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“I’m Mad as Hell and I’m Not Going to Take This Anymore”
Posted November 23, 2019
by Linda Diamond, founder and former president, CORE and author of Teaching Reading Sourcebook and Assessing Reading: Multiple Measures
In 1976, when news Anchor Howard Beale in the film Network yelled this famous line on air and urged everyone to open their windows and yell too, it resonated with me. It resonates even more now as once again the reading science deniers disparage those of us in the reading research community who accept the settled science on teaching reading by implying all we care about is phonics. That is a cheap shot that cannot be further from the truth. However, it is a slick strategy by the advocates of other teaching methods to belittle the rest of us and stir up anger and more sales of products that ultimately only work for a few children. This same line of resistance has been used to smear any curriculum that didn’t fit a “balanced literacy” or guided reading approach and was successfully used against a fantastic ELA curriculum, Open Court, as being only about phonics. Again, a big lie. Explicit systematic instruction, the science of reading, Structured Literacy, whatever the term, has NEVER, I repeat NEVER been all about phonics. It is about a systematic and explicit approach to developing ALL the critical literacy skills, including phonemic awareness, sound-spelling relationships, syllable patterns and morphemes, fluency, sentence and paragraph structure, vocabulary, text structure and comprehension.Yes, we start with children reading decodable texts to help them apply their decoding knowledge rather than guessing and using other cues with so-called “leveled texts.” However, simultaneously as children are developing their early reading skills, they hear and discuss great literature and informational texts. They learn new vocabulary and academic language, experience advanced syntax, and gain content knowledge through complex texts. From this combination of reading decodable text and listening to and discussing complex text, quite soon they are reading texts on their own from standard children’s literature, much earlier and much more advanced than the type of leveled texts used in other systems.
With the current NAEP results showing abysmal achievement for minority students, the science deniers could take a lesson from the great educator Marva Collins. Marva explicitly and systematically taught phonics, but her children, the poor African American and Hispanic children that many of the current practitioners of non-science supported methods have left behind, were reading Shakespeare and Chaucer. Marva Collins and my other hero Siegfried Engelmann did more for social justice for our most marginalized and vulnerable children than do the science deniers who perpetuate illiteracy. What the science of reading is about is equity—transforming, liberating, and equipping all students with the skills to be sophisticated citizens capable of achieving anything they want as opposed to leaving so many ill equipped to reach high levels of literacy. Interview Marva’s students today and you will see adults who because of how she taught were able to escape a cycle of poverty and achieve their goals.
I stand with Kate Walsh (NCTQ) and her recent post, Getting at the Root of the School to Prison Pipeline and I too am calling out Lucy Calkins and Fountas and Pinnell, especially for painting a picture of the science of reading as all about phonics when they know darn well that is a lie. I too am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore.
34 responses to ““I’m Mad as Hell and I’m Not Going to Take This Anymore””
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In 1976, when news Anchor Howard Beale in the film Network yelled this famous line on air and urged everyone to open their windows and yell too, it resonated with me. It resonates even more now as once again the reading science deniers disparage those of us in the reading research community who accept the settled science on teaching reading by implying all we care about is phonics. That is a cheap shot that cannot be further from the truth. However, it is a slick strategy by the advocates of other teaching methods to belittle the rest of us and stir up anger and more sales of products that ultimately only work for a few children. This same line of resistance has been used to smear any curriculum that didn’t fit a “balanced literacy” or guided reading approach and was successfully used against a fantastic ELA curriculum, Open Court, as being only about phonics. Again, a big lie. Explicit systematic instruction, the science of reading, Structured Literacy, whatever the term, has NEVER, I repeat NEVER been all about phonics. It is about a systematic and explicit approach to developing ALL the critical literacy skills, including phonemic awareness, sound-spelling relationships, syllable patterns and morphemes, fluency, sentence and paragraph structure, vocabulary, text structure and comprehension.
Can you hear me clapping? Thank you for this response! You speak for all of those, including myself, whose eyes are open and gloves are off! Enough of this educational crisis, malpractice, civil rights violation that is leaving generations of kids behind!
Really well written!
Amen! Thank you!
A concise retort and substantive response to the untruths, aka lies, proffered up by Caulkins, Fountas and Pinell et. al. Spend time in the field with real students that are not reading well or not reading at all, and I suggest that a much different narrative emerges. Read the conclusions of the National Reading Panel and stop sabotaging the implementation of programs that will meet the needs of all learners, especially those who have been left behind. Thank you Linda for taking the necessary time to combat this perpetuated myth about scientifically based reading research and its implications for teaching and learning.
👍🌈
Bravo!
