dIf you read the Nation’s Report Card, one of the best indicators of how well we are teaching children to read in the United States, you will notice that reading scores dropped in 2019.  In other words, fewer children could read at their age-appropriate level in 2019 than in 2017. Why?
 
In the classroom, most public schools are still using whole language techniques or some form of phonics.  For the last two years, there has been a major push to bring back phonics.  If you look on the Internet, the call to bring back phonics is almost worldwide.  The United States, England, and Australia are major supporters for bringing back phonics.  The “new methods” being discussed in schools and in university education departments include phonics or balanced literacy, which is phonics and whole language combined.  What has this push for phonics given us?  Fewer children being able to read.  No, whole language is not the answer; it’s part of the problem.  Phonics is not the answer either, and balanced literacy certainly has not proven to be effective.
 
The 2019 Nation’s Report Card shows that the average reading score for fourth graders is one point lower compared to test results in 2017.  For eighth graders, the average reading score is three points lower than the test results in 2017.  Why?  When schools are stressing phonics as well as balanced literacy more and more, why are reading scores getting worse?
 
Dr. Mark S Seidenberg, a cognitive neuroscientist for the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Language at the Speed of Sight:  How We Read, Why so Many Can’t, and What Can Be Done About It (2017), said:
 
“How reading is taught is indeed a significant part of the literacy problem in the US and other countries…. In the US, the conflicting and often strongly entrenched interests of various stakeholders—educators, politicians, scientists, taxpayers, labor organizations, parent groups—make it hard to achieve meaningful change within the existing institutional structure of public education.”  (p. 10)
 
The push to use phonics in the classroom is not supported by better test scores or by the number of children learning to read.  Phonics is also not being supported by scientific research:

• Jeanne Sternlicht Chall (1967) an advocate for systematic phonics, visited over 300 classrooms.  While she concluded that systematic phonics was superior to “look say” whole language in 90% of the classrooms, she also clearly stated and warned that a purely phonics approach would leave many students failing.

 

• Linnea C. Ehri studied 66 phonics vs. whole language groups and again found systematic phonics to be superior to whole language but also found that systematic phonics “… did not help low achieving readers that included students with cognitive limitations” (Ehri 2001). 

 

• As the National Reading Panel (National Reading Panel, 2000)  states,  “…systematic phonics approaches are significantly more effective than non-phonics [whole language]…. However, phonics instruction failed to exert a significant impact on the reading performance of low-achieving readers in 2nd through 6th grades….” (p. 94).  Phonics simply does not work for many students. 

 

• Gerald Hughes, Director of the Neuro-Linguistic Learning Center and author of the book, Gifted—Not Broken:  Overcoming Dyslexia, ADD and Other Learning Challenges states that long-standing research shows that: “…20% of all children will show little or no lasting improvement in reading ability using phonics-based programs….using a phonics-based program on this particular group of children, is more than likely doomed to failure because it is focused on the very weaknesses of the child. Experience has repeatedly shown that when subjected to an extensive phonics-based program, many of these children will experience frustration, anger and ultimately continued failure.”
  

 

• In 2013, Tunmer and associates also stated from their research that Reading Recovery (often used to teach struggling students from the classroom) was also not effective with failing, struggling students.  As they stated, “Students with phonological difficulties did poorly [in Reading Recovery].” 

 

• Sebastian P. Suggate’s 2016 study compared 71 phonemic and phonics intervention groups and found that “… phonemic awareness interventions showed good maintenance of effect… phonics tended not to.”

 
So, why, when other research-based methods have been proven to be better, do the schools keep teaching phonics?  We must stop letting old worn-out ideas and theories stand in the way of teaching methods that improve learning in the classroom.

• Neuroimaging research has changed how we view reading:  “Today scientists can actually watch the brain as it works to read; scientist can actually track the printed word as it is perceived as a visual icon and then transformed into the sounds (phonemes) of language and simultaneously interpreted from the meaning that is stored within the brain” (David A. Kilpatrick in Equipped for Reading Success, pp. 59-68).

 

• Reading is more than merely associating letters and sounds: “In order to read, a child must ‘enter the language system;’ this means that the child must activate and use the brain circuits that are already in place for oral language…. Tens of thousands of neurons carrying the final phonological messages necessary for language…. Connect to form the resonating networks that make skilled reading possible….” (Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003, pp. 59-68).

