Modern, or “progressive,” elementary school education has come under serious and skeptical scrutiny in recent years, perhaps most vociferously on the ground that children are no longer taught properly how to read and write. Here Spencer Brown, who teaches English at the Fieldston School in New York City, examines a current attack on the methods of teaching reading, Rudolf Flesch’s Why Johnny Can’t Read (Harper, 222 pp., $3.00).
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The spirit killeth; the letter giveth life
Troubles in teaching children to read are no new thing. In an early 16th-century morality play, John Redford’s Wyt and Science, there is a delightful scene, unfortunately too long and a bit too coarse to quote here, in which Idlenesse tries to teach Ingnorance his name. Idlenesse uses the combination of letter and syllabic methods apparently then in favor. With considerable ingenuity and vituperation she leads Ingnorance through the sounds and syllables, telling him to hiss like a goose for the sound s , and so forth. She finally gets him to “put together,” on the third or fourth try, and he says his name, sound by sound, almost correctly. Then—
Idle.: How sayst, now, fool? Is not there thy name?
Ingn.: Yea.
Idle.: Well than; can me now that same! What hast thow lernd?
Ingn.: Ich cannot tell.
In those good old days, whenever a child said, “Ich cannot tell,” he was quietly left behind as a dull lout, incapable of letters. Four centuries later, “Ich cannot tell” is intolerable to all ears. When uttered by any significant number of children, it gives rise to such violent excitement as is now being abetted by Dr. Rudolf Flesch, whose Why Johnny Can’t Read and What You Can Do About It is near the top of the current non-fiction best-seller list.
For such popularity there are at least two reasons, both evident in the title. It noisily attacks American schools and assumes their total failure, thus falling into the category of Weapons for the Great Educational War that everybody likes to engage in. And its unqualified assurance that you can teach, or re-teach, your own child to read, makes it the craftiest of do-it-yourself books, with an unlimited and self-reproducing market.
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Dr. Flesch himself sets up the criteria by which he wishes us to judge him and his book:
Why should you take me seriously? I’ll tell you why. Because all those professors are experts in reading, supposedly, but not experts in either of the two sciences that really deal with reading. . . . There are only two kinds of experts worth listening to when it comes to reading: linguists and psychologists.
Born and trained as a lawyer in Vienna, Dr. Flesch came to the United States in 1938. Beginning all over, in a swift academic career he took a bachelor’s degree in library science, a master’s in adult education, and finally, in 1943, a Ph.D. in educational research. His doctoral dissertation developed a formula for judging “readability” of writing. This study, popularized in his books The Art of Plain Talk and The Art of Readable Writing, has won him positions as “readability consultant” for corporations and government agencies.
Why Johnny Can’t Read is thus ostensibly the work of a scientist—either linguist or psychologist or both—on a problem of consuming interest. The thesis is simple and is stated in language that, for a scientist, is startlingly simple:
What I found is absolutely fantastic. The teaching of reading—all over the United States, in all the schools, in all the textbooks—is totally wrong and flies in the face of all logic and common sense. . . .
You know that I was born and raised in Austria. Do you know that there are no remedial cases in Austrian schools? Do you know that there are no remedial cases in Germany, in France, in Italy, in Norway, in Spain—practically anywhere in the world except in the United States? Do you know that the teaching of reading never was a problem anywhere in the world until the United States switched to the present method around about 1925?
This sounds incredible, but it is true.
The old method, which Dr. Flesch thus asserts was universal until 1925 in the United States, was to teach the child (in any alphabetical language) the sounds of the letters and then to show him how to put those sounds and letters together in words for reading and writing and spelling. This phonetic (or phonic) system of instruction is the basis for the second half of the book, which is nothing but lists of letters, sounds, and words that every parent is encouraged to teach or re-teach his child.
