<a href="../97/10/russia.txt">DIRECT INSTRUCTION IS USED IN
RUSSIA</a> "I was educated in Russia where everybody (with the
exception of severely retarded and emotionally disturbed children)
was taught through direct instruction techniques.  Reading problems
are unheard of in Russia.  Everyone reads by age eight."

From:             Kramer_N <Kramer_N@BLS.GOV>
To:               educan <EDUCAN@admin.humberc.on.ca>, McNee <mcnee@rapid.co.uk>
Copies to:        ECC <education-consumers@tricon.net>
Subject:          RE: Reading Recovery/  Waste...
Date sent:        Wed, 24 Dec 1997 11:18:59 -0500

DISTAR is simply old-fashioned sequenced systematic instruction.  It
worked then; it works now!  If you want a child to learn his 3 R's, you
better teach him in a systematic manner.  You explain the rules (one at
a time and in order of increasing difficulty), make him practice, make
him practice again, and check to see if he has gotten it.  If he hasn't,
make him practice more, and then recheck.  Keep reintroducing and
reinforcing.  Supply ample practice and application.  That's all there
is to it!  I have a child who is getting the whole language...stuff in
his English class.  When he comes home from school, I teach him
spelling, sentence structure, usage, etc. using the above instruction
methods.  He is the only one in his class who can write.

It is sad to see that such a common-sense idea was rejected in favor of
some obscure, unproved fads and that people are seriously discussing
Reading Recovery.  Teach the kids the first time around and there will
not be any need for Reading Recovery or any other large scale remedial
teaching.  I was educated in Russia where everybody (with the exception
of severely retarded and emotionally disturbed children) was taught
through direct instruction techniques.  Reading problems are unheard of
in Russia.  Everyone reads by age eight.   Other disciplines are taught
directly as well.  Direct instruction is especially effective in
teaching math, sciences and writing.  When a Russian child is
transplanted into an American school, he is five years ahead of his new
classmates.  If it ain't broke, do fix it!

Natalie Kramer
Mom turned tutor

----------
From:   McNee [SMTP:mcnee@rapid.co.uk]
Sent:  lundi 22 décembre 1997 08:45
To:  educan
Cc:  ECC
Subject:  Reading Recovery/  Waste...

