November 14, 2024
Final Thoughts on Reading Instruction (8/8)
Transcript
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Intro
We thank you for joining us for this series with reading specialist and Mason educator Donna Johnson. Let's listen to her experience and advice.
What to Keep in Mind
Donna: You asked what other things do caregivers and teachers need to keep in mind? Well, I think we've talked about these things. Just preserving the love of reading, whether it's hard or easy for them. Children should have access to stories. Comprehension is really important. There are - if you gave me a Spanish book right now, I know enough Spanish pronunciation that I could maybe read a couple sentences, but that would not mean I comprehend. And there are children like that, that are word callers, that can learn phonics. But that doesn't mean that you comprehend. That's another thing to make sure of. And narration is a great way to learn if someone's comprehending something, but also just to discipline a mind to be listening and paying attention.
"Children should have access to stories."
We aren't talking actually much about what the science of reading tells you to do here. I'm going to a little bit in a minute, but when you do decide to teach reading, you do need to follow the science of reading, starting with the phonemic awareness, and then using structured literacy and include some morphology and etymology right from the start, I think. I wish I would've done more of that. And you don't necessarily need a curriculum to do that.
You also have to be careful not just to buy into a curriculum because it says it works for kids with dyslexia, or it uses Orton-Gillingham. You have to really do a little digging to make sure that a reading curriculum is following the science of reading and not just claiming to.
"Do a little digging to make sure that a reading curriculum is following the science of reading and not just claiming to."
Essential Elements of Multisensory Teaching
I did make a list of the essential elements of multisensory teaching. I guess I'll just read through it. The International Dyslexia Association has 10 essential elements - three broad concepts. Your teaching should be:
- multisensory
- alphabetic-phonetic
- synthetic-analytic
So, looking at parts and looking at the whole. The instructional features of your lessons should be:
- structured
- sequential
- cumulative
- repetitive
When it comes to the knowledge part, you should consider:
- cognitive
- diagnostic, meaning you know that they know and what they don't know, and you figure out what they don't know
- prescriptive
And so then you prescribe what you, you figure out what to go onto next. And the nice thing about tutoring one to one that I do some of - it doesn't have to be the same for every child. And underlying all that, it needs to be emotionally sound because children that struggle, especially in if they're in a group school, in a public school or any kind of group school, it doesn't take them long to decide that they're not very smart. And so they really need, you need to be real careful about that, that their little hearts and self images aren't being hurt.
Importance of Personhood
About the last thing I have here - I looked at, when I was doing some research, I found a blog by a woman who is a public school teacher. And she's one of those people that sells a lot of stuff on Teachers Pay Teachers, reading materials. And on one of her posts, she said that her young son was going into kindergarten - or I can't remember if he was going into kindergarten or first grade. And she was just tempted to start teaching him a lot on her own. And she decided not to and just kept it in as games and activities and reading a lot of books. He loves stories. And then two years later she posted that he hadn't, he had not learned to read. He was a struggling reader. And in that second one, um, and they also moved. And when they moved, she must have, if she was teaching, quit her job and decide to homeschool. But just from the second one, she calls it 'What Worked for Us,' and I'm just going to read a little part of it. So, she's now a homeschool mom who was a teacher whose son is in second grade and is still struggling to learn to read.
"Mason's procedures and practices are so practical and intuitive that people come up with them if they're really considering what the needs of kids are."
She said, 'There's not one magic thing that made the difference. It's been a combination of homeschooling, choosing the right reading program,’ - and she mentioned one which I didn't write down and I'm not going to because there's a lot of good ones and you have to figure that out for yourself, I guess - 'working daily, but for,' - she doesn't say here, but short periods of time, 'using audio books because he loves stories, and developing a love of stories.’ And she was doing that well before she realized reading was going to be hard for him. 'We've come to realize that doing little bits of school each day work better for us than a longer amount of school time for fewer days. We often do school on Saturday, too. For us, it consists of about 20 to 40 minutes of reading activities, 20 minutes of math, and some social studies or science.’ Now, she doesn't say anything about Charlotte Mason, but intuitively - Mason's procedures and practices are so practical and intuitive that people come up with them if they're really considering what the needs of kids are.
But I'm sure she's not a Charlotte Mason homeschooler; she would say. 'Keep in mind, and at the time I'm writing this, we have a kindergartner' - that would be her younger child - 'who is at or above level and a second grader who's reading below a grade level. At this point, I don't feel the need to do too much writing and grammar instruction beyond writing stories and some written reflections.’ So maybe, we've got a little narrating going on there. I'm not sure. 'Next year I plan to start some grammar with my oldest if his reading continues to progress in its current trajectory. Just a consistent short time for reading makes a huge difference, even during the summer. Last summer we touched on phonics and reading daily. It helped maintain his reading level and we didn't lose ground over the summer. One of the major things has been realizing who my son is and what he needs.’ Personhood. She's got that in here. 'He loves to learn, but not a traditional school type of learning. He loves to explore the world around him, go on adventures, make believe, tell stories, and have fun. I love that we have the opportunity to give him what he needs and support his academic development along the way.’ So she just, she had to change a lot of things and slow things down for him. If he was still in what's a typical group school setting, he wouldn't be having much fun. And the children I know that have more of a dyslexic brain also can do a lot of things that I can’t. So they have, they have some skills too. But they need to know that.
Danielle: Yes, my son that is presumed dyslexic, his three-dimensional, you know, spatial awareness, just the way that he sees the world is just absolutely incredible.
Donna: And that's why a third of entrepreneurs in this country are dyslexic - because they can see things from a different way and figure out how it works to help other people or come up with a product that helps other people. So yeah. Each person's personhood is something to really know about for a teacher, but also for them to be, feel good about because that's how God made them.
