Literacy Blogs

Recently, I posted commentary on Emily Hanford’s reporting and the critical response it received from some in the literacy community. I defended the major thrust of her work and called out criticisms I thought to be illogical, ill conceived, or ill intended – criticism more aimed at maintaining status quo than promoting literacy. I admitted that my endorsement of that journalism was not without limits. I had concerns and said I may write about them in the future. The future has arrived. I expressed two concerns, one substantive and one more stylistic. Let’s get the less important one out of the way ...

Phonics and Flexibility - Can They Really Go Together? Teacher question: I am surprised that you are such a staunch advocate of phonics. English is a very complex language and teaching young children the sounds and letters won’t change that. Most letters and spelling patterns in English are not regular (not only the Dolch words, but lots of other words, too). It is just discouraging having to spend so much time teaching skills that can’t possibly work. I’ve taught for a long time, and I feel so sorry for these children given what I am required to teach now. I am so ...

Teacher question: At my school, the district inservice has made a big deal out of Scarborough’s rope. Nevertheless, when it comes to daily instruction, we (the primary grade teachers) have been told that decoding is the most important thing and that we are to emphasize that. They’ve sent us to LETRS training, purchased instructional programs on phonics, and require testing students’ “nonsense word fluency” frequently. At what grade levels is it appropriate to teach the “language comprehension” portions of the rope? Shanahan responds: In 1915, near where I’m writing this, a passenger ship, the SS Eastland sank, drowning 844 passengers – many of ...

Teacher question: I know you typically don’t talk about specific programs, but I really would like to know your thoughts. I had always wanted more training in a structured literacy program/approach. I always thought Wilson, and specifically OG approaches, were the gold standards. More recently, I began reading about programs labeled as speech to print. Proponents of speech to print methods claim it is much faster to teach kids to read (and spell) than OG based approaches. Is there research to support this? Are these studies comparing programs based on OG (that mainly follow a more print to speech approach) and ...

Teacher question At our middle school, two-thirds of our students are not proficient readers (55% of them read below the 30th percentile). Our staff decided that to help address this problem all our students would engage in repeated reading in each core content class once a week. This would be done with grade-level text. Teachers read the passage, students choral read with teacher, and then students read with a partner. That's it. We have been told that this way of repeated reading will help our students improve their phonics and fluency. I'm not in full agreement with this, but we have ...

Teacher: I keep hearing about the science of reading and that I need to teach phonics (I’m a second-grade teacher). I’m okay with that but there is a lot to teach in reading. How much of the time should I spend teaching phonics?  Shanahan’s response: Man was I surprised. I’d already spoken to the principal about the school curriculum. He’d given me an overview and assured me that what his teachers needed was training in academic language and how to ask high level comprehension questions. The speaker at a professional conference had stressed the importance of those in high poverty schools and ...

Teacher question: I teach kindergarten. Our school recently purchased the XXXX program for teaching decoding. I don’t like it as much as the program we had. One of the ways our previous program was better than XXXX is that it included pictures for each of the phonemes. The new program does not have those pictures and I think that is a real problem. Is there any evidence that I’m right that I could take to my principal? The other teachers agree with me. Shanahan response: I hate that question and I wish you hadn’t asked it. Oh, sure it’s a practical question. And as ...

Teacher question: What are your thoughts about sound walls and word walls? I don't necessarily think these would replace a word wall...do you? The video and training can be found here for sounds walls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxV4Rq1F00M&feature=youtu.be My response was this: I think for oral language, phonemic awareness and phonics the sound walls are awesome, and very helpful visually for beginning readers to unlock how sounds, symbols and words are put together. I think these types of walls would be seen more in PreK, K and maybe 1st grade in the first semester. A word wall can be a broad term that can include multiple ...

Teacher Question: What are your thoughts on teaching syllable division patterns? I recently came across some new research from Devin Kearns and it made me start thinking about if all the time programs spend teaching syllable division patterns is really justified. If teaching syllable division is not time well invested, what type of instruction would you recommend replacing it with?  Shanahan response: I was training for a 500-mile bike trip. Three of the days’ rides would be centuries (100 miles plus). The practice was making my back ache and my knees hurt, but I felt no closer to being able to accomplish those distances. They seemed absolutely impossible. I was ...

Putting on Your Underwear First: Why Instructional Sequence Doesn’t Always Matter Teacher’s Question:   Is there a particular order in which teachers should teach the letter sounds?  Shanahan’s response: It makes sense to put your underwear on before you put on a skirt, shirt, blouse, or pants. Unless you’re Madonna. Then the usual ordering of things doesn’t necessarily get the job done. Madonna changed the sequence from bra/blouse to blouse/bra and became a star. (That she is wildly talented may have also had something to do with that). Many teachers, principals, parents, and policymakers expect the proper ordering of letters and letter sounds in a curriculum to ...