Thought for the New Year: Empowering teachers is the key to solving literacy problems by Dr Sam Bommarito

It’s been well over five decades since the First Grade Studies first documented research demonstrating that when it comes to improving reading, teachers make more difference than programs LINK, LINK. Allenton and others have decades of research around that point LINK. Yet in the past year, many have continued the quest for “silver bullet programs” that will solve their literacy problems LINK. Research around programs like LTRS or OG clearly demonstrates that in terms of solving literacy problems- they come up short LINK, LINK, LINK.

Frank Smith once called the Great Debate around how and when to teach phonics the “Endless Debate.” I believe it remains the “Endless Debate” because we keep moving to the extremes, never trying the middle. The decades-long swings between meaning-based and code-based approaches clearly demonstrate that going to extremes results in pendulum swings. The debate keeps going on and on and on and on. For the past five years, I’ve taken the position that the common-sense thing to do is to draw on ideas and practices from all sides. That means all sides must admit that their particular position has limits and limitations LINK. That means that all sides must avoid using strawman versions of the other positions LINK. That means empowering teachers by giving them the training, tools, and materials they need so they can provide each student with the kind of decoding and comprehension instruction that benefits each student the most. That is easily said but hard to do. Here are some things that I think would help to bring about that kind of change:

1. Districts are in the best position to know their students and the needs of those students. Districts need to take a curriculum-first approach. That means developing a district-wide curriculum and then finding programs and materials that can be used to implement that curriculum. The quest for off-the-shelf silver bullets hasn’t ever succeeded. There have been 50-plus years of pendulum swings to demonstrate that is true. It’s time that programs are ADOPTED AND ADAPTED. That means programs should be adapted to fit each district’s curriculum.
2. As districts create curriculum around literacy, they need to recognize that there are many ways to teach decoding LINK, LINK  (go to 22:05 on the video). There are many systems that might be used. I’ve interviewed several educators with different ways to approach the teaching of decoding, LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK. Each of these approaches can help some children. My advice about using these ways is to ensure that students who need a synthetic approach get that approach. However, in our zeal to make sure that happens (and that needs to happen for Dyslexic children), we shouldn’t deny those children who thrive using analytic approaches (discovery-based approaches) access to learning about that way of teaching phonics. There is a case to be made for using both discovery-based and direct teaching-based methods LINK. I think a well-designed RTI program could make that happen LINK.
3. Districts need to recognize that background knowledge is necessary for comprehension, but it is not sufficient. Comprehension strategies need to be taught directly and systematically. The NRP found such strategies LINK and found that students’ ability to apply and use those strategies consciously and deliberately as they read resulted in improved reading comprehension. Students must also learn about the various text structures and adapt how they read to fit those particular text structures LINK.
4. Districts need to consider ALL research, qualitative and qualitative. Some folks treat qualitative approaches as if they are a second-string lesser approach to scientific inquiry. They maintain that decisions should be based solely or mainly on quantitative studies. Yet quantitative studies have very real limits and limitations. The fact is that because of the complex nature of school settings, a purely quantitative approach can miss important nuances of what is happening. Do we believe that random assignment models completely control the thousands of variables in school settings? I think not. I’m not saying not to use quantitative information. After all, quantitative approaches do answer the question of how likely it is that the observed phenomena happened simply by chance. But I am saying that districts need more than that kind of information. Let’s also recognize that qualitative studies also answer the question of how likely it is that the observed phenomena happened by chance. Both these approaches have strengths, and they also have limits and limitations. What can we do about that?

Let’s start with the premise that science can result in somewhat different conclusions depending on the inquiry models used. Look at hurricane weather forecasts- there is no one “right” answer. We are used to seeing the multiple possible storm tracks, and we view those various possible tracks as scientifically based. We can all learn a lesson from General Eisenhower on how he handled that kind of scenario. When deciding when to carry out the D-Day landings, there were competing scientifically based weather forecasts. He chose the one day that both forecasts predicted the weather would be acceptable. That was a common-sense approach, and it worked! Had he stuck to one set of forecasts or the other without considering both, chances are high that he would not have gotten the results he did. Districts need to use all the research, not just the quantitative research and especially not the quantitative research that is so narrowly drawn that it leads to misdirection and confusion LINK.

