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Not just in England, but in America and in Australia various politicians on occasions have done their utmost to bring phonics back into the education system. This is a heartfelt letter about the involvement of businesses invested in the whole language approach undermining the political gestures:
THE ALTAMONT ENTERPRISE
Opinion
Politics forced people to conform to an inferior system of education
There has been a great deal of serious debate surrounding the way reading was and now is being taught but it has been kept out of the mainstream media. One of the reasons it’s not been in the news is because it doesn’t have the sensational attraction that news managers seek. The other, and more problematic, reason is that politics is involved and commands that time-honored axiom: No news is good news.
For example — how many people who consider themselves informed on educational issues are aware that funding for the very popular and successful “Reading First” component of No Child Left Behind was quietly eviscerated by the new Democratic Congress during the sixth year of President George W. Bush’s term?
While Reading First might be a good name for a future law regarding what Congress ought to do before passing legislation, NCLB’s Reading First effectively reintroduced phonics to our public schools.
The defunding of Reading First became a political goal sought by certain Democrats as soon as NCLB was passed and it became obvious to them that they should have read the bill before they passed it. Those lawmakers were and are cronies with big education industry publishers who publish only “whole-word” also known as “Whole-language” teaching material. Those publishers were losing business to the new firms working with the Bush Administration to publish phonics-based teaching material that actually worked.
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, phonics was superior.
Now, a century after that first study, Malkin Dare, a Canadian expert, summed up the latest research from the UK:
There is no such thing as a silver bullet in education, but systematic phonics comes pretty close. Doubters ought to read this report by Dr. Marlynne Grant, an English educational psychologist. Dr. Grant is actually reporting on two studies. The first is a two-year study of…children who were taught to read using systematic phonics. At the end of two years, when they were just six years old, all 30 children were fluent readers who could read well above grade level….The second study is a larger longitudinal study following up on a much-earlier cohort of 700 disadvantaged children who had been taught to read using systematic phonics but then received no special treatment. At the end of grade 8, the group as a whole could read significantly above the national average and not one child had difficulties with literacy.
What else would an intelligent person need to know? We have a hundred years of research showing that phonics is best.
This is a piece in 'Real Clear Education' by the much-respected Dan Willingham about good results from the Core Knowledge schools compared to others - and a disinterested politician:
June 30, 2014
Stop Ignoring the Facts: In New York City, Controversial Education Program Lives Despite Rocky Data
Public officials often disregard educational research, but it's hard to catch them red-handed. They don't reach positions of influence without learning to obfuscate, to redirect. Rarely does a policymaker as much as say, "Screw the data, I'm doing what I want."
Last week, one did.
New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña said she supports a greater number of New York City schools using balanced literacy as a reading program. (To clarify, balanced literacy describes a general philosophy of teaching reading, but Fariña was talking about a particular balanced literacy program that has been implemented in New York City. So I'm talking here about that particular program, not the general approach.) The approach is a combination of several approaches to reading and writing, in which students often work in small groups, instead of listening to lectures, and are encouraged to write about personal experiences and social issues. Novels, plays, and fluency are favored in lieu of textbooks and spelling and grammar – students get to choose what they want to read.
According to the Random House Dictionary, a magic bullet is “something that cures or remedies by attacking a specific disease without causing harmful side effects.” But what are we trying to cure with intensive phonics? In November 2007, the National Endowment for the Arts described the problem in an alarming report on the decline of literacy in America with the somber title Reading at Risk.
According to the report, the number of 17-year-olds who never read for pleasure increased from nine percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004. Almost half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 never read books for pleasure. Why? Because reading has become a painful, torturous exercise that they wish to avoid. The survey states:
For the first time in modern history, less than half of the adult population now reads literature, and these trends reflect a larger decline in other sorts of reading. Anyone who loves literature or values the cultural, intellectual, and political importance of active and engaged literacy in American society will respond to this report with grave concern.
