Teacher question:
I saw that Mark Seidenberg was complaining that there is now too much phonics instruction. What do you think of that?
Shanahan replies:
I have great respect for Dr. Seidenberg’s work but have long been critical of his tendency to ignore research on reading instruction. In his wonderful book, he argues for the teaching of phonics with barely a nod to any of the studies of phonics teaching.
Being an experimental psychologist, he was convinced of the value of phonics based on computer simulation studies. I, being a teacher, am more persuaded of the value of phonics because of the many studies showing that kids do better with reading when taught decoding explicitly (e.g., August & Shanahan, 2006; NICHD, 2000; NIFL, 2008). For me, instructional evidence is essential. For Seidenberg, it doesn’t seem to matter.
I think that may explain his current reaction. Just as he proclaimed the importance of phonics, now he asserts there is too much phonics. I don’t necessarily disagree with either statement, but neither seems especially helpful.
Admonitions to teach phonics are almost certain to get somebody to overdo it, just as cautions against too much phonics will likely encourage some to pull back too much.
I figured that one out about 35 years ago, after years of experience in schools. Since then, I’ve tried to be more helpfully specific.
For years I’ve called for 2-3 hours of daily literacy instruction. Unlike most such schemes, I don’t recommend one duration for all.
My reasoning?
If everyone is guaranteed 90-minutes or 2-hours of instruction, then we are ensuring that the most at-risk will never catch up. Low reading ability is not something that only happens to a few kids in each school. It befalls entire neighborhoods. Neighborhoods scourged by poverty. If the poor schools teach only as much reading as the more advantaged ones, then kids in the poor schools can never catch up. In any other endeavor, being behind means that you must work harder and smarter.
The reason for the 3-hour limit is because of the need to protect instructional time for math, science, social studies, and the arts. I concur with “knowledge-building” advocates about the importance of these subjects.
Unlike those who plead for less reading time, I’m convinced that all these can be addressed sufficiently in a 6.5-hour school day, even when reading maxes out. Research shows that low reading ability undermines later progress in those subjects, so if the goal is high knowledge then this is a wise investment (e.g., Caponera, Sestito, & Russo, 2016; Cromley, 2009; Martin & Mullis, 2013).
Learning to read is a complex matter as models of reading illustrate (Duke & Cartwright, 2021; Scarborough, 2001). It does include decoding and language comprehension (Gough & Tunmer, 1986)– but those entail multiple components and complex interrelationships.
Many instructional schemes are explicit about the total amount of reading instruction, but vague about how to distribute this time.
My approach is to divide the total amount of instruction by four – providing equal attention to the teaching of words and parts of words, text reading fluency, reading comprehension, and writing (Shanahan, 2001). That means kids would get at least 90 instructional hours per year in each component – enough to assure substantial reading gains overall, and because the dosage is specific, teachers are discouraged from overdoing it with any of the parts.
Because this plan is aimed at K-12 and not K-2, kids will continue to increase their word knowledge throughout the grades. This time is for decoding (i.e., letters, sounds, spelling patterns, syllabication) but also for spelling and morphology and other aspects of vocabulary development. Just because kids leave the primary grades, words don’t lose their importance in literacy, though our attention needs to shift from decoding to meaning when it comes to words.
Those four components are drawn from solid research – studies show that teaching them improves reading (Graham & Hebert, 2010; NICHD, 2000). The time divisions are only a product of my own reasoning – there are no studies indicating that the time commitments must be equal to be sufficient. However, there is also no research proving any to be more important than the rest. They all matter and problems with any of them can undermine reading success, so equal time distributions seem sensible.
Most phonics studies with positive learning results have accomplished those outcomes with a series of daily 30-minute lessons (NICHD, 2000). Matching the successful implementations feels like a safe bet. Perhaps more is better but there is no evidence of that and a greater investment of time must come from somewhere. Again, 30 minutes seems safe.
I wish research could reveal the optimum time expenditures needed to ensure reading success for all students. That’s extremely unlikely because of the confluence of individual differences.
“The gods do not bless everyone the same,
with equal gifts of body, mind, or speech.
One man is weak, but gods may crown his words
with loveliness.” (Homer, 2018, E. Wilson, translation, p 225)
Individuals differ in their abilities to learn – some of us pick up language super easily, while others not so much. The multi-component nature of reading complicates things: kids who struggle with decoding development, may be strong in language, or vice versa.
Natural limitations may be reduced or exacerbated by environmental factors, too. Kids have home environments and school environments. Someone who struggles to decode may succeed anyway with supportive parents and effective teachers.
The best we are ever likely to do in this regard is to provide reasonable amounts of learning opportunity for all the key elements of literacy learning. Hence, the need to be specific about the time expenditures.