	I have no doubt that the supporters of Reading Recovery have
done their
best to present it favourably on the web.  It is the brainchild of Dame
Marie Clay, a former president of the International Reading Association
which,since it was set up,  has not done much to promote phonics.
Indeed,
because the IRA was promoting look-say so energetically, a group of New
York philanthropists set up the Reading Reform Foundation in 1961 to
counter the effects of the IRA.    Reading Recovery also comes from New
Zealand, which has managed to project an image of successful teaching of
reading - yet Whole Language (not phonics)  is MANDATED  in NZ state
schools - the failure must be great.  Doris Ferry ascribes the failure
of
the pupils brought to her  to neglect of phonics in NZ  schools, and
both
businesspeople and parents are concerned about poor literacy in NZ.
	Reading Recovery was introduced to Britain.  It is very
expensive, and now
after being used for some years, disenchantment has set  in.  Certainly
here in Britain there are better, cheaper programmes that were never
considered. I asked Dame Marie why the aim was INTERvention, and not
PREvention, and she replied that that was not her remit.  Even on
today's
net messages INTERvention is discussed, when most of today's special
needs
are in reading, and the failure could be prevented, is caused by neglect
of
phonics-first.  As someone wrote yesterday, getting it right first time
is
far easier than trying to fix things after bad habits and  self-doubt
have
developed.
	Warnings can be found from Bonnie Grossen, Gail Coulter and
Barbara
Ruggles, in OQE Forum Sept.1997; "Reading Recovery Research" from the
National Right to Read Foundation, VA;  "An analysis of the Empirical
Validity of Reading Recovery"  by Prof. Patrick Groff, Prof. Emeritus of
San Diego State U, available from Patrick Groff, Attention of Camille
Graphics Office, San Diego County Education Office   6401 Linda Vista
Road,
San Diego, CA $10.  The following (from the Language Foundation of
Australia newsletter) is a summary of Groff:
"It is clear that Reading Recovery  has unquestionable shortcomings in
methodology.
1. RR is based on unverified Whole Language programmes.  
2. Teachers of RR are warned against using sequences of any kind.
3. Students should "search" for what they think the text will say in a
'personalized search for meaning'.
4. Phonics is approached inan analytical way, starting with a word and
breaking it down, rather than starting with letters and building them
up. 
Phonics information has far less usefulness than context cues.  The
student
"must pick up detailed information about print for himself".
5. It assumes that children learn to read and write naturally as they
learn
to walk and speak. (Why, then, would we need RR?)
6. There is no control over spelling patterns or hierarchy of
difficulty,
under the assumption that all lphonic patterns are equally difficult and
can be learned at random.
7. The training of RR teachers is long and intensive with no objective
criteria of assessment.
				-------
Groff maintains that "On available figures (including Center et al.
Aust.
1995) a third of students fail on RR."
	Jennifer Chew (TES  March 24 1995) commented on a Thomas Coram
Research
Unit report on RR:  
"Over the 20 months of the study, the RR children had about twice as
much
time spent on them as the "phonological intervention" children, and 3 or
4
times as much time as the 'control groups'.  The RR children made only 8
months' progress in the past year of the project.  In other wirds, they
did
not even keep up with the clock after their special tuition.    ....
The
report is less than fair to the Direct Instruction (DISTAR) scheme.
...it
mentions two American studies as if they cast doubt on the long-term
effects of the scheme on children's comprehension.  The truth is that
both
studies are complimentary about DISTAR, and one showed positive effects,
even on comprehension, right up to 9th grade.
	Here are some more facts.  The 1994 Butterfly Project produced
an average
of 15 months' gain in reading age in three weeks.  Children were taught
in
groups and the cost was £250 per child.  (Remember that RR produced 17
months gain in reading age in 8 or 9 months, with individual tuition
costing more than £1,000 per child).
	A study in Cumbria which used a scheme involving "reading with
phonology"
produced a much better rate of improvement than RR.  "Phonological
intervention" is not genuine phonics teaching.  Good phonics teaching
can
ensure whole-school high standards, even in inner-city schools.  We are
still not being given fair comparisons between RR and the alternatives. 
The information is disturbingly partial, in both senses of the word."
				-----
	Why not try DISTAR, home-grown American? I think any good,
systematic
phonics programme would work for both initial and remedial teaching of
reading.  If there is any opportunity to try more than one  programme,
let
me know and I will send you  my intensive-phonics "Step by Step". 
Comparing results in terms of reading age, Improvement Ratio and
financial
cost is such an obvious thing to do, so why does it never happen?
The
very least that administrators should require before making a choice is
the
Improvement Ratio.  Given my own experience, and the Butterfly quoted
above, I reckon a minimum Improvement Ratio of 3 (I.R.3) (3 months' gain
of
reading age in 1 calendar month) should be expected/required, and
programmes should provide this information up front.  In the Cumbria
study
mentioned above, the I.R. of one component crept up to 2.1.
	I spent a morning watching a really good teacher taking 4
sessions of RR. 
He had all the right qualities of a teacher (in my opinion) BUT - he had
swallowed whole the procedures  of RR, and as I watched, I kept
thinking,
"What a pity he's not teaching intensive phonics."   I think he had
never
SEEN intensive phonics being taught. Mona.



EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE
EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE

From:             Kramer_N <Kramer_N@BLS.GOV>
To:               Eduction-Consumers <EDUCATION-CONSUMERS@tricon.net>,
        James Kilpatrick
	 <jimmyk@tenet.edu>
Subject:          RE: Reading Recovery/  Waste...
Date sent:        Wed, 24 Dec 1997 15:14:36 -0500

After WWII, the population was starved, bombed out of its housing,
displaced and impoverished.  During the four years of the war, many had
no schooling at all (I trust you are not familiar with the conditions of
"evacuation").  As soon as mandatory schooling resumed, literacy rates
climbed back to normal.  Russia's literacy rates are much higher than
the US's.  Many children were orphaned and raised in institutions.  My
husband worked with these children in an orphanage in Leningrad.  They
ALL learned to read with direct instruction once they were placed back
in schools.  I went to school in the sixties.  I was in classes of 35 to
40 students.  We could ALL read by age 8 with one exception.  A child of
two alcoholic parents (who had probably suffered from Fetal Alcohol
Syndrome) repeated a grade.  He learned to read by age 9.  If DISTAR
doesn't work, perhaps it is not used correctly.  You are not raining on
my parade, you are refusing to see the truth.  Direct instruction works
for all learners, especially the hard to teach ones.   No need to
reinvent the wheel.
Natalie Kramer
----------
From:  James Kilpatrick [SMTP:jimmyk@tenet.edu]
Sent:  mercredi 24 décembre 1997 14:52
To:  Kramer_N; Eduction-Consumers
Subject:  RE: Reading Recovery/  Waste...

