves. Their sons and daughters come home from school and they can’t read the newspaper; they can’t spell simple words like February or Wednesday; they don't know the difference between Austria and Australia. The fathers and mothers don’t know the reason for this, but they know that something terrible has happened to their most precious dreams and aspirations…” Isn’t it beautiful the way Flesch perceives the decline...

In 1955 Rudolf Flesch famously explained “Why Johnny Can't Read.” The problem was obvious. Schools made children memorize words as abstract graphic designs (i.e., sight-words), nothing else. In fact, English words contain a lot of essential info about how words should be pronounced and why they’re spelled the way they are. The Education Establishment said, “Oh fiddlesticks, forget all that old-fashioned stuff. Memorize the word-designs as if they are currency symbols or electrical symbols.” That, of course, is very hard work. But our Education Establishment has pushed this nonsense for 80 years. As a result, we have 50 million functional...

Not much is certain in life, but here are two things you can take to the bank. If you want a child to learn to read, phonics is the way that works. Second, you can be sure that our Education Establishment will try to keep phonics at a minimum and force children to memorize the English language one sight-word at a time. Where reading is concerned, the nonsense never stops. In his famous 1955 book Why Johnny Can’t Read, Rudolf Flesch said he looked at all the research. There were 11 studies from 1913 to 1948; in all of them,...

1) Bruce, about 4 years ago, you wrote ”An Open Letter to Bill Gates About Education.” What was it all about? In 2007, Bill Gates helped prepare a report on American productivity. The report concluded that public schools are so bad they are a threat to the economy. I was tremendously impressed by this directness. We need that. Unfortunately, the report went on to suggest scores of small fixes, not the radical reform we need. Bill Gates seemed to think that our Education Establishment would listen to him, that it would be enough if he made smart suggestions. I argued...

Rudolf Flesch published “Why Johnny Can’t Read” in 1955. It was a big success and remains one of the best-known books in American history. In that book Flesch explained the illiteracy crisis in the United States. Had the people in charge of education listened, he might have faded into history. Ironically, the fact that our Education Establishment tried to defame and ignore Flesch is precisely why he remains a cultural icon. The anti-phonics cartel was so entrenched that Flesch felt compelled to publish a second book 25 years later, “Why Johnny STILL Can’t Read” in 1981. This second book has...