education news

By Marla Benavides

Ms. Benavides is a homeschool educator and an independent consultant with with Usborne Books & More and a trained paralegal with advanced legal skills. 

Well. Well. Well. A century and a half later, and we are still at it. I just finished reading Doctor Mia Hood’s opinion on Education Week and I am hitting my hand on my head in aghast.

The first thing wrong with her opinion is the title.  She writes: Rules of Engagement in the New Reading Wars.  There is NOTHING new about reading wars. And there are no rules to engagement that need to be defined.  I suggest she read Why John STILL Can’t Read and learn the history of the reading wars. 

We are living in a society where poor reading and writing skills are a norm because of the LOOK-AND-SAY (or Whole Word) movement’s influence that started in 1920s.  

Second, the “so called reading wars” has been going on since the late 19th Century.  The progressives (funny how AOC advocates Democrats revive the progressive movement of FDR) initiated the LOOK-AND-SAY movement in the 1920. That’s a century ago.  Not. 3 decades ago! 

Third, the conflict hasn’t been renewed.  It has been on-going. In 1985, the LOOK-AND-SAY people won.  This was the year that they officially eliminated phonics instruction.   There is NO phonics instruction today.  And what passes for phonics is an alibi.  

I agree that reading instruction in schools today doesn’t incorporate an intensive phonics instruction. Look-and-Say isn’t scientific. There is nothing scientific about teaching kids to read using this method.   

Phonic’s, on the other hand, is scientific. Reading is the act of decoding. You need to teach kids to read before you can teach them to link passages, argue and debate, and write creatively. And it’s important to note, up until the age of 9 kids are still learning to read.  

As New York Times opinion by Emily Hansford properly notes, teacher prep programs continue to ignore the sound science of how people learn to read.  Thus, most teachers haven’t been trained to teach kids how to read and they themselves probably can’t read well either. However, I don’t agree with Ms. Emily Hansford either.  First, she says, “research has shown that virtually all kids can learn to read if taught with approaches that use how the brain works on reading.” Um… what?! She should have just said it this way, virtually all children can learn to read if taught using phonics.   What’s funny tho is that Emily says that teachers don’t know this science. Of course-they don’t know this science.  Teachers today weren’t taught to read using phonics. I agree with everything Emily Hansford says in her opinion. 

But back to Ms. Hood.  There is NO unstated and sic unexamined assumption in arguments concerning PHONICS. But there is an unstated and “UNexamined” assumption in arguments in favor of LOOK-AND-SAY instruction is that proficient readers must guess words.  And that you figure how to read by memorizing words, and children need a high volume of practice in reading to develop proficiency.

PHONICS is scientific. It’s the way our founding fathers learned to read.  We had higher rates of literacy before the 1950s.  Look-and-say has brought illiteracy and ignorance into our society.  And a mi-rad of learning disabilities and mental health issues, too. Not to mention, crime rate has increased because literacy rates are so low.   I would say that this is a good case of malpractice in education.  Because it’s left children behind, especially the minorities and the poor white folk. Makes you wonder what the progressive movements intent was? Progressives have a horrible history of racism.  

Again, READING IS DECODING.  A child that can decode will be able to comprehend and can move on to learning how to link passages and get ideas from what they know how to read.

Everyone who reads well can read because they can decode! Just because you read to stay informed, or fly away with a book, or learn about history doesn’t mean you are proficient.  As a matter of fact, most Americans today read at an 8th grade level. And most American’s are functionally illiterate, which means most can read but NOT well enough to understand what they read.  Because they haven’t been taught to decode.  Young Americans today have been taught the look-and-say way. 

If only, schools taught reading, writing, arithmetic… Well, then we can read with purpose and comprehension ease. Comprehension IS a given when you learn to read or decode, Dr. Mia Hood.  And that’s the problem. A kid who doesn’t have comprehension, hasn’t learned to crack the code. 

All too often when most American’s read, they are struggling to decode the words on the page and can’t effectively GUESS at a word because they haven’t learned all the rules and exceptions in our damn beautiful language.

If you teach kids to decode (read), then they will have the capacity to read in a way that allows them to take in NEW ideas and apply them to our work and our lives. YES! Comprehension is a given when you have been taught to read using phonics.

Once you learn to read then you can start reading to learn.  Then in middle school you can learn how to argue and think logically.  And then, by high school you can learn to analyze what you read and make sound arguments and write beautiful papers. 

Judging by NAEP Standards, we have failed to teach kids to read and then failed to help kids learn. 

Teachers don’t understand the science because they don’t know the science.  We have been persuaded by the progressive left that LOOK-AND-SAY is a sound way to teach  reading. As a result, we now have a permanent underclass of Americans unable to function in the work place! Thank you progressives! 

What’s worse is, as a society we have raised a bunch of experts without the wisdom to solve problems.  Everyone wants to share their opinions and everyone wants to have the glory of being an expert.  But no one knows how to have discussions that lead to problem solving. Ms. Hood is not someone I would recommend as having sound reasoning skills for she won’t even rebuttal my critique and have a discussion. She only wants to promote herself as an expert in something she doesn’t know much about.  

My advice to parents is this: You need to be proactive in your children’s education. You need supports your kids at home and teach them to read because they will not learn to read well at school.  You need to have at least 80 plus reading materials at home;  you must limit their time on the screen to 30 minutes a day.

Guessing at a word only works, if we have learned to read using a systematic phonics instruction.

Ms. Hood says: “Instruction in phonics should be self-extending?”  What?! Que te que te que?!  I say, instruction in phonics should be intensive and lead a reader to be self-extending.  Once a child learn to decode, they can read to comprehend. Because they will know how to sound out any word they come across. 

Children can learn to read, if they have an adult guiding them, and helping them sound out the words. Reminding them of he rules.  Learning to read is like learning to ride a bike.  Once you learn, you are forever FREE!

The debate about reading concludes with the fact that the look-and-say movement has committed pedagogical malpractice or educational malpractice in student outcomes upon graduation with only a third of our nations kids reading at or above proficiency.