Blacks alienated, or just need phonics? From: Cmr1234@aol.com Date sent: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 13:20:34 EST To: ewletter@epe.org Copies to: fredb001@spectra.net, EDUCATION-CONSUMERS@tricon.net (Clearinghouse) Subject: Black Male "Alienation" EDUCATIONAL ENGINEERING Charles M. Richardson, B.S., M.S., P.E., cmr1234@aol.com 133 Lodge Avenue, Huntington Station, NY 11746-2808, 516-427-7058; FAX 424-1039 February 7, 1998 98EdWk_01.TXT Commentary Editor, EDUCATION WEEK JM 6935 Arlington Rd., Ste.100 Bethesda, MD 20814-5281 e-mail: ewletter@epe.org Dear Editor: This is in response to "Alienation From High School Is Worst Among Black Males," January 28. The researchers contributing to this shallow "study" danced around many symptoms but avoided serious discussion of causes. They completely ignored the fact that black males get thrust into special-education in inappropriately high numbers, and their rates of reading failure are excessive compared with other ethnic groups. Combine that with studies showing the chief cause of school alienation/dropout to be academic failure, and the chief ingredient of the failure is READING, and you have a study worth reporting. BUT, it's not the fault of the kids! It's the effect of whole- word-whole-language reading systems that deprive kids of the use of their sense of sound in learning how our alphabetic language works! The data leading to that assertion stem from research with a new type of reading test that shows whether a person FIRST learned to read by phonics or by whole-word memorization. The test quantifies the degree of disability, or "whole-word dyslexia," associated with non-phonic teaching, as reported by many prac- titioners as noted in the April, 1993, "Facts About Dyslexia" pamphlet from the National Institutes of Health. The new test is the Miller Word Identification Assessment (MWIA), described in two issues of the Blumenfeld Education Letter (Paradigm, Boise, ID), March of 1992, and August, 1993. The MWIA consists of two lists of words: a "Holistic" list of the 220 high-frequency words that appear in basal readers and in children's books such as "The Cat In The Hat," and a "Phonetic" list of 220 one-syllable, regular (no silent letters, no non- standard pronunciations) first-grade words that are NOT among the high-frequency words. The testee is timed and his errors noted as he reads both lists. If a person is a phonetic reader, he reads both lists with equal success, or perhaps the Phonetic list better because the words are easier: The Holistic list contains some multi-syllable words (another, anything) and phonetic irregulars (could, would). BUT, a child (or adult) who FIRST learned by whole-word memorization zips through the Holistic list -- and slows down and makes more errors on the Phonetic! And not just a little: up to 25 percent or greater slow-downs, and double and triple the errors! There is no biological reason for such a pattern; it has to be a LEARNED behavior -- a reflex governing how the person "looks at" words -- strongly emplaced by what was learned FIRST! This is plainly a reading disability, a difficulty with unfamiliar words. Further, after reading the Phonetic list, the child's attention is directed to some mis-called words, and asked to spell them aloud while looking at them. Then he generally can pronounce them correctly! So it has to be asked, "If he knows the necessary phonics, why didn't he use it on first reading, when he was 'running on automatic?'" The answer is obviously "reflex" in "looking at" words, a conflict between using their EXTERNAL appearance, or their INTERNAL structure of decodable syllables. This difference between sight-taught and phonics-taught readers was known in the reading fraternity as far back as 1908, mentioned in E.B. Huey's "Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading!" This fact was unearthed by researcher Geraldine Rodgers. The point of all this is that black kids, especially males, show a deeper degree of this "whole-word dyslexia" than Caucasians, thus falling victim to the special-ed and illiteracy snares in greater numbers than do white kids. Black kids with this disability exhibit slow-downs and error counts as much as 2.5 times as severe as do white kids. Mr. Miller and I do not know why; that's just the way the data keeps showing up, both in New York and North Carolina, even differences within the same family between children taught phonics-first and those caught in whole-language. A black colleague of mine points out that Africans were the only peoples to communicate by drums, and the African-American talent and absorption in music is legendary. So it may be that immersing black children in a reading method which downplays sounds puts them at a disadvantage. A friend who once taught phonics in Jersey City used to say the black kids were smarter than the whites! Only more research can clear up these puzzling questions. But it is clear that the MWIA data is consistent with the disproportionate numbers of black kids that wind up in special-ed, and thence relates to alienation from school. In my county I've started a program to give reading instruction to youth sentenced to probation or community service, many of whom are black, and exhibit severe cases of the whole-word dyslexia described here. I would like to see every African-American who's having academic problems given a reading test including decoding ability, that we may stem the tide of minority illiterates flooding our prisons. Very truly yours, Charles M. Richardson, P.E. cc: E. Miller, S. Blumenfeld, M. Brunner, R. Lyon CLEARINGHOUSE