June 21, 1993

Ms Susan Smith

Director, Lower School

The Brooks Hill School

Frederiksted, St. Croix, Virgin Islands

Dear Ms Smith,

I hope this letter finds you well. Thank you for your November 2, 1992 letter, responding to mine of October 26, 1992 to the Head of School. This is my reply.

It must be unimaginably horrible for a parent to watch an automobile strike a beloved child; to hear the bones break, and see the body fall; to feel bright promise and dreams encompassing the world evaporate in an instant. None but the worst amongst us would intentionally cripple any child---physically, spiritually, emotionally, or intellectually. As parents, our greatest joy comes from helping our children to become loving, strong, skillful, and competent. We want our children to live up to their greatest potential. The wise parent does not expect or want his Mary to equal his neighbor's Anne in all fields of endeavor, but the parent does want Mary to be the best she can be. The caring parent is always examining her own behavior and doing those things necessary to promote the full flowering of her children. The parents cannot cause the child to become skillful and competent---the child must do it on her own, but the parents (and the child's school teachers) have a strong, often critical, influence in the process.

A key to successful parenting (and teaching) is understanding how habits are planted, nurtured and strengthened. Good habits are our treasure; bad habits, the bane of our existence. Habits start with a thought, but develop into consistent, reliable action over the long term. As the saying goes, "sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny." We have reading habits, just as we have other habits. In my earlier letter I touched upon the importance of good reading habits in our general intellectual functioning.

As parents we are showered with wonderful, sacred moments. We have the great privilege of closely accompanying our children through the early years of their lives. How terrific to share the learning of the alphabet, and the discovery that every letter has both a name and a sound, or a "power" as they used to call it! The parents giggle like kids when the son or daughter starts putting sounds together, sounding out first syllables and simple words.

Then, though, in kindergarten at The Brooks Hill School, enter the Ladybird series of look-and-say basal readers. Gone are the days of the child being taught consistently to sound out our alphabetic language. Instead the child is taught to learn all kinds of words, "regular" and "irregular," as a whole, by their shape. The child loses the habit of always paying close attention to the letters of the words and their sounds. He now guesses from the first letter of the word, the shape of the word, and the context, at what the word is. The child starts misreading "has" for "are," and "tent" for "camp," mistakes that would have been unthinkable before. Good-bye good habits. Enter the intellectual bane. Crash! The use of the Ladybird series and its look-and-say methods is not intended to cripple, but crippling it often is. Mediocrity, or worse, now becomes the goal. Suddenly, you are told that your role as parent is to shut up and sit down. Do not even think about what the school's reading program is doing to the children, let alone comment.

______________

What is the goal of a school reading (and writing) program? The primary purpose of a school reading program is to assist all the students to become skillful readers. One becomes a skillful reader by developing good habits, and employing them always. The skillful reader rejects bad reading habits. Similarly, the good school reading program instills in all the students good reading habits and discourages poor reading techniques that can become bad reading habits. Some maintain the specific reading program utilized does not make any difference. Does it? Research, mentioned below and in my earlier letter, says that it does.

The principal habit a reading program must inculcate in the students is consistent, day-in, day-out use of "word recognition" skills that are effective in the long run. How to do this is the subject of this letter.

______________

In a nutshell, the primary problem with The Brooks Hill School program for teaching students to read is that the children are taught and encouraged to use look-and-say "word recognition" techniques. Look-and-say techniques include whole word memorization without regard to phonetic pronounceability and word guessing techniques (trying to "read" the word not by sounding it out but by guessing what word it is using visual cues such as the first letter of the word, the ending, the shape of the word, little familiar words in the middle, and the context, including pictures). To read well, a child must master effective "word recognition" skills. Word recognition skills are, as the name implies, skills used to read individual words, especially unfamiliar words. Word recognition skills are the essential bedrock of reading. The most important element of a truly successful program for the teaching of children to read is the development in all of the children of the habit of consistently using effective word recognition skills. Not all word recognition techniques are equally useful. Phonics skills are invaluable. Ironically, the presence of irregularly spelled words in written English does not provide the basis for a good argument against the use of phonics as the word recognition technique to use in the teaching of reading and writing. To the contrary, when phonics is taught as the word recognition method, and it is taught early on, directly, intensively, and systematically, it becomes an extremely powerful tool for the reader to infer the correct pronunciation of irregular words. Dr. Groff's book is so insightful that I have obtained a copy for you, which I enclose herewith. I have also enclosed, with Dr. Groff's blessing, a copy of his paper "Modern Phonics Instruction", published in 1989, and designed as ERIC document number ED 328 900. Please also see Rudolph Flesch, Ph.D., Why Johnny Still Can't Read (Harper Collins, 1981), p. 97. If you react to all this sounding out by saying, "Gee, I don't sound out words when I'm reading - this doesn't make sense!", remember that beginning readers do not read the way fluent adult readers do. Please see Why Johnny Still Can't Read, pp. 32-36. Look-and-say techniques for word recognition are not skills at all, but rather are obstacles to skillful reading. When taught in the reading program, look-and-say techniques become bad habits that undermine and erode valuable phonics word recognition skills, to the detriment of the children.

