Wednesday, June 17, 2015

How We Learn to Read

For years what academics and leading researchers around the world know about reading problems have not been known by teachers, and other school officials. As a result, schools have adopted ineffective reading instruction methods.

What is not well known is that most intervention programs do not produce lasting results. When students are retested months after intervention, the reported gains disappear. For example, Reading Recovery, is a popular intervention program used by many educators, which does not produce lasting results. Students lose the reported gains soon after instruction. The reason is that students are not adequately taught the reading code, that is, how it works in the context of how the mind learns.

For example, most programs incorporate whole word instruction in their programs. They teach incorrectly what they call sight words, which are not really sight words at all. These words should not be taught as sight words, that is, words from memory, they should be taught according to the logic of the reading code consistently. Whole word reading from memory is extremely inefficient, and teaches students bad habits.