5. That brings me to my opening point. Teachers make more of a difference than programs. Districts are best positioned to create a curriculum that fits local needs. Districts are in the best position to give teachers access to the various tools they need. Yet we currently have laws being implemented that strip away the district’s role and mandate solutions that don’t fit all the students that districts serve. I’ve written extensively about how such laws need to be reconsidered LINK.

David Pearson is often credited with the creation of the gradual release model. He is well-published LINK.  In fact, he is one of the most published and respected literacy researchers of our time. He has gone on record to say that the term “settled science” is an oxymoron. He has long advocated taking a centrist-based approach, what he calls “The Radical Middle”  LINK. He has given important advice to all considering what practices to adopt. That advice is to take positions, not sides. I think that is sound advice. I’m taking the position that we should let districts do their job and let districts decide the when and where of best practices that fit their particular population. They should use all the available research to help them make those choices.

In upcoming blogs, I’ll continue to explore what other teachers say about the best ways to teach reading. Most importantly, I’ll be exploring Bruce Howlett’s and Jan Wasowicz’s attempts to find common ground. Instead of looking at what we disagree on, Bruce and Jan focus on what we can agree on, LINK, LINK. No one will benefit if the current situation “devolves” into another pendulum swing. Let’s use the new year to find common ground by exploring both the art and science of reading instruction, using research-based ideas from all sides. By doing that, we may create a time when there are no sides.

Dare to dream!

Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the center taking flak from all sides)

Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s views and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

PS If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss future posts.  Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

Happy Holidays from Dr. Sam

I’m taking a break this week. For me, the Holidays have taken on a bittersweet flavor. My brother-in-law is in hospice with end-stage cancer. I’m doing what I can to support the family in the difficult times ahead. Thoughts and prayers would be appreciated.

“Life is very short, and there’s no time-i-i-ime for fussing and fighting, my friend.” My current situation made that famous lyric come to mind as I write this message. I have hope that in the literary world, the fussing and fighting might be replaced by real dialogue and a move to seek common ground. Please review this interview with Bruce Howett and be on the lookout in the new year for even more efforts as he and Jan work toward finding some agreement and common ground in the literacy world. Here is a link to that interview: LINK.

I have friends and followers from all over the world, with many different beliefs and customs. To all of you, I extend my best wishes. Happy Holidays from Dr. Sam

Let’s use common sense to guide the way to common practices: A centrist’s advice on traversing the current social media debate about best practices in reading by Dr. Sam Bommarito

Blast from the Past- This is a repost of a blog I wrote last year about the current state of The Great Debate. I am reposting it to start my upcoming series about the current state of things in the reading world. That series will cover many topics, including the best ways to teach comprehension and decoding. I will also discuss the best ways for school districts to create curriculum. Hint- Seeking “silver bullet programs” is an ill-advised way to proceed. My position is that school districts should create local curriculum first, then find programs/materials that support that curriculum. Entries in this upcoming series will each include a “Dr. Sam’s Using Common Sense to Find Common Ground in Literacy” video. Those short videos will give a synopsis of the points from each blog and be published as a stand-alone entry for other venues, e.g., Threads. I will also continue interviewing folks from all sides of the literacy issue. All this is my way of working for the day when we can finally follow P.D. Pearson’s advice about handling the so-called “Reading Wars.” That advice is to take positions, not sides. We need to talk and discuss things. We need to do so without using strawmen. We need to use the best research-based ideas from all sides to carry out our overall mission in literacy. That overall mission is to create lifelong readers, writers, and thinkers. Dare to Dream! Here is that blog:

In the past few weeks, the current debate on social media has heated up to the boiling point. If one is to believe some social media posts, all that has come before in reading has failed. Publishers of the old ways of doing things continue to publish only because of the money made on those products. The products themselves are complete failures. There is a knight in shining armor on the horizon. That would be the new ways being advocated by some vocal proponents who claim they have found the answers we need to solve our nation’s reading problems. The answer lies in throwing out all the old and replacing it with their methods and products. In this week’s blog, I will again push back on this social media version of the Science of Reading and offer ideas about a different way to proceed. Here are some points to consider:

1. When looking at the claims of some SOR advocates on social media, it is a buyer-beware market. With her permission, I am presenting a Twitter thread posted by Jordan Page. The thread illustrates the point that it is a buyer-beware market:

Jordan’s experience is typical of many educators who go looking for new programs. Publishers use labels like Science of Reading or Research-Based to sell products, whether the labels really fit or not. Research has become weaponized LINK. Rachel Gabriel warns that not all research is created equal. Here is a screen capture from her RRQ article LINK.

As part of the “buyer beware” way to approach the acquisition of materials and programs, educators would do well to ensure the research used to prove the value of such programs is examined carefully. Ensure the research comes from peer-reviewed sources and the measures used in the studies are appropriate.

• Some of the reporting on social media uses slanted misleading evidence. This is especially true of research claiming to prove that the most used publishers are selling flawed products despite the evidence that shows the methods are flawed. I respectfully disagree with what many of these folks are saying. As I discussed last week, they sometimes use “discount and discredit” tactics designed to “prove” the alternate methods don’t work LINK. For this reason, I have labeled this group the social media branch of SOR to set them apart from other SOR advocates.

One clear example of misdirection and selective reporting can be found in the recent media postings about May’s study about the long-term effect of Reading Recovery. That study was reported as showing that over time Reading Recovery students got worse, i.e., not only did they fail to keep the gains made in recovery, but they actually moved backwards. Let’s look at a screen capture of what Dr. Billy Molasso, PhD, in a Nov 14th advocacy alert for the Reading Recovery Community.

Links from the screen capture

Hurry, Fridkin and Holliman’s study LINK

Multiple longitudinal studies. LINK

The study had a 75% attrition rate (a major red flag), and as the last two bullet points indicate, the author of the May study still favored the use of Reading Recovery. Omitting that demonstrates reporting designed to prove a point rather than reporting that rises to the standard of good journalism. I advise taking a buyer-beware approach when dealing with these social media versions of the Science of Reading. This is just one of many examples of the incomplete, slanted, and misleading reporting done by many of the folks in the social media branch of SOR.

• Another social media branch of the SOR is made of individuals providing services to Dyslexic children. Frequently they have very narrow views of what constitutes good instruction in reading , they focus mainly on teaching phonics and use only analytic phonics to do that. I question whether their approach reflects the best practices indicated by this comprehensive review of the research around dyslexia reported in the RRQ LINK, to the review.

Part of my reason for that concern is that these individuals are often evasive about how much time they spend on comprehension. A few have admitted they leave comprehension to others. Often, when they do check for comprehension, it is at a word or sentence level, not a passage level. There is virtually no evidence that they teach comprehension strategies at a passage level. This precludes any extensive use of what Duke has called the Science of Reading Comprehension. LINK

When considering this manner of delivering reading instruction, a method I characterize as Phonics First, Comprehension Later, district leaders should consider whether such a course will result in improved comprehension. Consider the slide from P.D. Pearson from his YouTube presentation on the Science of Reading Comprehension. LINK

Pearson’s information (which includes 86 studies) certainly calls into question the Phonics  First, Comprehension later approach. The information that 1/3 of the students not passing the 3^rd-grade test were fluent also should give one pause about an approach that relies almost exclusively on improving decoding. Frequently the Phonics First, Comprehension later, folks report their results using tests focused mainly on decoding. Please consider what students will be required to do on the end-of-the-year state reading tests to see if that is a sufficient test of the worth of the Phonics First, Comprehension Later programs. See Box 1 below. It lists what is required on state reading tests. It is taken from an article by Nell Duke LINK.

