30. My district has just adopted a systematic phonics program. I had been using Phono-Graphix with lots of success. What should I do?

Well, I know what I'd do if I were you, but only you can answer the question of what to do when the classroom door closes. The problem is really much deeper than it seems. The real problem is that teachers are treated as technicians taught to administer whatever is blowing in the wind at the moment. Unfortunately most school systems don't allow for teacher judgement at all. "Teachers don't know what methods work," say administrators and government officials. Instead of pushing for university courses that teach teachers how to know what works, these administrators and government officials push for more and more controls on teachers. Parents get caught up in this and blame the teachers when their children don't learn. Parents have been sold the story that the Whole Language movement was the teacher's fault. In fact teachers were just doing what they'd been told and taught to do. The following article on this topic is taken from our parenTeacher magazine. This piece, written by Carmen McGuinness also appeared in major newspapers around the US as a letter to the editor.

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In the Spring of 1993 Whole Language ruled the known universe. The numbers weren't in so we didn't yet know it, but its twelve year stranglehold had left forty-two percent of our school age children reading below basic competency--a startling number according to report after report in newspapers and on television. The term 'learning disability' had become a common household word, and the DSM3r, the diagnostic journal of the American Psychiatric Association offered eleven reading, writing and spelling related variations of that diagnosis. Clinics popped up across the nation, giving rise to an entire profession--private practice reading specialist. A call for a return to the "systematic and explicit" principles and practices of Phonics rolled across the country with a strangely familiar resonance. Approximately a generation earlier, give or take a life, Phonics was pulled out of the basement of schoolhouses everywhere, dusted off and tuned up to officially replace Look Say, the sight word recognition instructional reading method that had been the trend for the previous generation. But this new wave of appeal for a return to Phonics had something that the "Why Johnny Can't Read" generation didn't have, it had recorded failure in the form of modern standardized tests, and statistical analysis. When Rudolph Flesch released that landmark book in 1955, he spoke not of scientific evidence gathered from test results, but rather of experience. In 1955 he and tens of thousands of other teachers and parents could easily see that things were much better in the Phonics era that preceded Look Say. In the Spring of 1993, however, we had considerably more information about precisely how much better 'things' were when Phonics ruled our classrooms. According to literacy scores of adults who received reading instruction during the era following Flesch's plea and the eventual return to Phonics that it brought, the failure rate of Phonics was about thirty-three percent (Adult Literacy In America, 1993)--not much better than whole language.

By the time the echo of the Phonics plea could be heard in California, it already had a new twist--"a healthy, balanced approach", a mix of the principles of Phonics and Whole Language. One needn't boast of a degree in statistics to do the math on that one: forty-two plus thirty three divided by two equals thirty seven point five. The eclectic answer to what was being termed a "national crisis" would offer a thirty-seven percent failure rate--a five percent increase over Whole Language alone. But wait--a new voice was making it's way over the airwaves, "phonemic awareness", the knowledge that words contain discrete sounds. Agency after agency, book after book, recommended the implementation of a "phonemic awareness component" in front of "explicit and systematic Phonics instruction" in front of Whole Language. In other words, more of the same plus more of the same plus something else equals an un-tested multi-level eclectic mix of an awful lot of work for teachers. And, it equals tens of billions of dollars in materials and retraining. And, by who? We couldn't have predicted it in 1993, but yet another industry was to grow out of the crisis--private institutes or "consortiums" whose job it would be to retrain teachers--a 'job' paid for with Federal and state categorical funds--a 'job' taken up in many states by the very people who had ramrodded the legislation that made Whole Language the only method taught in America's teaching colleges, people who are now lobbying to influence legislators to further restrict teachers, forcing them into retraining in order to keep their positions or tenure.

