I would like to challenge the thinking of
Stewart Brekke and his views on the
teaching of reading. I am a New Zealand
teacher where our reading philosophy is
based on whole language. Our whole language
method, according to trs I know who have
taught in USA, is between your phonics and
whole language. In 2000 the National
Education Monitoring Project which reviews
reading standards in NZ every 5 years found
that the percentage of chn reading above
chronological age had risen from 34% to 46%
and the percentage of children reading
below chronological age had dropped from
20% to 16%. The children are given a range
of reading tasks including comprehension,
word recognition etc. As an older tr who
has used phonics and decodable books
through to whole language I would agree
with this finding. I can remember the time
when you could expect to have up to a
quarter of your class needing extra help.
Now, it would only be 2 or3 chn needing
extra help.These are usually the ones who
are transient/truant etc and NO amount of
phonics or whole language is going to make
them better readers. This upward trend has
been evolving over the last 20yrs as trs
have become better informed as to HOW chn
learn and they now better understand the
reading process.I have also done testing in
a number of schools for school-wide reviews
and the results of those would also confirm
that these results are on track. If high
school trs are finding the chn cannot read
the texts/are sitting there bored and not
understanding I suggest they change the
text and/or learn how to get the chn into a
text with understanding. Texts are usually
written for the benefit of the
writer/publisher with little thought of
what is age appropriate for the kids. It
happens here in high schools and I would
venture that it is much the same world
over.Boring, dreary drills are going to
turn kids off even more.
That is my penny's worth for the evening.
This debate rages here too.
Barbara

barbara, bjulian@xtra.co.nz,
3/23/02

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