"What I found is absolutely fantastic...Johnny couldn't read until half a year ago for the simple reason that nobody ever showed him how...Do you know that the teaching of reading never was a problem anywhere in the world until the United States switched to the present method around about 1925?" begins Rudolf Flesch in his fabulous 1955 book, Why Johnny Can't Read.
This is a serious charge indeed. Teaching reading was never a problem until we here in the USA switched to a new method? That's the topic of Flesch's book, and he provides hard evidence to illustrate his point. Let me explain how I came to read it, and why I feel it's important enough to devote to a blog post.
Simply put, I believe Flesch is right. He argues that teaching phonics is how to teach reading, and that it's the way everyone learned until 1925, when schools switched to the whole word method, or "sight" words. Teachers have seen struggles ever since. When phonics is foolproof, Flesch argues, why change things? When learning letter sounds and decoding works for all types of learners, why not stick with what we know works? Instead, the whole-word method was introduced, in which the same "list" of words is repeated a maddening number of times in a text; students are expected to memorize a word based on how it looks, rather than having phonetic instruction or basis for reading.
I love the sweetness of 1950's school readers, but quickly discovered that they are insulting to a child's intelligence. The passages seen in what schools call "reading comprehension" are worse, the kinds of dry, textbook-like excerpts that make kids hate to read. Charlotte Mason's entire method of teaching hinges on living books full of rich ideas, and allowing children to process these ideas through narration. Kids want to read passages, even if they're short, that are meaningful. Flesch agrees; I laughed out loud at his take on it:
"...He gets those series of horrible, stupid, emasculated, pointless, tasteless little readers, the stuff and guff about Dick and Jane or Alice and Jerry visiting the farm and having birthday parties and seeing animals in the zoo and going through dozens and dozens of totally unexciting...middle-I.Q. children's activities that offer opportunities for reading 'Look, look' or 'Yes, yes,' or 'Come, come' or 'See the funny, funny animal.'...Naturally, the stupendous and frighteningly idiotic work of concocting this stuff can only be done by tireless teamwork of many educational drudges. But if the textbook house put only the drudges on the title page, that wouldn't look impressive enough to beat the competition. So there has to be a 'senior author'--someone with a national reputation who teaches how to teach reading at one of the major universities."
Then Flesch adds,
"..as soon as you switch to the common-sense method of teaching the sounds of the letters, you can give them a little primer and then proceed immediately to anything from the Reader's Digest to Treasure Island."
So, why did I read Flesch's book in the first place, if I already agreed with what he writes about? Well, it's actually because of Flesch himself! Earlier this year, I read John Rosemond's book, The Diseasing of America's Children. Rosemond is one of few parenting "experts" whose opinions I value due to his rejection of psychobabble. In this particular book, Rosemond's citing of Flesch piqued my interest.
While perusing the shelves of one of my favorite used book stores a few weeks ago, I came across this first edition of Why Johnny Can't Read, and recalled Rosemond's reference to it. It was a mere dollar; I paid all in dimes. I tore into Flesch's book with fascination, not because I needed convincing (I was already a proponent of phonics), but due to his up front, no-nonsense way of expressing his point. He and Rosemond have won my loyalty for that reason, and also because I agree with them; what they say works!
How fascinating that, sixty years ago, Flesch was sounding the reading-instruction alarm to parents and teachers. And here we are today, reaping the consequences, just as he warned. If a first grader isn't reading chapter books, a "test" is administered, and a label is slapped on him, reading specialist is called in, and something must be done because he is "behind" his peers! Why are we holding all children to the same standard, and who gets to decide just what that is? If a child improves by leaps and bounds over a year, shouldn't we praise that child, and trust that he or she will soon catch up? Must every child "behind" the "standard" be labeled? To be sure, there are cases of true disabilities. I propose that premature diagnosis of this in large quantities also takes away time from those who really need a specialist's help.