That same Spring of 1993 these writers entered what was to become known in headlines across the nation as "The Great Debate". But our entrance was not to forward Phonics or Whole Language, our entrance was to put an end to the pendulum swings that had cut deep into the academic proficiency of two generations. It was clear to us then that what the world did not need was yet another Phonics method. We recognized that the rules and regulations of Phonics were at the very heart of its failure. And we knew that phonemic awareness was a component that needed careful instructional ties to the actual act of reading to have any impact on reading scores. And, we were soon to confirm our suspicions that "systematic and explicit" Phonics instruction had an adverse, not positive effect on phonemic awareness, its rules and mnemonics serving to distract the reader from the decoding process. In July of 1993 we began research which would result in a paradigm shift away from Phonics and Whole Language. That research, conducted in conjunction with the University of South Florida, is published in the Orton Annals of Dyslexia (Phono-Graphix- A New Method For Remediating Reading Difficulties, McGuinness, McGuinness & McGuinness, 1996). The principles leading up to the paradigm shift of Phono-Graphix are discussed in detail in the book Why Our Children Can't Read And What We Can Do About It, by Dr. Diane McGuinness, and the methodology of Phono-Graphix is laid out in the parent and teacher how-to book, Reading Reflex.

Now, in 1997, we are faced with a trend that we find disturbing, a trend that we believe may threaten the rescue of a generation, a trend that indeed begs debate--the 'systematic' and 'explicit' hijacking of a profession by private organizations which lobby state legislatures to appoint them the intelligentsia of reading, deciding unilaterally that teachers need re-training and that their organization should be the source of that retraining. Behind the desks of these fast becoming quasi-governmental agencies are the very faces that five and ten years ago could be found lobbying legislators to limit teaching colleges to Whole Language training. In fact in California, the very people who served on the state task force that recommended $600 per teacher for re-training, are now re-emerging as board members of private for profit organizations seeking to do the very retraining they helped orchestrate in the legislature.

Even when such questionable dealings are not involved the limitation of teacher choice is a bad idea. Perhaps it lies at the very 'core' of the problem and should be at the center of the "Great Debate". When the process of inquiry is taken from any pursuit, what is left to pursue? Instead of pursuit of knowledge, our teachers face daily a growing sense of alienation--an alienation that distances them from their students in an age in which they are being made more and more accountable. Teachers as well as parents know their children. Teachers and parents must be allowed choice. Perhaps if the lobbyist of the eighties had failed in their mission to restrict instruction other than Whole Language teachers might have moved in other directions by now--without legislation? How many teaching colleges would have said, "This isn't working very well. Our teacher trainees seem ill prepared. Let's try something else." So many of the self appointed reading intelligentsia have criticized teachers for not reading the research. But why should they when ultimately instructional decisions will be made for them--made by legislators responding to lobbyists and special interest organizations. And while the intelligentsia are lobbying for their own gain perhaps they should lobby some of that re-training money toward teacher membership in the organizations that publish the reading research. Perhaps they fear teachers won't need them to interpret the data.

31. Are there particular books that you suggest to parents and teachers?

We tend to be real classicists on these matters. We only recommend the gold. The following are on our all time favourites reading list.

Children the Challenge, Rudolf Drykurs -- A wonderful book on managing children.

How Children Fail, John Holt -- A book about how teachers (and parents) can fail to teach children because of poor teaching techniques combined with children's evasive and compensating techniques. I recommend anything by John Holt.

The Secret of Childhood, Maria Montessori -- All about children and educating them in keeping with their natural ways of learning.

The Absorbent Mind, Maria Montessori -- Her last book, it encompasses everything she had learned about how children learn.

The Dragons of Eden, Carl Sagan -- A book on life. It's a must read for every scientist who considers himself a humanist and every humanist interested in science.

Broca's Brian, Carl Sagan -- About science and scientific inquiry. Harder to read than The Dragons of Eden.

Lateral Thinking, Edward deBono -- A book on creativity. An interesting aside; when my husband Geoffrey McGuinness was a child he was used in deBono's research. This book mentions the invention Geoff devised in the study.

Healing the Inner Child, Dennis Donovan -- A book for anyone dealing with difficult children.

Infants and Mothers Developmental Differences, Barry Brazelton -- A book for anyone dealing with children with developmental delays or differences.