Well said Linda. The reason they think it’s only phonics is because they refuse to learn what structured literacy actually is through observation of lessons and reviewing of the Knowledge and Practice Standards by IDA. I guess I would say they are the phonic centrics not us.
Amen, amen, and amen! Thank you Linda Diamond. Those of us who have actually taught lots of children to read (as opposed to having taught teachers about reading) know that the quickest way to get children into books independently involves explicit and sequenced instruction, including letting them in on the secret that there are a lot of sound-spellings that are very reliable in early literature. This instruction opens the door to books for children, including learning disabled children of all ages, by the way. I used to tell other teachers that yes, some kids learn to read with virtually NO instruction, but if you want to cast the widest net and “catch” the most children in your instructional net, get explicit, and give them a hand up into the code of words. And it doesn’t seem to bother those kids that apparently learn no matter what you do or don’t do, though they will become MUCH better spellers with the explicit instruction in the structure of words. Engelmann was my idol, too. His research papers and videos made so much sense to me that I tried what he taught, and the results almost gave me whiplash! I don’t understand why Pinnell and the rest continue to fight explicit instruction in the structure of words, though I would suspect that it might have to do with selling their products . . .
Thank you Linda. Bravo
An excellent, and thoughtful response to what has become an increasingly tiring and absurd argument. Thank you for your continued leadership!
Thank you for explaining this so eloquently. I am mad as hell too!! My daughters are adults now but I had tutoring for them when they were in elementary school. I went back to school and got a master’s degree in reading. I taught at a private school where I used Wilson. I tutor privately now and use Wilson. I see no difference in how the schools are teaching reading today than almost 30 years ago. Sad!!
The issue is not what you so wonderfully say here, but how what you say is translated by individuals who provide professional development or technical assistance. They more often than not jump to here is what should be done, without taking the time to truly understand what systematic and explicit truly means and looks like in a classroom. So the real issue is not agreement about the science of reading; it is those who deliver the message need to do their homework and develop ways to present that are not antagonistic but open a space for learning how to “make the familiar strange” in a way that allows educators to embrace the necessity of supporting reading development so all children can engage in this life changing experience of independent reading. Opposed to “you have been doing this wrong” professional development should open a space for let’s consider why we should be doing this.
I join you and I commend you.
THIS needs to be shouted from the mountaintops; “ Marva Collins and my other hero Siegfried Engelmann did more for social justice for our most marginalized and vulnerable children than do the science deniers who perpetuate illiteracy.” Yes, Linda!
This is the best response yet! I love it! You have perfectly and reasonably stated the facts! I’m sharing this all over the place!!
I think you are right!
The research used by Rose and others was completely bogus, purely product marketing. And phonics is alos marketed by the dyslexia industry, especially by their funded support agencies marketing departments, who claim to be Associations. Most dyslexics have the Temporal type of Auditory Processing Disorder, having problems processing the gaps between sounds, as the underlying cognitive cause of their dyslexia symptom, which means that they are cognitively not able to use phonics, nor phonetically sound out new words. We need to overcome this marketing ignorance
Thank you Linda! You have always been one of the boldest and bravest advocates for children—and you always say it best!
I feel fortunate to have learned the science alongside you and can’t believe there are still those who continue to propagate the ‘Reading Wars.’ That battle was lost long ago! Thank you for shouting this out—and calling out the science deniers. We all have to fight on for the children!
There is a path or recourse, consumer protection laws and product liability laws.
These products are falsely represented as meeting standards. The products are not fit for their intended and foreseeable use – to teach children reading as defined by Congress in 20 USC6368 (3)(5)(6).
Reading The term “reading” means a complex system of deriving meaning from print that requires all of the following:
(A) The skills and knowledge to understand how phonemes, or speech sounds, are connected to print.
(B) The ability to decode unfamiliar words.
(C) The ability to read fluently.
(D) Sufficient background information and vocabulary to foster reading comprehension.
(E) The development of appropriate active strategies to construct meaning from print.
(F) The development and maintenance of a motivation to read.
The company takes tax payer public funds and fails to warn that the guessing game they use will not teach many students and will contribute to failure, remedial needs and higher costs over the long run. The misinformation of this product line fails to teach the skills of reading and replaces them with an elaborate guessing game that models exactly what poor readers do. A product sold to
Public schools should promote skilled reading, directly and systematically taught to mastery in the most accessible way, designed to include all learners, not just good guessers. Products like this should be outlawed. But they will only be when the Attorney general or inspector general of each state investigates and files for damages and looks for contacts and agreements with districts that are suspect.
In some states – if airbags do not deploy they are recalled, if a faulty product resulted in higher expense and damage the consumer recovers.
