Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 4: Addressing School Boards, Legislatures and the Public

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 4: Addressing School Boards, Legislatures and the Public

Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 4: Addressing School Boards, Legislatures and the Public

This series of posts has taken aim at the false Science of Reading (SOR) narrative that posits that the Simple View of Reading (SVR; Gough and Turner, 1986) is the scientifically proven best way to teach reading and all schools and all teachers should be adopting it. The first post in the series showed that SOR was far from settled science. The next three posts addressed ways to defeat this narrative by first focusing on the individual child, then talking to parents about the child, and then working with colleagues to improve everyone's breadth of understanding of the issues. In this post, I would like to address the need for teacher advocacy on the political level. Several respondents to the previous posts have noted that school boards and legislators are forcing the SOR instructional design on teachers through policy and legislation. Neither the school board members nor legislators are the professionals here. Neither is the journalist, Emily CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 4: Addressing School Boards, Legislatures and the Public

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 3: Building Bridges with Colleagues

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 3: Building Bridges with Colleagues

Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 3: Building Bridges with Colleagues

Over the past month I have been exploring the Science of Reading (SOR) narrative that has dominated discussion about reading instruction for the last few years in posts here, here, and here. What I have argued is that the SOR narrative is far too narrow a conceptualization of reading instruction and that making it the dominant mode of instruction is dangerous. The prior posts back up that argument with relevant and recent research. Some readers, while sympathetic to my overall message, have complained that my language in these blogs is confrontational and likely to cut off conversation rather than build bridges. 

I admit that I have used words like "defeat", "fight", "overturn", and "combat", in discussing how we must respond to the SOR narrative. That is because this narrative is being foist upon school leaders, teachers, and children through lobbying groups, state legislatures, and school boards that have bought into this narrow view of reading instruction. My language is CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 3: Building Bridges with Colleagues

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 2: Talking to a Parent

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 2: Talking to a Parent

Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 2: Talking to a Parent

In my first post in this series on how teachers and literacy specialists can push back at the Science of Reading (SOR) narrative currently dominating reading instruction conversation and legislation, I leaned on the work of Peter Johnston and Deborah Scanlon in their report An Examination of Dyslexia Research and Instruction to argue that dyslexia is not a useful term, and that the SOR narrative, with its focus on word level instruction, casts literacy learning in too narrow a light. In the second post, I posited that a focus on getting to know the individual child as a learner immediately makes clear that each reader is unique, and that each reader's needs must be viewed from a broader lens than is suggested by SOR. In this post I would like to suggest a way of communicating with a concerned parent, who has read and bought into the SOR narrative, about CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 2: Talking to a Parent

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 1: Focus on the Child

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 1: Focus on the Child

Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 1: Focus on the Child

Last week I wrote a post, Unsettling the Science of Reading Narrative that highlighted a new report from the Literacy Research Association, on dyslexia and the Science of Reading. The report titled An Examination of Literacy Research and Instruction, with Policy Implications,  by Peter Johnston and Donna Scanlon, posits that 1) "dyslexia" is not a useful term for guiding teachers in making literacy instructional decisions and that 2) the "Science of Reading (SOR)" narrative, which states that a heavy phonics emphasis is the best and only way to teach reading to dyslexics and everyone else, is neither accurate nor scientific. Several readers of that post responded favorably, but asked, "Given that SOR has the support of the media, powerful parent lobbying groups, and state legislatures, what can we as teachers and literacy leaders do about it?" The question is a good one and the answer is complex. I will try to respond to that question over the next CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 1: Focus on the Child

Russ on Reading: Unsettling the Science of Reading Narrative

Russ on Reading: Unsettling the Science of Reading Narrative

Unsettling the Science of Reading Narrative

Call me crazy, but when I learned I had cancer a few years ago, I did not immediately consult a journalist. Instead I chose to see an oncologist. When COVID broke out, I threw in my lot with Dr. Fauci and other infectious disease scientists, instead of a former reality TV star who suggested I inject bleach. And so, when I want advice on reading instruction, I avoid the journalists, the parent lobbying groups, the reading program sales reps, and the agenda driven pseudo-education organizations, and I look to the experts.

Two such experts, Peter Johnston and Deborah Scanlon of the University at Albany, have recently laid waste to the so called Science of Reading (SOR) in a thoughtful report written for the Literacy Research Association, An Examination of Dyslexia Research and Instruction, with Policy Implications. I strongly recommend reading the entire report, but I would like to share a few takeaways that I think illuminate the current SOR debate. As the title of the report suggests, SOR cannot really be discussed outside of CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Unsettling the Science of Reading Narrative

Russ on Reading: Rhythm and Rhyme: Read Alouds that Support Reading Fluency

Russ on Reading: Rhythm and Rhyme: Read Alouds that Support Reading Fluency

Rhythm and Rhyme: Read Alouds that Support Reading Fluency

April is Poetry Month and here at Russ On Reading we continue our exploration of poetry read alouds for children with a few books that tell their stories in rhyme. Call it doggerel if you will, what children will tell you is that these stories are entertaining and that the rhymes add to the fun. What reading specialists will tell you is that the rhythm and rhyme in these stories support young readers developing fluency. There are many rhyming books out there, some are very familiar like Click, Clack Moo or the many Dr. Seuss books, but here are some of my favorites that may not be as well known.

My son's favorite book when he was growing up, Drummer Hoff,by Barbara Emberley with Caldecott Medal winning illlustrations by Ed Emberley, tells the cumulative story of soldiers of various ranks building a cannon. The ending of the story provides a kind of Where Have All the Flowers Gone?  message to the militaristic affair. Get your kids walking around the room chanting, "Drummer Hoff fired it off!"

My wife, the literacy educator Cindy Mershon, introduced me to the works of Roy CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Rhythm and Rhyme: Read Alouds that Support Reading Fluency

Russ on Reading: My Learning Loss Formula: Read, Write, Share

Russ on Reading: My Learning Loss Formula: Read, Write, Share

My Learning Loss Formula: Read, Write, Share

As I addressed in a post a month ago, the Henny Penny's of the world are running around clucking about how the pandemic will lead to inevitable LEARNING LOSS!!!!!  Learning Loss, as Peter Greene at Forbes, has pointed out, is the latest scare tactic being used by educational reformers to push their own agenda (standardized tests, vouchers, tutoring programs). In assessing any learning loss prescription, the first question we need to ask is, "Who stands to benefit/profit?" If the answer to that question is anyone other than school children, we should look for a different solution. 

Many educational researchers are looking at pandemic learning loss as a corollary to summer learning loss. Interestingly, summer learning loss is really only an issue for the most vulnerable in our school communities, those with limited access to literacy materials and other learning opportunities during their time away from school. Richard Allington found that simply giving vulnerable readers books to take home over the summer CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: My Learning Loss Formula: Read, Write, Share

Russ on Reading: April Is Poetry Month! Here Are Some Poems to Eat

Russ on Reading: April Is Poetry Month! Here Are Some Poems to Eat

April Is Poetry Month! Here Are Some Poems to Eat

April is Poetry Month. April is the perfect time for celebrating poetry through read alouds. Actually, any time is the perfect time for reading poetry aloud. Poetry is meant to be read aloud and children love poetry. But April, with its symbols of rebirth, with the daffodils and cherry blossoms blooming and with dormant grass and barren trees coming back to life seems like the best of times for Poetry Month. So, as Eve Merriam suggests in the poem above, let's dig right in and choose some favorite poems to munch on. CONTINUE READING: 

Russ on Reading: The Reading Helper

Russ on Reading: The Reading Helper

The Reading Helper

I have a teaching certificate that says I am a qualified Teacher of Reading, and Reading Specialist and Supervisor, but from the time I got a certain Valentine's Day card from a student in 1993 I have thought of myself as a Reading Helper. That card was from a second grade vulnerable reader named Danielle who had been my student since that September. The cover of the hand made card was full of many colored hearts and flowers and said, of course, "Happy Valentine's Day." Inside was a message that I will never forget and which has defined my work ever since: "Thank you for hleping me read. Love, Danielle" Yes, exactly, "hleping." CONTINUE READING: 

Russ on Reading: Reading Aloud for Better Human Understanding: Asian-American Picture Books

Russ on Reading: Reading Aloud for Better Human Understanding: Asian-American Picture Books

Reading Aloud for Better Human Understanding: Asian-American Picture Books

Prejudice and hate crimes against Asian-Americans are not new in the United States, unfortunately, but the recent increase in bias related crimes against this segment of the American population reminds us that anti-bias efforts remain critical. The need to address the issues head on is made doubly important when political leaders are among the principal spreaders of this unreasoned hatred. One way to combat prejudice is through knowledge and understanding and one good way to spread knowledge and understanding is through a good book. Here are some great picture books that will help young readers learn about their Asian-American classmates and neighbors.

Long one of my favorite read alouds for children in grades 2-5, Angel Child, Dragon Child, by Michelle Maria Serat, with pictures by Vo-Dinh Mai, tells the story of Ut, recently arrived in the United States from Vietnam. Ut is teased by her new classmates for her different language and different clothes. School is a sad, dispiriting experience and home is a place where she misses her mother who has not made the journey with the family. Ut eventually makes an unlikely friend at school, a boy who was her chief tormentor, and the school community eventually unites around Ut and her family. Wonderful soft pencil and watercolor CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Reading Aloud for Better Human Understanding: Asian-American Picture Books

Russ on Reading: Henny Penny Discovers Learning Loss

Russ on Reading: Henny Penny Discovers Learnng Loss

Henny Penny Discovers Learning Loss

It was a difficult year in the barnyard with all the animals confined to their own homes because of a mysterious and devastating avian flu. Henny Penny, cooped up in her humble abode with a half dozen chicks scurrying about unable to go school, was at her wits end. She barricaded herself in the TV room and turned on Foxy News. There she heard a report from an education expert, one Chester Tester, that the entire barnyard was going down the tubes due to an outbreak of  "learning loss."

Henny Penny flew into a panic. She flung open the door calling to the chicks, "You are losing learning. You are losing learning. Hurry we must find it." Henny Penny and her chicks scurried around the chicken house looking for their learning. The looked under the beds of straw. They looked in the kitchen. They searched the family room. They even rifled through the medicine cabinet, but they could not find their learning. 

Finally, Henny Penny FaceTimed her friend, Ducky Lucky. "Ducky Lucky" said Henny Penny, "I just heard on Foxy News that my chicks are losing their learning."

"Oh, no! said Ducky Lucky. "If your chicks are losing their learning, mine CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Henny Penny Discovers Learnng Loss

Russ on Reading: Read Alouds for Social Justice: The Right to Vote and Combatting "The Big Lie"

Russ on Reading: Read Alouds for Social Justice: The Right to Vote and Combatting "The Big Lie"

Read Alouds for Social Justice: The Right to Vote and Combatting "The Big Lie"

This past Sunday was the anniversary of  "Bloody Sunday," the attack on peaceful protestors on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama that resulted in many marchers, including future Congressman John Lewis, being beaten nearly to death. Those marchers were seeking the most basic of American rights, the right to vote. Not long after Selma, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was supposed to protect everyone's right to vote. Much of that landmark legislation was gutted by the Supreme Court in a 2013 decision, and that action brought on a new round of attempts to suppress voters. The Big Lie propagated by former President Trump and his followers, asserting that the latest presidential election was rigged, has now led to 23 states again trying to limit our voting rights. 

Picture books and read alouds have an important role to play in informing children about the importance of voting, the sacrifice others have made so we can vote, and the actions we need to take to make sure that the right to vote is protected. He are some favorites.

For The Teachers March! authors Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace interviewed the Reverand F. D. Reese, a principal and teacher and a leader of the Voting Rights Movement in Selma , Alabama, along with several other teachers and their families. The interviews make for a compelling story. It is the story of a group of Black teachers who walked off their jobs on January 22, 1965 to march for the right to vote. Charley Palmer's vibrant illustrations bring the story to life.

In Lillian's Right to Vote, we get the story of an elderly woman's CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Read Alouds for Social Justice: The Right to Vote and Combatting "The Big Lie"

Russ on Reading: Read Aloud Treasures: The Wit and Wisdom of William Steig

Russ on Reading: Read Aloud Treasures: The Wit and Wisdom of William Steig

Read Aloud Treasures: The Wit and Wisdom of William Steig

Most children these days are well versed in the adventures of  Shrek!  from the Dreamworks movie franchise and the Broadway musical, but Shrek!, of course, first lived in the very fertile, active, and definitely quirky mind of children's book author and illustrator, William Steig. Steig is a fascinating character himself. He did not write his first children's book until he was in his 60s, but by that time he was world famous as a cartoonist for The New Yorker. His books for children are witty, wacky, wonderful, and slightly off center. Here are some of my favorites for read aloud. Reading these books to children always spurred great follow-up conversations.

Steig's first picture book finds sweet voiced troubadour, Roland, traveling the country to share his songs and stories. A scheming fox named Sebastian fools the trusting Roland and almost roasts him over a fire, until he is rescued by the King. The fox is "put in the dungeon, where he lives the rest of his years on nothing but stale bread, sour grapes and water." Steig establishes his distinctive style with the animals in this story. CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Read Aloud Treasures: The Wit and Wisdom of William Steig

Russ on Reading: Joyous Read Alouds: The Books of Audrey and Don Wood

Russ on Reading: Joyous Read Alouds: The Books of Audrey and Don Wood

Joyous Read Alouds: The Books of Audrey and Don Wood

 There is a house
A Napping House
Where Everyone is Sleeping

Thus begins one of the great read aloud books of all times, The Napping House, by Audrey Wood, illustrated by her husband, Don Wood. Audrey Wood's parents worked as tent and mural painters for the Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Circus, which wintered for years near Wood's home in Sarasota, FL. Audrey loved to listen to the stories the circus performers told. When she grew up, she wrote her own stories driven by the tales and cadences she heard from the circus people's stories. The playful use of language is evident everywhere in Wood's stories, which are perfectly matched by the raucous world depicted in Don Wood's illustrations. It is that playful language, plus those large and comic illustrations that make these books perfect read alouds.  CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Joyous Read Alouds: The Books of Audrey and Don Wood

Russ on Reading: Reading Aloud with MemFox

Russ on Reading: Reading Aloud with MemFox

Reading Aloud with MemFox

The Australian Open Tennis tournament is going on right now, and while I watch and root for Serena Williams to defy advancing age and the encroachment of the responsibilities of a full life to win another major title, my reading teacher mind turns my thoughts to the great Australian writer for children, Mem Fox. Mem Fox's books have been a part of my read aloud repertoire ever since I discovered Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge back in the mid-1980s. From there it was Hattie and the Fox and what I have come to call  her Marsupial Trilogy: Possum Magic, Koala Lou, and Wombat Devine. Eventually, I got to hear Mem Fox speak at an International Reading Association Conference and discovered that not only was she a great author and a charming speaker, she was also a passionate advocate for reading aloud. You can read what she has to say on the subject in her book for parents Reading Magic - How Your Child  Can Learn to Read Before School - and other Read-Aloud Miracles.

Here are some of my favorite Mem Fox Read-Alouds.

My personal favorite Mem Fox book, deals charmingly with the very real issue of losing your memory as you grow older. Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge is a bright and adventurous little boy who befriends  a woman who lives in the nursing home next door, Miss Nancy Allison CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Reading Aloud with MemFox

Russ on Reading: Read Aloud Winners: The Trickster Tales of Gerald McDermott

Russ on Reading: Read Aloud Winners: The Trickster Tales of Gerald McDermott

Read Aloud Winners: The Trickster Tales of Gerald McDermott

Everyday is a good day for a read aloud, of course, but some books make better read alouds than others. Among my favorites are the trickster tales as winningly told and exquisitely illustrated by Gerald McDermott. McDermott was not only a world class artist, his illustrations just literally jump off the page at you, but also an expert in folklore. Trickster tales come to us from many different cultures and McDermott mined these rich resources for these entertaining stories.

Perhaps the most familiar of McDermott's books, this Caldecott Honor Book established McDermott's distinctive style.  Anansi is a  troublemaker whose six sons try to save him from all the problems he causes. A West African Folktale.

In this tale from the American Southwest, the animals of the desert teach the troublesome Coyote a lesson.

In this tale from India, a hungry, clever Monkey must find a way to get the tasty mangoes from the island in the river with Crocodile's help, without becoming Crocodile's lunch. CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Read Aloud Winners: The Trickster Tales of Gerald McDermott

Russ on Reading: A Holiday Gift of Poetry 2020

Russ on Reading: A Holiday Gift of Poetry 2020

A Holiday Gift of Poetry 2020

The holidays will be a bit different for all of this year, but one constant source of joy and solace for me is poetry. Here are a few that I have resonant in this somewhat scary, socially distanced time. Happy Holidays.

When Giving is All We Have

            Alberto Rios

One river gives 

Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us. 

We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.

We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,

We have been wounded by it –

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,

Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,

But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,

Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.

Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you

What I had to give – together, we made

Something greater from the difference.

Wonder and Joy CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: A Holiday Gift of Poetry 2020