Although approaches to teaching reading and writing English are myriad, the approaches currently in use can be divided into two groups, differentiated by their recommended word recognition techniques. I refer to these two groups as the two "methods" of teaching reading and writing English. As I mentioned in my earlier letter and as described above, one is most commonly called the "whole word" method, or look-and-say. The other is phonics. As I also stated before, the method used at The Brooks Hill School is best described as look-and-say with supplemental phonics. The teaching of look-and-say reading techniques with supplemental phonics is bad because the habits taught look-and-say students, whole word memorization without regard to phonetic pronounceability, and word guessing techniques, are antithetical to the phonics process of instilling in the child a pervasive phonetic awareness of our magnificent language and the habit of consistently using phonics to "decode" words accurately and easily. Skillful readers can do this, poor ones cannot. We create poor readers by separating children from their phonetic awareness of our written language early on, and by teaching them that word guessing is acceptable, allowing this terrible habit of word guessing to take root with the blessing of the teacher and to flourish. This makes for many halting, uncertain readers who must rely upon context to guess at what they are reading, disrupting their attention and making the task of interpreting the passage, discerning its meaning, more difficult. "The primary goal of beginning instruction on printed word identification is to teach students about spelling patterns and how these patterns map onto the sounds and meanings of words." Marilyn Jager Adams, Ph.D., Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print, A Summary (Center for the Study of Reading, The Reading Research and Education Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1990), pp. 89-91. The Summary was prepared by Steven A. Stahl, Jean Osborn, and Fran Lehr.

Your letter does not compare phonics and look-and-say; rather, it skirts the principal issue raised by my letter: whether we should jettison look-and-say and emphasize phonics. Although look-and-say and phonics are not compared in your letter, the letter does contain the following direct comments on word recognition techniques: "...the most pervasive problem afflicting much elementary instruction in the past has been a narrow focus on the acquisition of discrete academic skills - the ability to decode a word, punctuate a sentence...to the exclusion of more thought provoking content exploration that taps the child's real world experiences, feelings, and interests" ; "[t]he pushing down of such skill focused academic program into the kindergarten and preschool years and the inappropriate reliance on passive rote learning are major concerns in need of correction"; "...phonics is a valuable tool for a beginning reader..." (emphasis in original); "[p]honics is an important element in the teaching of reading, but it should never be allowed to become the whole program"; and your statements that "successful initial literacy programs" should "...[i]nclude a phonics component that is presented early and kept simple..." and "...[p]resent 'Keyword' lists of those words that are not phonetically decodable and yet are most frequently visible in written text... ."

Although the term is not used in your letter, your letter sets forth the rationale for a "whole language" reading curriculum, referenced in your letter as "this multifaceted approach" used at The Brooks Hill School. [You may prefer to label the Brooks Hill program as the "thinking curriculum" (which is the term used in the California Department of Education publication It's Elementary!, mentioned in your letter to me, to describe the curriculum the Department advocates for use in California, and which your letter advocates for the Brooks Hill School). The "thinking curriculum" incorporates the whole language approach to reading instruction within the context of a curriculum intended to stimulate thought, and the following comments about the whole language approach apply equally to the "thinking curriculum".] Unfortunately, as is true of other similar descriptions of the whole language approach (and the It's Elementary! description of the "thinking curriculum"), your description begs the most important question: within the context of this "rich environment," without reference to look-and-say or phonics word recognition techniques, what techniques does the whole language approach specify the children shall be taught to use in order initially to learn most words and to read unfamiliar words? The answer is: none. The description of the whole language (or "thinking curriculum") program by itself, without reference to look-and-say or phonics, does not provide the teacher with any technique for use by the child in initially learning words or reading unfamiliar words, but word recognition is the foundation of reading. For this reason in my letter to the Head of School I refer to the whole language approach as a "so-called" method of teaching reading. The whole language (or "thinking curriculum") approach by itself without look-and-say or phonics word recognition techniques is not truly a method of teaching how to read or write at all.

My letter to the Head of School compared word recognition techniques in phonics and look-and-say: sounding out verses whole word memorization and guessing. I argued that sounding out is good; but whole word memorization without regard to the phonetic basis of words, and visual cue and contextual guessing are bad. I pointed out that unfortunately whole word memorization without regard to phonetic pronounceability and visual cue and contextual guessing are regularly taught and encouraged at Brooks Hill. At the end of my letter, I mentioned that the whole language approach is used at Brooks Hill, but I chose not to comment on it at length because what is most important by far is the word recognition techniques taught the children, not the context in which they are taught.

