Ditching phonics makes no sense! I learnt to read full novels in 4 months and read Lord of the Rings when others were struggling with early learner books. Why do schools allow ideologues render so many children illiterate?
It's really wierd. "Whole word"/"whole language"/"three-cueing" functions as a kind of ideology and worldview. It's not based on anything demonstrably true about how people learn to read, and adherents cling to it with resolute faith.
It seems to comprise part of a larger philosophy that teachers actually teaching, and students actually learning, useful skills like the alphabet, how to read, how to add and multiply, is oppressive, limiting and "rote learning." And we should instead open up the world to kids to just let them absorb all this stuff and figure it out for themselves. Just show them how fulfilling, how great reading is, and they'll pick it up on their own. It feels nice to these people. Which, of course, is the most important thing. Not working with kids through the hard process of building a life skill that could make or break their future.
Two thirds of American Ed School professors teach the homeopathy of "Whole Word," aka "Three-Cueing" to their classes of future teachers. And I say "homeopathy" deliberately, in that "whole word" crusaders believe kids magically absorb reading in the same way homeopaths believe water magically absorbs the properties of other chemicals.
This is like two thirds of geography teachers teaching that the Earth is flat, or two thirds of chemistry teachers teaching about how you should stay away from "chemicals."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading#Whole_language
In his 2009 book, Reading in the Brain, cognitive neuroscientist, Stanislas Dehaene, said "cognitive psychology directly refutes any notion of teaching via a 'global' or 'whole language' method". He goes on to talk about "the myth of whole-word reading", saying it has been refuted by recent experiments. "We do not recognize a printed word through a holistic grasping of its contours, because our brain breaks it down into letters and graphemes". In addition, cognitive neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg, in his 2017 book Language at the Speed of Sight, refers to whole language as a "theoretical zombie" because it persists in spite of a lack of supporting evidence.
This is from the US government's Nation's Report Card website.
[ Note: This is part of a larger infographic; I trimmed it down to include just reading and writing. You can see the whole thing at the original website. ]
It's minority and underprivileged kids who suffer from this reading woo because they may not have as many books at home, may not have as stable a home life, might not have family members who can take the time to spend on the alphabet or reading practice if, for example, it's a single-parent household with a parent holding down two jobs to make ends meet. Or didn't learn to read properly themselves. These are kinds of considerations that grifters like Kendi and DiAngelo never factor into their sweeping narratives of systemic this and that. And cast you as a bigot for even suggesting.
How about, before implementing the toxic poison of the tenets of Critical Race Theory, you actually teach the kids to read? How about before implementing divisive oppressor-vs-oppressed programs of unsubstantiated postmodern philosophy in Kindergarten, you teach the alphabet and then see what sort of life success your students get.
As Roland Fryer remarked:
"I've been in fifth grade classrooms in which they're still learning the clock, and how to tell time, in fifth grade. I told the principal, if they can't tell time, at this point, they'll have no place to be on time for."
What's further difficult to stomach is that this has been known for over 60 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Johnny_Can%27t_Read
Why Johnny Can't Read—And What You Can Do About It is a 1955 book-length exposé on American reading education by Rudolf Flesch. It was an immediate bestseller for 37 weeks and became an educational cause célèbre. In this book, the author concluded that the whole-word (look-say) method was ineffective because it lacked phonics training. In addition, Flesch was critical of the simple stories and limited text and vocabulary in the Dick and Jane style readers that taught students to read through word memorization. Flesch also believed that the look-say method did not properly prepare students to read more complex materials in the upper grade levels.
Just think about that. For over sixty years, many kids have been taught to read using known substandard, ineffective methods, and any success they had was in spite of that teaching, not because of it.
Think of how many kids dropped out of school or did poorly because they were frustrated by not being able to fully participate, or concluded that school wasn't for them because they couldn't "get it." Who watched more advantaged kids streak ahead of them, thinking that there was something wrong with them. And if you can't read, how well can you possibly write?
Think of how many underprivileged kids perpetuated a cycle of dropping out of school, possibly early or single parenthood, low income prospects or even crime, and eventually unable to help their own kids learn to read properly, because the school will not. On the basis of an unevidenced ideology that asserts that "learning to read English comes naturally to humans, especially young children, in the same way that learning to speak develops naturally."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_language#State_of_the_debate
One neuroscientist, Mark Seidenberg, says "[Whole-language quack Ken] Goodman's guessing game theory was grievously wrong" and "the impact was enormous and continues to be felt". When it come to evidence supporting the whole-language theory, he emphatically states "There wasn't any".
Dr. Lyell Asher goes into this in a segment of his larger series. Part 12 is specifically about "The Reading Debacle," but Part 11, "The Knowledge Gap," gives some important background that explains the criticality of literacy.
Other people like Emily Hanford and Belinda Luscombe have been writing about this as well.
It's amazing that something so fundamental could become yet another ideological warzone, with kids caught in the crossfire.