• The centrist point of view- what is it?

What is a centrist? (taken from my 10/22/2022 blog LINK. Those who follow this blog know that for the past four years, I have explored the issues surrounding the so-called reading wars LINK, LINK, LINK. One of my followers, Judy Boksner, described a centrist this way:

(Be sure to visit Judy’s YouTube Channel LINK)

This slide gives the key to why I am a centrist:

• Here is one explanation of why students are not learning to read. It is an excerpt from my 09/18/22 blog LINK:

I ENDED THAT BLOG ENTRY WITH THE FOLLOWING:

I’m back to my mantra. “Let’s use common sense to find common ground.” Let’s recognize that what works with one child doesn’t always work with another. Let’s put a moratorium on talking about what’s wrong with “the other side(s) methods and instead ask- is there anything from the other side(s) ideas that I can use to help my kids when my preferred methods don’t work? In my original post about this four years ago, I called this creating a reading evolution LINK.

Please note that this final analysis includes the scenario of districts using ideas from balanced reading and SOR. That is what I hope the centrist point of view will lead to—finding common ground by using ideas from both sides.

SPECIAL NOTE: Dr. Sam’s Blogs in the Coming Weeks.

As indicated earlier, I am reposting this blog as a start to my upcoming series about the current state of things in the reading world. That series will cover a wide range of topics e.g. best ways to teach comprehension, decoding and best ways for school districts to create curriculum. I’ll intersperse that series with interviews of folks from a wide range of viewpoints about literacy.

So, until next week,

Happy Reading and Writing

Dr. Sam Bommarito, aka the centrist who, uses ideas from all sides to inform his teaching

Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the author’s view and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

P.S. If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss future posts. Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

An overview of the newly released issue of The Missouri Reader: Includes articles by Laura Robb, Mary Jo Fresch and Danny Brassell

As promised, the newest issue of The Missouri Reader is out. In this newest edition, several literacy folks give useful information about a wide range of topics.

As some of you may already know, for the past seven years, I have been the Co-editor of this journal along with Glenda Nugent.  As of this issue, I am stepping into the role of Managing Editor. A new team has taken over the co-editors’ positions. The new co-editors are Dr. Elizabeth Wallington and Dr. Jennifer Botello. They are from Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, Missouri. They have prepared quite an issue for you, with many practical articles, including how to use spelling inventories and choose read-alouds that help children think critically about texts. Here’s a little background about The Missouri Reader.

The Missouri Reader has been around for over 45 years. It started as a paper journal.  Now, we publish digitally. We have two issues each year. We are peer-reviewed, and our editorial board has many highly qualified people (see the journal’s sidebar on the Table of Contents page). We publish many articles by well-known experts in the reading field. However, we also encourage teachers to publish, especially action research, book reviews, and app reviews. The last page of each issue explains how to submit an article for review. We are an official publication of the Missouri Literacy Association. Missouri Literacy Association is an ILA affiliate. The journal runs on the JOOMAG ™ platform.  No special software is needed. Anyone with the link below can read the current issue for free.

https://joom.ag/q5zd

I also want to call your attention to another issue for you to explore. It is a poetry issue that was published in 2019. It is our most-read issue of all time. The poetry issue contains TONS of innovative ideas about how to use poetry in the classroom. It was the brainchild of Missouri’s own David Harrison. He approached Glenda Nugent (my former Co-Editor) and me about a special issue dedicated especially to poetry. We are so glad he did. Here is the link to that issue. Feel free to share it with other interested educators. Also, be aware that the next issue of The Missouri Reader will again be devoted to using poetry to teach literacy. That means our new editorial team will take proposals on that topic while still gathering proposals for next year’s fall issue. Details about that can be found in the current issue.

https://joom.ag/o1ta

Current members of MLA are sent an email giving them early access to the journal. Once members have had their early access, we distribute The Missouri Reader to the general public using the “word of cyberspace.” We ask our readers to share the links to the magazine with other readers. As a result, we are now read all around the world. So, if you like what you see in one or both issues, please share the links. They’re both free. University professors, feel free to share the links with your classes if you like.  THANKS!