Instead of addressing the controversy over word recognition techniques, your letter concentrated on delineating the principles of the whole language "thinking curriculum" approach, describing what you believe to be the context in which reading should be taught. As appears to be the case with most whole language programs, the administration's conscious effort in The Brooks Hill School reading program is primarily concentrated on efforts to create a connected, thought-provoking reading environment, but with an inconsistent, grab-bag approach to word recognition. This approach is fallout from, and a reaction to, the domination of look-and-say basal reading programs over many years in the United States. We can retain the thought-provoking elements of the Brooks Hill program and still establish a consistent program: (1) encouraging the proper development of essential word recognition reading and spelling habits (that is, the decoding and encoding [pronouncing out and spelling] skills of phonics); and (2) discouraging bad reading habits (look-and-say whole word memorization and visual cue and contextual guessing). The word recognition skill development portion of the reading program is the critical foundation for other elements (you discussed at length in your letter) designed to recognize and encourage thinking among our children. Reading research shows that a systematic program where children learn to use phonics principles consistently to decode (pronounce out; read) and encode (spell; write) is superior to look-and-say initial word memorization and later word guessing. A phonics-based program in kindergarten and throughout the School does not have to exclude thought provoking content exploration. Quite to the contrary, a child who becomes a skillful reader through the use of phonics is more capable of thought provoking content exploration than the look-and-say guesser. This will be addressed more fully later in this letter. The effects of the different approaches on children are very real, and often tragic in the case of look-and-say students.

It is surprising that whole language advocates apparently usually fail to recognize that the whole language approach is not a method of teaching how to read individual words. "The ability to read does not emerge spontaneously, but through regular and active engagement with print." Children do not learn to read by osmosis. Whole language advocates gloss over that in a whole language classroom, within the context of the "rich environment," the teacher must still teach the children techniques of how to read individual words. When a child encounters an unfamiliar word, she must either pronounce it out using the principles of phonics or look at the first letter, the ending, the shape of the word, the context (including pictures), and/or already known smaller words in the middle, and guess what the word is. Whether a child is in a whole language classroom or a non-whole language classroom, he must still read and write individual words. Word recognition techniques must be taught the children. The issue of which word recognition techniques should be taught our children cannot be avoided. The School should choose, as a matter of policy, the techniques to be taught. After all, "[r]eading is the core of the whole academic program" at Brooks Hill and all academic schools.

On page three of your letter, you list what you assert are ten elements of successful initial literacy programs. A phonics-based program does not have to exclude real-life literature. Children can keep journals and read and write about subjects of interest to them. What is important is that from the beginning children are systematically taught the phonics skills they need to know, and are taught to use those skills consistently (to the exclusion of look-and-say techniques) to read individual words. Thinking about and discussing the meaning of written language should be a part of any reading curriculum. In order truly to understand the meaning of a text the child must be able to read the text accurately. A phonics-based program need not neglect literacy program elements you have identified that may prove useful. People who know phonics need to listen to the Brooks Hill children read aloud to assess their phonetic awareness and the status of their reading habits. After all, reading is the core of the whole academic program. We cannot accept the argument that Brooks Hill School does not have enough time in the school day to conduct a proper reading program including one that is intended to undo what has been done under look-and-say. It can be done. I suspect that if the surface is scratched on this issue with the parents that a cadre of reading improvement assistants would become available. I hereby enthusiastically volunteer! As Dr. Chall mentions in her enclosed paper, teacher education in phonics rules and how to teach them is critically important. A phonics-based program that rejects look-and-say habits enables the child to read accurately and to write precisely. This gives the child confidence and frees her or him to concentrate on, and to think about, the meaning of texts, whether a text is presented to the child, or the child (with or without peers) creates the text himself or herself.

It is ironic that the look-and-say program bills itself as the "meaning-emphasis" method as opposed to phonics-first, the "code-emphasis" method, since the look-and-say child often becomes an imprecise guesser, a poor reader, using guessing techniques that inhibit, rather than foster reading comprehension. "In summary, deep and thorough knowledge of letters, spelling patterns, and words, as well as the phonological translations of all three, are of inescapable importance to both skillful reading and its acquisition. By extension, instruction designed to develop students' sensitivity to spellings and their relations to pronunciations should be of paramount importance in the development of skillful reading. This is, of course, precisely the goal of good phonics instruction." Dr. Adams's cited work, pp. 116-117. Thus, look-and-say is not meaning centered, it is guessing centered.

