Casualties in the “Reading Wars”

Frank Serafini – 1999

Doctoral Candidate – Arizona State University

Introduction

Certainly an issue that has caught the eye of educational journalists, as well as teachers, researchers and teacher educators, is the so called “Phonics vs. Whole Language” debate. This debate is played out in preservice reading methods classes and at individual school sites across the country. Today teachers, both preservice and practicing, are bombarded with opposing viewpoints, conflicting research studies, divergent teaching methodologies, comprehensive reading programs and professors who claim to have THE answer. What is the preservice or classroom teacher to do? As teacher educators and researchers draw lines in the dirt to protect their territory, or more exactly their philosophical “turf”, teachers sometimes get caught in the crossfire.

Most participants in the debate have dichotomized the issues, positioning phonics in direct opposition to whole language. If you are pro-phonics, you must be anti whole language and so forth. This simplifying of what is apparently a more complex issue has led to some heated discussions and hurt feelings in many of the classes I have taught.

The reading act, or process of making meaning from text, is more complex than this dichotomy can illustrate. However, simply blending the two positions creates as many problems as it eliminates. An eclectic approach has as many potential problems as philosophical polarization.

In this narrative piece, I attempt to bring into view the inherent complexity of the “Reading Wars”. While discussing the phonics vs. whole language issues, I call to mind the inherent diversity of beliefs and practices involved in any college methods class in todays university environment. Faculty adjunct professors, and other teacher educators, are faced with diverse student beliefs, backgrounds and educational philosophies in their courses each day.

Interjected within the narrative are quotes from current educational books and journal articles. These quotes, taken from educators involved in the “Reading Wars”, are intended to bring a different perspective to the narrative, adding complexity, rather than reducing uncertainty. This piece was written to disrupt the discussion on the “Reading Wars”, rather than provide coherence or “pat” answers to be handed down to practicing or preservice teachers.

Narrative Analysis

Except for a strip of light creeping under the metal door, the classroom was dark. Outside the moon hung in the night sky like a perfectly formed half moon cookie. Exactly half chocolate, half vanilla. It was unusually quiet for a week night so early in the semester. Many students were still dealing with the ordeal of finding their own personal parking strategy. Parking around the university was at a premium. Because of this, many students would be late to class the first night.

The classroom door opened slowly and Mary reached a hand in the room and quickly turned on all the lights. She did not like being alone in these rooms at night. However, on the first night of class, she liked to be the first one in the room. If she was early, she could get a spot up front. It was an old college strategy that her mother had taught her.

Mother. Her real name was Ophelia, but she never felt comfortable calling her that. It sounded too impersonal. Ophelia. No, it had to be Mother. She had been a sixth grade English teacher in upstate New York until her untimely death just a few years ago. God, how Mary missed her. Mother had said over and over, “The best students always sit down front.” Mary always sat down front.

As she found a seat in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs lined up in the front of the room, she placed her leather book bag on the floor, took out her new notebook she had chosen for this class, and placed the textbook she had just bought at the college bookstore alongside the notebook. She liked the way new books felt. Sharp, crisp, ready. As she started to leaf through the textbook, her mind drifted back to the last semester.

She was not looking forward to a class called, Holistic Reading Methods. It sounded too much like the “Whole Language” class she had last semester. The professor in that Whole Language class made her feel uncomfortable about her beliefs and about her teaching philosophy. The professor had challenged her about everything Mary said.

Thirty years after the publication of the classic treatise

Reading: The Great Debate, by Jeanne Chall, the profession and

the public are still engaged in a vociferous and sometimes rancorous

debate about how to best develop the proficiency

of beginning readers.

Richard Allington

She felt like the professor was trying to get her to join a cult, not trying to teach her how to teach. It made her uncomfortable to even go to the class. However, Mary could not bring herself to miss more than one class. It’s not what good students do. Mother had taught her that.

Teachers are encouraged in this belief [to follow theories exactly]

by professors who argue that to deviate from a theory

or philosophy or program is to risk being “atheoretical”.

Gerald G. Duffy

Mary had heard about this class and the new professor from some of the other students. If those students liked him, she probably wouldn’t. Mary didn’t have too many friends in the program, but that didn’t matter. She had friends where she would be working. That’s what really counted. She just wanted to get through this program so she could start teaching. Like her Mother did.

She was relatively sure of how she wanted to teach reading. Phonics. The Spalding Method to be exact. You couldn’t even say the word “phonics” around this university anymore. Except in her favorite professors’ class, her first reading class with Dr. Jones.

The debate today is bringing into vehement opposition two

viewpoints about how reading should be taught, widely known as

phonics and whole language philosophy.

Frank Smith

Dr. Jones really knew his stuff. He explained about the reading process in just one night. That’s all it took! He didn’t spend the whole semester trying to get you to remember how you learned to read or writing memoirs of your childhood. What a waste of time that was. No, Dr.Jones spent the whole semester teaching you how to actually “teach” reading. In that class they practiced using the basal and phonics flash cards to help students hear the sounds of our language, so they could read. Dr. Jones showed them exactly how to do it.

For as long as there have been records of organized

reading instruction, the emphasis has been on teaching

the sounds of letters. It is instructive to consider

why this is the case, since there is no compelling evidence

that teaching children phonics makes them readers -

and no reason to believe that it could do so. Frank Smith

This was how her Mother had taught, how Mary had learned to read and how Mary’s daughter had learned to read as well. Mary had to actually go out and buy a program advertised on the television to make up for the things that her child’s teacher wasn’t doing in school. A couple of weeks with that program and she was sounding out everything. If you just followed a commercially developed reading program exactly as outlined in the teacher’s manual, students would learn to read. Mary had seen it work. Of course, there were some children that struggled, but that was because they didn’t know the “code”.

Fortunately, teachers can have far more influence on the

instructional approach than they often realize... teachers can use

almost any reading materials to help children.

Knowledgeable teachers are the key.

Constance Weaver

Who says “Phonics” doesn’t work! Ridiculous. If she hadn’t helped out her daughter Merriam, she wouldn’t have stood a chance of getting into a good prep school.

Phonics is markedly, happily better than other approaches to

teaching reading. Further, this has been known and thoroughly

demonstrated for centuries. The case for phonics is direct and obvious.

Joan Beck

Just then the door opened quickly. More noise poured in from the hallway now. She hoped that the other students would be on time as well as the professor. Sometimes these professors went back over everything they had already said, for those that came in late. This really bothered Mary. She was there on time. Why should she have to listen to everything over again? Dr. Jones didn’t do it that way. If you were late, you waited until the class was over and then he would explain what you missed after everyone else had left. The good students weren’t punished for the actions of the poor ones. That was the way to do it Mary thought.

A young man, clean cut, wearing blue jeans and a sweater came into the room and dumped his back pack into a chair in the back row. Mary recognized him from the last class she had taken. That Whole Language class. She couldn’t remember his name though. They hadn’t spoken much during the class, but he seemed nice. Rather quiet, but nice.

Todd always sat in the back row where he felt more comfortable. He began to unpack his book bag and he immediately recognized Mary from last semester. He smiled at her, nodded hello, but they did not talk to one another. She was the one that always argued with the professor.

Phonics or whole language. Whole language or phonics. It seemed that it always came down to that. He was sure that there must be something beneficial in both approaches to teaching reading. Why weren’t these people able to see the positive aspects of both programs? Every class seemed to turn into a Presidential debate. Whatever helped the children read, that’s what mattered. This could be a long semester... again.

The phonics debates has been with us for a long time, evoking

contradictory points of view. Many educators are increasingly uncomfortable

with the growing polarization and politicization of issues. Most

classroom teachers find themselves in a different arena from

that of the staunch advocates on either side of the issue.

Dorothy Strickland

Todd was twenty-six, a recent college graduate from the business department. It was no sooner than he got his degree when he was convinced he had made a huge mistake. His first interview turned his stomach. There was no way he could work for IBM, no matter how much they offered him to start. His father, back in Oregon, had never let him forget his decision.

As Todd was trying to get comfortable in his plastic chair, the door swung open and a young woman poked her head through the door and asked if this was indeed RDG 315. Todd said that it was and she entered the room slowly looking around to see who may be in the room. There were about twelve students sitting in various seats around the class by now, having quiet discussions. As Jennifer looked around the room, she recognized Mary sitting in the front row. Jennifer let out a short sigh, and went quickly to the other side of the room.

She was dressed in a simple peasant blouse and long knit skirt. Her leather backpack hung loosely from one shoulder. She quickly scanned the room for any students she could relate to, sat down and took out her writer’s notebook.

There she was...the “Phonicator”. They had gone back and forth last semester and the semester before, arguing about everything. Why was Mary even in this class? She hated whole language ideas. Why put yourself through it? Find someone that thinks like you do and take the course from them.

Alternative perspectives of the reading process are cast

as the “reading wars” and the perception is given that

difference is not functional. What is wanting are reports on which we

all agree. It’s as if finding truth were simply a matter of addition and subtraction.

Jerry Harste

Jennifer had heard good things about this class from the professor in her last class. She had really enjoyed that class on Language Arts with Dr. Smith. She was great. It was the first class she had taken where the professor was talking about things that really seemed to matter to her, really seemed to relate to the way she saw the world. It was the first class that talked about teaching in ways that were different from the way Jennifer had been taught in school.

...teaching against the grain is also deeply embedded in the culture

and history of teaching at individual schools and in the biographies

of particular teachers and the individual and collaborative

efforts to alter curricula, raise questions about common practices

and resist inappropriate decisions.

Marilyn Cochran-Smith

Good old Reynolds Elementary School. She can still remember the smell of the disinfectant in the hallways as she walked to her classes. The hallways were always so shiny early in the morning. Jennifer arrived at school early because her mom worked at a factory nearby and had to be at work so early herself. She always dropped her off, kissed her good by and told her to do her best so that she wouldn’t have to work in a factory like she did. Since her Dad had died of cancer, life had been hard for both of them.

School for Jennifer had been a series of frustrations. As soon as she felt comfortable with a teacher and a group of children, she had to move. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Her mother had to go where there was work. It was still hard on her.

She remembers the SRA box sitting on the windowsill, above the radiator heater, between the half finished art projects and the dying jade plant. The box sat above the heater staring at Jennifer, defying her to get to the “Gold” level. She hated those little stories and how you had to answer all the questions before you could move on to another color level. This wasn’t reading, it was torture.

People who do not trust children to learn will

always expect a method to do the job.

Frank Smith

Maybe Jennifer should just drop this class and take it again later. It just wasn’t worth her time to sit and listen to Mary argue with the professor again. It wasted class time and there wasn’t a chance on Earth that she would see things differently anyway. As Jennifer sat down, she began to leaf through the course catalog.

If the debate is to serve any productive purpose, it must be

used as the basis for constructive dialogue and collaborative

efforts to examine and take advantage of the best

research and practice available.

Dorothy Strickland

The door opened many times as the rest of the class ambled in and found seats around the classroom. Some students recognized other students from earlier classes and sat talking about their holidays and what had been happening in their lives since they had last seen each other. Nothing really important, just that idle chit chat that helped pass the time, but didn’t seem to go anywhere.

As Travis opened the door, he could hear voices coming from inside the classroom. He knew it was going to be a big class. Thirty six on the roster. That was just too many students to get to know. It would be three weeks before he even recognized every student, let alone get to know which name went with which face. He knew names and he knew faces quickly, but it always took awhile to put the two together.

Carrying an “Eddie Bauer” back pack and a cloth bag full of children’s picture books, he walked to the front of the room, moved the podium against one wall and sat down on a table facing the class. The talk slowed down a bit, but not much.

Travis spent his days as a fourth grade teacher, teaching classes at the university at night while working on his doctorate in Reading Education. This was his second semester teaching classes, this being his first time teaching a Reading Methods class.

He had enjoyed teaching his first class on Language Arts, but looked forward to teaching something he knew more about. He had not been as prepared as he wanted to be for his first class. But, what can you expect? He had been given that last class one week before it was to start. How prepared could he have been?

This time he felt like he was ready. He was able to order the textbook he wanted, rather that being stuck with a book that someone else had ordered. It wasn’t that it was a poorly written book, it just didn’t match his philosophy. But that’s only one of the concessions he had made last semester in order to teach a class. Being an adjunct professor was wrought with concessions.

It seemed like he never knew if they were going to allow him to teach, right up until classes started. One semester he had written three syllabi and all three classes were given to someone else at the last minute. Political, that’s all it was. Political garbage. It seemed that he wasn’t friends with the right person at the right time.

Today, the role of phonics in reading and writing, has become

as much a political issue as it has an educational one.

International Reading Association, Position Statement on Phonics

This time the syllabus had been prepared in advance, allowing Travis to read it over a few times and make some changes before he showed it to his department chair. He was pretty sure that the chair didn’t read it. He usually didn’t have to answer too many questions about it. Anyway, this semester they didn’t have enough graduate students to go around. Everyone he knew was teaching a class. Dr. Jones didn’t like it, but he had no choice.

To be fair, there is no consensus in the reading research

community about the value of phonics. But in some cases, phonics and whole language have been used as “red herrings”, or as code words to

represent political attitudes.

Robert F. Carey

Some of the students looked up as he walked to the front of the room and sat down on the table. Wearing faded blue jeans, a Fort Lewis College sweatshirt and sneakers, he had to admit, he did look more like a student than a professor. Even an adjunct professor. He always pictured professors with tweed blazers with patches on the elbows, smoking a pipe, hair unkept, carrying a pile of papers, always in a hurry for some lecture they absentmindedly forgot. Travis didn’t own a tweed blazer, was extremely punctual and liked to have his hair cut regularly, even if it was rather long.

After saying “Good Evening” to the students, Travis drew a long line across the board with arrows at both ends. He said that this class should be called “Balanced Literacy Programs” instead of Holistic Reading Methods because people sometimes got the wrong ideas about the word “Holistic”.

Mary liked what she heard, Todd didn’t care and Jennifer wasn’t sure where the professor was going with all of this.

He said that most philosophies of literacy development can be placed somewhere along this line, and that it was the student’s job to decide where they felt most comfortable. At one end he wrote three words; Traditional - Transmission - Behaviorist. At the other end he wrote three more words; Whole Language - Constructivist - Psycholinguistic. Then he read a book.

Phonics, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Because phonics

can be so many things, some people treat it as a dirty word.

With these strong feelings, extreme views have been allowed to

predominate, seemingly forcing out any middle position.

Steven Stahl

Travis read Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young, a modern fable about seeing the whole before making a judgment about the parts. This book usually created a good discussion and was an apt metaphor for what Travis was trying to convey to the class. After reading the book, they had a brief discussion about some of the issues he wanted to bring up. Rather than have this discussion with the whole group, Travis wanted to have small groups discuss these ideas and then come back together as a whole to discuss what they had talked about in their small groups.

Travis asked the students to count off by twelve, so that the students could be placed into twelve different groups of three. Todd, Mary and Jennifer each called out number seven.

Controversies having to do with reading instruction flare up

with predictable regularity, a new one erupting almost as soon as the

smoke and passion of the previous outbreaks have subsided.

Frank Smith

Travis asked each group to gather around a table as he passed out a ditto sheet with some instructions on it. He said to spend some time with the questions on the sheet and that he would walk around and interact with the students. On the paper were the following two questions:

1. What is reading?

2. How do you teach children to read?

If children learn from the company they keep, how do

they learn to read? To answer this question, there is no point in looking

for evidence from the experimental laboratory or from

educational statistics. It is irrelevant to consider how children

struggle through classroom exercises in reading instruction.

Frank Smith

On the way home Mary called one of her friends from the school she volunteered at on her cellular phone. She needed to talk to someone about what had happened. Todd went down to his favorite brewpub with a friend from another class to talk about what had gone on in their new classes. Jennifer went home and talked to her roommate for hours about what had happened in class. It took two bottles of wine before she even attempted to go to sleep.

As Mary talked to her friend on the phone, she tried to explain how difficult it was to get the other students to see what she really meant. They kept insisting that reading was making meaning and Mary agreed with that. But how can you make meaning if you can’t read the words? They just didn’t get it.

Mary had read that there are approximately forty-eight phonemes that needed to be taught, and Mary tried to convince the other students that the best way to do it was to teach them directly, and in sequence. This way the students would have all the “tools” they needed to begin to read. Once they can read these words they are ready for some easy, beginning books. It is just that straight forward. What are teachers to do, just sit around and read books to the class all day? These whole language teachers are trying to get off easy. Phonics programs aren’t easy to master, but the teacher can really help students once they know all about it. The test scores prove it.

The failings of most of the phonics programs may be

summarized in that they neglect spelling and do not teach the saying and

writing of the forty-five basic sounds of the phonograms

of the language before trying to read.

Romalda Spalding

Jennifer got home in time to sit with her roommate and talk about their day. She opened a cheap bottle of Chardonnay and sat down at the coffee table in the living room. She couldn’t believe what had happened. This woman was so sure that she was right, flaunting that Spalding Method in their face. Children were treated like robots. So what if the test scores at that back to basics school went up. Who would want their child at that school anyway? If children spent all of their class time sounding out words and writing them in their Spalding spelling book, when did they have time to read real books? When did they learn to love and appreciate literature?

The one thing Jennifer loved to point out was that deaf people learned to read and they couldn’t use any phonics! How did they learn to read? What about the people before these phonics programs were developed? Mary didn’t have much to say about that now did she?

Alot of people are talking about phonics but in

different ways. How people talk about phonics depends on their

belief systems about reading in general.

Steven Stahl

Down at the local brewpub, Todd pulled his chair closer to the brass rail that ran the length of the wooden bar. He slowly sipped his Bass Ale and tried to explain how frustrating the first class had been. He got stuck between a “phonics worshiper” and a “granola loving whole language” liberal. It had been ridiculous. These two sat and argued all night about who was better.

Todd knew that he wouldn’t have to follow any manual in order to teach reading, but some direction would certainly help to get him started. He liked to read books to students but how would he help individual students learn to read by themselves? If they couldn’t sound out the words, how could they read? But, if they didn’t love books, why would they want to read? A little of this and a little of that. It would be the best of both worlds. Besides, whatever the student needs, that is what has to be taught.

These (mis)perceptions of whole language

teaching resulted in confusion for many whole language teachers.

Further, when some teachers perceived a need for phonics instruction,

they added on a program unrelated to their regular,

literature based program. The Frankenclasses were stitched

together, with neither part of the curriculum informing the other. Such

a curriculum may be no more desirable than the omission of phonics instruction.

Steven Stahl

Travis thought that the first night went pretty well. He had a good group except that it was so large. There was that one group in the corner that seemed to have a real interesting discussion. He would have to call on some of them as the semester went on for their input. It should be a good semester.

As theory makers, perhaps all of us should attend more to what we have

in common than we have done in the past. We whole language educators

[need to] remain open to reexamining and revising our theory...

Constance Weaver