Education Site Explains Why American Educators Chose the Worst Way to Teach Reading
Improve-Education.org publishes a major investigation of phonics vs. whole word, and concludes that American educators picked the wrong approach. As a result, millions of Americans are functionally illiterate or dyslexic.
Norfolk, VA (Issues Wire / PRWEB) October 7, 2006 -- It’s a great American mystery story: why was look-say (which creates lots of problems) aggressively promoted but phonics (with a successful track record going back centuries) was ridiculed? www.Improve-Education.org has the answer.
The new report, titled “A Tribute to Rudolph Flesch,” starts with a careful analysis of why look-say was never a valid way to teach the reading of English. In this counterintuitive approach, children have to memorize each English word as if it were a Chinese ideogram -- that is, by shape or design. (Very much as we remember faces, houses or cars. Imagine trying to memorize thousands of cars by name.) Sounding out letters or syllables is not allowed. The look-say process is slow, labor-intensive, inappropriate for a language that is essentially phonetic, and impractical for a language with a vast vocabulary. (English is now approaching 1,000,000 words.)
Rudolph Flesch explained all this in his two bestsellers, “Why Johnny Can’t Read” (1955) and “Why Johnny STILL Can’t Read” (1980). Everybody was talking about these books. Did the educational establishment listen? Not at all. They vilified Flesch and went right on pushing look-say as much as possible. They still do.
Result? Although the US had achieved near-universal literacy in 1900, the country now has millions of people who are “functionally illiterate” or categorized as “dyslexic.” Flesch argued that look-say generates all these bad effects. Dyslexia, he said, is not an organic condition; rather it is a syndrome created by bad teaching technique and can be reversed.
To explain what happened to millions of Americans and to Flesch, Improve-Education.org had to take a long historical perspective. The article has this subtitle: “A short sad history of American education during the 20th century.”
The report is written by novelist Bruce Deitrick Price. He first read both of the Flesch books more than 20 years ago. Flesch seemed to be stating the obvious; he came across as a scholar and a really decent guy. Price was shocked that our educators pretended Flesch was a nut and dismissed him. Look-say (renamed whole word) scored a resurgence just at the end of Flesch’s life; he died thinking he was a failure. Price saw the whole melancholy saga as a crime mystery that had to be solved.
Price’s report is Article #21 on www.Improve-Education.org. The first installment explains, vividly and memorably, why look-say doesn’t work. For many parents this is the most important part. Lots of people are confused by the terms look-say, whole word, whole language theory and the other slogans that educators devise.
“A Tribute to Rudolph Flesch” is a harsh indictment of educators gone wild. It is also a great way to grasp this material once and for all. Fell free to quote as much of Article #21 as you like.
For more information or to interview the author, contact:
Word-Wise Educational Services
Norfolk, Va.
757-455-5020
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