One Former Teacher's Experience With Poor Reading Instruction
This excerpt from testimony of G. Reid Lyon - head of National Institute of Health research into reading instruction - on the importance of basing reading instruction on "trustworthy research" demonstrates the pain that comes when schools attempt "balanced" (or worse) reading programs instead of strong and intensive PHONICS based programs with proper teacher training:
http://www.house.gov/ed_workforce/hearings/106th/ecyf/oeri5400/lyon.htm
"I know first hand the devastating effect that poor quality research has on teaching practices and the trust teachers have in education research.
As a young brand new third grade teacher in the mid-1970s I was responsible for teaching 28 students of varying abilities and backgrounds. Many of my students had not yet learned to read which concerned me greatly, but I was informed in my education courses and via the school philosophy that this was to be expected - children learn at their own pace.
My school had also adopted a reading curriculum that was based upon the assumption that reading was a natural process, similar to learning to listen and speak. Following this curriculum, I presented reading concepts to children through exposing them to wonderful literature, and attempted to teach phonics concepts incidentally as they appeared in different stories. I also employed the oral language and writing activities that were suggested in my teacher's instructional manual.
At the beginning of the year, a third of my students could not read well enough to understand what they had read. Their reading was slow and labored and they mispronounced words constantly. Their spelling was lousy.
At the end of the year, the same third of my students could not read well. Their reading remained slow and effortful, the time it took to read text was so great that they could not remember what they read, and their spelling was still lousy. The only change that I could discern was that their motivation to learn to read had waned, and their self-esteem had suffered substantially.
Likewise, I felt like a failure, I had let down the children I was responsible for, and I left the classroom teaching profession. I attributed my failure to the fact that I was inexperienced, which I clearly was.
It was only later that I came to learn in great depth that the reading instructional approach embraced by my school was not only based upon research that was questionable at best, but that the major assumptions upon which the instructional philosophy and recommended teaching interactions rested had never been adequately tested through well designed studies."
See other pages at this web site for more information about phonics-focused instruction and related instructional methods based upon trustworthy research done according to proven scientific principles for well designed studies.
The entire of Reid Lyon's testimony at this particular hearing can be read athttp://www.house.gov/ed_workforce/hearings/106th/ecyf/oeri5400/lyon.htm
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