Carol Connor and her colleagues reported some insightful studies showing that first graders who had already mastered their grade level decoding skills benefited more from independent language-oriented activities (e.g., independent reading, writing, cooperative projects) than from sitting through the phonics lessons (Connor, Morrison, Schatschneider, Toste, Lundblom, Crowe, & Fishman, 2011).
Such proficiency may be due to natural affinities for pattern recognition, visual-phonological coordination, or some other underlying talent. Some brains decode more easily than others. It also could be due to moms and dads and preschools’ early efforts to teach decoding. No matter the source, if they have it, there is no benefit to reteaching it. (I believe that is Dr. Seidenberg’s sage point).
I have no problem with that. I take the same approach with fluency. If the students are hitting the fluency benchmarks, there is likely no benefit to more fluency practice. Allowing fluent students to opt out of fluency lessons may allow them to gain more in other areas.
A nice insight drawn from that Connor work is that the kids with proficient decoding also tended to be more able to work independently. The ones requiring the phonics teaching benefited more from working closely with their teacher.
I know there are some “authorities” these days who blanche at Connor’s conclusions, despite the quality of her research. They argue that teachers should group for phonics, so those skilled first-grade decoders can gain even more advanced decoding skills. That sounds great, but where does that time come from? Holding kids back in fluency, comprehension, and writing to get them even further ahead in decoding seems like a fool’s errand.
What about those kids who get 30 minutes a day of decoding instruction in kindergarten, first and second grades and still can’t decode well? They exist. They evidently require more phonics tuition than I have allotted or than a good Tier 1 classroom can provide. That’s where Tier 2 interventions come in. Unlike regular classrooms, interventions don’t have to address everything.
That means that interventions need to be carefully implemented. They must provide not only high-quality targeted teaching (e.g., smaller groups, specialized teachers), but INCREASED opportunity for the students. Pulling kids out of regular reading lessons for a Tier 2 intervention is, well, nuts! Kids who are struggling with some aspect of literacy learning should get MORE help, not alternative assistance.
So, I think Mark Seidenberg is right. Some schools are probably overdoing the phonics thing for their students. Telling them to knock it off after telling them to knock it on takes a kind of courage that I admire, but it would be more helpful if he were explaining what knocking it on and knocking it off means. For that, you need instructional research.
Oh, by the way, the instructional approach that I described here was used by the Chicago Public Schools and the Joliet Public Schools to make their greatest ever achievement gains in reading. It requires a lot of hard work by principals and teachers, but it has promoted exceptional gains in achievement for hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged learners.
If you want to succeed, get specific. Explain what needs to be taught and how much time to devote to those components. Telling me to teach phonics but not too much, just doesn’t cut it.
References
August, D., & Shanahan, T. (2006). Developing literacy in second-language learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Caponera, E., Sestito, P., & Russo, P. M. (2016). The influence of reading literacy on mathematics and science achievement. Journal of Educational Research, 109(2), 197-204. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2014.936998
Connor, C. M., Morrison, F. J., Schatschneider, C., Toste, J., Lundblom, E., Crowe, E. C., & Fishman, B. (2011). Effective classroom instruction: Implications of child characteristics by reading instruction interactions on first graders’ word reading achievement. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 4(3), 173–207. https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2010.510179
Cromley, J. G. (2009). Reading achievement and science proficiency: International comparisons from the Programme on International Student Assessment. Reading Psychology, 30(89), 89-118.
Duke, N. K., & Cartwright, K. B. (2021). The science of reading progresses: Communicating advances beyond the Simple View of Reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 56(S1), S25-S44. https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/rrq.411
Gough, P.B. & Tunmer, W.E. (1986). Decoding, reading, and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education, 7, 6–10.
Graham, S., & Hebert, M. (2010). Writing to read: Evidence for how writing can improve reading. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.
Homer. (2018). The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Martin, M. O., & Mullis, I. V. S. (Eds.). (2013). TIMSS and PIRLS 2011: Relationships among reading, mathematics, and science achievement at the fourth grade—implications for early learning. Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College.
National Institute for Literacy. (2008). Developing early literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read (NIH Publication No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Scarborough, H.S. (2001). Connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis)abilities: Evidence, Theory, and Practice. In S. Neuman & D. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook for research in early literacy (pp. 97 – 110). New York: Guilford Press.
Shanahan, T. (2001). Improving reading education for low-income children. In G. Shiel & U.N. Dhálaigh (Eds.), Reading matters: A fresh start (pp. 157–165). Dublin, Ireland: Reading Association of Ireland/National Reading Initiative.
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