As I touched upon in my earlier letter, the pure whole language advocate rejects the use of modern reading textbooks, known as basal readers. The Brooks Hill School is not condemned by unavailability of alternatives to use the look-and-say Ladybird and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich basal readers and look-and-say spelling workbooks. To provide one alternative, I have enclosed herewith an Educators Publishing Service, Inc., K-12 catalog, which presents many readers, workbooks, and other materials for a phonics-based school reading (and writing) program. I would be happy to bring to your attention other phonics-based materials if that would be helpful. In rejecting look-and-say basal readers as the foundation of the reading program, whole language proponents maintain they are teaching reading in a fundamentally different way from the basal reader-based classroom. What these individuals fail to realize, however, is that the primary, and by far the most important, characteristic distinguishing one reading program from another is the word recognition techniques taught. When a child is taught to memorize words, whole word by whole word, without regard to phonetic pronounceability, and taught to guess at unfamiliar words, using cues such as the first letter, the ending, etc., the reading program is bad for the child, whether it is based upon vocabulary-controlled basal readers or children's literature and the child's real world experiences. Children should be taught to sound out consistently virtually all words, even irregular ones; however, usually whole language practitioners (including those at Brooks Hill School) continue to use pervasive initial whole word memorization without regard to phonetic pronounceability and word guessing techniques of look-and-say. Since the word recognition techniques used in a reading program constitute its defining characteristic, it is wrong to lump together look-and-say basal reader-based instruction and traditional classroom phonics-first instruction as though they were more similar to each other than whole language is to either one.

This mistaken attitude of the whole language proponent is dramatically demonstrated in Daniel Gursky's article "After the Reign of Dick and Jane," found in the August, 1991 Teacher Magazine, which you kindly provided to me last school year after I suggested that The Brooks Hill School adopt a phonics-first program. The "Dick and Jane" readers referenced by Author Gursky were look-and-say readers developed by Professor William S. Gray of the University of Chicago after he was asked in 1929 by Scott, Foresman & Company to revamp their Elson Readers. As recounted by Dr. Flesch, "A year later, Professor Gates joined up with Macmillan and produced a look-and-say series for them. Gradually most major textbook houses fell in line and the 'Dismal Dozen' of basal readers came into being." These look-and-say basal readers have dominated the teaching of reading in the United States since earlier this century with disastrous results. Dr. Flesch includes within his Dismal Dozen the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich basal readers used at The Brooks Hill School above the level of kindergarten (Brooks Hill kindergarten classrooms use the Ladybird look-and-say readers, which I discuss later in this letter.). Author Gursky describes whole language as being opposed to "[a] system built around basal readers and standardized textbooks...", but within any system, the children must be taught techniques of how to read individual words. A whole language system incorporating look-and-say guessing techniques is much more similar to a basal reader look-and-say program than a phonics-first program which discourages guessing, since by far the most important elements of any reading program are the techniques taught for reading individual words.

Back to your letter: you state that successful initial literacy programs should "[p]resent 'Keyword' lists of those words that are not phonetically decodable and yet are most frequently visible in written text." I have commented elsewhere in this letter on the utility of phonics in encouraging children to decode irregular words for themselves, rather than simply memorizing them without reference to phonics, which is what I assume you mean when you say the words should be "presented" to the children: they should be "presented" with instructions to memorize. Here is what Dr. Flesch has to say about this practice:

Your description of successful initial literacy programs does not state that the children should be taught regular, phonetically decodable words, whole word by whole word, by memorizing the shape of the word (instead of the phonics method of putting together the sounds of the letters and groups of letters, and sounding the word out), but this look-and-say method of whole word memorization is taught with approval and used extensively at Brooks Hill School.

A glaring and extremely important example of the use of this look-and-say principle is found in the Ladybird look-and-say basal readers, a staple of Brooks Hill kindergarten reading instruction. In the first volume, 1a, the child is taught to memorize (using repeated exposure to the words in a "story" with accompanying pictures), as whole words, the following: "Peter", "Jane", "and", "here", "is", "the", "dog", "likes", "I", "a", "shop", "toy", "in", "has", "ball", and "tree". Other than "the" and "a", these are all regular, phonetically decodable words. This technique of whole word memorization of phonetically decodable words, without prior or simultaneous applicable phonetic instruction, is used throughout the Ladybird series, the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich series, and Brooks Hill Lower School. If the Brooks Hill initial literacy program is set forth in numbered elements on page three of your letter, we should add to that description: "11. Require children to memorize whole, word by word, by their shape, words that otherwise would be fully phonetically decodable and encodable by phonics. This process should begin in kindergarten, when children are otherwise learning that their spoken language is phonetically encoded in their written language; and should continue, through hundreds of words, throughout the Lower School."

It is worthwhile to think for a moment about the effect of this characteristic of the Ladybird series on children. At a time (in kindergarten) when a child is still becoming thoroughly familiar with the sounds of letters; when she should be learning about the short vowels and the consonants, how they can blend together and the syllables they can form (many of which are words; for instance: cat, bad, bet, met, pit, dim, lot, doll, fun, gut), the child is drawn away from her developing awareness of the phonetic nature of our written language, and instead is told to memorize a group of words by their shape, without being instructed about how the words are constructed phonetically. At a time when a child should be figuring out on his own the word "pet" because she has learned the sounds of "p", "e", and "t" and can blend them together, she is told to memorize that P,e,t,e, and r together make the word "Peter" as we pronounce it, without any phonetic explanation. At this point typically the child knows nothing about long vowels or that the first "e" in Peter is long because the word is syllabicated before the first internal consonant, leaving a vowel (the first "e") at the end of the first syllable, thus making it long. She would not have been instructed that "er" at the end of word usually is pronounced "rrr". Similarly, the child is taught "Jane" as a whole, before she knows of the long "a", and before the child knows of the silent "e" at the end of the word that makes the "a" say its name (its sound as a long vowel instead of a short vowel). The other words in the reader, no matter how phonetically decodable they may be, are also taught as wholes without prior or simultaneous explanation of their phonetic structures. Phonics, instead of being primary, comes nonsystematically, too little, and too late in the Ladybird series.

