April 20, 1998
Hartford (CT) Courant

TEACHING METHODS DEBATED

READING WAR REKINDLES:
LITERATURE OR PHONICS?


ROBERT A. FRAHM and RICK GREEN;
Hartford Courant Staff Writers

As special education classes bulge and push budgets to the brink, many educators suspect the real problem lies with schools themselves -- in ineffective reading instruction.

One in seven Connecticut children is in special education -- the fifth-highest rate in the nation. About half of those are ``learning disabled,'' a label used so frequently that researchers have begun to question what the diagnosis really means. The category known as LD is the fastest-growing segment of special education, but many say it has become a murky catchall for children whose only real handicap is that schools have failed to teach them to read.

``I'm convinced we're not doing enough to prevent reading problems from occurring in the first place,'' said John J. Pikulski, president of the International Reading Association.

``I really am concerned that kids are getting labeled, and we are not doing as much as we should to teach them.''

The Connecticut Department of Education, too, recently suggested that improper reading instruction might be inflating special education rolls.

But those concerns raise a sticky question:

How should schools teach reading?

That question has put researchers and reading instructors at odds, rekindling a decades-old debate about teaching methods, about phonics vs. literature.

More than 30 years of research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., suggests that many who fall behind would have benefited -- and might have been spared the LD label -- had they been taught with a rigorous, systematic approach to language, including phonics instruction.

One of the main disciples of that viewis G. Reid Lyon, a neuropsychologist with the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Developmentat the NIH. ``LD as a category came about not on the back of any scientific push, but because you had a lot of kids not learning in school who did not fit any other category,'' he said. ``The definition is so vague, you can be learning disabled in Vermont and move to Kentucky and be cured.''

And when children do acquire the LD label, it often comes after second or third grade -- long after their reading problems began.

Again and again, the NIH studies have shown that these poor readers ``don't have any idea how the alphabet works, how the spellings match up to sounds,'' Lyon said.

Still, much of thatresearch has failed to reach the nation's classrooms, where reading problems afflict not only those with the LD label, but many others. One government-sponsored test indicates that as many as 40 percent of U.S. schoolchildren read poorly.

In Lyon's view, that is an alarming figure, a statistic with long-term consequences such as unemployment, crime and other social ills.

``It is a public health problem,'' he said. ``Kids' entire lives are at risk.''

A Last Resort

After watching their son struggle for years with reading, Carol and Peter Schilling of Middlefield saw the learning disability label as his best hope -- a chance to fix a problem they believe his schools had ignored.

For years, they tried to convince teachers and administrators in Regional School District 13 that their son, Jacob, needed extra help.

He'll come around, he's a little slow, they were told.

But then one day last year, when Jacob was in fourth grade, Carol Schilling opened the mail and hit the roof.

After years of positive report cards, the results of Jacob's mastery tests, annual exams given to fourth- grade public school students, laid it out in disturbing detail: Jacob, a boy all agree is intelligent and inquisitive, had fallen way behind his peers, especially in reading.

``I have watched my son struggle from as early as 3 years old in preschool,'' Carol Schilling told teachers and administratorsat a meeting she demanded after seeing Jacob's scores.``Why is District 13 content to let a child like Jacob slide from one grade to the next?''

Carol Schilling said that by the time her son was in second grade, she and her husband felt he was not progressing as he should.

``But there were no indications based on [Jacob's] progress reports and teacher conferences,'' she said. ``We sensed it and brought it to their attention. In fourth grade, when we got the results of the mastery tests, I was furious. I was just so devastated. If you looked at his grades, he should have done fine.''

The Schillings demanded an outside evaluation to see if Jacob was eligible for intensive remedial help under special education. Although the schools already had tested him and found no disability, a team of doctors and psychologists from St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center came up with a strikingly different evaluation.

The hospital said Jacob suffered from mild learning disabilities and recommended an intensive phonics- based program emphasizing the complicated process by which the brain decodes letters into sounds and words. The school system placed him in special education classes for the first time.

Tricia Santi, director of pupil personnel services for Regional School District 13, said teachers try to provide extra help before a child is placed in special education, which is what happened with Jacob. Children don't learn to read until they are developmentally ready, she said, so it is not always a good idea to place young children in special education just because they are having reading trouble.

When children are identified for special education later on, she said, ``We occasionally have parents say, `I wish that something would have happened earlier.' ''

Jacob, a boy with blue eyes and freckles who says he might like to be a long-haul trucker, is reading ``James and the Giant Peach'' these days. He's getting additional extra help in reading and other subjects, but remains behind grade level.

``You need to get teachers who know lots of ways to teach kids to read,'' Jacob said. ``Not all kids learn the same way.''

According to researchers at Yale University in New Haven, three- quarters of the students who are behind grade level in reading in third grade will still be behind by high school.

Would children such as Jacob have been better off with regular, intensive, phonics-based instruction much earlier? Lyons and many of the NIH researchers think so.

Letters And Sounds

Much of the research, such as recent brain-imaging studies at Yale, suggests that the fundamental difficulty for most poor readers is the inability to distinguish the individual sounds that make up words.

The word ``fat,'' for example, is made up of three sounds: fff-aah-tuh. Some children have difficulty hearing these bits of sound -- known as phonemes -- and making the connection with printed language. There are 44 phonemes in the English language.

The NIH studies have led many scientists to agree on one point: Schools should be teaching children -- especially those who are poor readers -- how to manipulate sounds, to rhyme, to spell, to break words into parts and to understand letter-sound relationships; that is, phonics.

Many classrooms, however, have cut back explicit instruction in phonics and the structure of language as they have embraced an approach known as ``whole language'' instruction. This approach immerses children in literature and emphasizes activities such as keeping journals, writing letters and reading orally or silently.

The NIH research alarms some educators who fear it will lead too many children away from real stories and books.

``I don't think there is any compelling . . . evidence that suggests that a phonic emphasis approach is what will solve the reading problems of [learning disabled] kids,'' said Richard L. Allington, an education professor at the State University of New York at Albany.

Allington accuses Lyon and other NIHresearchers of a ``disinformation campaign'' and says general curriculum should not be based on research that focuses only on the poorest readers.

Kenneth S. Goodman, a University of Arizona professor and a leading proponent of the whole-language approach, said the NIH research has prompted legislators to propose laws that ``would confine kids to drills and letter-sound relationships and would take literature out of the classrooms.''

Not true, says Lyon.

He contends that basic language skills are crucial and must be taught to struggling readers, but can be taught in classrooms filled with literature.

A national panel of experts reached a similar conclusion last month.

The panel, convened by the National Research Council, endorsed elements of the whole-language approach, such as frequent writing and independent reading, but also emphasized that beginning readers need explicit instruction in letter- sound relationships, spelling and the connection between speech and print.

``Because reading is such a complex and multifaceted activity, no single method is the answer,'' said Catherine Snow, a Harvard University professor and chairwoman of the panel.

The report sought to calm a debate that often has been driven by politics and hardened opinion.

The whole-language approach has come under attack in some places. Two states, California and Alabama, have passed laws requiring schools to include phonics in reading instruction, and several others now require it for children who have reading problems.

Connecticut does not require any specific method, but a handful of schools, influenced by the research, have begun to intensify their training in phonics and other fundamental language skills.

Emphasis On Drills

In a classroom at Salisbury Central School in the northwest corner of the state, teacher Karen Lundeen puts three cards on a table in front of a group of kindergartners.

Each card has a word and picture: ``tire,'' ``bag'' and ``fire.''

``What two words rhyme?'' she asks.

``Fire and tire,'' a boy replies.

The drill is part of a new emphasis on word skills at the school. All regular kindergarten classes began a program last year that focuses on skills such as rhyming, breaking words into syllables and manipulating sounds.

The program started in regular classes at the urging of Mary Bush, a special education teacher. ``There was a point where people sort of frowned on phonics,'' she said, ``but our staff was very receptive.''

One problem, however, is that ``most teachers, it seems to me, don't have the training to do it,'' Bush said.

Teachers generally ``are not being provided with . . . knowledge about the structure of spoken and written language or with the practical methods and hands-on experience necessary to enable them to fully meet the needs of children learning to read,'' said a paper written last year by reading experts Susan Brady of the University of Rhode Island and Louisa Moats, who is directing an NIH study of reading in Washington and Houston.

At Salisbury Central, it is too early to tell whether the new emphasis on early reading skills will reduce the learning disability rate -- 13 percent of the school population, nearly twice the state average.

Since 1992, special education enrollments in public schools across the state have grown by 11 percent, eclipsing the 7 percent growth in overall enrollment, according to a report last year by the state Department of Education.

``Special education is often considered the first, rather than last, option for students with learning and behavior problems, even though many of the students who are referred are clearly not disabled,'' the report said.

Special education now accounts for 18 percent of expenses in the state's public schools, up from about 12 percent 15 years ago, state figures show.

Pikulski, the International Reading Association president, testified before the U.S. Department of Education last fallthat no child should be given the LD label without first being given a specific program to improve reading.

Others, too, say the large number of LD referrals is troubling.

``If lots of children have got it, what does it mean to say it's abnormal?'' said Robert J. Sternberg, a Yale University psychologist and one of the nation's leading authorities on the nature of intelligence.

``If you label a very large number of kids, clearly you have gone outside the realm of clinical issues to social policy issues, political issues,'' he said.

Many children with reading disabilities do not appear to differ substantially from other poor readers who are not labeled, he said.

``We're too concerned about labels,'' Sternberg said. ``What we need to be concerned about is, what is the source of poor reading?''

Caption: PHOTO 1: MIDDLEFIELD FIFTH-GRADER Jacob Schilling goes over an assignment book with his father, Peter, in their kitchen. Although Jacob was falling behind his class in reading, the school district tested him and found no disability. But a team of doctors and psychologists from St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center said Jacob suffered from mild learning disabilities and recommended an intensive phonics-based program.

PHOTO 2: ANGERED BY THE RESULTS of her son's fourth-grade Mastery Test results in reading, Carol Schilling demanded action from the school district. ``Why is District 13 content to let a child like Jacob slide from one grade to the next?'' she asked.

GRAPHIC 1: Failed by the system

How a Middlefield student fell through the cracks of special education.

[Library note: This chronology was not available electronically for this database.]

GRAPHIC 2: The national rise in LD students

* The percentage of children identified as learning disabled has risen steadily over the past 20 years. This chart shows the percentage of children nationwide identified with the most common disabilities from 1977 through 1997. Connecticut's LD rates are higher.

* Connecticut has one of the highest percentages of special education students in the country. For the 1996-97 school year nearly 14 percent of public school students were identified as having a disability under federal special education law. The chart shows the number of students in each category and the prevalence rate of each, as a percentage of all special education students and of overall school enrollment.