 

• The new scientific understanding -- orthographic mapping:  “Until recently, almost everyone thought that we store words by having some type of visual image of every word we know….  Many teaching approaches [like phonics and whole language] presume this. We assume that if students see the words enough, they will learn them. This is not true…. I believe this assumption that we store words based on visual memory is a major reason why we have widespread reading difficulties in our country…. The big discovery regarding orthographic mapping is that this oral “filing system” is the foundation of the “filing system” we use for reading words. We have no “visual dictionary” for reading that runs alongside our oral dictionary.”

 
In an interview with the National Institute of Health, Dr. Sally Shaywitz, a leading reading expert, stated that "Teaching matters and good teaching can change the brain in a way that has the potential to benefit struggling readers." 
 
In my program, vowel clustering teaches children to decode or break words down into letter sounds and then to encode or reassemble those sounds back into pronounceable words.  Vowel clustering is not a form of phonics and does not use the phonics teaching approach. Vowel clustering teaches reading, handwriting, spelling, fluency, comprehension, and oral reading.  Vowel clustering has been tested and proven to work with all students, including struggling, at risk, and failing students.  There are new methods available. 
 
So, why are we allowing children to continue to fail in reading?  We need to throw out phonics, whole language, balanced literacy, and Reading Recovery. We need to start start over.  It’s time to put an end to reading failure.
 
Just as at my previous sites, at my Corpus Christi reading clinic, with the Reading Orienteering Club, children are improving in reading each and every day.  These are children who failed in the public-school and some in private schools.  We even had two students move up two grade levels in reading after only 48 hours of instruction this fall.  Yes, we can teach children to read; we just refuse to change from whole language and phonics and do so.

A parent recently asked me, “Your program’s different.  I want my child to learn to read.  Why aren’t you sitting down and helping my child read?”
 
I smiled. I explained that we have more than eight years of research evidence proving the methods and program that I use. I explained that:

• Students who failed under whole language in the school classroom have come to the Reading Orienteering Club—and then returned to the classroom reading at their age level.  Even if a student has been retained, we emphasize sending the child back to the classroom reading at their actual age level—not grade level in school.  Some children have moved up 4 grade levels in reading in one year.
  
• A group of students continued to fail after the school placed them in Reading Recovery, but the same students succeeded with my method of vowel clustering.  They returned to the classroom reading at age level.
• Even when failing special needs students had been placed into one-on-one pull out programs in phonics and still didn’t learn to read, they came to my reading clinic and succeeded.  They learned to read.
• Students who failed under “balanced literacy,” a common school program that combines whole language and phonics, also learned to read at age level using vowel clustering.  We even had two students move up two grade levels in reading after only 48 hours of instruction.

We have 8 years of research evidence to prove that vowel clustering works.

I am not the only psychologist who is publishing research evidence showing that children who are failing in the classroom can be taught to read.  Neuroimaging research shows that:

• Phonemic awareness is the key to improving reading skills--intensive training in phonemes (letter sounds)  allows even struggling at risk students to make significant improvement in reading (Meyler, Keller, Cherkassky, Gabrieli, & Just, 2008).
• Decoding skills are essential. Keller and Just (2009) explain it this way: “…the instruction specifically improved phonological decoding skills more than the standard reading curricula did." (Keller & Just, 2009). 
  
• Leading reading experts Shaywitz and Shaywitz and their colleagues showed in 2004 that: “…the use of an evidence-based phonologic reading intervention facilitates the development of those fast-paced neural systems that underlie skilled reading.”
  

 
As we said under Reason #2 that reading scores have dropped, confusion and misinterpretation often lead to reading failure.

So, you see, we have actual proof of teaching methods that work with at risk struggling students in reading, and we should not let fear stand in the way of using these methods and teaching a child to read. 
 
No, I do not recommend that we experiment with any and every new thing that gets placed on the Internet. Instead, I am suggesting that we need to turn to proven, research-based scientific teaching methods that are available. 
 
Don’t let fear of change keep a child from learning to read.

I want to talk about confusion on the part of teachers, administrators, advocates for particular teaching methods, university education departments, and politicians. I’m not talking about confusion from the student’s perspective, although at-risk students are often confused by teaching methods and we’ll talk about that later. Yes, confusion and misinformation are two of the major reasons we have reading failure in the United States. 

