Teach Effectively!

Although it is the story of an apparent success, I was saddened to read the account by Susan Engel in the New York (NY, US) Times about a young boy improving in reading. Professor Engel—she teaches psychology and directs the teaching program at Williams College—writes a column called “Lessons” for the Times, and in the installment for 10 January 2007 she described the case of a 9-year-old boy who had not become proficient in decoding.

At the beginning of the school year, his teacher, Eileen Brennan, paired the children in his class and asked them to read aloud to one another. The boy would hesitate over the first unfamiliar words, Ms. Brennan said, and then take so long to read anything that he and the partner would both give up, or run out of time.

According to Professor Engel, Ms. Brennan investigated further and found that the boy did not have sensory deficits, emotional problems, or other reasons for not decoding well. Ms. Brennan hypothesized that the boy’s problems with decoding were the result of not getting adequate practice in reading; because he was not getting adequate practice, he was not improving in docoding fluency, and because of his inadequate decoding skill and fluency in reading aloud, he was lacking self-confidence. According to Professor Engel, Ms. Brennan solved this by allowing the boy to have a privileged place during reading practice sessions: He would read aloud to the teacher’s pet dog, Barnaby.

Every day until mid-April, the child walked purposefully and calmly over to the bookshelf and selected “Go Dog Go” by P. D. Eastman, settled himself near Barnaby, and recited the book to the dog while pointing to the words and looking over the pictures. By June the boy was picking a wide range of picture books to read to Barnaby, popping out of his chair eagerly for read-aloud time. And he was willing to read, smoothly and fluently, to Ms. Brennan as well.

So, why do I consider this heart-warming success story to be sad? Here are the reasons:

1. The boy should never have gotten to third grade with inadequate decoding skills. I don’t mean that he should have been retained, but someone in K, 1st, or 2nd grades should have caught this and addressed it then.
2. The story endorses, perhaps lightly, the idea that learning to read is strongly influenced by motivation and practice. To be sure, practice is important, especially in promoting fluency, but it (a) builds on decoding instruction and (b) is more beneficial when it is provided with guidance, especially correction and reinforcement (see Samuel’s section of the National Reading Panel report; Kuhn & Stahl’s paper from ~2003 in Reading Research Quarterly; Therrien’s 2004 review of repeated reading in Learning Disability Quarterly). Motivation and “learning to read by reading” are concepts closely associated with whole language and should not be considered sufficient unto themselves.
3. If the boy is repeatedly reading the same book day after day, I have to wonder whether he was actually reading it or simply reciting it. Additional data about his reading competence are needed. If he can decode unfamiliar, grade-level material fluently, then HOORAY! If he can’t, then see point 1 in this list.
4. Perhaps my greatest sadness is that a presitigous source (the Times!) published a column that endorses this sort of education, even if it is by an educator who is responsible for preparing prospective teachers at an institution of the stature of Williams.

Link to Professor Engel’s story (free subscription required) which, by the way, is entitled, “For a Boy Stumbling Over Words, a Dog Is the Ideal Reading Partner.”