I also like Steve Pinker's book, The Language Instinct. It's a popular book on psycho-linguistics.

For Serious Teachers:

If you're a serious teacher read John Flavell on Piaget. It's easier to read than Piaget himself.

Also read Paul Stern's little book, Evaluating Social Science Research. It's a mini course in understanding research.

A Theory of Personality--The Psychology of Personal Constructs, George Kelly -- This is what they didn't teach you at university about how people learn. It's short and easy to read.

There aren't many other such books that I like. I find them mostly silly and filled with 'tricks'. I probably am forgetting some of my favourites here though. Don't hesitate to ask me about a specific title on the 'ask the authors' page.

32. My eight year old is reading pretty well now after two month of Reading Reflex, but still reverses b and d in reading and when spelling. Should I be worried? Is there anything I can do?

I think it's important to understand that this is perfectly normal to a point. Most things we assess visually are the same thing whether they are facing left right, up or down. A cat is a cat if he is looking east or west. But, a d is a b if it is looking west. Children have to get used to assessing sound pictures. You're using the best programme available for helping your child along with that skill. Many children still struggle with this until about age nine. My rule of thumb is if a child has had six months of Phono-Graphix with a therapist or with Reading Reflex, and he is nine of older it's time to refer him to the vision therapist, or a pediatric opthomologist. However, if a child is flipping letters up and down, m = w etc, we frequently refer sooner. The vision therapist we refer to in Orlando concurs with this policy.

Three tips:

1. When working with this confusion it's important to remember an important learning principle. Children (all of us) tend to learn two easily confusable things when they occur together. Parents and teachers tend to avoid having them occur together and to do drills and the like in isolation of one another. This is a critical error that will slow down the learning process.

2. When a child makes an error with b or d, it's best to leave a point of reference when you ask him to correct. I have him erase the last mark made, leaving the first as a point of reference. So if the line was made and then the circle, I say, "The circle goes on the other side of the line." Then I have them erase the circle and make a new one on the other side.

3. Here's a little drill I like. I have a b written on one side of my white board and a d on the other (either way round) and I ask the child to start spelling lots of d/b words (dog, bat, etc). With each one I have him say the sound first when he gets to it in the word (we always say sounds aloud as we write them, but with this I have him say it first) then point to the one he thinks it is. For error correction when he points to the wrong one (say b and we're spelling dog) I say, "That would be 'bog'. I scatter in a few words without b and d just to give him a chance to forget (which I think of as an opportunity to remember). It works very quickly. In my analysis what I am doing is exposing him to the two stimuli which he confuses so he can work them out. The working out part is when he makes the decision. When the wrong decision is made he gets 'sound' feedback about what that 'would' be.

NOTE: Some teachers like to use a key word as a self correction device (such as a bird for b and a dog for d). Typically I like self correction in a classroom setting and find that one it's not necessary and can be time consuming. Also, if the key word is visible the child is never having to remember, and make a decision. If you use a key word, put it on one side of a card and the letter on the other. This way he has to make a decision and can then turn the card over to check his decision. When he makes an error and has corrected it (chose b for dog and then checked and corrected it and wrote it right), you might then say, so what would that word be with this (point to b)?. That part adds a new dimension and really gives the contrast of seeing and hearing it both ways.

33. My child confuses 'i' and 'e' in reading and spelling.

Children (all of us) are easily confused when two stimuli are similar. While the letters b and d are visually similar, the sounds are similar in this situation. Some of us have more trouble noticing visual differences and some of us have more trouble with auditory differences. In the case of your question the learner is not noticing the subtle auditory differences between 'i' and 'e'. Here's what I would do (in addition to all the other Phono-Graphix lessons):

I have an i written on one side of my white board and an e on the other (either way round) and I ask the child to start spelling lots of i/e words (pig, pet, etc). With each one I have him say the sound first when he gets to it in the word (we always say sounds aloud as we write them, but with this I have him say it first) then point to the one he thinks it is. For error correction when he points to the wrong one (say i and we're spelling pet) I say, "That would be 'pit', we need 'pet'. I scatter in a few words without i and e just to give him a chance to forget (which I think of as an opportunity to remember). It works very quickly. In my analysis what I am doing is exposing him to the two auditory stimuli which he confuses so he can work them out. The working out part is when he makes the decision. When the wrong decision is made he gets 'sound' feedback about what that 'would' be.

