WE HAVE A PROBLEM

(RELEASED 4-10-07)

We must reframe how we think about what is at stake and what is involved in learning to read.  After reviewing the dimensions of the reading crisis we present the dangerous cognitive, linguistic, academic, EMOTIONAL, and social consequences of protracted learning to read difficulties. Next we present some of the consequences of adult low-literacy to our: democracy, economy, health care system, tax burden, and in terms of persistent poverty and consumer behavior. Finally, given the number of lives affected, we make the case that reading improficiency is our nation's most wide-spread learning disability and that nothing short of a complete REFRAME in how we think about it is going to improve the situation. 

"No one is to blame, we are all responsible"
(RELEASED 5-28-07)

CAUSES AND CONTRIBUTING FACTORS - 13 VIDEO SEGMENTS

Why is learning to read so difficult?  The root cause of reading difficulties (in most children) can be understood in terms of the complex interplay between:

• a) UNNATURAL CONFUSION (the code)

• b) the child's developmental READINESS to learn through the confusion

• c) how well INSTRUCTION differentially adapts to a child's level of readiness

• d) the child's EMOTIONAL RESPONSE to all the above.

Many other factors contribute to and exacerbate these root issues:  Innate learning differences and disabilities, parental education and involvement, preschools and print exposure all contribute to a child's readiness or lack thereof. Limited English proficiency, the proliferation of media (TV, Video Games...), incompetent instruction, inadequate teacher training, the ~ 4th grade switch to 'reading to learn", our education system's resistance to change, and our society's shallow thinking about reading all exacerbate the confusion. Making all of the above more difficult, educators, parents, and society as a whole, conspire (unintentionally but insidiously-pervasively)  to cause children to feel like they are at fault for their learning to read difficulties. 

READ-I-NESS

"So the sobering message here is that if children don't have the right experiences during these sensitive periods for the development of a variety of skills, including many cognitive and language capacities, that's a burden that those kids are going to carry; the sensitive period is over, and it's going to be harder for them." - Dr. Jack Shonkoff, Chair, National Scientific Council on the Developing Child

(RELEASED 11-01-07)

READINESS: Early Learning Trajectories  - 7 VIDEO SEGMENTS

In this chapter we explore some key factors and issues related to how children's early learning trajectories determine their level of readiness for taking on the challenges involved in learning to read:

• the role of the family in shaping children's readiness for reading

• the interplay of nature and nurture in early learning trajectories

• the sensitive slope of early childhood brain development

• the inseparability of emotion and cognition in all learning

• the fundamental role language plays in human life - from the beginning

• how children's language foundations develop and adapt to their environments

• how children's trajectories through all the above result in meaningful differences that profoundly affect the difficulty they have learning to read

"...Children of professional parents -- I mean, talkative families and college educated -- heard forty-eight million words addressed to them by the time they're four. Children in welfare families who were taciturn heard thirteen million words addressed to them by the time they were four."  - Dr. Todd Risley, co-author "Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children", Senior Scientist at the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies.

SHAME



The Dark Heart of Reading Difficulties
(RELEASED 7-15-07)

SHAME: The Dark Heart of Reading Difficulties - 8 Video Segments

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CODE - PART 1
"The big step between civilization and more primitive forms of human society is written language."  Dr. John Searle, Professor of the Philosophy of  Mind and
Language at U.C. Berkeley

"We have all become children of the code"  - Dr. Malcolm Richardson, Chair, Department of English, LSU
(RELEASED 9-03-07)

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CODE - PART 1 - 6 Video Segments

Understanding the code and and its history is essential to understanding the "CONFUSION' involved in learning to read it today. The "Power of Writing" begins our journey into the profound cognitive and institutional consequences of becoming code users (writers and readers).  Next, "The Alphabet's Big Bang" and "Grecian Formulas" explore the origin of the Alphabet and it's unparalleled effects on the minds and institutions that gave rise to western civilization (future segments will address pre-alphabetic writing systems).  In "Lend Me Your Ears" we introduce the initial relationships between letters and sounds (critical background for future segments on how the code became so complex).  And, in the "Code of da Vinci" we present the code as both the 'DNA of science' and the 'media that enabled the Renaissance'. Finally, we review the "Spread, Rise, and Fall of Literacy" which sets the stage for "A Brief History of the Code - Part 2:  Ye First Millennium Bug" (coming later in the series). 

"I think it was much easier to learn how to read in the 8^th century B.C. than it is today." - Dr. Frank Moore Cross Professor Emeritus of Ancient Languages, Harvard University

...In Greek, or Latin, for example, once you could view the letters, you could read... there was almost a perfect match... Dr. Guy Deutscher,  Author: The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CODE - PART 2:
YE FIRST MILLENNIUM BUG

 ...[in English] "we have fifty some sounds and only twenty-six letters. So we have to adopt a whole variety of mechanisms to close the gap." - Dr. Richard Venezky, Author: The American Way of Spelling: The Structure and Origins of American English Orthography

"We are always compromised in certain areas by having to represent sounds with symbols that weren't designed to suit those sounds." - Dr. Johanna Drucker, Author: The Alphabetic Labyrinth

"it's easy to forget that the system we have learned is a system that is based on a series of accidents that result in layers of complexity" - Dr. Thomas Cable, Co-author: A History of the English Language

YE FIRST MILLENNIUM BUG - 7 Video Segments

Though readiness and readiness differentiated instruction reduce the difficulty, working through the code's confusing letter-sound relationships is what most challenges the brains of most struggling readers. There is a direct and causal relationship between  the confusion in the code and the 'stutters' heard in the voice of a struggling reader. Obviously, understanding this confusion is critical to understanding the challenges involved in learning to read. As importantly, understanding how the code became so confused is critical to reframing the experience of struggling readers. The more we understand the accidents and negligence that led to the confusion in the English code the more it becomes obvious that it is absurdly negligent to blame and shame children for their struggle with it.

• Latin Roots – The clergy begin to write English using the letters/sounds of Latin

• French Rules –  French displaces English as the official language of England

• The King’s English – Henry V resurrects English writing

• The Chancery Scribes – The King's scribes forge the roots of modern English

• The First Millennium Bug – The fall of phoneticism and rise of confusion

• The Great Vowel Shift – Major shifts in pronunciation add further confusion

• Casting Spells - The printing press standardizes the unstable writing system

..."the accident of the printing press, which in England served to freeze spelling in the fifteenth century so you have these bizarre spellings" - Dr. Malcolm Richardson, Chair, Department of English, LSU

FROM KING JAMES' PHONICS TO THE
READING WARS

WHAT IS READING?