With the Internet, information is a mere fingertip away.  Yet, we must remember that anyone can post information about reading on the Internet which unfortunately leads to lots and lots of misinformation.  There is not a “fact checker” for educational writing as there is for political statements; even though, we desperately need one.  In academia, research journal articles must pass a review to ensure that the information in the article is correct.  No, this is not always perfect, but reviews do ensure a certain degree of imparting correct information that the Internet does not give us.
 
One example of how this problem affects children in the classroom comes from a well-known publisher of school curriculum.  Houghton Mifflin, a nationwide publisher and distributor of reading curriculum to public schools, made the following summary statement of the findings of the 2000 National Reading Panel Report: “Synthetic phonics instruction is the most effective approach.”  This statement was made on page 2 of their summary entitled:  How Houghton Mifflin Reading Meets the Criteria for Effective Reading Instruction, as Established By The National Reading Panel Report. This summary distributed to schools comes from Houghton Mifflin’s marketing department—not their research department.

Unfortunately, if you go back to the actual report, the National Reading Panel’s findings are quite different from the Houghton Mifflin summary.  On page 2-93, the reading panel states, “systematic phonics approaches are significantly more effective than non-phonics.” 

First, systematic and synthetic phonics are two totally different teaching methods. Synthetic phonics teaches students to sound each letter sound and letter combination individually and then to blend these sounds back into word pronunciations. Systematic phonics teaches students in an explicit sequence.
Dr. Timothy Shanahan, member of the National Reading Panel, clarifies the difference:

“The NRP concluded that early, explicit, systematic phonics teaching gives kids a learning advantage. Systematic, not synthetic.”

Second, the reading panel was comparing whole language and phonics.  The reading panel’s conclusion is quite different than Houghton Mifflin’s conclusion.  Yes, reading the actual National Reading Panel’s report is cumbersome and it may be difficult for the general population to understand.  Still, when we summarize research or restate research findings, we must make absolute certain that we summarize and restate those findings accurately.  This one statement by Houghton Mifflin has led many people to conclude that the National Reading Panel said synthetic phonics is best, when in fact, that is not what the National Reading Panel concluded from their research.  Yes, it makes a huge difference to at-risk students who are failing in reading when you prescribe a teaching method that has been proven to be ineffective.
 
Another fact from the actual National Reading Panel report on p. 2-94 that is often ignored is their statement that “phonics instruction failed to exert a significant impact on the reading performance of low achieving readers in second through sixth grade….”  The panel did not draw a definite conclusion from this research data, but said more research was needed before conclusions could be made.  Yet, their findings did highlight that problems do exist between at-risk readers and the phonics teaching method.  We’ll talk more about this later.  At this point, I only want to highlight that sometimes Internet reports and summaries do not actually report the total findings; therefore, confusion and misinformation abounds.  Confusion and misinformation often keep children from learning to read.  Therefore, when we report on scientific research findings, we must report all of the findings, not just the findings that support the teaching method that you think is best.
 
If we are to teach students how to read (and we can), we must learn to read and report scientific findings correctly.  Such confusion on the part of adults can lead to failure for many students.       
If an administrator, school, or teacher believe the National Reading Panel actually said that synthetic phonics is the best way to teach children to read, then they formulate classroom instruction based upon this misstatement of the facts, such confusion and misstatements become a failing policy decision.  Children are often irrevocably harmed by such decisions.  Look once again at the fact that reading failure increased in 2019. [see my blog post from 10-31-19]
 
Another point of confusion that can harm children struggling to read in the classroom is Internet writers that claim a link with scientific research, but in actuality, make claims that are not supported by scientific research. 
 
Confusion abounds on the Internet.  Anyone can write a blog or tweet a comment.  No one checks for accuracy.  So, how do you know when you are reading accurate information on the Internet or when you’re just reading someone else’s opinions?

Some journalists and other writers, who may write and publish on the Internet, write to support their particular viewpoint rather than just reporting the facts.  We all use research to support our point of view or our theory, but we must make sure that we report all of the facts and let our readers draw the conclusions.  When journalists or Internet writers do not report their actual research but just give generalized summaries, they often distort research findings and/or misrepresent what a researcher said. 
 
One example comes from a well-known educational journalist and writer on reading, Emily Hanford.  Ms. Hanford states, “They [children] need explicit, systematic phonics instruction. There are hundreds of studies that back this up.”
 
