Response to Minister of Education Chris Hipkins, in an interview on TVNZ, 1News 6pm (25.3.22, approx 6:25pm).
"Sounding out the words, and looking at the pictures - that's how kids learn to read, and this idea that you have to pick one or the other, is just such a red herring," said the Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins, after launching our new national literacy strategy, when interviewed by 1News.
My response, using teacher-talk: "Chris Hipkins, I feel upset that you do not know how I feel when you mock my teaching experience of a faulty way to teach reading."
I need to sit down with him and have a 'restorative chat'.
I jest, of course. Laughter, rather than tears. In fact, I’m furious.
Why? Because in the week a report tells us our country’s literacy rates are “dire”, and that we need to look to respected research for a way forward, our Minister of Education says things are going to change and then he trots out such a nonsensical statement.
My faith in the ‘powers-that-be’ in the MoE is fast eroding.
Children do not learn to read by looking at pictures. End of story!
They learn to read by learning the Alphabetic Principle. They learn that written language is a ‘code’ for the words they know and say.
So yes, they need to know how to talk. And yes, they need to know how to sound out words on a page and relate them back to words they have heard spoken. But do they need pictures to do this? No.
So, following this basic logic, pictures are not needed for reading but sounding out words is an absolute must, therefore sounding out words MUST be picked as a preferential method if we want our children to learn to read. That’s not a red herring. That’s a fact.
‘Predictable texts’ with pictures, in early reading materials favoured by Balanced Literacy proponents (such as those advising the minister, it appears), currently teach children to guess a large part of what they are reading, rather than attending to each and every sound in each word.
(Pictures are, of course, a nice additional touch if you want to engage your students in further talking around the subject, after they have read the sentence or story. And, indeed, skilled teachers introduce their students to possibly unfamiliar vocabulary before reading a text. But the pictures should not be used to work out the words on the page. Sounds and spellings should be used, instead.)
When pictures become less frequent in older students' reading materials, if they have not been taught to decode, they will often start guessing randomly for any old word that might possibly fit in the sentence. Worse, they’ll look at the teacher’s face, at the walls, at the ceiling - in fact, all over the show, as they try to work out what they are meant to do. In simple terms, they have missed out on learning ‘how to read’.
Of course, some children ‘crack the code’ early on and the more explicit teaching, the ‘how to read’, is not essential for them. But Structured Literacy benefits them in other ways too; they become better spellers, more quickly, and their comprehension, written composition and access to other parts of the curriculum is accelerated. It's a win, win!
My husband, an engineer, said to me: "Would you drive over a bridge that was deemed only 70% safe? Why does the education system accept a 30% failure rate? It’s a faulty system.”
And he’s right. Our role as educators is to progress the learning journey for ALL the students in our care. We cannot count ourselves ‘successful’ educators if we have masses of low-achieving ‘target students’ each year, falling off the bridge to further learning. We are failing them if our systems are not safe, fit for purpose and educating the majority of them.
So, come on Chris Hipkins. Please actually READ the research.
Don’t rely on someone else telling you what’s what.
But then maybe the education system failed you somewhere along the way and you struggle to read complex text?
I have a solution. Teach your children using Structured Literacy - it’ll improve your adult literacy skills, too. It’s never too late to learn to read and write effectively. Age is no barrier…
But, if you are short on time, how about you try a Youtube clip:
What Teachers Should Know About the Science of Reading
The Science of Reading: a top-level primer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2fQyaoGjIo) (Includes lots of links to other readings in the notes.)
What is the science of reading? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnkJ6VvDr2M)
https://sarahsnippets.com/how-do-we-learn-new-words-orthographic/
https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/dyslexia-and-learning/understanding-structured-literacy/
https://www.liftingliteracyaotearoa.org.nz/initiatives/connecting
No comments:
Post a Comment