"A third of entrepreneurs in this country are dyslexic - because they can see things from a different way."
Danielle: And to know where they're being led. What is my place in the world? Like, I have a purpose here.
Donna: Well, there's just no doubt that what American education is doing is wrong. And a lot of people realize that. I just don't know. I don't know how it'll change. I think that the science of reading is going to change reading instruction, I think, and I'm thinking that's gonna stick this time. But I don't know about the starting school too early.
The Current Climate
Danielle: Do you think some of the disconnect there is that the science of reading requires, as you mentioned, that it's not the same for every child, but then that means that you can't have a standardized test that's the same for every child, right?
Donna: Yeah. I wish, well, the other thing is things do come and go and I started my job at Dakota Wesleyan just when Common Core was starting up. And I don't think the state standards - they do still carry weight because the state tests are aligned to them, but I think people are - good teachers are doing more what they know they need to be doing. But I don't know, I don't know if most principals still want to see a standard number on a lesson plan. I'm not sure that it - the Common Core and the state testing has not disappeared fast enough, but I don't think it's completely gone anywhere. At least at the state tests. So, I don't know. Assessment is important, but you don't learn anything diagnostic from those state exams and that's not the purpose. It gives some kind of overall picture supposedly of a school.
The other thing I did learn though, I taught the course on standards and assessment for a while and I hated it when they gave that one to me. I loved it when they gave me children's literature. But I did come to like that class and one thing the students did - I had them go look at our state report card and see how their school was doing. And they were like, I never knew you could do that. So, I don't know how many parents are doing that either. But then they got interested and then they were supposed to compare to another school. And then, I didn't even realize this until one student brought it up one year. They had a, well there's lots of, Native American reservations in South Dakota and most of them have regular public schools, I think, but there's some that are under the BIA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And they don't have to report their scores or even give the tests. And I don't think private schools have to either, but they want people to see how they're doing when they're choosing schools.
So, I'm not sure, just as if, as long as the young woman that I just, that I tutor that's in eighth grade, this was a year of, they have to do state tests every year between three and eighth grade. And she doesn't worry about it. She knows at this point that no one's evaluating her. She wants to try because they're, that's part of teacher evaluation, but in South Dakota, it's not the whole thing. But they don't seem to be going away, again, probably because somebody's making money. Possibly. That's part of it, I suppose.
Danielle: One question for you - one of the things that I heard you talking about was in the, early in the history, but I think then continuing on as well, that even as the science of reading has come out, you know, these other studies have come out, there's a certain disappointment when the study doesn’t outright condemn whole language. But if the study is saying that systematic phonics instruction is necessary, does that automatically condemn whole language? Or is there like gray areas where, you know, people have to be careful?
Donna: That’s a good question because that's what they're saying. Whole language or the, programs that I mentioned, Fountas and Pinnell and Lucy Calkins, they've just really been disproven. So has Marie Clay and Reading Recovery, and people come right out and say that. But when the, I don't know, when it's a national report, maybe it's - people are supposed to draw their own conclusions, I'm not sure. But when you write a 500 page report -
Danielle: That report is actually pretty redundant. It's not even 500 pages, really. You could - the actual content of it - the structure of the report led to a lot of redundancy. So, you could actually read like half of it and get everything out of it.
Donna: Well, apparently no reporters wanted to do that at first.
Danielle: But honestly, I think it’s because their language focused on 'this is what to do,' not 'this is what not to do.’
Donna: Yes. That makes sense.
Danielle: But it just seems like if they specifically said, you know, phonological awareness, phonics, you know, phonemic awareness, if they specifically said this is needed, is that the same as condemning it, whole language, or is there some fine distinction that I don't understand?
Donna: See, most parents wouldn't, well, most parents are, have never heard of this report, first of all, probably. Well, unless, unless they pay attention to Emily Hanford, maybe. Although I don't know if she - she doesn't talk about it specifically. She talks about…
Danielle: Well, I think that they've definitely heard of the science of reading and I think that they're aware that there's a report out there that was done that supports this, right?
Donna: Yes, it's not coming out of nowhere. It's coming out of somewhere. It just took a while to - for it to get enough - this is the first time that it's gone from a government report - I've never printed the whole other 500 pages. This one came out in a book. So, I don't know if you can get that 2000 - is the latest one out in a print copy like that? But usually it - okay, the researchers know about it. It usually doesn't get to schools of education and it usually doesn't get to K-12 Departments of Education. And that's what's different now. And maybe it is because there's enough evidence that it can't be just a fad and it's gonna disappear again if we wait long enough. There's just too much evidence and too much research now and brain scans.
Danielle: Yes, I think that fMRIs make a big difference and just that - that kind of research, like parents are aware of that kind of research now. And people are aware of it, whereas maybe for a long time they didn't really pay attention maybe to, you know, neurological research or psychological research and stuff very much, but it's almost part of our common language now, though.
Donna: It seems to be now. It really does more so. But on the other hand, there's a lot of children who don’t have a parent that pays any attention or cares about them. The last couple people I talked to that are first year teachers and asked how many parents came to parent teacher conferences - in South Dakota, it's a lot of little towns and most people at least show up for that. But there's still a lot of families that struggle with different things for different reasons and don't have a lot of options. So, but for those kids, if they're going to a public school, the science of reading can make a big difference. If it's taught the way it should be.
Danielle: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate all of your time. I know that a lot of time went into this before today as well.
"Each person's personhood is something to really know about for a teacher, but also for them to feel good about because that's how God made them."
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