Remember, Ms. Hanford is a journalist and she did admit that this is an opinion article, but then she states that “hundreds of studies” claim systematic phonics instruction is what these children need.  Her cited research does not back up her claim that “hundreds of studies” insist that systematic phonics is the answer to teaching children how to read.  If you click on the link she provides, the research evidence is not there.  Her list of “hundreds of studies” actually includes 5 actual studies, one concerning IQ scores, one on textbooks, a review article, the 2000 Reading Panel Report, and a 1996 study on “phonological deficits.”  None of the listed “studies” (other than the National Reading Panel Report) confirm that “systematic phonics instruction” is best or even good.  The remainder of her list includes commentary style articles—editorial comments are not scientific studies and cannot be classified as such. 

Yet, this article by Ms. Hanford is published and readily available.  Such misinformation is dangerous to children struggling to learn to read, especially when people take the statement “hundreds of studies” as true without checking the sources.
 
 If you can find “hundreds of studies,” particularly well researched scientific studies, that claim systematic phonics instruction is what children need to become successful readers, then I want to read those studies.  When opinion pieces make unsupported claims most readers do not go back and search for verifiable research that supports such claims.  Confusion and misinformation result.
 
Confusion and misinformation have caused children to struggle in school and fail in reading.  This is just one example; there are many.  Confusion abounds in reading education.
 
This is one of the reasons that my blog posts give you direct quotes and links to the actual research studies.  I want you to have the facts.  I want you to be able to verify every single statement that I make. 
 
Next, we will look at some of these research findings for each of the teaching methods used in the classroom today.  Let’s search for the truth because when we use false information or incorrect information, our children pay the price.  Reading failure is too high a price to pay for confusion, misinformation, and misrepresentation of the facts.  Our children deserve better.  Get the facts.  Do not just assume because something is in print on the Internet that it is correct.  Do not simply assume because someone presents credentials that what they say is correct.  Dig more deeply.  Insist upon Internet writers that provide you with links to the actual research that they are talking about.  Don’t just assume someone is correct--not even me.  Search for the facts; don’t let confusion destroy a child’s chance to learn to read.

At present, the most common teaching methods being used in public school classrooms are whole language, phonics, blended literacy, and cueing. Whole language simply does not work (Yoncheva, Wise, & McCandliss, 2015), neither does phonics (Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003),  and even when you blend the two together for blended literacy they still do not work (see my blog post from 11/20/18 for more research).  I’ll write more about the problems with each of these teaching methods in the coming days. In this post, I’ll discuss teaching methods in general. Yes, students are failing in reading because of the methods that we use to teach them how to read [see my blog posts of 11-2-18, 9-28-18, 8-26-18, 8-18-18, 8-4-18].
 
Let’s first define terms:
 
Whole language is a teaching method that emphasizes recognizing whole words.
Phonics is a method of teaching reading that group’s letter sounds together and teaches rules that predict when these sounds will appear in a word.
Blended literacy may combine whole language and phonics teaching techniques, and/or it may also involve incorporating technology. 
Cueing is a system of three techniques taught to children to help them interpret word meanings.
 
As you may have already guessed, each of these teaching methods has many different definitions and many different teaching approaches; unfortunately, each of these teaching methods is still in use in the classroom even though they have all been proven to be ineffective.  That is why as we look at our 20 reasons for reading failure, we will examine each of these teaching methods in detail.
 
For now, I simply quote Dr. Sally Shaywitz (see Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003) she explains the problem best, “Children do not learn to read by memorizing a word list.  Most children, especially those who struggle in reading, do not learn to read by memorizing phonics rules” (p. 78). 
 
Dr. G. Reid Lyon, former Chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch within the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), said in 1997 when he testified before Congress, the primary reason so many children were failing to learn to read was the methods with which we teach reading (Lyon, 1998).  It was true in 1997, and unfortunately it is still true today.  The teaching methods that we use to teach reading in the classroom are the primary reason that reading scores have dropped in 2019 and that so many children are failing to learn to read.
 
Yes, students who are presently failing can be taught to read.  We have proof. Neuroimaging research clearly shows that at-risk students, who have previously failed in reading, can be taught to read (Keller & Just, 2009).  The neuroimaging study by Keller and Just (2009) showed at-risk children improving in reading.  It’s not the students.  It’s not even the teachers.  The reason that we are failing to teach children to read is the teaching method(s) that we are using to teach reading (Foorman et al., 2015).  It’s time for a change.
 
At my Reading Orienteering Club program this fall, we had two students move up two grade levels in reading after only 48 hours of instruction.  Yes, we can teach children to read, even children who have failed for multiple years (see my blog post from 4/12/19). Unfortunately, we refuse to change our teaching methods. 

Giving a child a book to read? That is one of the best gifts you can ever give, but simply giving a child a book will not teach the child to read.  Nor can you teach a child to read by having them simply sit and listen to you read, even though reading to a child is so very special and important in a child’s development. 
 
Every child should have someone sit down and read at least one book to them every single day, but simply reading to a child is not enough. 
 
As I noted in my previous blog post, reading scores have dropped substantially across the nation.  Why?
 
Most reading experts and researchers say that reading failure is caused by the way we teach reading in the classroom (Chronis-Tuscano et al., 2015).  Yes, the teaching methods that we use in the classroom are causing students to fail in reading (for more research, see my blog post from 9/14/19).  Notice that I did not say teachers. I said teaching methods. Most public-school teachers do not choose the teaching methods that they use in the classroom. Administrators, school boards, and often politicians choose classroom teaching methods. Research shows that many administrators, school boards, and politicians are choosing the wrong teaching methods.
 
I am starting a new blog series, entitled Twenty Reasons Reading Scores Have Dropped.  Over the next couple of months, we will look in depth at 20 reasons that reading scores, according to the Nation’s Report Card, are lower in 2019 than they were in 2017. Stay tuned for more posts in coming days. 

The new 2019 reading scores have just been released, and the results are dismal.  The Nation’s Report Card shows that the average reading score for fourth graders is one point lower compared to test results in 2017.  For eighth graders, the average reading score is three points lower than the test results in 2017.  Why?  When schools are stressing phonics as well as balanced literacy more and more, why are reading scores getting worse?

Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos says, “This country is in a student achievement crisis, and over the past decade it has continued to worsen, especially for our most vulnerable students.”
 Education Secretary DeVos blames the public schools and says that the only answer is to turn to charter schools.  Unfortunately, Education Secretary DeVos fails to mention that “…after 25 years and some 6,000 schools, charters still on average produce results roughly equal those of the public schools to which they set out to be better alternatives.”  Professor Paul Reville, former Secretary of Education in Massachusetts, also reminds readers that:
 
“It’s impossible to generalize charter schools. How charters are run, funded, and overseen varies dramatically from state to state, school to school. In Charter Schools at the Crossroads, one of the most comprehensive overviews of the charter movement, Chester Finn, M.A.T.’67, Ed.D.’70, concludes, “The charter track record can best be described as stunningly uneven.”
 
So, perhaps charter schools are not the answer.

As Peggy Carr, associate commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, explained
 
"Eighth grade is a transitional point in preparing students for success in high school, so it is critical that researchers further explore the declines we are seeing here, especially the larger, more widespread declines across states we are seeing in reading,….Both low- and high-achieving eighth graders slipped in reading, but the declines were generally worse for lower-performing students.”

Notice when politics is not the issue, as with DeVos, the National Center for Education does not advocate charter schools.  Reading specialists and research tell us that reading scores are constantly, year after year, getting worse because of the teaching methods that we are using in the classroom (see my blog post from 9/14/19).  Teaching methods can be just as bad in charter schools as in public schools unless we quit playing politics with students.  We need change, but charter schools will not help unless charter schools use a different teaching method. 

The most prevalent teaching method being used in public and charter schools at present is some combination of whole language, phonics, or balanced literacy.  Each of these methods have been in full force during this decline in reading scores.  As reported by the New York Times, in 17 states, fourth graders scored lower in reading in 2019.  The state of New Jersey showed the largest decline in reading scores with six points.  This is further proof that whole language and phonics simply do not work.
Can we correct these low reading scores?  Yes, we can.  We can teach each of these students to read.  To do so, we must take whole language, phonics, and balance literacy completely and totally out of the classroom and replace these teaching methods with methods that actually work.  No, charter schools are not an easy quick fix for reading failure; instead, we need to change the teaching methods used in the classroom.  Until we do, students will continue to fail.  We’ll talk more about the problems with whole language, phonics, and balanced literacy in my next blog.  

It’s October. Most students have been in school for at least six weeks, and the first grading reports have gone home to parents.  Unfortunately, those reports show that many students are struggling in reading; some are failing.  Why? 
 