Thus, just at a time when we should be impressing strongly upon the child that our language is phonetically written, and that the child can have a great time figuring out words on his or her own (and develop of love of reading), we are working against the development of this critical awareness and consistent use of the phonics thinking process by pollution with techniques that work against phonetic awareness. The use of this phonics awareness-destroying method is particularly distressing when the child does not even know the phonics rules governing the pronunciation and spelling of the word. Teaching "Jane" as a whole when the child knows nothing of long "a" and how the letter becomes long in its pronunciation by its relationship to other letters in our written language, without any explanation, works against the phonics lessons and can lead to confusion and distrust of phonics as the reliable method of encoding our spoken language into writing. It becomes a self-fulfilling (and tragic) prophesy of the need and appropriateness of look-and-say whole word memorization.

In a phonics-based program, a child would not be presented with the word "Jane" and be told what it is (This is the Ladybird series look-and-say technique.); rather, he or she would be taught about long vowels and the effect of the silent "e" at the end, and would be encouraged to read the word himself. The phonics-first reading method is the one that truly requires and stimulates thought with precision. Look-and-say, not phonics, is based upon "passive rote learning". Phonics requires the child to figure out words on his or her own by sounding them out. When a child is taught that phonics is the method to use in figuring out new words, it is fun and successful. As I have said before, it is a detective game, and, without exaggeration, one of the greatest of all.

Ask yourself, if you will, what is the purpose of having kindergartners read from the Ladybird series, memorizing whole words instead of phonetically decoding them themselves? There is absolutely no benefit whatsoever to the children in this process. To the contrary, it is crippling. In the words of Dr. Flesch:

The phonics-first versus look-and-say controversy reminds me of the dichotomy between two persons looking at the same glass with desired liquid in it, one seeing it as half-full, and the other seeing it as half-empty. The phonics-first proponent sees that the vast majority of our written language is phonetically encoded. Typically, the phonics-first advocate loves the written English language, respecting its diverse origins and consequent sound spelling variations. To him or her it is extremely painful to sit with a child as the child guesses at unfamiliar written words that are perfectly phonetically pronounceable and well within the child's abilities to read correctly. The child stumbles along, making error after guessing error, having great difficulty in being able to attend to the meaning of the passage, when he or she could be reading perfectly, having fun doing it, and understanding fully the meaning of the text. The salt in the gaping wound of he who understands and appreciates that phonics is the key to learning how to read is that the child, in guessing instead of pronouncing out words, is doing exactly what he or she is explicitly taught to do in school! At The Brooks Hill School, for many students guessing is the order of the day when it comes to unfamiliar words.

The look-and-say advocate, on the other hand, sees the English language as half-empty. He or she focuses on the irregular written words, those that are not fully phonetically decodable, to justify his or her major dissatisfaction with our written language. The look-and-say advocate does not see the usefulness of a reading program that systematically teaches the children all the most important rules of phonics and then lets the children loose on our written language, our literature, and the children's own creations. The look-and-say attitude toward the written English language is that it is a mess from the word go. Look-and-say proponents are so separated from their own phonetic awareness of the written language they do not realize that phonics is the key to learning how to read. Instead of teaching children the principles of phonics and telling them to figure out (using sounding out skills) the pronunciation of written words, they teach the written language word by whole word, as though English were Chinese, which has a non-alphabetic, non-phonetic written language. Look-and-say advocates even teach the children that the preferred method of "attacking" (a look-and-say term) unfamiliar written words is to guess at them. One gets the sense that in look-and-say the written English language is not loved, it is feared, perhaps even hated.

As any knowledgeable tennis player knows, an individual being taught tennis should be taught how to approach the ball properly and how correctly to execute strokes. It does not matter where the student's strengths and weaknesses lie. Everyone should be taught the proper techniques. It is not considered acceptable for the instructor to tell the students: "Here are the proper techniques, however it just as good and acceptable simply to hack at the ball without following the proper techniques." If this were common teaching, there would be many more formless hackers among instructed players.

In look-and-say with supplemental phonics, the children are exposed to phonics in a piecemeal, nonsystematic, nonextensive, denigrated fashion. They are taught that in approaching unfamiliar words they need not use phonics, they can guess, they can "hack" at the word, using visual cues of the first letter of the word, the ending, little words in the middle, the shape of the word, and the context, including pictures, to guess at the pronunciation of the word. Really, they are not even guessing "at the pronunciation", but are guessing at what the word is. Children are human. When they are given the option of learning the rules and using them with precision to figure out the pronunciation of unfamiliar words, or guessing, not surprisingly many become chronic guessers. In look-and-say parlance, these unfortunates are known as "contextual readers." The sad part is that the Brooks Hill reading program creates these contextual readers. One gets the impression that the look-and-say teacher sees the contextual reader as a reader in a normal state, rather than one who has developed a bad habit that needs effort from the teacher (and the student and the parents) to change. There is such a lack of awareness that phonics is the proper word recognition method, and thus the cure for the contextual reader, that the category of contextual readers is seen as just another "normal" category, similar to the categories of "visual" learners and "auditory" learners; "global perceivers" and "analytical thinkers", which categories are still wrongly cited by look-and-say proponents for the proposition that different children require different instructional methods (different word recognition techniques). See Dr. Adams's cited work, p. 37, and Chapter 8, "No One Method Is Best", in Dr. Flesch's Why Johnny Still Can't Read. Although learning phonics well at first takes more work, in the long run it makes reading easier and much more fun. As Dr. Chall points out in her position paper for the Secretary of Education transmitted herewith, much of the criticism of phonics instruction appears to be based upon the perception that learning phonics is dull and uninteresting, but as Dr. Chall points out in her paper, when taught properly the learning of phonics can be interesting. As a phonics teacher (of my children) I know that learning phonics can be lots of fun, fascinating, stimulating, and invigorating. It requires thought and promotes healthy brain activity. There is a great passage on page 74 of Dr. Flesch's Why Johnny Can't Read, which I heartily commend to you. As Dr. Flesch remarks, any normal youngster loves to learn letters and sounds. Children are not small-sized adults. The meaning comes through loud and clear. In reading, as in most other human activities, one can develop good habits or bad habits. We should take the time to figure out which are good habits and which are bad, and design our reading program so that good habits are developed in all the children, and bad habits discouraged. We cannot just throw all word recognition techniques at the children and expect the good habits to predominate. Just because an approach is multi-faceted does not mean that it is better than one without so many facets, especially if facets work against each other. It takes consistent effort to instill the good habits, and consistent vigilance to root out the bad. The second sentence quoted is a bit more cryptic. How could phonics, or the teaching of phonics, dominate over time spent on making meaning from text? If this means that phonics should be the word recognition technique taught, but substantial time should be spent on other elements of deriving meaning from text, other than word recognition: well, if phonics has been sufficiently overlearned so that the child has developed consistent habits enabling her or him to decode written words quickly and easily, as a skillful reader can, then spend lots of time on other elements of reading. On the other hand, if "time spent on making meaning from text" means time spent teaching look-and-say word recognition techniques of whole word memorization without regard to phonetic pronounceability and word guessing techniques, using the first letter of the word, its shape, little words in the middle, the ending, etc., then that is another matter altogether, and it is the subject of this letter.

This is the second major problem with look-and-say, after whole word memorization without regard to phonics: children are taught to be anticipatory readers and to guess at unfamiliar words (using the first letter of the word, the ending, little words in the middle, the shape, and the context) instead of pronouncing them out with precision by the use of phonics. The Brooks Hill School teaches its Lower School students that it is expected, normal, and good for them to use regularly this look-and-say word guessing method. As a result, in many a child, phonetic awareness and his or her ability consistently to use phonics atrophies. The good habit of the skillful reader is not formed because the bad habit is permitted and even encouraged. Often, the child becomes a contextual reader, misreading "Valerie" for "Victoria," "kind" for "kid," and making endless other pathetic mistakes. Look-and-say teachers describe this manifestation of "look-and-say disease" (Dr. Flesch's phrase) as though it were perfectly normal, without any sense of responsibility for its development or its elimination, having no idea that the problem is caused by the school's look-and-say reading program. (See Chapter 12, "Your Child Is Disabled", in Why Johnny Still Can't Read by Dr. Flesch.) Of course, the child becomes a contextual reader (a poor reader) not because of some genetic predisposition, but because the School does not consistently teach phonics as the method of reading unfamiliar words, but rather encourages the child to guess at words from imprecise visual cues and context. This is a very poor way to teach reading. This is the Brooks Hill method. Brooks Hill children are given look-and-say spelling workbooks where the words are not grouped according to spelling patterns at all, and where the children are taught simply to memorize the words and pay particular attention to their shapes. This diverts the attention of the students from attempts to sound the words out and pay attention to their spelling patterns. Some look-and-say instructors think that because computers now have spell-checking capabilities that learning correct spelling is not extremely important. Actually, knowledge of spelling and particularly spelling patterns remains of great importance. I will not take the time to explain this in detail here, but one can imagine the effect that poor spelling has on a child's willingness and desire to write, and the effect it has on the child's self-image. So, if the Brooks Hill initial literacy program is set forth in numbered elements on page three of your letter, we should add to that description, in addition to my suggested paragraph 11: "12. Tell the children that they need not use phonics to sound out unfamiliar words, that they may instead guess at unfamiliar words, using visual cues, such as the first letter of the word, its ending, little words in the middle, the shape of the word, and its context."

The use of the Ladybird series at The Brooks Hill School is one demonstration that elements 11 and 12 set forth above are elements of The Brooks Hill School initial literacy program. The Ladybird series may be cornerstone of the Brooks Hill look-and-say reading program, but it is by no means the only look-and-say element. It is accompanied by other pervasive manifestations. We must ask ourselves: should our school allow teachers to teach word guessing, by using visual cues such as the first letter of the word, its ending, little familiar words in the middle, the shape of the word, and by attending to the context, including the pictures? Or instead, should teachers learn the principles of phonics themselves, and use every opportunity to teach the children habitually to use phonics as their word recognition technique?

Most written word pronunciation irregularities are vowel pronunciation subtleties. As earlier mentioned, readers who use phonics consistently can first pronounce the unfamiliar written word phonetically. Then, in a split second the reader is aware that the written word's pronunciation does not fit within the reader's spoken vocabulary. Usually a different pronunciation does, and the word is recognized as irregular. One of the benefits of knowing phonics well and using it consistently is that one comes to know the irregular words well. One becomes familiar with the process of being at first aware of the phonetic pronunciation of the word, comparing it against one's spoken (and later written) vocabulary and one's developed knowledge of written spelling variations, and then and only then using the context to "puzzle out" the word.

In addition to eliminating instruction in look-and-say word recognition techniques, we need to vastly increase, and systematize, the time the teachers spend in explicitly teaching phonics word recognition techniques, including syllabication (which is important to learn), and in assisting students to learn to apply phonics consistently in identifying new words; to develop the "phonics habit." This is not just a kindergarten activity---it should be a major, time-consuming, every day, actual teaching activity of every teacher in every class throughout the Lower School, until all the children in the class are truly skillful readers. Even then, it should not be ignored or forgotten. Teachers should learn the rules of phonics and learn how best to teach them systematically in the classroom.

It is a mistake to continue teaching through the use of the look-and-say basal readers, but it is a bigger mistake to retain them and to continue largely to limit phonics instruction to the presentations in, and worksheets accompanying the look-and-say basal readers at Brooks Hill. I realize there are many goals to accomplish in very limited time at school, but "[r]eading is the core of the whole academic program" and the mastery of phonics word recognition skills is essential to becoming an excellent reader.

"If only basal and phonics instruction were consistently and carefully designed in support of one another, these conflicts might disappear, and the situation would be significantly improved.

"However, even this would not provide a total cure. There is a deeper problem here: As material to be taught or learned, individual letter-sound correspondences and phonic generalizations are, when divorced from the rest of the reading situation, inherently difficult. Moreover, to be useful, individual letter-sound correspondences or phonic generalizations must not merely be learned, they must be overlearned such that they are instantly and effortlessly available to readers. But overlearning requires lots of practice and review and, therefore, lots of time." Dr. Adams's cited work, p. 114.

"Because the phonics instruction in basal reading programs is so often mismatched with the rest of the program, thinking teachers may well downplay it. They may find that the other pages and the stories of the basal program provide a greater sense of purpose, direction, and achievement. The structure of the basal program may appear clearer than that defined by the schedule and progression of phonics lessons.

"The downplaying of phonics instruction may also be traced to management considerations. The amount of class time that can be spent on reading is limited. Listening to students' oral reading requires teacher time, but most phonics activities in workbooks do not. Thus, from the viewpoint of the teacher, one way to maximize the time available is to relegate phonics exercises to seatwork.

"For students who already know considerable phonics, this practice may not be the best solution. For students less well prepared, it may be a big mistake. Investigators have found repeatedly that the degree of engagement or attention that students invest in their schoolwork is directly related to how much they learn. [Citation omitted] Seatwork is associated with lower levels of engagement and achievement. High levels of student engagement and classroom achievement are associated with teacher-led activities. [Citation omitted] In the early grades, the amount of time students are engaged in teacher-led instruction on phonics is a strong predictor of their reading achievement." (Emphasis added.) Dr. Adams's cited work, pp. 111-112.

There appears to be a great urgency in the whole language approach to expose children very early in the reading program with "connected text" that is not structured so as to develop good phonics reading habits. In contrast, in the beginning of a phonics-based program, usually exposure of the student to irregular words is limited to none at all, or a very few extremely common words. Initially, the emphasis is placed on the child reading phonetically pronounced syllables and short words, using repetition of onsets (letter blends that begin words) and rhymes, and emphasizing sounding out and successive blending.