The new method, the root of all the present evil, is variously called the word, or the sight-word, or the see-and-say method; it teaches children to read by recognition of whole words and repetition to assure their retention. This system, according to Dr. Flesch, is now universal in American education. Besides disapproving of it on the a priori ground that English has a phonetic (or nearly phonetic) alphabet, he holds the new method solely responsible for the disastrously high incidence of non-readers or “remedial cases” (children who have to be re-trained by expensive and intensive individual work with remedial experts). The problems of “reversals,” “reading readiness,” and emotional adjustment Dr. Flesch dismisses with a laugh. Furthermore, the word method is responsible for the fact that almost nobody learns to read any more (if a child does learn to read, he picks it up by osmosis or from his parents) and nobody can spell.
The educators, of course, deny that anything has happened. They trot out all sorts of data and statistics to show that American children read, write, and spell much better than they used to. I am not going to disprove those data one by one. What I am talking about here are [sic] not matters for argument but facts—facts that are public knowledge. The American people know what they know.
One would expect that educational research would have tried to test one method against the other. Dr. Flesch reviews nearly a dozen such experiments which more or less strongly indicate that the phonics method is superior. Then:
After all this, you possibly expect me now to recite the evidence in favor of the word method. But, as I said at the beginning of this chapter, there is none. The story as I told it here is complete; this is the sum total of all experiments ever made. I have left out nothing and misrepresented nothing—to the best of my ability as a researcher.
To make absolute assertions with such trifling proof and then challenge the ignorant or lay audience to make an offhand disproof of them smacks of the pitchman rather than of the scientist. We do not have to go outside Dr. Flesch’s own book for disproof of his sweeping statements. His assertion that the word method prevails “all over the United States, in all the schools, in all the textbooks” appears on page 2. On page 8 appears a description of present-day teaching of phonics in Cleveland Catholic schools. On pages 100-109 there is a folksy story of Dr. Flesch’s visit to two phonic-based school systems in and near Chicago. On page 10 he praises the Hay-Wingo textbook Reading with Phonics, “the only primer on the market today that is based firmly on the alphabet-phonic principle.” The only other book of that type, the Hegge-Kirk drills, is commended on page 115.
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Dr. Flesch might of course say that he is only heating it up a little, that his universal is almost true, that a good journalist always colors and exaggerates for emphasis. Precisely. Dr. Flesch is unfortunately a good journalist. But by his own ukase only a scientist has the right to speak on reading.
“The teaching of reading was never a problem until . . . 1925.” Let us forget any historical data on men who were “slow at letters”; let us forget Leonardo da Vinci and his mirror-writing; let us forget even the “Ich cannot tell” of Ingnorance. Let us turn to Dr. Flesch. Here we learn that Noah Webster, with his famous Blue-Backed Speller (1783), “was the first man who realized that an English primer has to be based on phonetics.” Webster, according to Dr. Flesch, held sway for a century, and presumably all was light and phonetics. But Horace Mann “observed the teaching of phonics in Prussia and recommended it enthusiastically for use in American schools.” Why did Mann have to recommend it? His remarks on the Prussian schools (Dr. Flesch gives no source) probably come from his Seventh Annual Report (1843), sixty years after the Blue-Backed Speller had returned America for the next century to the high road of phonics from which America had never departed and back to which Horace Mann was urging a return.
At the end of Dr. Flesch’s account of one of the good (i.e., phonics) schools (which do not exist), he says, “Either that was a miracle or every word in this book is true.” A difficult choice.
Nor will his statement about the total lack of experimental evidence in favor of the word method (“This is the sum total of all experiments ever made. I have left out nothing and misrepresented nothing”) add lustre to his reputation as a researcher. For Dr. Flesch has left out some things and misrepresented many. Oddly enough, he has left out one experiment that would favor phonics (Tiffin and McKinnis, School and Society, LI, Feb. 10, 1940, 190-92). He has also left out an experiment decidedly unfavorable to phonics (Burt and Lewis, British Journal of Educational Psychology, XVI, Nov. 1946, 116-32), and he has left out Burrows’ summary of previous research concluding that phonics is not effective in isolation or as a sole approach to beginning reading (Burrows, Reading Teacher, VI, May 1953, 12-17). Perhaps he thinks he has covered this last, however, by an earlier condemnation of Burrows as “violently anti-phonics.”