Nice rebuttal, Linda!
Bravo! Please keep spreading the word. Too many children have suffered the consequences of whole language and “balanced” literacy!
You go Girl! I am right behind you!
Your words of courage, leadership, and encouragement continue to rally all of us going forward. Thank you!!
I am the principal is a school with 98% minorities and 100% Title. I am thankful for the professional development CORE has provided my teachers. Our reading scored have doubled!
Those of us who have actually taught lots of children to read (as opposed to having taught teachers about reading) know that the quickest way to get children into books independently involves explicit and sequenced instruction, including letting them in on the secret that there are a lot of sound-spellings that are very reliable in early literature.”
Brilliant!!
Wow!!! Marva Collins is my hero, Dr. Rivers, Dr. Archer and you are too. That was so well said. Thank you Linda. Explicit Instruction opens the gateway to learning for struggling learners, different learners and novice learners. Explicit Instruction is the starting point for learning how to read. It is not a dichotomy, it’s a continnum of learning. Katherine Tarpeh, M.S.E., M.A.R.
Well said! Preach it to everyone including university faculty and educators in the field!
You are a warrior and change maker along with Marva Collins and Sig!
Thank you for speaking this important truth so powerfully! This does need to be shouted from the rooftops! So many teachers (and university professors) are are under these misperceptions. Change needs to bebegin with teacher certification programs. Even in my Master’s program there was no mention of the Science of Reading. There seems to be a “romance” taught instead that stresses kids falling in love with reading. While that is a noble and worthwhile endeavor, it can’t happen if they never learn to read!
If you want to know what structured phonics system made Mavis Colins’ kids successful, check out the following link.
http://donpotter.net/education_pages/a-sound-track-to-reading.html
Thank you, Donald, for sharing that link. By the way her name was Marva Collins. She also used Open Court.
I am cheering! Thank you! The average reading scores for 4th and 8th graders in the U.S. dropped again. WE MUST DO WHAT’S BEST FOR CHILDREN. The SCIENCE matters!
In California we talk a lot about inequity in education. We spend a lot of time/talk on “closing the achievement gap,” and express ongoing concerns related to social justice. Based on my experience and research, the “reading/literacy gap” and the poor reading performance for many students, including those in poverty, students with disabilities, and students of color, are the BIGGEST social justice issues we have in this state and people don’t want to talk about it! I don’t understand where the denial comes from but it really concerns me. Keep up the good work Linda.
Balanced literacy has been introduced in many different ways to educators. The problem lies in how different systems approach teacher training in the systematic and explicit approach to teaching all the critical literacy skills. Advocating the importance of one aspect of instruction over the other is a futile attempt to solve a complex problem. I feel sorry for those dedicated teachers who want to help their students be successful and lifelong readers (like Marva Collins) who are bombarded with the latest programs or trends in teaching reading, but are never really immersed in the type of training it requires to truly support reading instruction with fidelity. Districts have to move from finding a “one program solves all” mindset to developing a systematic and dedicated approach to supporting teachers with the integration of all aspects of a balanced literacy model. The district I worked in changed reading programs about every 2 years and by mandating these programs I found teachers became so frustrated that they lost sight of teaching the critical literacy skills as they
worked hard to implement these new programs. It doesn’t take expensive programs to be a successful teacher of reading. It takes extensive training and support on integrating critical literacy skills in a balanced literacy program. I agree with Fullan who sums it up best, “one of the biggest problems in schools today is not resistance to innovation but the fragmentation, overload, and incoherence resulting from too many innovations, adapted in an ad hoc and superficial way, unconnected with ongoing work and each other.”
Very well said! At my author’s book signing a few months months ago, I had an educator abrasively tell me she she did not agree with the multi-sensory, Structured Literacy approach of my book Alphabet, Vowels, Consonants and Syllables Teaching Magic! She did not even open the book to see the many other strands of language literacy, or engage me in conversation. She just had her mind set on her approach, and nothing else counted. This has to stop. The Ontario Human Rights Commission has started a Right to Read Enquiry, as our EQAO provincial tests, show that a large percentage of children in Grade 3 are not able to read at grade level under the current Whole Language ( incidental and visual)approach, which takes no account of structured, explicit, systemic, sequential, cumulative and multi-sensory teaching. We need early screening from the Kindergarten level, and a scientific, research based, tried, proven, and true instruction that will remediate the 15-20% of the population that has a reading disability -85% of which has dyslexia. This Structured Approach helps all, while the Whole Language approach serves a few. Time to get mad as hell! Our children are suffering mentally, emotionally and educationally – a hell of its own that affects them for life!