The Reading Instruction Show

The Reading Instruction Show

di Dr. Andy Johnson

Corsi Educazione per bambini

Stagione 23

The 3 Q-ing Systems: What it Isn't and Is

1. It’s not a strategy to teach students. 2. It’s not a pedagogical strategy that teachers use. 3. It doesn’t exclude phonics instruction. 4. It doesn’t encourage children to use picture clues to figure out words. 5. It’s not an approach to teaching reading. 6. It’s not a method of “decoding” printed text. 7. It’s not a “staple of early reading instruction”. 8. It’s not whole language 9. It doesn’t exclude explicit and systematic instruction.

Metaphysicial Perspectives

In his book, Global Mind Change (1989), Willis Harman describes three views of reality which he calls metaphysical perspectives. Metaphysical here refers to ontology or the question of the origins of the universe and the nature of reality. These perspectives are materialistic monism, dualism, and transcendental monism.

Belief Systems and Mental Sets

Why do we sometimes believe the unbelievable? Why is it our views are sometimes data-resistant? We like to think that reality determines our beliefs; however, at higher levels of belief systems, our beliefs determine reality. It's just the way of things.

Being and Becoming Responsible Consumers of Educational Research

There’s a difference between (a) reading research related to reading instruction and (b) reading what others have said about research related to reading instruction. It’s important to know the difference. When you read research articles, you get to evaluate the methodology and interpret that data. When you read what somebody else has written about research, you must trust that their evaluation is fair, and their interpretation of the data is accurate. You are reliant on the relative clarity of their lens. So, far too often you’re left with people like me whose job it is to continually read and evaluate research. But this chapter is written so that you will be able to do this. It’s written to make me obsolete.

The Psycholinguistic Guessing Game

This is what Ken Goodman wrote in 1967: “Reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game. It involves an interaction between thought and language. Efficient reading does not result from precise perception and identification of all elements, but from skill in selecting the fewest, most productive cues necessary to produce guesses which are right the first time. The ability to anticipate that which has not been seen, of course, is vital in reading, just as the ability to anticipate what has not yet been heard is vital in listening (Goodman, 1967, p. 127) The term, psycholinguistic guessing game” has been commonly taken out of context and misunderstood by those who would propose a skills-based approach to reading instruction. Remember, context matters. In the context in which it was used, this term refers to the process used by your brain to maximize efficiency during reading.

Whole Language and Evidence-Based Reading Instruction

In 1967, Ken Goodman published an article in Reading Research Quarterly with the title` Reading: A Psycholinguistic Guessing Game (Goodman, 1967). Here he applies Psycholinguistic Theory to the reading process. A pretty good article. I highly recommend reading it. However, two words have been pulled from the title ‘reading’ and ‘guessing’. These two words have become a Rorschach inkblot test for those who would disagree with or who don’t understand Dr. Goodman’s ideas. All sorts of dark and scary images have been projected upon them. These Rorschach-ian projections have been used for the last 50 years to misrepresent whole language and to discredit the work of Ken Goodman.

Conversation with Claude Goldenberg

This is a wonderful conversation that I had with Claude Goldenberg. He has different ideas about things but he is a delight to talk with.

Interview with Joe Lockavitch

This is an interview with Joe Lackavitch

The Music of Balaned Literacy Instruction

As said throughout this book: if you are against something, you should at the very least know a little somebody about that which you are against. SoR enthusiasts are often against something that isn’t. In this case, they are against what they call balanced literacy, but it certainly isn’t balanced literacy. It turns out that they’re against their un-understanding of balanced literacy. So let’s begin by defining our terms: Balanced literacy is merely balancing skills instruction with opportunities to practice those skills in authentic reading contexts. And what that balance is depends on the student. Some students need more skills instruction and less practice, others need less skills instruction and more practice. But all students need lots of reading practice. Could you imagine getting better at anything without practice? Could you imagine being able to play the piano if you never practiced playing real music? How effective would your early learning be if you just did scales and fingering exercises without playing music? Which is a nice transition to the next section.

Whole-to-Part vs. Part-to-Whole Reading Instruction

Structured literacy is based on the idea that people learn complex things best by mastering each little part separately and then putting the parts together to create the whole. This is called part-to-whole instruction or Humpty-Dumptianism. Applied to reading, you would pull apart each of the eight strands of Scarborough’s reading rope, then teach all the little subparts related to each of the eight strands (one little subpart at a time) until all the eight strands and their corresponding subparts were mastered. The theory is that at some point, children would be able to put all the subparts back together again and engage in the act of reading. It just makes good sense, yes? There are 26 letters used to make the 44 phonemes found in the English language. These 44 phonemes are represented by over 280 letter-sound combinations. You teach children how to “decode” by first teaching them how to put together all the 280 letter-sound combinations so they can apply them to all the words they will ever encounter. It just makes good sense, yes?

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