You can help support The Missouri Reader by joining the Missouri Literacy Association. Membership is open to all. Or you can donate to help fund the costs associated with publishing this well-respected journal. Here is a link where you can join or donate:

https://mla31.wildapricot.org/

Until next week,

Happy Reading and Writing

Dr. Sam Bommarito (Managing Editor of a peer-reviewed teacher’s journal)

Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s and do not necessarily reflect any other person or organization’s views.

P.S. If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss it.  Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

 

Kathy James tells us about Rime Magic Program & how she uses it along with OG:  

An Interview by Dr. Sam Bommarito

I’m always happy to spread the good news about what effective practicing teachers are up to, and this week, there is even more good news. Last time I talked to Sharon Zinke about her Rime Magic Program. Like Tim Rasinski’s  Fast Start program and HFL’s adaptation of Tim’s work, Rime Magic provides a lot of bang for the buck.  As I said in my post just before Thanksgiving break,  Sharon’s program gets big results relatively quickly. It is a program that works for both younger and older students. The program requires as little as 5 minutes a day and can be used to supplement any phonics program you are using. When I talked to Sharon, I learned that there was one site that was using both her Rime Magic Program and OG. That appealed to my centrist beliefs that we should be using ideas from all sides, and that is exactly what Kathy James and her district is doing. They use both Rime Magic and OG. Let’s find out how that works. First let’s give you Kathy’s background.

BIOGRAPHY

Kathy James is an educator dedicated to bridging research and practice in the classroom.  She has focused her professional interests on literacy development, especially helping striving readers close gaps and find success.

Kathy has come full circle this year, returning to first-grade teaching in the Talawanda School District in Oxford, Ohio, where she’s worked for the past 23 years. Kathy’s career started as a first-grade teacher in Massachusetts after completing her graduate studies at Tufts University.  There, as a graduate teaching assistant for Maryanne Wolf, Kathy began learning about how best to teach students with Dyslexia.  Kathy has been a special education teacher, a Title 1 reading specialist, and for the five years before this, her district’s Literacy Coach. As a coach, she had the honor of working with the Ohio Writing Project at Miami University, Ohio. Kathy believes that intentional writing instruction for writing’s sake is a critical element of literacy instruction for all learners. 

When a reading specialist introduced Kathy to Sharon Zinke’s onset-rime approach to phonics instruction five years ago, Kathy knew it was significant – something she’d never tried with students.  During the pandemic, while teaching small group reading intervention online, Kathy paired Rime Magic with Tim Rasinski’s repeated oral reading of lively, high-interest songs, poems, tongue twisters, and riddles.  The combination of Rime Magic and Rasinski’s scaffolded fluency practices has proved to be an engaging and powerful decoding and fluency accelerator for the full range of learners.  

Here are the timed stamped talking points from the interview (so, you can go to the sections that interest you the most first):

Here is a link to the interview on YouTube:

Resources from Kathy

• Sharon Zinke’s YouTube Channel – HERE
• Timothy Rasinski – The MegaBook of Fluency – HERE
• Timothy Rasinski – Fast Start for Early Readers – HERE
• David Kilpatrick – Equipped for Reading Success – HERE

Related Resources were provided by Sharon in a previous post.