As for misrepresentation: Dr. Flesch correctly reports part of the Garrison and Heard experiment as showing that phonics-trained children spell better. He omits the finding that children with no phonics training make smoother and better oral readers in the lower grades and seem to lose less during vacations than do children with phonics training.
Dr. Flesch is more daring with the experiment of Harry L. Tate (Elementary School Journal, XXXVII, June 1937, 752-63; Dr. Flesch’s reference says “July 1937.”) He quotes Dr. Tate’s conclusion: “Phonetics instruction and drill, as judged by the results of the Gates Primary Reading Test, Type 1, is far superior to the look-and-say method in developing the ability to recognize words.” What could be more conclusive? But this is only the first part of a long conclusion. Let us continue where Dr. Flesch leaves off:
(2) The results of Type 2 of the Gates test give a slight indication that the look-and-say method is superior to phonics instruction and drill in developing the ability to comprehend sentences. (3) Results obtained from Type 3 of the test show conclusively that the look-and-say method is superior to phonics instruction and drill in developing the ability to comprehend paragraphs of directions. (4) The use of as many as thirty minutes daily for special phonics instruction and drill leads to an unbalanced development of the abilities to comprehend words, to understand sentences, and to grasp the meaning of paragraphs.
Other deductions that do not rest directly on the data and therefore do not have the weight of conclusions are, in the opinion of the investigator, justified. These inferences are: (1) Regular periods for phonics instruction and drill are not desirable. (2) Phonics should be used by the pupil as a tool and not as subject matter to be mastered for its own sake. (3) Overemphasis on phonics hinders rapidity and thoroughness of comprehension.
Since it is well known that phonicstrained readers are likely to slow down to sound the words (v. Tate, p. 762), it is possible that Dr. Flesch did not have time to finish reading the article.
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Leaving Dr. Flesch for a moment, let us look at facts as they are generally accepted by recognized authorities in the fields of reading and remedial training:
- Reading difficulty or disability is not new. It is, however, a new problem, because nowadays everyone is expected to read. In the good old days the non-reader simply remained a non-reader.
- Nor is it an American problem alone. Miss Anna Gillingham, nationally known remedial expert, says that to her personal knowledge there are many remedial cases in England, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland, as well as in the United States.
- It is not true that only one method of teaching reading prevailed until our times. A variety of methods was used, syllabic, repetitive, or alphabetic.
- According to Dr. Arthur E. Traxler, executive secretary of the Educational Records Bureau, the indications from educational research and testing are that we are now doing as good a job on reading as we did thirty years ago—with the important proviso that we are now doing it with many more children.
- About 85 per cent of our children learn to read rapidly and well by the word method, or a combination of the word method with incidental phonics.
- The remaining 15 per cent of our children, if trained by the word method, would be remedial cases. They can be trained, or re-trained, by an alphabetic-phonetic approach, by tracing letters (the method of the late Dr. Grace Fernald), by re-training right-handers to be the left-handers they should have been all along (following the research of the late Dr. Samuel Orton), or by a combination of these and other methods.
- Reading difficulty can be predicted before the child begins learning to read and can in large measure be prevented by suitable training.
- Reading difficulty has very little if any relation to intelligence or lack of it.
- Though some authorities like Orton, Fernald, and Miss Gillingham appear to advocate a single method for teaching reading or for remedial work, many authorities and teachers agree that no one method is a panacea; the good teacher must be flexible enough to use whichever is appropriate, and a combination of several may be the right answer.
- Many cases of reading disability are accompanied by grave problems in emotional adjustment. These problems may often be the result of the reading problem; in many cases, however, the emotional problems come first and may be the cause.
- An overwhelming amount of clinical and experimental evidence has been amassed to show a clear though not universal relation between “confused dominance” (and similar neurological handicaps) and reading, spelling, and even speech difficulties.
