Pamela Snow's outstanding blog

[debbie]

Normally, I try to add great blog postings and relevant articles and papers on to an existing thread to build up the information available for that particular topic.

Pamela Snow, however, is one of those people with a particular gift for unpicking the issues in the field of reading and special needs and providing exceptional food for thought.

On this occasion, then, I'm flagging up not just one aspect of reading instruction, but Pamela's blog itself so that we might have ready reference to her thoughts by looking for her name on this Phonics International information and discussion forum:


http://pamelasnow.blogspot.co.uk/2014/0 ... l?spref=tw

[debbie]

Pamela Snow and Alison Clarke write an article for 'The Conversation' in Australia:

The way we teach most children to read sets them up to fail



http://theconversation.com/the-way-we-t ... fail-36946

How should children be taught this complex code?

In his internationally acclaimed analysis of the effectiveness of teaching methods, Professor John Hattie assigns “effect sizes” ranging from 1.44 (highly effective) to -0.34 (harmful). Effect sizes above 0.4 indicate methods worth serious attention.

There are two main schools of thought about how to teach children to read and write, one focused on meaning (whole language) and one focused on word structure (phonics). Hattie’s meta-analysis gives whole language an effect size of 0.06, and phonics an effect size of 0.54.

[debbie]

Here is Pamela's excellent follow-up posting to the piece she and Alison wrote in 'The Conversation'"


http://pamelasnow.blogspot.com.au

Wednesday, 11 February 2015

Taboo topics: Reading instruction and teacher education

Like many people of my generation, I was reared on the firm axiom that when in company, one didn't discuss religion or politics. Such was the risk of inadvertent offence to third parties, that it was considered poor taste and insensitive to venture into these conversational waters. As an adult with an interest in early reading instruction, I have had to get my head around the fact that this topic seems to have features of both of those no-go zones from my childhood. There is a definite political dimension to the question of where reading instruction fits in the wider pedagogical landscape and there is also something of a religious fervour when it comes to the passionately-held beliefs around this topic.

What's the big deal?

The big deal is that too many children never make it to the other side when it comes to learning to read, and their education, mental health, and overall life-chances suffer as a consequence. If you need evidence of this under-performance, have a look at how Australia performed on the Progress in Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) in 2011. This data shows that a staggering one quarter of Australian Year 4 students had not attained expected standards in reading, and 7% of these performed extremely poorly. Australia is a first-world economy that should not be punching this far below its weight. The picture for adults is not very rosy either, with Australian Bureau of Statistics data showing 43.7% of people scoring at or below Level 2 reading, on a 5-point reading scale. This very poor performance is not lost on Australian employers, with the Industry Skills Council of Australia releasing a report (No More Excuses) in 2011 in which it stated that

Do find the time to read the whole piece!

And read Dick Schutz's excellent comment - it is great to see another person promoting the widespread use of England's Year One Phonics Screening Check as a 'Natural Experiment' in itself!

Your and Allison's exposition is spot on. And keeping the comments “on topic” for so long Is a rarity in the blogosphere. The thing is, though, the colloquy really didn't move beyond the substance of what you and Allison said in the blog. It's a start, but it seems to me that "more debate" is more likely to fall apart than it is to increase the reliability of reading instruction.

As you say in the colloquy, [pre-collegiate] education/instruction is akin to Public Health. However, from a scientific/technical perspective, pre-collegiate education is a couple of hundred years behind Public Health. We're losing kids in the primary grades, but the failure is being attributed to the kids (or their parents, or "society.") rather than to their instruction.

The tests commonly used as reading achievement metrics support the belief the problem is with the kids. That is, the results reference student deficits without any illumination of instructional deficits. And because the inadvertent mal-instruction slops over into "literacy" and post-primary instruction, we're addressing an instructional epidemic rather than its source or its etiology.

With all their faults, the kids entering school aren't the obstacle. Parents give the schools the best kids they have, and with few exceptions all of the kids they send have minimal assets for making reliable reading instruction feasible: The kids can speak in full sentences and participate in everyday conversation-- demonstrating a sufficient vocabulary and "mastery" of English syntax to make reading instruction feasible.

Teachers, as you recognize, have indeed been mis-instructed for decades, but that's not the sticking point either. Teaching a kid to read doesn't take much instructor "knowledge." Although the more knowledge the better, home schoolers with much less education than teachers are teaching their kids to read.

We could debate all of the foregoing forever, and the reading wars would go on forever. The proof is in the pudding. And proofing is cheap and easy.

The Alphabetic Code (Phonics) Screening Check being used in England with all children at the end of Year 1 and with all Yr 2 children who didn't pass the Check in Yr 1 is a "good enough" psychometrically sound indicator to identify children who need no further formal instruction in reading per se. Yes, they need a lot more instruction to become "fully literate," but they "can read" anything they could comprehend in spoken communication.

The UK results to date indicate that the modal score on the Check is the highest score possible on the Check. This is nearly unprecedented in large scale achievement testing, but it's not surprising. Children learn what you teach them, and Reception-Year 1 is sufficient time to get the job done in reading. However, that result is at the national level. At the LEA level, there is wide variability in the results. With the reading war still in play, this is not surprising. The action, though, is not at either the national or LEA level. It's at the school and classroom level. As yet, no one has looked at those results, but all indications are that it's not in the kids or the water; it's in what the kids are being taught. All schools and teachers, by law, in England are teaching "Phonics," but whatever some say or think they are teaching, it's not how to handle the Alphabetic Code.

Methodologically, what's going on in England is a Natural Experiment, with the different reading instruction treatments the Independent Variable and the Alphabetic Code Test the dependent variable. The same methodology is applicable at any scale in any other English-speaking country

It seem to me that this is the best bet for ending the reading wars, and without any casualties, except to the war profiteers, and not much to them. There may be a better way, taking less time and at less cost. If so, let’s hear it.