"To a large extent, the instructional value of rimes has been implicitly recognized in many reading programs. In code-emphasis programs, words are usually presented with other words sharing the same rime, and this is true whether or not phonograms were methodically practiced or explicitly acknowledged in the instructional plan. Such introduction of words with similar spelling-sound correspondences allows for new words to be introduced more rapidly. To the extent that words in a story share spelling-sound patterns, each may be conquered more easily. [Citation omitted]

"In contrast, within meaning-emphasis [look-and-say] programs, words are typically selected on the basis of frequency or need, and rarely on shared rimes. As a consequence, their stories provide less focused exercise of spelling patterns. In such programs words tend to be remembered on the basis of such cues as shape, length, and initial letter. [Citation omitted]" Dr. Adams's cited work, p. 86.

This last paragraph gives a perfect description of the Ladybird series, which is the foundation of The Brooks Hill School look-and-say reading program.

"The dilemma is tragic. Teachers give students phonics practice to enable them to recognize words independently and with sufficient ease so that their attention and interest can be focused on the meaning of what they read. At the same time, teachers provide students with connected text to enable them to understand the purpose and value of the phonics lessons through applying what they have learned. In practice, however, it seems that teachers often lose sight of the goals behind their plans. The initial activities in connected reading tend to compete with or even to displace the word recognition skills they were intended, in part, to develop." Dr. Adams's cited work, p. 112. It is important that initial reading activities that promote good reading habits (phonetic analysis and decoding of words) be selected.

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Initial reading activities that are limited to phonetically pronounced syllables and short words, that repeat onsets and rhymes, and emphasize the development of phonics skills do not constitute intellectual crawling; they are well-designed exercises for the proper development of good reading habits. The overlearning, from the start, of the good habit of the use of phonics in word recognition develops a rock solid foundation for the student's lifetime of skillful reading. After all, the other option is to include look-and-say word recognition techniques. Those guessing techniques, taught right from the start in kindergarten at Brooks Hill in the Ladybird series, are the furthest one can get from intellectual walking or running. A look-and-say child is given a foundation of sand on which to build his or her reading life.

I am not suggesting "a narrow focus on the acquisition of discrete academic skills...to the exclusion of more thought provoking exploration..." (November 2nd letter, page 1); nor am I suggesting "[s]ingle-minded concentration of the mechanics of reading and mathematics to the exclusion of how these subjects can inform or stimulate children's interest in school." (November 2nd letter, page 2)

The development of the phonics habit is not "passive rote learning." To the contrary, unlike look-and-say and the Ladybird series, in phonics instruction typically the child is not told what a word is and instructed to memorize it by shape. Instead the child learns the sounds of the letters and letter combinations and figures out words on his own. Phonics, unlike look-and-say, is intellectually stimulating and confidence-building. Look-and-say is memorization and guesswork.

In my October 26, 1992 letter I commented upon the salutary effects of learning to read and write through phonics on our ability to think clearly and to analyze with confidence. In his provocative book, The Alphabet Effect: The Impact of the Phonetic Alphabet on the Development of Western Civilization, Dr. Robert K. Logan, a physics professor at the University of Toronto, cross-appointed to the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, argues:

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To avoid writing on interminably, I am not going to interpret here and comment upon the other remarks in your letter, except your reference to professional development videos and the International Reading Association. Your letter indicates that the Brooks Hill teachers see professional development videos featuring accepted leaders in the forefront of an unspecified reading reform movement. If these videos explain that look-and-say word recognition techniques are bad and phonics good, then I congratulate you. If they are videos by whole language proponents, then I ask: what word recognition skills do they promote?

As far as the International Reading Association is concerned, Dr. Flesch points out in Why Johnny Still Can't Read (at pp. 112-113) that this organization was one of the signatories of an "anti-phonics manifesto" as far back as 1977. I would be delighted to read, however, any materials the Association would make available to me regarding the look-and-say versus phonics word recognition controversy.

After the receipt of your November 2nd letter I ordered the preliminary program for the International Reading Association annual convention of April 26-30, 1993. To give an historical perspective, I note that the first president of the International Reading Association was William S. Gray, mentioned above as the author of the Dick and Jane look-and-say readers.

The International Reading Association convention itself consisted of numerous meetings of the thousands of participants including approximately 27 "institutes," 117 "sessions," 77 meetings in the "Chapter I Series," 11 "co-sponsored" meetings, 13 research reports, 68 symposia, 49 poster sessions, 45 meetings of special interest groups, various sessions on International Reading Association publications, 5 sessions on "outstanding" dissertations, and 76 microworkshops (one of which, "Reading the Earth," was given by the two Good Hope third grade teachers and Marcia Taylor).

A review of the descriptions of these various meetings reveal a paucity of discussion about phonics, but a tremendous interest in whole language. The International Reading Association is clearly in line with the mainstream methods of teaching reading in the United States, which are sorely lacking.

Again, Ms Smith, let me express my good wishes for you and all the teachers and administrators at our school. Shall we start by getting rid of the Ladybird series?

Cordially,

Edward Haskins Jacobs