This last requires some explanation. “Dominance” means left-or right-handedness, eyedness, or even footedness (left-footed kickers are in demand as left wings on soccer teams). Sometimes a left-eyed person is right-handed; sometimes a person cannot decide which he is (ambidexterity); sometimes, since in our culture left-handedness is a handicap everywhere except among first basemen and outfielders, the southpaw is subjected to mistaken re-training. These and similar cases are instances of confused dominance. The child reads from left to right at one time and right to left at others. All children do this when they begin, but the switch-hitters do it longer, oftener, and worse.
All this knowledge, which I hope I have not grossly oversimplified, is ridiculed by Dr. Flesch in his capacity as psychologist.
The psychologist—and teacher—is also concerned with the question of repetition. Now the great defense of the word method is that it deals with whole words, that the child sees progress in unatomized learning. But a word to be learned must be repeated over and over. Hence the books for children learning by this method are full of repetition which is the butt of Dr. Flesch’s best scorn. He brands as “stuff and guff” phrases like, “Come, come, look, look!’” and other exclamations of delight or dismay in the first readers. Dr. Flesch assumes—wrongly—that children hate the nasty little books and all their lives will hate leading.
But it all depends on whose ox is repetitively gored. Elsewhere Dr. Flesch quotes with approval a pro-phonics English educator: “Repetition bores us; so we say it bores the child. As a matter of fact, he loves it.”
A psychologist would try to discover whether repetition was fun for children or not. But Dr. Flesch knows already. The repetition involved in phonics is fun. Other repetition is stuff and guff, the wicked stepmother of non-learning.
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Let us examine Dr. Flesch in his capacity as linguist—which he demonstrates chiefly by a passionate interest in spelling. He is as indignant at Americans’ inability to spell as at their inability to read. Here he may have something. But though from my experience in teaching and in reading College Board examinations I know students spell badly, they spell no worse than they did twenty-five years ago, when they all were allegedly trained by phonics. They make the same mistakes, too: indeed, lists of words most frequently misspelled have changed very little in seventy-five years. I also know that many adults of all ages spell badly, that some students spell perfectly while others with the same training spell badly, and that ability to spell seems to have almost no relation to ability to read. Perhaps the one constant factor, the caprice and unpredictability of English spelling, is largely responsible.
In any case, many students misspell, some of them frequently. Here is Dr. Flesch’s explanation of bad spelling!
Why do they write “definate,” “grammer,” and “miricle,” although their eyes have looked at definite, grammar, and miracle millions of times?
They do because their whole-word training makes a tremendous difference in their mental habits. Anyone who has started phonics in first grade goes through life reading every single word he reads letter by letter. He does this fantastically fast, and quite unconsciously, but nevertheless he does it. Every time he reads miracle, he sees the a; every time he reads definite, he sees the second i . No wonder he knows how to spell these words.
Let us assume for a moment that Dr. Flesch is correct. Then let him explain how sophisticated readers and good spellers could read
Paris in the
the spring
as “Paris in the spring.” This and similar twisters, you recall, were going the rounds a year ago. Nine out of ten people would make sense by misreading the words. Why? Dr. Flesch happens to be wrong.1 One great defect of the phonic method of teaching is that it is hard for phonically trained people to get over the habit of reading every letter; some of them remain lip-readers; the best of them get over it somehow. Good readers do not read every letter “fantastically fast”; they skim over letters and take in whole words and whole phrases.
Some skilled readers, however, do occasionally read every letter—these are proofreaders, or English teachers. If Dr. Flesch were right, one could read proof as fast as he reads anything else. The ordinary good reader does not waste time looking for errors and often does not see them when they occur. He is interested in reading as fast as he can read with understanding. Nowhere in his book does Dr. Flesch mention the known fact that the fast reader is the good reader.
Dr. Flesch is quite mistaken in alleging the phonic-trained reader’s ability to sound any word correctly the first time he sees it. His own name, to an American ignorant of German, might sound as Flesh, Flesk (sch as in school) , Fless (sch as in schism) , or Flestch (sch as in eschew) . And how does the skilled reader sound slough when he first sees it? Will he change the pronunciation according to sense and locality? If this is a deliberately unfair example, how about danger and hanger and anger and tangerine ? You can go on by yourself.
