Enlisting and providing support Blog #4

Question you have with which your colleagues may be able to provide help and support.

• Do you think there is something fundamentally wrong with the instruction that American children receive.
• Do you think CPS need to upgrade their reading books that was used in the 1930s which is the 'basal reading' series.

The information I am seeking is more research on how literacy begins.

Information I have found helpful is Grim illiteracy statistics indicate Americans have a reading problem:

• 70 percent of prisoners in state and federal systems can be classified as illiterate.
• 85 percent of all juvenile offenders rate as functionally or marginally illiterate.
• 43 percent of those whose literacy skills are lowest live in poverty.

The National Assessment of Educational progress testing indicates that the percentage of American children who are able to read well hasn't improved at all in the last 25 years. Many people argue that the reason behind this failure to improve is a lack of public education funding. But this doesn't seem right, as public education spending has double in the last 15 years. This only leaves one other argument: there is something fundamentally wrong with the instruction that American children receive.

Author Rudolf Flesch addresses this issue in a  book on phonics called Why Johnny Can't Read. According to Flesch, 'the teaching of reading all over the United State-in all of the schools and in all of the textbooks--is totally wrong, and flies in the face of logic and common sense.

Flesch, however, does not blame the schools or even the teachers, but instead blames the method of teaching that has been in use since 1927. This 'look and say' method relies on memorizing and recognizing words on sight.