A school district in Scotland successfully graduated an entire class of 11 year olds into high school reading at grade level. All of them. All 200 of them. Under normal circumstances, 28 % can't read at a grade level and end up falling through the cracks, much like our statistics here. So let's do the math on that. Out of 200 students, 56 don't make it. That's a lot of students, but now, they've all made it.
Magic? Quick fix? Miracle?
Nope, phonics. That's it, plain old ordinary phonics.
In Scotland a longitudinal study was done by an organization called Clackmannshire out of St. Andrews University. They determined beyond a shadow of a doubt that phonics works. They compared two methods. One, we can compare whole language which they call analytic phonics, and the other is synthetic phonics, which is plain phonics, without any new fangled fads attached to it.
West Dunbartonshire school district decided to go entirely to the synthetic phonics method and now we have the results. It is worth mentioning here that West D. is an area of what we'd categorize as low socioeconomic. In fact, it's the lowest area in all of Scotland. Also note that while we estimate that 15-20 % of students have learning disabilities none showed up. None. I feel that I can't stress those two facts enough. The implications of these two facts are astounding in what they say and who is affected.
How is that possible? It is possible because when phonics is taught properly, in its true form, ALL students learn to read. All of them.
This was news in Scotland in November 2006! Why haven't we heard anything about it? This is a myth buster across the board. Every child can learn regardless of income and regardless of obstacles. We need to get with the program. To do otherwise is plain and simple negligence on the part of the entire education system.
Here's some articles. Read them and weep. Tears of joy for them and angst for us.
And a HT to SQE for writing about this in their November Newsletter where I first heard about it.
http://www.wdcweb.info/news/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=12752
http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/L/lost_for_words/phonics_4.html
http://www.dab-vjb.gov.uk/news/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=10991&printer=yes
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/research/interventabstracts.html
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SCIENTIA EST POTENTIA
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The Schools We Need