Dr. Flesch is magnificently wrong when he asks,
Are you a surefooted phonetic speller? Here are a few words in phonetic transcription. Would you know how to spell them?
baz-ight
altrish-l
rayzh-n
prig-ess
perry-klayzha
unshl
Are you sure you would automatically spell these words bazzite, altricial, rasion, priggess, periclasia, and uncial? Or could you too use a little phonics?
The only sane reply would be this: no, I could not automatically spell these words correctly. Since all but priggess, which could be guessed, are unfamiliar to most readers, only a fool would fail to look the words up. Every one but priggess could be spelled at least two ways: bazzite is more likely to be bazite and, being obviously an importation, might be baseidt; it is also pronounced batsight, which opens up other pleasing possibilities. And so with all the rest. Dr. Flesch, too, could use a little phonics. Fizzition, heal thyself.
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One way in which we can judge the integrity of a book is to listen to its tone. Why Johnny Can’t Read has the tone of the little books that scream about a nationwide conspiracy to deny the existence of flying saucers. If we will step right up and buy a flying saucer, all our problems will be solved.
It is idle to speculate about motives. But it is not hard to gauge the effect of Dr. Flesch’s book on anxious minds. For the parents to whom Dr. Flesch addresses himself have one thing in common—their anxiety. And he promises to cure it quickly, easily, and infallibly:
Take him fully into your confidence and explain to him exactly what you are trying to do. Tell him that you are going to do something new with him—something entirely different from what his teachers did in school. Tell him that this is certain [Dr. Flesch’s usual italics] to work. Convince him that as soon as he has taken this medicine he will be cured.
This, I think, is the most unconscionable passage in the book. No skillful remedial teacher will make such a promise: he will promise only alleviation, not cure. And here the teaching will be done by the unpracticed parent, whose relations with the child—as far as reading goes—are already for the most part difficult and hesitant. Further, a conflict between parent and teacher, at a time when the child needs confidence in both, cannot but aggravate his emotional disturbance, whether it has resulted from or caused his reading disability. True, in the hands of some well-balanced parents who happen to be good teachers and whose child happens to have a disability readily curable by phonics and happens to be emotionally sturdy, Dr. Flesch’s book may not do much harm. But this is a book that promises a sure-fire solution for all reading ills. We can only be grateful that Dr. Flesch has not yet written a book urging every parent to brew his own polio vaccine.
Why are the parents anxious? Some of their children (perhaps 15 per cent) are reading disability cases, and many of them are not yet properly taken care of—especially in overcrowded public schools or in any very conventional school. Vast numbers of children, too, are learning to read at a later age or grade than their parents did. (The children will catch up, however.) Thus the parent fears the child will never learn; and when Dr. Flesch snorts at the concept of “reading readiness” and advocates teaching the child at five before the school ruins him, the parent is convinced, especially as he is constantly hearing, from writers like Albert Lynd and Mortimer Smith and Robert Hutchins and Bernard Iddings Bell, that the schools (along with, of course, everything else) are going to the dogs.
In any case, Dr. Flesch will succeed not only in exacerbating distrust between school and home but in diverting the energies of the school toward self-defense and away from its proper business.
The skill of reading and writing is enormously complex. It is actually an art, and we do not yet fully understand how it is learned. Yet of all arts of comparable complexity it is the only one we require of everybody. Some educators, realizing the child’s difficulties in learning to read, have asked why we expect everybody to learn. Do we expect everybody to learn to play the violin?
In our culture this is of course an idle question and a false analogy. But it is as ignorant to assert that any particular method of learning to read is easy for everybody as it is silly to deny the necessity of learning.
It is a pity that the answers are not easy. It is also a pity that, when anxious people do seek an easy answer, there is always some one to exploit and increase their anxiety.
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1 Even on the subject of reading music, on which so much research remains to be done, Dr. Flesch knows the answer—note by note (p. 118).