Sharon’s book (note: The Teachers Guide to her resource kit contains an updated version of all the information in this book, so if you get her kit, you won’t need this book)  LINK

Sharon’s Rime Magic Resource Kit LINK

The Rime Magic System

Rime Magic is a completely different, highly engaging approach to phonics instruction. It is not about memorizing letters and sounds in a sequence for mastery. Rather it is daily immersion in an array of phonic elements each day, starting with regular two-letter, short vowel rimes and moving on to less regular patterns. Students naturally focus on what they are ready to grasp and experience each success as they are ready for it. They experience power over their own learning, and confidence blooms. Learning happens very quickly because students are swept up in the rhythm and are given only positive responses by the teacher. Slipped in for five minutes next to any phonics or reading program, Rime Magic is a phonics and fluency accelerator.

Although there are seven steps in Rime Magic, only Steps 4 and 5 are done each day; Steps 1-3 are done only on the first day to introduce Rime Magic to the students. Step 6 follows when students have mastered Steps 4 and 5. Step 7 is for students (grade 3 and above) who have difficulty blending and/or have letter confusion.

Steps 4 and 5 are done each day (whole class or small group) for a total of less than 10 minutes, followed by lots of repeated reading material that is of interest to students.

Click here to see video showing a seven-minute Rime Magic lesson (Steps 2-5) with two third-grade students with low word recognition.

Note: You might notice that one of the students begins each rime with /h/. I ignore it because he will be immersed in Rime Magic each day and will discover it on his own, when he is ready.

LINK TO SHARON’S YOUTUBE CHANNEL

https://www.youtube.com/@rimemagicforreadingsuccess4790

A link to a Google Documents folder

The folder contains additional information, including a blog post about Rime Magic authored by K. James for Tim Rasinski and the Rime Magic Pilot Report, which provides data demonstrating the effectiveness of the project. Sharon’s website also includes other reports about the effectiveness of the project.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jnbJ9ukCAAy4FIQAO-e_tjeEbvKK6b4p?usp=sharing

Final Thoughts

As a centrist, LINK, I reject one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, I advocate for using good research-based ideas from folks of many points of view. Kathy and her district are putting that idea into practice.

She doesn’t call for replacing the direct instruction phonics programs. Instead, she calls for using this in addition to the direct, explicit instruction provided by OG. She has documented that as little as 5 minutes a day of this approach can significantly affect children’s ability to decode. This is true for children of all ages. Now consider these comments from Kathy provided in our post-interview interchanges:

A SPECIAL NOTE FROM KATHY:

“I am eager to convey to colleagues everywhere that combining 5-8 minutes of Rime Magic instruction alongside any existing curriculum, with 15-20 minutes of repeated oral reading, drawing from Timothy Rasinski’s resources, is an artful, authentic, and engaging method for accelerating decoding and fluency.  It works quickly for the full range of learners.  Students who struggle gain confidence and want to read! “

Remember that while programs like OG and LTRS have had some success in providing teacher knowledge of phonics, they have been unable to demonstrate that the students learn and use and apply that knowledge. In a nutshell, they have been unable to demonstrate that those programs “teach to transfer” the skills taught.  Consider these findings from What Works Clearinghouse LINK.  

What Kathy and her district have demonstrated is that by adding Rime Majic and activities inspired by Tim Rasinski’s work, they can have a very positive impact on all aspects of their students’ reading. They are getting the teach-to-transfer aspect built into their program.  In the near future, I’ll be writing more about The Pioneer Valley Webinar and their reports about the use of Tim Rasinski’s ideas on how to teach decoding (prosody!). I’ve put a link to that webinar at the end of the blog post. In addition, just this week, I took one of the HFL training courses on how to teach prosody. Yep, I really did say how to teach prosody. As first reported during the webinar, HFL has adapted Rasinski’s work on how to teach intonation and phrasing. The results are astounding. You’ll be hearing much more about that in my upcoming posts.

Happy Reading and Writing!

Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the center taking flak from all sides)

Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s views and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

PS If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss future posts.  Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

Link to the Pioneer Valley Books webinar, which features Tim Rasinski LINK

NOTE- You need to be in Vimeo to view this webinar. If you do not already have a Vimeo account. Here is the link to set one up for free LINK. When you get to the site, click the Join for Free tab.