>DISTAR is simply old-fashioned sequenced systematic instruction.  It
>worked then; it works now!  If you want a child to learn his 3 R's, you
>better teach him in a systematic manner.  You explain the rules (one at
>a time and in order of increasing difficulty), make him practice, make
>him practice again, and check to see if he has gotten it.  If he
hasn't,
>make him practice more, and then recheck.  Keep reintroducing and
>reinforcing.  Supply ample practice and application.  That's all there
>is to it!  I have a child who is getting the whole language...stuff in
>his English class.  When he comes home from school, I teach him
>spelling, sentence structure, usage, etc. using the above instruction
>methods.  He is the only one in his class who can write.

Hate to rain on anyone's parade but even with Distar there are a number
of
children that will not become good readers.

>
>It is sad to see that such a common-sense idea was rejected in favor of
>some obscure, unproved fads and that people are seriously discussing
>Reading Recovery.  Teach the kids the first time around and there will
>not be any need for Reading Recovery or any other large scale remedial
>teaching.  I was educated in Russia where everybody (with the exception
>of severely retarded and emotionally disturbed children) was taught
>through direct instruction techniques.  Reading problems are unheard of
>in Russia.  Everyone reads by age eight.   Other disciplines are taught
>directly as well.  Direct instruction is especially effective in
>teaching math, sciences and writing.  When a Russian child is
>transplanted into an American school, he is five years ahead of his new
>classmates.  If it ain't broke, do fix it!

It was the Russians after WWII that were puzzled about a large number of
children that were not learning to read. The research on phonmeic
awareness
began there. The replicated studies that have been on-going in the US
have
shown  that phonemic awareness is necessary but not sufficent in
learning
to read. The NICHD findings show that 17.6% of the population will have
problems so severe in learning to read they will quailify for special
services. In a study done in Austin, Texas (Juel,Gough,1987) showed
children not reading in first grade had only a 1 out of 8 chance on
reading
on level by fourth grade. These children had direct systematic phonics
geginning in first grade and followed through fourth grade. Any country
that has a phonics based system will have the same amount of reading
failures. The reality is that whole language has increased the number of
reading failures upwards on 50% of inner city children.

