Principal Walder's Monday Memo
For the Week of October 8
Kids struggle to read when schools leave phonics out
The link to the full article is below and it does give a case study about one principal and her team undergoing extensive phonics training, much like Mrs. Bruinsma went through with you last year on the CORE Phonics Training.
Please note that I bolded segments for emphasis. The segments in bold and in brackets are my commentary added in, not from the article.
The basic assumption that underlies typical reading instruction in many schools is that learning to read is a natural process, much like learning to talk. But decades of scientific research has revealed that reading doesn’t come naturally. The human brain isn’t wired to read. Kids must be explicitly taught how to connect sounds with letters — phonics.
“There are thousands of studies,” said Louisa Moats, an education consultant and researcher who has been teaching and studying reading since the 1970s. “This is the most studied aspect of human learning.”
But this research hasn’t made its way into many elementary school classrooms [especially with the CCSS adoption and "quick" move to align curriculum to the new standards]. The prevailing approaches to reading instruction in American schools are inconsistent with basic things scientists have discovered about how children learn to read. Many educators don’t know the science, and in some cases actively resist it. The resistance is the result of beliefs about reading that have been deeply held in the educational establishment for decades, even though those beliefs have been proven wrong by scientists over and over again. ...
... Children don’t crack the code naturally. They need to be taught how letters represent speech sounds. But by the time scientists had done all the studies to conclude this for sure, a different set of beliefs about reading was already deeply entrenched in many American schools and colleges of education. [and curriculums already in classrooms].
In 2000, the panel released a report. The sum of the research showed that explicitly teaching children the relationship between sounds and letters improved reading achievement. The panel concluded that phonics lessons help kids become better readers. There is no evidence to say the same about the whole language. [Whole language is a way of teaching where teachers provide an emphasis on word use and recognition of words in daily context.] ...
... After the National Reading Panel report, whole language proponents could no longer deny the importance of phonics. But they didn’t give up their core belief that learning to read is a natural process, and they didn’t give up the reading programs they were selling, either. Instead they advocated for doing both, a balance. So, whole language didn’t disappear; it just got repackaged as balanced literacy. And in balanced literacy, phonics is treated a bit like salt on a meal: a little here and there, but not too much, because it could be bad for you, but reading research suggests otherwise...
... What’s also clear in the research is that phonics isn’t enough. Children can learn to decode words without knowing what the words mean. To comprehend what they’re reading, kids need a good vocabulary, too. That’s why reading to kids and surrounding them with quality books is a good idea. The whole language proponents are right about that. ...
... But, according to the research, kids who can’t decode will never be good readers. Some children learn decoding quickly with minimal instruction. Others need a lot more help. But good phonics instruction is beneficial for all kids, even those who learn to decode easily; research shows they become better spellers.
... According to all the research, what you should see in every school is a heavy emphasis on explicit phonics instruction in the early grades. There is no evidence this turns kids off to reading or makes reading harder. In fact, it’s the opposite. If you do a good job teaching phonics in the early grades, kids get off to a quicker start. “And they accelerate their progress faster and read more and like it better and so it becomes a self-reinforcing cycle,” Moats said. “Whereas the converse is true. When you don’t give kids insight into the code and don’t arm them with insight into language, both spoken and written, what happens is, ‘This is a mystery. I’m not sure I’m getting what these words really say. Therefore, I’m uncomfortable. And therefore, I don’t really like it.'”
Thank you for continuing to work through using the CORE Phonics screener to support specific phonics intervention for our learners. Please continue to ask questions about phonics instruction, too. Dr. Warzecha and Mrs. Bruinsma have both come in to teach example phonics lessons for a few groups, but we can schedule more as well. Have a great week!
Mrs. Walder's Schedule
Monday:
- Noon Math Remediation Meeting in Mrs. Preheim's Vestibule
- 1:20- 2:05 1st Grade PLC in Mrs. Westhoff's Room Bring Computers.
- 2:10- 2:55 Kindergarten PLC in Mrs. Snell's Room Bring Computers.
- 3:30 Meet with Teachers working on Benchmark Students for W2R
- 6:30 School Board Meeting
Tuesday:
- 7:30 am TAT Meeting - Update: NO TAT THIS WEEK.
- 7:40 Reading Challenge Team in Mr. Baker's Room
- 8:30- 9:15 Teacher Observation
- 9:30- 10:15 4th Grade PLC in Mrs. Rhead's Room Bring Computers.
- 10:20- 11:05 3rd Grade PLC in Mr. Westhoff's Room Bring Computers.
Wednesday:
- 9:00- 9:30 JK PLC in Mrs. Nelson's Room
- 12:30- 1:15 2nd Grade PLC in Mrs. Walder's Room
- 3:30 Khan Academy Mappers
Thursday:
- Teacher Meeting 7:30 am to 8:00 am in Ms. Rederth's Room No computers needed.
- 11:50 PLC for Interventionists (Please note date change.)
Friday:
- Mrs. Walder at Innovations Training
- Available via phone/ email
Contact Mrs. Walder
Email: Samantha.Walder@k12.sd.us
Website: https://www.teaschools.k12.sd.us/
Location: Tea, SD, USA
Phone: 6058817381
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeaAreaLegacy/