Jan Richardson and Michele Dufresne, guided reading gurus, recently shared a presentation in which they stated that the media is misinterpreting the science of reading and giving guided reading a bad rap. Were they correct? Is traditional guided reading worth saving? Here’s my reaction to their presentation.
Please note: Jan Richardson kindly sent a written response to this series, and I’ve responded to her points in this pdf.
Hello! Anna Geiger here from The Measured Mom. If you're new to the podcast, I just want to give you a brief introduction to myself. I am a former classroom teacher, I've been sharing education resources on my website for ten years now, I'm Orton-Gillingham certified, I have a science of reading grad certificate, and I have a master's degree from quite a long time ago.
I was a balanced literacy teacher during my classroom teaching days, when I taught my oldest five kids to read, and for much of the time that I've been sharing online. It's only been in the past few years that I learned that a lot of things I thought were true were actually not aligned with the research.
So I come from a balanced literacy background, and because of that, I think I have a unique perspective. When I hear people from the balanced literacy community defend things or word things a certain way, I can kind of see where they're coming from, but now that I have learned quite a bit, I can also see where the holes are.
Because of that background that I have, I want to share today my reaction to a video that recently came out. It was sponsored by Pioneer Valley Books. It was an interview with Dr. Jan Richardson and Dr. Michele Dufresne. If you're at all familiar with guided reading, you know that Jan Richardson is way up there. She has a very popular book called The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading. It's this beautiful spiral-bound guide to teaching guided reading. Honestly, it's a lovely book. In fact, I used to give it away, when I was a balanced literacy teacher, in some of my giveaways on my website! Now, though, I understand that there are many issues with this approach.
She's also the co-author with Dr. Dufresne of The Next Step Forward in Word Study and Phonics. Just an interesting aside here, the first book to be published was about guided reading, and the phonics book didn't come until a few years later, which I always think is really interesting to think about that sequence. This happens a lot with our guided reading gurus.
I want today to respond to some things that they share in that webinar. I think this could be a rather long episode, so we'll probably break it up into several. But as you might imagine, the webinar is about refuting some of the things that people are saying, in the science of reading community, about the problems with guided reading. Here we go. Here's my reaction to this interview.
A few months after this episode went live, Pioneer Valley Press indicated that they felt I had infringed on their copyright by using their audio. So I'm going to redo this episode by paraphrasing and sometimes quoting Dufresne and Richardson, but not using Pioneer Valley Press's audio.
Dr. Dufresne begins by saying that there's a lot of science of reading talk in the media, and we have to be careful about what we're seeing from people who are not experts - who are journalists. They have read a lot about literacy, and thought about literacy, but are not necessarily bringing the right background and understanding the research.
She says that the media is telling us that science has proven there's just one way of teaching reading effectively, which is systematic, highly structured phonics. But truthfully, she says, the research does not back that up. She says that she and Richardson think phonics is very important, but there is no research that's proven there's just one way to do it.
Anna Geiger: Oh, boy. That gives us a lot to talk about right out of the gate. That was Dr. Michele Dufresne.
I've got to say, from the very beginning, I get it. That's what I said. When I first read Emily Hanford's article, At a Loss for Words, which debunks three-cueing, I thought, "What does she know? She's a journalist."
Since then I've come around because after I did all my research, I went back to her article, and sure enough, she had quoted all the major players. She knew her stuff. She had clearly studied this.
When I think about it now, it kind of makes sense to me. When a journalist studies it, they're not going to come into it with the same defensiveness that a teacher will, right? Because when you've been doing something for a long time, to hear that it's not backed by research is like a gut punch. You feel kind of sick if you actually believe they're right, because that means there are things you've been doing that weren't in the best interests of all your readers. I get it. I've totally been there.
I'm going to quote something here from Timothy Shanahan's blog. Here's what he wrote,
"The idea that reporters can't report on education unless they've taught school or possess a PhD in education strikes me as loony. It is akin to the idea that Woodford and Bernstein couldn't cover Watergate since they'd never been elected president. Rejections of accurate reporting because the source isn't a professional educator is fallacious. The issue shouldn't be who the sources are, but whether the reports are accurate."
Let's address the next point she made. She said that the media tells us that the science has proven there's just one way of teaching reading effectively - systematic, highly structured phonics - and she says that is not true.
First of all, I think we should be clear that the media and the science of reading are two different things. The media is reporting the science of reading, and they may or may not be doing that accurately so we need to NOT get our science of reading information from big articles.
I mean, there's some good stuff out there. Emily Hanford certainly opened my eyes, but even she would tell you she's not the research, she's reporting the research. So I think they're trying to debunk some of what people are saying about the science of reading by using the oversimplification that the media does.
We have to be really careful, right? We know the Simple View of Reading tells us that word recognition times language comprehension equals reading comprehension. Therefore, decoding HAS to occur. Now it's not the only thing. You also have to understand the words, right? That's why there's another part before you get to the equals.
But she, I feel, is trying to oversimplify it to get our eyes off the whole picture, and that's a little concerning. Also when she says there's no research to back that up, she doesn't share any research about why this is not true.
That's something to always watch for. If people tell you that research doesn't say, or they try to tell you that something is simply not true, but they offer nothing to back it up, that's a little bit of a warning sign.
