\doc\web\98\10\wholbad.txt Date sent: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 10:17:54 -0600 (CST) To: "ClearingHouse" From: "eca@fastlane.net" Subject: [education-consumers] Reading wars: Kozloff vs Coles Send reply to: "eca@fastlane.net" ===================================================================== The first letter is from a proponent of whole language, and Martin Kozloff's letter to the editor follows. Jeanne ========================================================= X-From_: kozloffm@UNCWIL.EDU Tue Dec 1 08:29:53 1998 Date: Tue, 01 Dec 1998 09:29:49 -0500 (EST) Date-warning: Date header was inserted by UNCWIL.EDU From: Martin Kozloff Subject: a post to ed-consumers To: eca@fastlane.net MIME-version: 1.0 Dear Jeanne, I seem to have been disconnected from the ed-consumers list. (Subscription expired.) I've applied for a new one. However, I had something that I thought was important to post soon. I don't know if you can or want to post it for me, but here it is... Best from MK * * * * Dear Listmates, Following are excerpts from an article by Gerald Coles in "Education Week," December 2. (http://www.edweek.org) It is another attack on systematic, explicit phonics and DI. My response, sent to the editor, follows the article. (Someone else may want to write a letter; mine never get published.) * * * * - deleted for copyright --- * * * * * To the Editor, Mr. Coles's article is a fine example of ideology-driven distortions masquerading as keen observations and witty word play. The only readers likely to accede to his editorializing are true-believing whole language educationists who find themselves steadily losing ground as researchers and publics realize how much damage has been done by the whole language fad, or persons who have not read or who do not understand the literature. The following are among the numerous instances of inaccuracy in Mr. Coles's article. 1. Mr. Coles states: "They (whole language advocates. MK) have no problem with the concept of 'balance' because (with few exceptions) they have always maintained that whole language does include teaching phonological and other skills as part of meaningful, rich written-language experiences and activities." Of course, what Mr. Coles fails to mention is that whole language advocates (with few exceptions) merely give lip service to teaching phonics, and when they do address it, they push for "embedded" phonics instruction--which the literature shows to be largely ineffective. In other words, whole language advocates' sudden embracing of "balance" is little more than rhetorical face-saving. 2. Mr. Coles states: "there is no substantial research evidence--despite claims to the contrary--that teaching phonemic awareness and similar skills through top-down direct instruction is superior to teaching skills as children need them through a whole-language approach." More astonishing than the fact that virtually all of the SERIOUS research of the past 30 years says that more direct and explicit teaching of phonics IS superior to whole language, is Mr. Coles's apparent assumption that anyone could possibly believe his false assertion. If whole language has been just as effective as more direct instruction, then why has reading achievement fallen everywhere whole language has become the dominant method? Why did California's test scores sink so low as to be an embarrassment to the California education administration? Why, indeed, has there been any "war" at all? 3. Mr. Cole writes: "While it is certain that phonological and similar skills are essential for learning to read, identifying them as the 'causal' agents nevertheless cuts short the causal trail because it misrepresents the written-language opportunities and experiences that 'cause' children to learn skills." In this passage Mr. Coles almost manages to pull off the trick of changing the meaning of a word midstream. He first admits that phonemic and phonological awareness are necessary conditions for learning to read. Then he substitutes "causal agent" for necessary condition--now making it appear as if reading researchers are asserting that phonemic and phonological awareness are sufficient conditions, which would be absurd. Obviously, even if children "have" phonemic awareness they are not going to learn to read if they don't have much to read or much opportunity to read. But whole language is of little use, here, because even with a literature rich environment, children will not learn to read unless they "have" phonemic or phonological awareness FIRST. 4. Mr. Coles also writes: "Accompanying the call for the direct instruction of skills is a managerial, minimally democratic, predetermined, do-as-you're-told-because-it-will-be-good-for-you form of instruction. Outcomes are narrowly instrumental, focusing on test scores of skills, word identification, and delimited conceptions of reading comprehension. It is a scripted pedagogy for producing compliant, conformist, competitive students and adults." With these ad hominem lines Mr. Coles relieves rational readers of any obligation to take seriously anything Mr. Coles had to say before or after. What we have is yet another example of the Neo-Romantic, Pseudo-Rogerian, Fake-Left-Wing-Liberationist, Ivory-Tower-Academic bogus attack on a straw man. In the absence of evidence that they do anyone (but themselves) any good, demonizing their self-created foe (i.e., teachers who actually try to instruct their students) is the route whole language advocates and other constructivists try to take to sainthood. It has not worked before; it does not work now. Either Mr. Coles has not read or does not choose to report on studies showing that (for all their equalitarian hype) "constructivist" forms of instruction actually reproduce social inequality (e.g., in "cooperative learning" groups); do nothing to equalize the maldistribution of reading and math skill; and are perhaps best seen as serving the social and political interests of the new "bourgeoisie" (the managerial elite). Even Project Follow Through showed that constructivist forms of instruction REDUCED the percentile standing of disadvantaged children from around the 20th percentile to the low teens, while Direct Instruction raised children's percentile standing to around the 50th percentile. In other words, all of the research on "instructivist" vs constructivist methods shows that instructivist (systematic, direct) methods foster higher achievement, greater retention, higher self-esteem and a stronger sense of internal locus of control in children--exactly the opposite of what is done by Mr. Coles's "child-centered" constructivism. 5. Apparently running well below empty, Mr. Coles's article further degenerates into a mass of confused metaphors and fallacies of irrelevance that even freshman in Philosophy 101 could spot at 50 paces--unless of course they had been taught to (mis)read via whole language. In summary, Mr. Coles's article is a failure. It cannot convince whole language advocates of anything, because they already agree. It cannot convince serious reading researchers and advocates of more direct instruction because they know the literature. And it cannot convince general readers of Education Week, because they are not easily fooled. Martin Kozloff Watson School of Education University of North Carolina at Wilmington 601 South College Road Wilmington, NC 28403 910-962-7286 http://www.uncwil.edu/people/kozloffm (T)he...habit of keeping the judgment in complete subordination to evidence is stigmatised by various hard names, as scepticism, immorality, coldness, hard-heartedness,and similar expressions... [John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873. A system of logic,] Let the tutor make his charge pass everything through a seive and lodge nothing in his head on mere authority and trust. [Michel de Montaigne, 1533-1592, "On the education of children."] ===================================================================== EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE networking and information for parents and taxpayers on the internet Subscriptions & Archives: http://education-consumers.com or You are currently subscribed to education-consumers as: arthurhu@halcyon.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Send a blank email to leave-education-consumers-989462S@lists.dundee.net ===================================================================== For less mail, click on the following link and choose 1) a daily digest, 2) a daily list of subjects, or 3) no mail (read postings on Web) http://lists.dundee.net/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=education-consumers For more help & info: http://www.lyris.com/help or