NOTE: In some parts of the US, words with 'e' and 'i' are pronounced the same. In this case you can either send the child for ellocusion lessons to correct this, or you can treat the sound pictures i and e as two spellings for that sound.

NOTE: Some dialects in Great Britain reverse the pronunciation of 'i' and 'e'. I have noticed this in some areas of Scotland in particular.

34. I noticed the word 'packed' on your 'd' word list. But the sound at the end of 'packed' is 't'. Is this an error?

We've decided that the <ed> ending that is pronounced 't' as in 'packed' should not be coded on the 't' list. Following is our reasoning: The 't' sound that emerges in some words is the mouth trying to say 'd' after the preceding sound. The <ed> is a morpheme (a unit of meaning). Early linguists might have decided to create another morpheme such as <et> for words that ended in sounds like 'k', <backed>, but they didn't. We found in pilot studies that when we placed <ed> on the 't' list children started spelling it <t> and <ed>. Before you move words from list to list, we caution you that we get fantastic gains doing Phono-Graphix as it is. You may sacrifice gains if you change things around to an untested format.

35. I noticed you've got the sounds 'o' and 'au' on the same list. Is that an error?

In the British versions we have them separated as most British speakers pronounce these as distinctly different sounds. Most of us in the US and Canada pronounce these sounds the same sound. Therefore we have them on the same list. Clearly some areas of the country pronounce them as different sounds. In Ohio and large parts of the midwest they are two sounds. In New York City they are usually two sounds. In New Orleans there are THREE distinct sounds which we have on our 'o' list. If in your area of the country most speakers pronounce these sounds as distinct sounds then by all means move words from one list to another. In caution you though not to do this if you are hearing it as two sounds and most of your population is hearing it as one. I also caution you not to do it because of phonics lists. These are simply wrong in most cases, and the programmes they are used in do not get the phenomenal results that Phono-Graphix does.

36. How were the Phono-Graphix tests developed? Are they normed?

There are three tests that measure skills (segmenting, blending and manipulating phonemes) these are the three skills that we found to predict reading success. The code knowledge test measures information (how well you know the code). This also predicts reading success. We pilot tested these tests at the Read America clinic in 1993 using various items and found the items now on the test to be the most predictive. The tests are criteria based tests, not normed tests. This means that if you can do the test, you can do the thing that is the reason for the test--in this case 'reading'. The age ranks for the test are very simply matched from test scores of various aged children reading at their age level, to standard text a child of that age is asked to read.

37. I am working with your Word Work classroom kit. How fast can I expect my year one students to progress?

With all due respect, I hate this question. The problems with it are numerous. Whenever you have two children you will have two paths, not one. In a classroom of thirty you will have thirty paths. Answering your question requires picking one of those thirty children and deciding that his is the path that everyone else will follow. Unfortunately pedagogy tends to pick that mean average child and aim all instruction right at him, leaving the bright to glaze over with boredom and the slow to flounder aimlessly. Word Work is designed to avoid all of this. Here's how:

1. Give the introductory lesson

1. present the lesson
2. require time for most kids to try to work it out
3. choose one child to provide an answer
4. error correct for that particular child

2. Assign extensions that match particular children's ability when working with shared supervision in groups or individually

1. prowl to classroom error correcting individually as the children work

3. Assign homework that matches individual children's ability when working alone

4. Set up a remedial group who you work with once per week for about 15 minutes to provide more direct error correction.

5. All through this use the overlap model set out in Word Work, overlapping levels of instruction

38. I am a middle school teacher. I love your Word Work manual but I think it's a little young for my students. Any suggestions for adapting it?

Use the lessons like a game show. That age group love it. I did this in a secondary school in England and the 'young adults' went wild for it. We had a blast! Most of the worksheet lessons can be done on notebook paper which is better for this age group. Don't be afraid to use the manipulative lessons like having them make their own sound pictures for advanced code words. They like this. It's different enough that it intrigues them. And remember, Phono-Graphix is spectacularly successful with that age range.

39. I recently heard about your book 'How to Raise Your Child's Verbal Intelligence'. I thought IQ was fixed after a certain age. I have a six year old and an eleven year old. Can I really make my children smarter?

The following is an excerpt from How to Raise Your Child's Verbal Intelligence--Read America's Language Wise Method, by Geoffrey and Carmen McGuinness....

According to a 1948 landmark intelligence study (Honzik, McFarlane and Allen), intelligence scores can vary as much as 50 points from the age of six to eighteen, with fifteen percent of the population experiencing changes of fifteen points or more. Apparently nature graces each of us with a range of potential, probably based upon genealogy, prenatal care, and birth conditions, and then nurture enhances or detracts from this, giving or taking as many as 50 points.

In this study, the highest correlate to increase in intelligence was consistent parental concern with educational achievement. This finding was backed up in a 1988 National Educational Longitudinal Study, which indicated that the schools with the highest student achievement were those with the highest parental involvement. This finding held up across socio-economic strata. The story of one Read America client exemplifies this very well. Brinnae was the seventeen year old daughter of a lawyer dad and and a newspaper reporter mom. "Brinnae was such a bright kid," her father reflected at our intake appointment. "We never expected her to take such a downward slide." Brinnae's story is not uncommon. At seventeen her I.Q. score was 109. "I was really trying to do well," Brinnae told the test giver after the test. Six years earlier, at age twelve, Brinnae's I.Q. score was 132, a sizable difference from her comparatively modest 109 score leaving high school. In Brinnae's case, this "slide" as her father called it, kept her from being accepted into the college of her choice--the college from which her dad and his dad had received their juris doctor. Brinnae's parents confessed that they had made few demands on Brinnae during her secondary education. "We placed her in a good school and assumed she would do the work," her mother explained. "We should have expected more of her."

In another study (McCall, 1973), increases in individual intelligence occurred when the child was deliberately trained in skills that were not yet essential. We've had many such students pass through our doors at Read America--the most recent being seven year old Danny. It was a challenge even scheduling Danny's Language Wise therapy. His life was filled with educational enrichment. Monday, Wednesday and Friday were piano lessons. On Wednesday he went from his piano lesson directly to his Spanish tutor, who he also saw on Saturday. On Tuesday he played chess in a chess club formed by his grandfather. All day Thursday was free, but two Thursday evenings each month were taken up with his astrology class meeting. Danny was eight when he started attending Language Wise training. His parents pushed him hard for a reason. There were complications at birth and they were told that he was developmentally delayed and that his I.Q. might never reach the normal range. "I just refused to accept it," Danny's mom explained. "I'm glad I did. Look at him now." At five Danny's I.Q. was 104. At eight it was 116. We've stayed in touch with Danny and his family. He's ten now and has discontinued Spanish lessons, but has filled that time with private art lessons.

Another important piece of information comes to us from research conducted by Kegan and Freeman. In this study researchers found that children who experienced the greatest I.Q. loss from four and a half to six years of age were those who demonstrated the greatest dependency on their parents. One might derive from these findings that children perform best when they're confident and independent. This study also revealed that the greatest gains from six to ten years of age were experienced by those with a high achievement drive or reported high competitiveness. Although we'll explore the mechanisms behind the achievement drive in more detail in the next chapter, let's have a brief look at a few important studies before we move on.

A 1983 study conducted by McClelland and Pilon backs up the link between achievement drive and performance. These researchers conducted achievement tests on thirty-one year old adults whose mothers had been extensively interviewed twenty-five years earlier by Sears, Maccoby and Lewin (1957) regarding their child rearing practices. This study reveals that the highest correlate to achievement drive is clearly the mother's belief that it is very important for her child to perform well in school. This was true across all socio-economic strata, with the highest effect among the children of white collar workers.

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