Dr. Dufresne goes on to say that the media is spending a lot of time saying that teachers do very little phonics and that teachers are teaching children to guess. She says that there probably are some teachers that aren't doing much phonics, and there's probably some teachers that are prompting kids incorrectly, and it may look like they're teaching kids to guess, but that's not what the majority of teachers are doing. She says that most teachers, "a highly, high statistic number of teachers are teaching phonics, and they are not teaching children to guess at words."
Anna Geiger: So how do you back up your opinion that, for the most part, teachers are teaching phonics appropriately and are not teaching kids to guess at words? She offers no data.
Dr. Dufresne goes on to say that the media, the journalists, have been saying that balanced literacy is the reason why a lot of kids aren't learning to read. She says it's not a simple answer as to why so many kids are struggling, but it's definitely not balanced literacy's fault.
Anna Geiger: Again, it feels like she's just sharing her opinions. She's not backing this up with anything. She's not even telling you why the claims that balanced literacy is hurting kids is wrong. She doesn't even have any explanation for that.
Here's the reason why many people are saying that balanced literacy hurts kids. It doesn't hurt ALL kids. If you take a look at Nancy Young's Ladder of Reading and Writing, you'll see that a large percentage of kids, maybe up to 40% or so, are going to learn to read no matter what type of instruction you give them. That's why so many of us have seen so much success with guided reading. Particularly if we have students coming to us with strong vocabulary and background knowledge, which are really important to get through those guided reading leveled books, especially at the beginning when you can't sound out the words.
The problem is, for many children, this doesn't work. They need a structured approach to learning to read, which includes systematic explicit phonics instruction. She doesn't talk about any of this. All she does is say, "Nope, they're wrong."
Next Dr. Richardson talks about how we have to be careful about listening to the media versus actually studying the research because they're two different things, and that is true. She takes the definition of the science of reading from The Reading League's definition, which is great. Then she talks about how Dr. Jan Hasbrouck has added in there how it's vast, it's changing, it's evolving, all of which I agree with. But anyway, her point here is that we need to remember that the science of reading is not a program, it's not a one-size-fits-all, it is the body of research, and she's correct on that one hundred percent.
Next, we hear from Dr. Jan Richardson, who says that just as people are confused about what the science of reading is, they're confused about guided reading. One reason she says is because there's no definition that everyone agrees on; it looks different in each school.
She says that she's seen some ineffective guided reading lessons, and she wrote her first book because she felt there wasn't enough systematic explicit teaching of phonics and writing in guided reading lessons. She says that not all guided reading lessons contain the same elements.
So her definition of guided reading is that a teacher meets with a small group of students, differentiates by their needs, provides scaffolding, and gradually reduces support to promote independence.
Anna Geiger: I don't know about you, but to me that definition sounds pretty good! The teacher meets with a small group of students and differentiates. Love it. Targets specific learning needs. That's important. Provides appropriate scaffolding. We need that. Gradually reducing support to promote independence. That could be the I Do, We Do, You Do model. Sounds good. Let's keep listening.
Next, Dr. Richardson addresses what guided reading is not. She says it's not a group for every level, because you'll drive yourself nuts if you try to do that. She says grouping should be based on common needs, not just text level. She says that you can use a phonics assessment, a writing sample, a running record, or a fluency assessment to help you form your small groups. She says these groups will change because children progress at different rates and require different instruction. She says that teachers should think about regrouping about every two to three weeks.
She says that guided reading is not reading an easy book. If the book is easy, and the children don't need help, you've just wasted time. So she says that you really need to be careful to make appropriate book choices.
She says that guided reading is not a one-size-fits-all, no matter what grade level you're teaching. They need to be taught different skills and strategies, and guided reading lets you differentiate that way.
Then she says that guided reading is not an invitation to guess at words. She says kids should never be encouraged to guess. Children will make mistakes, but we should not encourage them to guess at words. Then she quotes Marie Clay. "We need to draw the child's attention to the letters and sounds, spelling patterns, words within words, and syllabic chunks, because reading is not a guessing game. Reading remains a problem solving task in which the reader must get the precise message of the author." (Becoming Literate, page 137.)
Anna Geiger: Okay. First of all, I really don't think there are a lot of teachers out there who think they need to have a group for every level in their classroom. Only because, from my experience, when I would use running records to figure out my students' reading levels, they were all over the place. I might have eighteen kids and have nine reading levels, and that's impossible, right? You can't have that many groups. So I'm thinking most teachers aren't really actually doing that.
Also, the process that she talks through, which is very muddy as far as I can tell, about regrouping students every two to three weeks with all those assessments sounds a little bit like a nightmare.
I appreciate that she mentions that guided reading groups should be using challenging texts because that is definitely important.
Then she also talks about how we're not teaching guessing, and then she uses all the phonics words about how we're going to have kids read those words, and then she also says that reading is problem solving. That's exactly what I used to say when I was a balanced literacy teacher. That is a little concerning to me because that makes me think about three-cueing, that there's all these different cues you have to use to solve a word instead of just reading it.
The fact is, if we're giving our students early reading material, which includes words they can't possibly sound out, in fact that's primarily what the book consists of, there's going to be some guessing involved, but I'll save more discussion of that until later.
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