~ English: 26 letters and 44 distinct sounds (phonemes)
AND AROUND AND AROUND WE GO…
The term Science of Reading first appeared in the 1836 issue of The American Annals of Education and Instruction, waited 174 years to make a comeback in 2010, then gained momentum in 2018 with Mark Seidenberg’s Language at the Speed of Sight: How We Read, Why So Many Can’t, and What Can Be Done About It. At the time, The New York Times called it an “important, alarming book.”
A BRIEF HISTORY:
- 1783: Noah Webster’s The First Part of the Grammatical Institution of the English Language comes out, then gets a name change to The American Spelling Book in 1786. Phonics-based, it started with the alphabet, moved systematically through the different vowel and consonant sounds, then syllables, simple words, and ultimately complex words and sounds.
- 1836: Brothers William and Alexander McGuffey come out with their McGuffey Readers for grades 1 to 6. Known as “the schoolmaster of the nation,” William says his “Readers were especially adapted to the Phonic Method or a combined Word and Phonic Method…”
- 1836: Deaf education pioneer Thomas H. Gallaudet’s Mother’s Primer is published. The first-ever look/say primer, its first line reads: “Frank has a dog; his name is Spot.”
- 1837: Endorsed by Thomas Mann, the first Secretary of the Board of Education of Massachusetts, the Boston Primary adopts The Mother’s Primer. Other textbook writers jump aboard the whole word movement.
- 1844: Some Boston schoolmasters push back and lead a return to the alphabetic method.
- 1914: Replacing the McGuffey Readers, James H. Fassett’s Beacon Readers is published with “carefully arranged phonetic difficulties,” plus whole words for memorizing. Filled with classics like fairy tales, the Readers stressed the importance of storytelling for youngsters.
MEANWHILE…
- 1908: Psychologist Edmund Huey’s The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading promotes Whole Word instruction and essentially sidelines phonics. Huey eventually aligns himself with John Dewey, “the father of progressive education” whose stated goal is to “change the focus from academic skills to developing cooperative social skills.”
AND DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE WE WENT, LED BY…
- 1927: Columbia University’s Dr. Arthur I. Gates writes that it would be wise “to curtail the phonetic instruction in the first grade very greatly and not impossible that it should be eliminated entirely.” His New Method of Teaching Reading encourages children to guess the meanings of words without trying to pronounce them.
- 1930-1960s: Gates, now chief editor and senior author of Macmillan’s basal series, Macmillan Readers, puts the Whole Word method front and center, not decoding. It becomes known as the Whole Word, aka Look/Say Method.
- 1930-1960: William Scott Gray, education professor and chief editor of Scott-Foresman’s basal series Dick and Jane, emphasizes isolated skills and repeated, controlled vocabulary for easy memorization. It’s placed in almost every primary classroom, impacting some 85 million kids.
I was one of them… (to be continued)
With my thanks, Carol
