"The solution to poor reading scores is not simply better instruction"- Emily Hanford (Part 2)

                                                

Here is a response from Jani Wright. As expected there is no reply from Emily Hanford, the so-called literacy expert.

 

Jani Wright @thewrightjungle

Poor Tier I curriculum, poor MTSS, F&P fans at the DO, lack of training for teachers, laws that allow each district to operate with local control, and a state DOE that hasn't prioritized reading using evidence-based practices. No accountability.

These are all too general.

i.                    What exactly is poor tier 1 curriculum?

ii.                  Why has nothing been done since 1972 (the year since when data is available)?

iii.               Why has the reading proficiency level remained the same since 1972?

 

I don’t know anything about F&P but I know that it was used only in about 16% of schools in the US. Why are the results in the other schools the same as in schools using F&P? Why is the reading proficiency level around the same level around the world?

What is evidence-based practice?

Reid Lyon coined the words ‘instructional casualties’ more than 30 years ago. I have discovered what are wrongly instructed and listed them in my book Shut Down Kids. If Emily Hanford read my book she would not have said “The solution to poor reading scores is not simply better instruction”. If she had read my book, then she simply does not understand what causes kids to disengage from learning to read. How did she get this ‘literacy expert’ title?

Jani Wright said, ‘Many students do have trouble decoding, but not all & mostly only in K-3’.

This is music to my ears as it is confirmation of what I have been saying for many years. A majority of kids are confused and are unable to decode in grades one to three. They somehow figure out how to read subsequent to grade three. Read my post on how two university students sounded out the consonants with extraneous sounds and yet were able to read the nonsense words given to them. LINK

The students who are unable to decode are the kids who shut down from learning to read and leave school as illiterates.

The kids who leave school as illiterates are the kids we should focus on. How do we prevent them from shutting down from learning to read?