November 1997 Report on Reading Stresses Complexity of Process
From the highest levels of government to local board rooms and living rooms, children’s reading skills are undergoing scrutiny and debate. President Clinton has launched a national initiative to make sure every American child reads well by the end of third grade. Congressional leaders are negotiating the shape that initiative will take. Meanwhile, state education departments work to craft strategies that will ensure success for all students. And across the land, parents, educators, and policymakers weigh in on the often-emotional topic of phonics vs. whole language.
To help educators sift the evidence for clues to sound ways to teach reading, a new report reviews current research findings on how children acquire language and literacy. Drawing on the conclusions of researchers and the expertise of teachers, the report, Building a Knowledge Base in Reading, presents an argument for teaching skills within a meaningful context. But while the report stresses meaning over mechanics, it doesn’t ignore the role of phonics in the reading process. The authors, Drs. Jane Braunger and Jan Patricia Lewis, identify phonics as an essential piece in the complex process of teaching and learning reading.
"What is needed to ensure that all children acquire reading and writing proficiency," the researchers write, "is a balanced instructional effort that incorporates the strengths of different classroom approaches—from phonics to trade books—and applies what we know about how children learn to be literate."
The report—jointly published by the Northwest Laboratory, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the International Reading Association—argues that the advanced technologies of today and tomorrow demand a new level of literacy among the workers who use them. This higher level of literacy has been called "critical/translation" literacy because it lets readers analyze and draw original inferences from a text. Only about 15 percent of today’s students meet this standard today, research has shown.
Just as the nation’s needs and expectations for readers have changed and widened, so has the very definition of reading. No longer do most reading specialists define reading as the simple mastery of isolated skills. Rather than just recognizing words, they say, readers must understand the meaning behind the words. Understanding includes "analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and critical thinking about text," the report explains.
"As we think about preparing children to be literate at the levels required for the 21st century," the authors write, "it is important to see that unlocking the code and reading the words is only a part of the complex, socially constructed, and cognitively demanding process called reading."
To be effective, teachers must have a clear understanding of the complexity that characterizes the reading process, the authors assert. Drawing upon research findings and the classroom experiences of seasoned teachers, Braunger of NWREL and Lewis of Pacific Lutheran University have compiled a list of what they call "core understandings" about learning to read:
- Reading is a construction of meaning from written text. It is an active, cognitive, and affective process.
- Background knowledge and prior experience are critical to the reading process.
- Social interaction is essential in learning to read.
- Reading and writing develop together.
- Reading involves complex thinking.
- Environments rich in literacy experiences, resources, and models facilitate reading development.
- Engagement in the reading task is key in successfully learning to read.
- Children’s understandings of print are not the same as adults’ understandings.
- Children develop phonemic awareness and knowledge of phonics through a variety of literacy opportunities, models, and demonstrations.
- Children learn successful reading strategies in the context of real reading.
- Children learn best when teachers employ a variety of strategies to model and demonstrate reading knowledge, strategy, and skills.
- Children need the opportunity to read, read, read.
- Monitoring the development of reading processes is vital to student success.
When teachers bring these "understandings" to bear on their teaching, students are likely to succeed as readers, the authors suggest. On the flip side, Braunger and Lewis present a list of practices that hinder children’s development as readers. The hindrances, compiled by researchers "across the pedagogical spectrum" at the 1997 International Reading Association Convention, are: emphasizing only phonics; drilling on isolated letters or sounds; teaching letters and words one at a time; insisting on correctness; expecting students to spell correctly all the words they can read; making perfect oral reading the goal of reading instruction; focusing on skills rather than interpretation and comprehension; constant use of workbooks and worksheets; fixed ability grouping; and blind adherence to a basal program.
"The pressure from some quarters today to make explicit, systematic phonics the core of reading instruction in the primary grades, and to define reading as decoding, could lead to valuable classroom time being used for the very practices soundly rejected by these reading experts," Braunger and Lewis warn. "Children could lose access to the rich resources and interactions that prompt engagements with reading, outlined in the 13 core understandings."
To purchase a copy of Building a Knowledge Base in Reading, please download and print the Document Order Form.
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