Merry Christmas,

Jimmy

>
>Natalie Kramer
>Mom turned tutor
>
>----------
>From:   McNee [SMTP:mcnee@rapid.co.uk]
>Sent:  lundi 22 décembre 1997 08:45
>To:  educan
>Cc:  ECC
>Subject:  Reading Recovery/  Waste...
>
>	I have no doubt that the supporters of Reading Recovery have
>done their
>best to present it favourably on the web.  It is the brainchild of Dame
>Marie Clay, a former president of the International Reading Association
>which,since it was set up,  has not done much to promote phonics.
>Indeed,
>because the IRA was promoting look-say so energetically, a group of New
>York philanthropists set up the Reading Reform Foundation in 1961 to
>counter the effects of the IRA.    Reading Recovery also comes from New
>Zealand, which has managed to project an image of successful teaching
of
>reading - yet Whole Language (not phonics)  is MANDATED  in NZ state
>schools - the failure must be great.  Doris Ferry ascribes the failure
>of
>the pupils brought to her  to neglect of phonics in NZ  schools, and
>both
>businesspeople and parents are concerned about poor literacy in NZ.
>	Reading Recovery was introduced to Britain.  It is very
>expensive, and now
>after being used for some years, disenchantment has set  in.  Certainly
>here in Britain there are better, cheaper programmes that were never
>considered. I asked Dame Marie why the aim was INTERvention, and not
>PREvention, and she replied that that was not her remit.  Even on
>today's
>net messages INTERvention is discussed, when most of today's special
>needs
>are in reading, and the failure could be prevented, is caused by
neglect
>of
>phonics-first.  As someone wrote yesterday, getting it right first time
>is
>far easier than trying to fix things after bad habits and  self-doubt
>have
>developed.
>	Warnings can be found from Bonnie Grossen, Gail Coulter and
>Barbara
>Ruggles, in OQE Forum Sept.1997; "Reading Recovery Research" from the
>National Right to Read Foundation, VA;  "An analysis of the Empirical
>Validity of Reading Recovery"  by Prof. Patrick Groff, Prof. Emeritus
of
>San Diego State U, available from Patrick Groff, Attention of Camille
>Graphics Office, San Diego County Education Office   6401 Linda Vista
>Road,
>San Diego, CA $10.  The following (from the Language Foundation of
>Australia newsletter) is a summary of Groff:
>"It is clear that Reading Recovery  has unquestionable shortcomings in
>methodology.
>1. RR is based on unverified Whole Language programmes.
>2. Teachers of RR are warned against using sequences of any kind.
>3. Students should "search" for what they think the text will say in a
>'personalized search for meaning'.
>4. Phonics is approached inan analytical way, starting with a word and
>breaking it down, rather than starting with letters and building them
>up.
>Phonics information has far less usefulness than context cues.  The
>student
>"must pick up detailed information about print for himself".
>5. It assumes that children learn to read and write naturally as they
>learn
>to walk and speak. (Why, then, would we need RR?)
>6. There is no control over spelling patterns or hierarchy of
>difficulty,
>under the assumption that all lphonic patterns are equally difficult
and
>can be learned at random.
>7. The training of RR teachers is long and intensive with no objective
>criteria of assessment.
>				-------
>Groff maintains that "On available figures (including Center et al.
>Aust.
>1995) a third of students fail on RR."
>	Jennifer Chew (TES  March 24 1995) commented on a Thomas Coram
>Research
>Unit report on RR:
>"Over the 20 months of the study, the RR children had about twice as
>much
>time spent on them as the "phonological intervention" children, and 3
or
>4
>times as much time as the 'control groups'.  The RR children made only
8
>months' progress in the past year of the project.  In other wirds, they
>did
>not even keep up with the clock after their special tuition.    ....
>The
>report is less than fair to the Direct Instruction (DISTAR) scheme.
>...it
>mentions two American studies as if they cast doubt on the long-term
>effects of the scheme on children's comprehension.  The truth is that
>both
>studies are complimentary about DISTAR, and one showed positive
effects,
>even on comprehension, right up to 9th grade.
>	Here are some more facts.  The 1994 Butterfly Project produced
>an average
>of 15 months' gain in reading age in three weeks.  Children were taught
>in
>groups and the cost was £250 per child.  (Remember that RR produced 17
>months gain in reading age in 8 or 9 months, with individual tuition
>costing more than £1,000 per child).
>	A study in Cumbria which used a scheme involving "reading with
>phonology"
>produced a much better rate of improvement than RR.  "Phonological
>intervention" is not genuine phonics teaching.  Good phonics teaching
>can
>ensure whole-school high standards, even in inner-city schools.  We are
>still not being given fair comparisons between RR and the alternatives.
>The information is disturbingly partial, in both senses of the word."
>				-----
>	Why not try DISTAR, home-grown American? I think any good,
>systematic
>phonics programme would work for both initial and remedial teaching of
>reading.  If there is any opportunity to try more than one  programme,
>let
>me know and I will send you  my intensive-phonics "Step by Step".
>Comparing results in terms of reading age, Improvement Ratio and
>financial
>cost is such an obvious thing to do, so why does it never happen?
>The
>very least that administrators should require before making a choice is
>the
>Improvement Ratio.  Given my own experience, and the Butterfly quoted
>above, I reckon a minimum Improvement Ratio of 3 (I.R.3) (3 months'
gain
>of
>reading age in 1 calendar month) should be expected/required, and
>programmes should provide this information up front.  In the Cumbria
>study
>mentioned above, the I.R. of one component crept up to 2.1.
>	I spent a morning watching a really good teacher taking 4
>sessions of RR.
>He had all the right qualities of a teacher (in my opinion) BUT - he
had
>swallowed whole the procedures  of RR, and as I watched, I kept
>thinking,
>"What a pity he's not teaching intensive phonics."   I think he had
>never
>SEEN intensive phonics being taught. Mona.
>
>
>
>EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE
>EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE


Jimmy Kilpatrick                                Phone   713 520-9715
Coordinator of Community Programs               Fax     713 520-7214
Advisor for Reading and Reading Disabilities
University of Texas at Austin                   Home    281 265-2368
Charles A. Dana Center                          Mobile  281 536-4713

1723 Westheimer Road
Houston,Texas 77098-1611

EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE