The Reading Instruction Show (Dr. Andy Johnson)

This podcast explains and describes social cognitive learning theory and its applications. Social cognitive learning theory involves observing the behaviors of others and the resulting rewards and punishments. Future behaviors were then based on these observations. From the perspective of social cognitive learning theory, learning is a change in mental processes that creates the capacity to demonstrate different behaviors that occurs as a result of observing others.

Questions: How is it that one interprets the same thing differently across time? How is it that one can read a book, have an experience, or observe phenomena and draw completely different conclusions when the only thing different is the time in which it was read, experienced, or observed?

Is time a variable in comprehension or understanding? Is it a variable in constructing meaning?

A book that seemed so insightful at one point, with the passage of time, can become meaningless. Likewise, books that I once thought meaningless can sometimes become filled with insight, interesting, and important ideas with the passage of time. Same book. Same person. Same brain.

In order to understand the science of reading, and how this term is misused, we must first get a better handle on science. I will cover some of the basics and end with a description of 7 questionable claims, based on I-think-isms, often brought up by Science of Reading advocates.

Psychologists Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow are generally thought to be the founders of modern humanistic learning theory (DeCarvalho, 1991). Humanistic learning theory is not as easily defined as some learning theories. Indeed, there are differing views on what humanistic learning theory is or might be. And like other learning theories described in this book, they share common elements. However, all views on humanistic learning seem to share three overriding tenets: First, humans are by their very nature evolving, self-developing creatures. As such, we have a natural inclination to learn and develop fully. Second, learning is enhanced when educational experiences align with these natural desires. And third, the goal of education should be to enable each person to develop his or her full potential.

Academic writing involves saying something about something. You need information to convey, analyze, or use in some fashion. finding new information and taking careful notes is Step 1 of the academic writing process. You can’t get to Step 2 without doing Step 1.

• Step 1. Research to gather data. Usually this means reading and taking careful notes. However, data can also be collected other ways.

In this podcast, I examine (a) Ken Goodman, (b) penguins, (c) the psycholinguistic guessing game, (d) Emily Hanford, (e) American Public Media, (f) some flawed ideas about reading instruction, and (d) some flawed ideas about flawed ideas.

This podcast describes the type of literacy learning environments and instruction that enable young children to develop their full writing potential. In a good literacy learning environment there is (a) lots of talk, (b) lots of writing, and (c) lots of reading. There is also direct and systematic instruction done in the context of authentic writing.

This podcast further explores problems in Special Ed World. Addressed here: (a) the medical model used to understand "disabilities", (b) standardized instruction, (c) segregated instructional settings, and (d) systemic racism.

This podcast is designed to help white people understand systemic racism, white guilt, shame, and the history of the United States of America. That's quite a lot for an 11-minute podcast -- but I think I pretty much cover it all.

Gloria Ladson-Billings (2014) describes culturally responsive teaching as consisting of three interacting and interconnected elements (a) learning that focuses on students’ intellectual growth, (b) cultural competence and inclusion, and (c) critical or sociopolitical consciousness. Neither of these by themselves can be said to be culturally response teaching. It is the interaction of these three that that creates culturally responsive teaching. This provides a framework for moving us forward in our understanding of CRT. Each of these elements is described in this podcast.

Affect in education usually refer to emotions and motivation. Since these do not show up on test scores, to the educational bureaucracy, they do not exist; however, they are, arguably, the most important components in teaching and learning, especially if you are a student with a special learning need. In this podcast we examine emotion, motivation, and learning to read, with a special focus on adolescents.

Students of color are disproportionately represented in special education. This is most true of the three high incidence categories: learning disabilities, emotional behavioral disorders, and intellectual disorders. The short podcast describes some of the issues here.

Can a practice really be said to be evidence-based if it only looks at a certain type of evidence? Can it really be scientifically-based reading research if only certain methods are allowed to ask certain types of questions? And that’s the whole problem with the liturgical chants of “evidence” and “evidence-based” and “scientifically-based research” made by the Science of Reading Comedy Club to support a litany of practice taken from their direct-instruction Holy Book.

That’s the whole problem in Special Ed World with their declaration of faith stating that only practices used to manipulate and control behavior are “evidence-based”. These represent a simplistic understanding of research in the social sciences. Within Special Ed World and the Science of Reading Comedy Club, and even the US Department of Education, controlled experimental studies (CES) are thought to be the only way of establishing causal relationships, that one thing causes the other thing to happen.

Five things cause ineffective reading instruction:

1. The myth of standardization.

2. Lack of understanding related to the reading process.

3. Teacher disempowerment.

4. Over-crowded classrooms.

5. Testing madness.

Phonics is important, but if that’s all you’re teaching, you limit students’ ability to recognize words and create meaning with print. And that is the end goal – to create meaning, not to fill out phonics worksheets, or pass end-of-unit tests, or sound out words in isolation

The terms “teacher professionalism” and “professional dispositions” are often used when assessing preservice and practicing teachers. But what is “teacher professionalism”? What dispositions are the “correct” ones for teachers? And who gets to decide these things?

Dispositions or Mind Control

Most teacher preparation programs address and assess three elements: knowledge, skills, and dispositions (Creasy, 2015). The dispositional element is commonly viewed as “teacher professionalism”. A disposition is a state of mind that creates an inclination to think or act in certain ways. There are both positive and negative dispositions. Examples of positive dispositions include compassion, curiosity, fortitude, and honesty. Examples of negative dispositions include pessimism, laziness, dishonesty, and indifference. These dispositions are all examples of internal states of mind. Some might also consider them character traits or even values. However, some teacher preparation programs try to mandate that all preservice teachers have specific internal states of mind. Rubrics and checklists are even created to try to document and quantify these internal states of mind. But trying to control the internal state of mind of another is a form of mind control. It is not healthy for the field of education to be in the business of mind control.

This short podcast looks at language learning and the implications for reading instruction.

Conclusions

The Science of Reading promotes the exclusionary use of strategies and practices that have been shown to be effective using controlled experimental or quasi-experimental research conducted in actual classroom settings. Further, this standard should be the basis upon which decisions should be made about reading instruction and reading policies. LETRS fails to meet this basic SoR standard.

The essence of science is this: you ask a question and then collect data to answer that question. That is science. It’s a process. It’s a verb. To science.

With science, the data can’t just be collected higgily-piggily. There must be an approved method and that method must be systematic. There are many systematic methods that can be used to collect the data used to answer questions. And there are many types of data to collect. Hence, there is no single scientific method; rather, there are methods of science.

An important distinction to be made between science and pseudo-science:

Science – asks a question and then collects data to answer the question.

Pseudo-science starts with the answer, and then collects data to support that answer.

Beware of simplistic answers for complex problems. They are alluring but alluringly ineffective. One of these simplistic, alluringly ineffective answers to a complex problem is the idea that we can fix all problems in education by holding somebody “accountable.”

When students make a mistake or miscue during oral reading, our first impulse is to jump in and correct the mistake. We need to stop doing this. This podcast explains why. The first thing we do when students stop because they don't recognize a word is to tell them to "sound it out". We also need to stop doing this. This podcast explains why.

I used to describe special education as a field – as in “the field of special education.” And indeed, it used to be a field. You can see this field when reading articles from the major special education academic journals in the 1990s and early 2000s. It was a field. Not a farmer’s field but a field in the wild. This kind of field is a beautiful place. It is an ecosystem, with birds, other animals, and a wide variety of plant life. And a field in the wild is not contained. It changes over time as new seeds, plant life, and animals interact with it. The edges of the field evolve and change over time.

. But special education is not a field anymore; rather, it has become a silo.

A silo is a container. It contains silage. Silage is a type of fodder given to cattle and sheep during the winter when grazing is not possible. It is made from grass, corn (maize) oats, hay, and other types of foliage that has been cut up into little parts. This vegetative matter is put in the large, vertical tube known as a silo, compressed to get all the oxygen out then allowed to ferment. The result is a form of pickled pasture matter that is all jumbled up and all looks the same when it comes out. Cows and sheep eat it without question

Good teaching starts with an operational definition of teaching. There are three common views of what constitutes teaching: teaching as transmission, teaching as transaction, and teaching as transformation (Miller, 1996).

Teaching as Transmission

From this perspective, teaching is the act of transmitting knowledge from Point A (teacher’s head) to Point B (students’ heads). This is a teacher­-centered approach in which the teacher is the dispenser of knowledge, the arbitrator of truth, and the final evaluator of learning. A teacher’s job from this perspective is to supply students with a designated body of knowledge or set of skills in a predetermined order. Academic achieve­ment is seen as students’ ability to demonstrate, replicate, or retransmit this designated body of knowledge or set of skills back to the teacher or to some other measuring agency or entity. From this perspective standardized tests are considered to be an apt measure of students’ learning.

Teaching as Transaction

From this perspective, teaching is the process of creating situations whereby students are able to interact with the material to be learned in order to construct knowledge. Constructivism is an educational philosophy consistent with this view. Here, knowledge is not passively received; rather, it is actively built up or constructed by students as they connect their past knowledge and experiences with new information (Santrock, 2004). And just as each student’s past knowledge and experiences are different, so too is the interpretation, understanding, and meaning of the new information that each ultimately constructs.

Teachers are not expected to pour knowledge into the heads of learners; rather, they assist learners in their construction of knowledge and development of skills by creating experiences where students’ can use their current understand of knowledge and skills to learn new knowledge and skills. Academic achievement from a constructivist perspective is seen as students’ ability to use this knowledge and skills to solve real-world problems or to create products or performances that are valued in one or more cultural settings.

Teaching as Transformation

From this perspective, teaching is creating conditions that have the potential to transform the learner on many different levels (cognitive, emotional, social, intuitive, creative, transpersonal, and other). Transformational teach­ing invites both students and teachers to discover their full potential as learners, as members of society, and as human beings. The ultimate transformational goal is to help develop more nurturing human beings who are better able to perceive the interconnectedness of all human, plant, and animal life (Narve, 2001).

Learning is said to have occurred when educational experiences elicit a transformation of consciousness that leads to a greater understanding of and care for self, others, and the environment. Academic achievement from this perspective is similar to self-actualization. That is, it is perceived as discovering and developing each individual’s unique talents and capabilities to the fullest extent possible. Academic achievement also involves becoming aware of the multiple dimensions of self and expanding one’s consciousness.

Parents are wondering how to handle reading at home during the COVID-19 or during the summer months. This podcast offers some simple tips.

I had an undergraduate class that didn't go as I would have liked. We've all had these. You do a lot of planning, you plan some activities, and it's clear that students are just not that into it. In this podcast, I use cognitive modeling as I go through a simple 5-step problem-solving process. This process can be used to problem-solve in a classroom or any place else. I then demonstrate how to use a Total Literacy Experience (TLE) activity to solve the problem. With modification, you can use TLE's and the 5-step problem-solving process in any classroom.

This is an insightful podcast looking at teacher preparation programs.

There are four basic word identification strategies: (a) morphemic analysis, (b) context clues, (c) analogy, and (d) phonics. Direct and explicit instruction related to all four strategies should be included as part of all students’ classroom reading instruction. This podcast describes morphemic analysis

MTSS or Multi-tiered systems of support claims to be based on scientific research and use only evidence-based practices. MTSS originated in the swamps of Special Ed World. PBIS (positive behavioral interventions and supports) and ABA (applied behavioral analysis) are used with MTSS to make some behaviors disappear and others appeart. Magic. Claims are made that these are “evidence-based”.

• Students need their own writing topics. Students should be encouraged to express their thoughts and describe their experiences to the greatest extent possible. This is called authentic writing or authentic writing experiences. Not all the time, but much of the time. When I sit down to write a book or a journal article, nobody assigns me a topic. I get to write about what interests me. I get to research things about which I am curious. Research and writing seem effortless here. However, I’ve had experiences in which I’ve had to write a chapter, article, or report that I wasn’t really interested in writing. Writering is incredible difficult here. It seems as if I stare at my computer for hours and nothing comes out of my head.

• Students first need to write in order to learn how to write. Celebrate the idea in whatever form that idea takes. There are times and places to learn and become proficient in various writing forms and genre, including what Gloria Ladson-Billings (2017) refers to as the dominant academic language (DAL) or the culture of commerce and social advancement. However, learning and becoming proficient in one form will make it easier to learn and become proficient in another form.

• Students need to get real responses from real people. Sharing writing with others is what makes it come alive. She how people respond to your words gives you a sense of what is effective and what is not.

• Finally, keep the art in language arts. Again, art is not something beautiful; art is something beautifully expressed. Celebrate, in your writing instruction, the beauty of words.

It cannot be assumed at any level that people understand democratic process or know the particulars of proper meeting protocol. In this podcast we examine and describe these two elements based on Roberts Rules of Order (RRO).

There is only one emotion that is good for learning: happiness and all its derivations.  Joy is a derivation of happiness.  Joy is pleasurable.  Humans are rewarded by their emotions for doing things that bring them joy.  They tend to repeat these behaviors.  Fear keeps us from doing certain things.  Fear of failure.  Fear of humiliation.  Also, things that make us sad or unhappy keep us from doing certain things.  Being forced to sit in a chair and perform like a trained seal creates sadness, boredom, and frustration.

The SoR zealots fail to realize that we’re teaching children who just happen to be developing human beings, who happen also to be emotional and social beings existing in a sociocultural context.  We read and emote with the same brain.  It’s silly to think that one would not impact the other.  Positive emotions enhance learning, and negative emotions impede learning.  Take that to the bank, baby.  We’ve got plenty of research to support this.  So, we can say with some confidence that creating a positive emotional environment in which there is social interaction, safety, and joy is a research-based strategy. 

Throughout my series of podcasts related to writing instruction you’ll encounter six reoccurring themes:

1. Everyone can write. Writing is creating meaning with print and sharing that meaning with others. Everyone can record or express an idea on paper (or computer). Young children may use more pictures and squiggly shapes than letters and words, but they are creating meaning with print and sharing their ideas.

2. Students need to be taught the writing process. The five-step writing process will be described in Chapter 1 and referenced through this book. Everyone can become better writers if they are taught the steps and follow the process. The process may look a bit different in first grade than it does in 12th grade, but there is a process, and it does produce better writers.

3. Students need opportunities to practice writing. You become a better tennis player by practicing. You become a better piano player by practicing. You become a writer by practicing. Like any skill, you need to do it a lot to get better at it. This means that teachers must provide ample opportunities to practice writing. Students should expect to write every day.

4. Students need to have authentic writing experiences. An inauthentic writing experience is when the teacher asks students to respond to an artificial writing prompt and the only response given is a grade, some edits, and a comment from the teacher. In contrast, an authentic writing experience is when students are recording, explaining, or describing their ideas for a real-life audience (often their peers). This makes their writing comes alive. It moves it from an abstract exercise to a real-life event. And when students are engaged in authentic writing experiences, you seldom have problems ‘motivating’ them to write. Again, humans have a natural inclination to communicate; to share their thoughts, experiences, perspectives, and emotions with others. When you tap into this natural inclination, writing instruction becomes effortless.

5. Students need responses. A response if much different from correction. A response is a reaction. Students need to see how their writing is playing in the heads of the reader. They need to know which parts work and which parts are a little fuzzy or could use some revising. They need responses from the teacher and their peers.

6. Every teacher can be an effective teacher of writing. There’s nothing magical or complicated about being and becoming a good teacher of writing. You simply need to understand the five-step writing process and have a few good strategies that you can adopt and adapt to fit your needs and teaching style. And that’s where I come in. Hence, this book.

So how do we go about the business of teaching children to read? We don’t. Instead, we create the conditions whereby children can learn to read and develop their reading skills. As I said in the last chapter, children learn to read and write in the same way that they learned to listen and speak, and that is, by being immersed in the language and by having adults around who responded to them in appropriate ways. In this sense then, we would be more accurate if we called ourselves reading-condition-creators instead of reading teachers. This podcast presents 8 tips to keep in mind as we create conditions.

1. Help children fall in love with books.

2. Create a space every day for sustained, silent reading.

3. Allow children to make choices about their reading material.

4. Connect reading pleasure to reading practice

5. Keep your reading program simple.

6. Keep instruction simple.

7. Make reading like real life.

8. Include talk and other forms of social interaction.

Affect in education usually refer to emotions and motivation. Since these do not show up on test scores, to the educational bureaucracy, they do not exist; however, they are, arguably, the most important components in teaching and learning, especially if you are a student with a special learning need.

Motivation and emotion are perhaps the most important components when working with students with moderate to severe reading disabilities, yet it is the area that seems to be given the least amount of attention.

EMOTIONS

We think, learn, and emote with the same brain. Thus, it would be silly to think that students’ emotions would not be a factor in their ability to learn. Positive emotional experiences can enhance and promote learning; negative emotions can disrupt and prevent learning. And, since there is plenty of research to support this notion, we can say that attending to students’ emotions can be considered a research-based strategy and not simply some namby-pamby, feel-good activity designed to make liberals out of your kids.

So why should educators be concerned about educational research? What relevance does it have to our everyday practice? We have all heard the common litany: “It’s just a bunch of theory. You can make research say anything you want. Ivory tower researchers don’t know what it’s like in the trenches. It doesn’t work that way in the real world.” This podcast explains what a theory is, how research-based theories can be used to make good educational decisions, and six common approaches to decision-making in schools.

The number monkeys want to use standardized tests and a business paradigm to "fix" education. However, if we want fundamental change in the quality of education, then we must focus on the quality of education. We need to take a qualitative look at the teaching methodologies and curriculum that are used in schools and classrooms and make changes in the way we do education. All the number-monkeying in the world does nothing to address the quality of education. It does not change how we go about the business of educating our children. Instead, it promotes a test-and-measure mentality that serves only to create winners and losers.

Like Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers was a humanistic psychologist who also described humans as naturally good and evolving entities. He pioneered a client-centered approach to psychotherapy that translated directly into a student-centered approach to teaching. This chapter describes some of his seminal ideas as they relate to human growth, teaching, and being a human being. As you listen to this podcoast you will notice that these ideas are interconnected such that the borders between teaching and psychology are often indistinguishable. This is as it should be. Rogers believed that teaching, psychotherapy, and being a fully functioning person all came from the same place

In 1997 Congress asked the National Institute of Children’s Health and Development to work with the U.S. Department of Education to establish a National Reading Panel. Their task was to evaluate existing research in order to find the best ways of teaching children to read. In 2000 the panel issued their 500-page report (National Reading Panel, 2000). This report has been widely cited in books and journal articles related to reading instruction.

The NRP describes five-pillars are reading instruction. The SoR zealots and state reading laws describe these as five foundation reading skills. They are: phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency.

It's not that I disagree with the five "pillars" of reading instruction as described by the NRP report and repeated ad nauseam by SoR zealots. My concern is that they're seven pillars short of a full load.

In this podcast, I describe the 12 essential elements of a comprehensive reading program – or comprehensive literacy instruction.

Despite having the word “science” in their title, the ideas put forth by the Science of Reading are not grounded in science at all, but in pseudo-science, I-think-isms, and anecdotal evidence. In fact, they are promoting an ideology. An ideology is a system of ideas and beliefs. Hence, the SOR would be more accurately named, the Ideology of Reading. What the SOR promotes is based far more on a reading belief system than reading science. Real science puts forth conclusions and recommendations based on a wide body of research. An ideology puts forth a dogma based on a very narrow range of data that must be adhered to.

Language learning is a universal human function. People around the world, in different environments and with different abilities seem to acquire their primary language in essentially the same sequence and the same way. This tells us that humans are hard-wired to learn language in some form (Chomsky, 1968)

Four elements

There are four elements connected with language learning (Ormrod, Anderman, & Anderman, 2020):

• Semantics refers to the meaning. Children learn that certain sounds, symbols, or movements of a hand and facial gestures means something.

• Syntax refers to the rules for how the words, symbols, and movements are put together. For example, in human communication there is usually a thing word (noun) coupled with an action word (verb). Children learn that the types of words, the form of the word, and the order that they are used make a difference.

• Medium refers to the form the language takes. Children learn to produce certain sounds, symbols, or movements to communicate.

• Pragmatics is the context in which the communication takes place and the social rules around that communication. Children learn to communicate in different ways, in different contexts, with different people, and for different purposes.

Critical Race Theory has been much maligned, discounted, and discredited without fully understanding exactly what it is. It has been presented as a bad thing, a dangerous thing, a nefarious thing by conservative groups such as The American Experiment. Disinformation, misinformation, and distortion are used under the guise of patriotism and Christianity. What is presented as Critical Race Theory is not critical race theory at all. Groups like The American Experiment offer a distorted, cartoonish, and perverted view of Critical Race Theory. This short podcast describes what it is and what it is not.

This podcast describes a strategy to develop reading fluency for severely struggling readers, or any other readers reading at RL 1 or RL 2. The materials for this strategy can be found at www.Readocity.com

.An individual Orton-Gillingham course costs over $2,000 and associate level training costs $4,000 plus $250 for materials. There are various levels of training and certification that can be purchased. What you get for your money is an expensive, Humpty-Dumptian approach to reading instruction where children are taught a specified list of reading subskills in a predetermined order and in a specified way. the Orton-Gillingham magic ingredient is “multisensory” instruction. This means it uses visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modalities when teaching. In other words, as children are learning, they see things, hear things, and do things.

This is called multimodal instruction. Elementary teachers have been using it for years. But an effective meaning-based approach to reading instruction is even more multimodal in its multimodality. It includes imagination, emotion, and social interaction as well as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modalities. So effective meaning-based reading instruction would have children see things, hear things, do things, imagine things, emote things, and say things. In this podcast I describe 21 multimodal instructional strategies. And I will not charge you $4,000 plus $250 for materials.

To fully understand this current reading “crisis” (which really isn’t a crisis at all), it must be seen in the context of similar “crises” occurring in the past (which weren’t really crises either). This current “crisis” is not the first reading crisis to come along (Aydarova, 2024; Berliner & Biddle, 1995; McQuillan, 1998; Thomas, 2024), and it certainly won’t be the last. And when this crisis runs its course, there will be a lull followed by another crisis, and then another, and then another. That’s because there will always be those willing to create the illusion of crises for political and economic gain (Altwerger, 2008; Aydarove, 2023). And sadly, it’s an effective tactic … for a time anyway.

In being and becoming teachers of writing we must allow spaces for bad teaching to occur. This doesn’t mean I’m advocating bad teaching. But if you take risks and try new things, you are bound to have lessons that don’t go just the way you would have liked. Risks and experimentation are essential components of growth and evolution. Hence, if you’ve never had a bad lesson, you haven’t tried enough new things. If you’ve never failed, it means you’ve been clinging too tightly to the outline. Occasional teaching failure is an important part of being and becoming a master teacher.

As teachers and as human beings living on the good planet earth, we are not defined by our success, rather, by how we address our failures. A successful teacher and human is not failure-free. A successful teacher and human is failure-overcoming.

Teachers exist in a school context which exists within a systems context. A system is an interacting and interdependent set of elements working together to form a unified whole. To fully understand the obstacles teachers face and why some are leaving education, one must first understand the system in which they exist. Arthur Combs (1999) described two common types of systems used in organizations: top-down closed systems and person-centered open systems. This podcast describes a person-centered open system.

Traditional grammar instruction takes an isolated approach. It describes the rules for conjugating verbs, un-dangling participles, and coordinating conjunctions. This is done in isolation, apart from real writing and speaking. This approach may be effective for completing grammar worksheets, but it does not address the process of communicating effectively. In other words, teaching grammar instruction apart from real writing does little to enhance the quality of students’ writing. Also, there is very little transfer into authentic writing and speaking.

Instead, the rules of grammar should be taught in the context of students’ own writing. This is called an embedded approach. This is more impactful on students’ ability to use grammar correctly than teaching them in isolation, and it doesn’t get in the way of their real writing.

To be fully teacher, one must be fully present. Being fully teacher means being fully human. It is about being in relationship. It is about caring. It is about feeling. It is about keeping children from disappearing.

This podcast will clarify a couple of un-understandings related to whole language reading instruction:

(1) Cueing is NOT an approach to reading instruction.

(2) We do NOT teach children to guess as words.

(3) Tinfoil hats do NOT keep the FBI from reading your mind.

Rosalie Fink (Fink, 1996; Fink, 1998) Interviewed successful men and women with dyslexia to see why they were able to be so successful despite their profound “disability”. She discovered that all these successful adults were all allowed to immerse themselves and read in areas of interest as children. Here, they developed expertise, built conceptual and vocabulary knowledge and became familiar with the schemes and structures of the types of texts found in their field. This background knowledge was more important for facilitating reading accuracy and comprehension than letter clues. That is, marginal decoders used context to create meaning with print. Low-level skill mastery was not a prerequisite for higher-level thinking and skill construction.

https://www.rosaliefink.com/successfulcareers

We live in an age of clownery. In today’s clown age, radio journalists (Emily Hanford) get more attention from schools, state legislators, and even groups like the Illinois Reading Council than do teachers, serious academicians, researchers, and scholars when talking about reading instruction. In this age of clownery, for-profit groups are making decisions about what gets taught in our schools and what kind of professional development teachers receive. The voices of teachers and literacy experts, scholars, researchers have been silenced while the faceless moneychangers from the educational industrial complex are amplified But one of the problems in combating clowns is the effectiveness of their own clownery. Amongst the clutter of jokes disguised as facts, it can be difficult to get accurate (truthful) information out to the public. Today, know-nothing radio journalists are considered experts in reading instruction. As well, an article or column in a newspaper or magazine, written by a reporter who is hired to write about stuff about everything, gets more attention than a solid, peer-reviewed article published in an academic journal. That’s just the way of things. That’s how most come to understand reality. Decision makers are bottle-fed the warm milk of distortion from the teat of American Public Media.

This current podcast looks at another un-understanding that has been fabricated out of tiny bits of ignorance, misconceptions, and intellectual sloth. This is the fallacy that whole language has somehow been debunked … that whole language is a failure … that research has proven whole language to be ineffective … I would again respond: nonsense, twaddle, and poppycock. So much nonsense, twaddle, and poppycock to address – Where does one begin? That perhaps would have been a good name for this series.

In this podcast, I will first do a bit de-debunking of the great un-understanding related to whole language. Then I will provide a bit of information that might help to understand what whole language actually is.

The teacher is the most significant variable in determining how much learning takes place in any classroom. We must attend to this most significant variable. This occurs through professional develop that focuses on four kinds of knowledge: content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and knowledge of learners and learning.

This is an interview with a Minnesota reading Professor. Ideology has replaced science when it comes to reading instruction in Minnesota.

Humanistic learning theory is based upon five supporting principles.

1. Students’ learning should be as self-directed as possible. In other words, students should be given choices about what they learn, how they learn, and how they demonstrate their learning, to the greatest degree possible. Choice here does not mean total choice all the time. Instead, it means as much choice as is appropriate for the situation. Choice exists on a continuum. For example, you can offer:

(a) no choice. “We’re studying the Civil War this month. This is the book we’re going to read. This is the topic you’ll be doing reports on.”

(b) a choice within a set. “I’ve put out five books for you, you can choose the one you wish to read.”

(c) a choice within a category. “We’re studying the Civil War this month, you can read any book or investigate any topic related to the Civil War.”

(d) total choice. “Find a topic that interests and inspires you for your research project. These are the criteria. This is the due date. Find a book that you love for our reading class.”

Some situations require more choice, some less choice. The goal would be to provide the minimum amount of control necessary to create a positive learning experience.

2. The subject matter to be learned should be relevant to the lives or personal interests of the students. It should be connected to the students’ lives or interests whenever possible and to the greatest extent possible. For example, when learning number facts in the primary grades, students would be asked to use them to figure out problems in real life situations. Humanistic educators find creative ways for mandated subject matter to reflect or connect with students’ lives. At the same time, space is provided within a curriculum for students to explore topics of interest to them. For example, knowing what is of interest to adolescents, humanistic educators would seek to incorporate themes related to social experiences, relationships, and defining roles and values into traditional subject areas.

3. The full spectrum of the human experience should be included in the educational experience. Emotions, relationships, creativity, imagination, intuition, and real-life problems are all part of the human experience. Including them in the educational experience enhances learning as well as the development of humans. Humanistic educators create the conditions where human beings can learn to use all these human dimensions to solve problems, make decisions, and come to know the world. As well, traditional curriculums are studied in a multidimensional context. Art, drama, music, poetry, creative writing, and other arts are used as tools along with traditional methods to explore or respond to information and ideas.

4. Schools should produce students who want to learn and know how to learn. Humanistic educators build on students’ natural desire to learn by asking them to learn about things that are relevant to their lives and by helping them to make the connections. Curriculum is designed around students' natural ways of learning and includes things about which students want to learn. As well, students are taught how to learn. That is, how to get the necessary information they need, how to critically analyze and evaluate that information, and how to use and apply this information.

5. Students learn best in a non-threatening environment. Threats come in the form of physical threats, but also social threats, emotional threats, or things that endanger one’s self esteem or phenomenological self (Combs, 1999). This occurs when schools focus more on measuring learning than they do on enhancing learning.

There’s a difference between collecting data and research. While the research process includes data collection, collecting data is not research. The research process includes data. But collecting data is not research. In the world of science and academia, research is not research unless and until it has been subjected to blind peer review. Collecting data is not research. Confusing data with research is a common practice in the for-profit realm. Confusing data with research is a common practice with those who have a political or ideological agenda. Confusing data with research is a common practice those outside of education.

Depending on what study is cited and what definition of reading and reading deficiency is used, anywhere from 6% to 20% of students are what might be called “struggling readers”. Also depending on studies and definitions, anywhere from 3% to 5% of students are severely struggling readers. Terms like “reading disability”, “severe reading disability” and even “dyslexia: have been used with this group. This is the focus of this podcast

This is the first in a serious of podcast using critical race theory to examine teacher preparation. In this podcast, seven basic ideas or common understands of critical race theory are examined.

A fact may be true. But the truth of the fact is limited to the context in which it was found. Outside a meaningful context, the fact may mean something different. Also, facts without context can be misapplied and misunderstood. This is true of many of the facts used to support SoR structured approaches to reading instruction known as structured literacy. It is a house built on a series of decontextualized facts.

While this concept of fidelity may be appropriate for experimental research where control and treatment groups need to follow strict parameters in order to isolate a variable; it is neither effective nor appropriate when educating real students in the uncontrolled confines of the real world. , it would be a form of educational malpractice to insist that teachers follow a recipe with “fidelity”. In fact, this would prevent them from being able to adequately meet the needs of their students.

There is a bit of racism in the special education silo. I used to describe special education as a field – as in “the field of special education.” And indeed, it did used to be a field. You can see this field when reading articles from the major special education academic journals in the 1990s and early 2000s. It was a field. Not a farmer’s field but a field in the wild. This kind of field is a beautiful place. It is an ecosystem, with birds, other animals, and a wide variety of plant life. And a field in the wild is not contained. It changes over time as new seeds, plant life, and animals interact with it. The edges of the field evolve and change over time.

Education is a field. Literacy education is a field. But special education is not a field anymore; rather, it has become a silo.

The podcast examines the big, big picture related to reading instruction. Four big ideas are presented here:

1. A reading teacher’s number one job should be to help children fall in love with books.

2. Students need reading practice

3. Have good books available.

4. Stop the search for magical elixirs.

A learning disability only exists within a school environment. Outside the narrow confines of school, I’ve seen many with identified learning disabilities being highly successful in their professional and personal lives. This was only after shaking off the stigma of the label that had been given to them by the educational system. How dare we define anybody’s potential. What is defined as a learning disability is really an educational disability. How about if we significantly down-size the special education system, create smaller class sizes, provide better working conditions, and give teachers the professional development opportunities they need to be able to include inclusive learning environments with differentiated instruction

Dysresearchlia is an unwillingness to read or an inability to understand reading research. It impacts 3% to 5% of the population. Contrary to popular belief, it is not a brain disorder. That is, even though brain imaging research has shown there to be anomalies in the brains of dysresearchiliacs; … with a basic educational research course, these anomalies largely disappear. Also, scientists have proven that listening to Dr. Johnson’s podcasts helps mitigate the effects of dysresearchlia in 75.3% of cases. Further, researchers have shown that reading his books cures dysresearchlia in 98.7% of cases. And these are real researchers and scientists … the one’s who wear white lab coats and do commercials about toothpaste and bent carrots on TV. Not those fake ones who publish in academic journals.

As you read this page your eyes do not move from left to right, letter-to-letter, word-to-word in a straight, steady line. Your brain simply gives the impression that they do. Eye movement research shows that your eyes move unevenly across the page, going back occasionally, skipping some words, and fixating on others. The small, rapid, jerky movements that your eyes make are called saccades. Where your eyes stop is called a fixation. A regression is when your eye goes back to check on a word.

We can and we must include moral development as part of our curriculums. But how?

if you’re one of those people running around saying the three cueing systems has been debunked, you might as well get one of those ‘hello’ stickers, and write, “Hello, I’m ignorant” on it. Then stick it right in the middle of your forehead. Because that’s what you’re saying to the world. "Hello, I'm ignorant!"

Zaretta Hammond defined culturally responsive teaching as . .

“An educator’s ability to recognize students’ cultural displays of learning and meaning making and respond positively and constructively with teaching moves that use cultural knowledge as a scaffold to connect what the student knows to new concepts and content in order to promote effective information processing. All the while, the educator understands the importance of being in a relationship and having a social-emotional connections to the student in order to create a safe space for learning” (Hammond, 2015, p. 15)

Reading programs need to be balanced (Cunningham & Allington, 2007te). This means that it’s is not all just one thing (like all phonics instruction, or all reading, or all writing, or all anything). Instead, there’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that. You may not have noticed, but children are not standardized products. Children learn differently, in different ways, and at different rates. Thus, in learning to read, some children need a little more of one thing while others need bit more of another thing. Trying to push all children through the same reading program will result in the slowed growth of some and the frustration of others. This practice is called teaching the program and not children. Effective teachers teach children. Factory workers teach the program. Whenever possible, strive to be a teacher, not a factory worker.

Standardized tests are effective for describing how far students are from a mythical average. They are very ineffective in diagnosing the cause of reading difficulties. This podcast explains.

This is an excerpt from my book: Johnson, A. (2016). 10 essential instructional elements for students with reading difficulties: A brain-friendly approach. Corwin

The first podcast provides a sense of what effective literacy instruction might look like at the preschool and kindergarten (emergent) levels. The following podcast describes strategies for developing phonemic awareness.

Across the country, states are considering a Republican-based education bill promoted as the “Parents Bill of Rights”. This bill would promote “curriculum transparency”, allowing parents to review school curriculum “without cost and immediately upon request, and add a notice requirement that requires schools to make “reasonable arrangements” for alternative instruction when families object to what is being taught.

This transparency bill is a relic from the 50s that belongs there. Joe McCarthy is dead. The Berlin wall has been taken down. Elvis Pressley left the building. We must educate our children today to live in the world of the future not in a world of the past. To enable them to succeed and thrive in the increasingly diverse and interconnected global community of tomorrow we must ensure that they have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to do so. However, the “Parents Bill of Rights” impedes our ability to do so. It would allow a small army of the angry to pick what they consider to be the lice off the educational monkey. This will result in a shallow, disjointed curriculum for the rest of us that creates a distorted view of the world.

Yes, moral outrage over systemic racism is a wonderful thing. It is good that people are outraged (again) at the abuse and the murders at the hands of a police system that was originally designed to protect us. It is good as well that there is moral outrage over the continued disparities, the implicit bias, and the educational, political, social, and economic restrictions that advantage those in power (white privilege) while restricting and disadvantaging people of color. There should be outrage. We would lack humanity if we were not outraged. But how many times have we been outraged over the last 20, 30, 50, 400 years? Hell, how many times have we been morally outraged in the last year?

There are three types of phonics instruction: synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, and large unit phonics. In a meaning-based approach to word work, they should all be included.

Words are always encountered in the context of a sign, product, or sentence. In the same way, to be understood, data must be understood and evaluated in the context in which it was collected. Reading research can only be fully understood in the context of a wider array of research studies within a theoretical perspective. And theories must be understood in the context of a paradigm. The Science of Reading movement must be understood in the greater social and political context and in the context of past educational reform movements (NCLB).

One cause of ineffective reading instruction is the lack of understanding related to the reading process. More specifically, inaccurate information about how the brain creates meaning with print. Old ideas get in the way of new understandings. Un-understandings also get in the way of new understandings.

In the education world, the term “evidence-based” is often thrown around carelessly and used to end the discussion. But the question I would posit (and pardon me for being so inquisitive) is this: When you say a practice or strategy is “evidence-based” have you actually looked at the evidence of the evidence-base? Or are you just using the term because you heard somebody else use it?

This podcast is designed for white people. Full disclosure: I am a white man. It also describes just some of the basic elements of systemic racism. It also differentiates between the word "equality" and "equity".

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This is the first in a series of podcasts that will address racism as it pertains to special education and literacy instruction. In these podcasts I am addressing the special education system, which I refer to a silo. In this podcast, I define racism.

A disclaimer: In these podcasts I am not referring to any particular school, school district, university, or teacher preparation program. I am addressing systemic racism in the larger special education silo.

Phonics is the ability to associate sounds with letters or letter patterns. Phonics is one of four ways used to identify individual words as we read. The other three are: (a) analogy [word families], (b) morphemic awareness [prefix, suffix, affix, root], and (c) context clues [semantics]. Phonics instruction is very important, but it should never be taught as the sole component in a reading program. If reading instruction consists only of phonics, the other word identification skills will not develop. Reading instruction that is effective simultaneously develops all four word identification skills.

Within the academic, respectful academic discourse is expected when discussing and debating issues. Here people exchange ideas, they define and defend their positions, and they delineate points of agreement and disagreement with others. Sometimes there are very heated exchanges while discussing and debating issues. This is as it should be. Debate is an important part of the scholarly process within the academy; however, it is done using respectful academic discourse. In the academic of scholars, this is one of the standards.

This is a recording of a conversation with Dave Boulton. He and I have different views on reading instruction. Hopefully, we are modeling how to have respectful academic discussions.

Lucy Calkins has made some tremendous contributions – but at the end of the day, she does not represent balanced literacy or a meaningful-based approach to literacy instruction. At the end of the day, Lucy represents Lucy. She speaks for Lucy Calkins. She’s promoting her books, her programs, her products, and her Units of Study. And that’s good. Meaning-based literacy educators are not reliant on any external products.

She doesn’t represent the ILA, the ILEC, or anybody else She does not represent meaning-based educators. She doesn’t represent those who opposed the Science of Reading nonsense. She doesn’t speak for those of us who advocate teacher empowerment, smaller classes, better pay and working conditions for teachers, adequate health care, and economic opportunities, or those of us pushing for racial equity and social justice. She doesn’t.

But there’s no reading messiahs here. There are no reading messiahs. The only messiah that meaning-based reading educators have is a wide body of research using diverse research methodologies. That is our messiah. That is our holy book. That is our religion.

A method in education usually refers to a defined process or specific set of techniques that are used exclusively in a prescribed fashion for instruction in a particular subject area. In contrast, a pedagogical strategy is a specific teaching technique that is used selectively in a variety of subject areas for a specific purpose. Direct instruction is one such pedagogical strategy. It should not be considered a method. There are instances when direct instruction is the most effective strategy to use. There are other instances when it is the least efficient strategy to use. Like any pedagogical strategy, its effectiveness is dependent on how it is used and for what purpose.

This is the first in a two-part series looking at grammar instruction. Learning about grammar doesn’t have to be boring and meaningless. This podcast starts by dispelling some myths, otherwise known as silly grammar ideas. It ends by describing the four elements of effective skills instruction: (a) input and modeling, (b) guided practice, (c) independent practice, and (d) review

The podcast looks at two different types of systems. Arthur Combs (1999) described two common types of systems used in organizations: top-down (managed) closed systems and person-centered open systems. This podcast contrasts the effects of a top-down closed system and a person-centered open system applied in an educational setting

One cause of ineffective reading instruction is an un-understanding of how the brain creates meaning with print. The other is testing madness. The number monkeys have taken over education! If we can’t put a number to a thing, it is thought not to exist.

I have yet to come across a standardized test that taught a child to read. Despite all the colorful graphs and charts, I have yet to encounter a test that tells me exactly what I should do on Monday morning. They simply tell me how far away from average a kid is.

Systemic racism has never been fully addressed in our society, our culture, and our curriculums. Simply including George Washing Carver in a social studies lesson just will not do it this time around. We need more than that. Systemic racism calls for a systemic response. This p0dcast addresses white guilt, white shame, and the history of the United States of America

It is not the 'what' of phonics instruction in which there are varying ideas; it is the 'how' and the 'how much' of phonics instruction. Also, all teachers, especially whole language teachers, believe in very direct and explicit instruction.

Federal guidelines related to IEPs for reading state that special education services (instruction and interventions), should be based on “peer-reviewed research.” This podcast explores the mystery of peer-reviewed research and the National Reading Panel. There are four things to take from this podcast related to peer-reviewed research and reading instruction:

(1) It is not a perfect process, but it is a process and this process is important.

(2) The process is not without bias or flaws. Peer review does not magically make research unbiased or pure. It is not possible for human beings to have a completely objective, unbiased view of anything. Peer-review is simply another filter to try to remove some of the impurities related to bias, methodology, theoretical context, applications, and conclusions.

(3) You are the ultimate filter. You are the most important peer-reviewer. In this respect, you must always ask: Does the strategy or approach work with the students in front of you? Does it enhance their ability to create meaning with print? Does it move them forward, unimpeded, in their journey to achieve their full literacy potential? It does not matter if a strategy or approach demonstrates significant results with a large sample size if it does not work with your sample size.

(4) Federal government has many significant roles to play in enhancing the betterment of our society and improving the lives of all people. However, identifying effective reading instruction is not one of them.

Fast-Reading Freddy was a second-grade student. His father contacted me because, according to him, his son had reading problems. The scores on reading achievement tests were below grade level. His father indicated that he was going to get him tested for dyslexia. Knowing the devasting impact that such tests and labels can have, and the great amount of nothingness that such tests produce, I told his father I wanted to listen to Freddy read before any testing was done. This is the story of what I found.

There are three types of activities that can be used to advance students’ moral reasoning: moral dilemmas, values clarification activities, analyzing levels and stages. This podcast addresses moral dilemmas.

:n our current educational system, standardized tests are used to assess the quality of the student-products as they move along the 13-year conveyor belt within the education factories commonly referred to as schools. Students whose test scores fall below a certain percentile ranking are thought to have a disability. Additional standardized tests are then given by standardized testing experts to confirm and diagnose the cause of the disability. Very much like a disease, a “special” standardized treatment is then prescribed for this disability.

These students are then sent off to Special Ed World. This is a purgatorial “special” place apart from the general education classroom where students are given the prescribed special treatment by special treatment experts. In the segregated setting of Special Ed World, the special treatment experts implement the special treatment with fidelity. However, one of the many problems with Special Ed World as currently configured is that once students become entangled in the special education machinery, they are lost forever. They rarely return.

This podcast examines three interconnecting elements related to reading instruction in Special Ed World: (a) data-resistant theoretical constructs, (b) paradigmatic parochialism regarding what is considered “scientifically-based” research, and (dd manipulative approaches to teaching.

1. Literacy standards (like the CCSS) should not be designed by literacy amateurs (as literacy standards most often are). There are some things that should be left to educational professionals (like classroom teachers).

2. Expository text calls for an efferent response. Narrative text calls for an aesthetic response.

3. In our approaches to literacy instruction, we must always focus on real-world macro goals for reading vs. artificial micro-goals. When reading narrative text, the macro goal is for students to be able to read and enjoy the story. When reading expository text, the macro goal is for students to read and understand (construct knowledge with) the text.