There does need to be some sort of benchmark. But for Pete's sake, why are we creating roomfuls of automatons who detest reading because it's being forced in unnatural ways? I used to fear my children would never read, until I learned the importance of daily diligence and gave them time as individuals. Here are more favorite Flesch quotes:
"Each and every one of the so-called authorities in this field is tied up with a series of readers based on the Chinese word-learning method." (He says "Chinese" because, when children have to memorize words without phonics, they might as well learn a different symbol for each word).
"The argument for the look-and-say method is tainted by the limited-adult view of the child-mind. Our own psychological processes are put into the child, diminished in strength, but similar in form...We do not like the mechanical acquisition of new things; it is hard for us; so we say children do not like it. As a matter of fact, they do." (In response to those who say that children don't "like" phonics).
"Everybody today accepts it as gospel that all books for children and adolescents have to be thinned, watered, diluted. We do not dare any more to expose our children to normal English."
"...a child [not taught phonics] who had successfully read the word children on a flash card was unable to read it in a book. He insisted he had never seen the word before. He was presented with a flash card of the word and was asked how he recognized the word as children. He replied, 'By the smudge in the corner.'"
"It may be true, as Mr. Chase points out, that this is a lesson in 'discussion' [Some kids not taught phonics had a "discussion" about their "reading" passage]. But then, parents do not pay school taxes to have first-graders taught 'discussion.' They pay to have their children taught to read, write, and spell."
"If you start in the fall of the year when your child is five, you have a whole year to do the job before the school can do any damage to your child's mental habits. What's stopping you? Do it yourself--and the problem will be solved once and for all." (I would like to make a bold statement here: Many parents see this as work that's "not their job," but rather the job of the school. Schools can only do so much.)
Flesch doesn't leave us to our own devices as to how to implement this call to teach our own children how to read. If you are planning to send your child to traditional school, why not give him or her an advantage and get ahead, as Flesch says? The end of his book includes seventy-two (yes, 72!) reading lessons, with thorough instructions on their use. Here are some examples:
And so on, and so forth the lessons go. You have the freedom to linger as long as you want on any page. There's no need to force anything or move ahead when a child isn't ready!!!! Reinforce the sounds and spellings. Use one column at a time, or go over the whole page at a time. Have a child read the words, or call them out and have him spell them. At the end of the week, write ten of the words on the board, and ask him to write sentences with six of his choosing. Don't move on to lesson two if you don't feel that lesson one hasn't been mastered. This is why kids get frustrated in classroom settings; they are forced to move on when they aren't ready, which is landing droves of them under the eye of a specialist. Allow this specialist to give attention to those who might truly need it, rather than kids who just need a little extra time or reinforcement.
If I had known about Why Johnny Can't Read years ago, I'd have used it to teach my children to read. However, I was just as fortunate to have Marie Rippel's All About Spelling, as well as the old Open Court Headway program. I highly recommend both, mixed together, along with these pages in Flesch's book. I have also found Florence Akin's Reading Mastery helpful; it's almost identical to Flesch's lessons. Flesch cites Hay and Wingo's Reading With Phonics, which I also would use if I had it to start over again from the beginning.
If you are about to embark on teaching reading to a child, I implore you to do some phonics daily. It need not be exhaustive; we're talking ten minutes! Now that I have Flesch's research and information, I can still use it to reinforce reading and teach spelling. After all, my children are neither perfect readers nor spellers; they're only in fourth and fifth grades. Flesch's word lists are ideal for ten minute lessons. My girls love numbering 1-12, and having me call out words from these lists for them to spell.
There is no reason to make children memorize ridiculous lists of sight words. Reject lists like the Dolch words. Yes, there are words like "eight" and "two" that need to be memorized. However, the majority of words follow a rule, or are learned with reading experience.
I leave you with some final Flesch wisdom:
"The primitive method of learning how to read is a great American tradition. Lincoln in his log cabin must have learned that way; so did his successor Andrew Johnson, the illiterate tailor's apprentice who taught himself to read when he was ten 'from a book which contained selected orations of great British and American statesmen.' Can you imagine a poor boy today who will educate himself by painstakingly working his way through the three Macmillan readers with their 1,278 words? I can't."
"For the first time in history American parents see their children getting less education than themselves."