Most reading experts and researchers say that reading failure is caused by the way we teach reading in the classroom (Chronis-Tuscano et al., 2015).  Yes, the teaching methods that we use in the classroom are causing students to fail in reading (for more research see my blog post from 9/14/19).  Notice that I did not say teachers. I said teaching methods. Most public-school teachers do not choose the teaching methods that they use in the classroom. Classroom teaching methods are chosen by administrators, school boards, and, often, politicians. At present, the most common teaching methods being used in public school classrooms are whole language, phonics, or a blended literacy combination of the two.
 
Phonics simply does not work (Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003), and neither does whole language (Yoncheva, Wise, & McCandliss, 2015). Even when you blend the two together for blended literacy, they still do not work (see my blog post from 4/12/19 for more research).
 
Some schools are beginning to revert back to phonics. Remember, phonics was first introduced in 1690, so phonics is neither a new approach nor a new teaching method.  Phonics uses a list of rules that predict when a letter of the alphabet will use a particular letter-sound.  As Sarah Forrest, a reading specialist with the Easyread System, explains—such phonics rules are only accurate 60% of the time. That means that, almost half the time, phonics rules give an inaccurate prediction or the rule is simply wrong.
 
Sarah Forrest goes on to explain that the rule with silent e (or “magic e” as it is sometimes referred to these days) is only accurate for predicting letter sounds:

• 77% of the time with letter a
• 76% of the time with letter u
• 75% of the time with letter i
• 58% of the time with letter o
• 16% of the time with letter e

For example, “cake” has a silent e and makes the long a sound, while “have” has the silent e but does not make the long a sound. What are struggling and failing students supposed to do when the rules don’t work?
 
Silent e is not the only phonics rule that causes students trouble.  Remember that cute little phonics rule about when “two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking?” Sarah Forrest says that this rule is only accurate 50% of the time.  As she states, “phonics may not be the best way to teach the English language.” 
 
Forrest is not the only reading specialist pointing out problems with the phonics teaching method.  Gerald Hughes, Director of the Neuro-Linguistic Learning Center and author of the book, Gifted--Not Broken: Overcoming Dyslexia, ADD and other Learning Challenges, states that long-standing research shows :
 
“…20% of all children will show little or no lasting improvement in reading ability using phonics-based programs….using a phonics-based program on this particular group of children, is more than likely doomed to failure because it is focused on the very weaknesses of the child. Experience has repeatedly shown that when subjected to an extensive phonics-based program, many of these children will experience frustration, anger and ultimately continued failure.”
 
So, what we are saying is that we are using an ineffective teaching method that fails students, and then we blame those students for failing.  Is there any hope for changing teaching methods used in the classroom?  I do not hold out much hope for change in the public-school educational system.  Public education is caught up in a quagmire of political haggling.
 
We do have effective methods for teaching at risk struggling students and even failing students.  I propose using after-school programs that actually teach children how to read.  In my Reading Orienteering Club after-school program, we have eight years of published documented research that shows failing students moving up four grade levels in reading in one year.  These were students who entered the program having failed multiple years.  How did we do this? We used vowel clustering (see my blog post from 6/6/19) and a group-centered prevention format.  My newest book gives all the details (After-School Programming and Intrinsic Motivation). 
 
So, yes, we really can stop reading failure.  We can start teaching students how to read right now. 
 
We have teaching methods that work, but success requires change.  My vowel clustering programs often use hands-on teaching tools that use creative art therapy and encourage students to tackle and learn new words.  For example, this Afton the Ant simple scrap paper project encourages students to learn 30 new words.  They read (breaking words down letter by letter—decoding and then reassembling those letter sounds by encoding and pronouncing the word), spell the word correctly, write the word correctly using proper manuscript style writing, look up a definition for the word, and use the word in a sentence.  Sometimes they even write a story using the word.  In this way, the students can learn each of the new words they place on their hands-on project.
 
Yes, we do have tested methods that help students of all ages learn how to read.  We just need to change how we teach students to read.  Neither phonics and whole language is the answer.  It’s not the students who are failing; it’s the teaching methods that are failing the students.

My last post explained how Creative Art Therapy can help students learn to read. My reading programs, Camp Sharigan and the Reading Orienteering Club, are not craft programs.  They are teaching programs:  teaching programs that combine learning and counseling.  Our purpose is not to prove that we can make paper alligators, pop-bottle rockets, or even cloth squids.  The hands-on Creative Art Therapy projects help create an intrinsic motivational environment for learning  that the program uses to encourage children to stay focused on the task and to complete their work (Chandler & Tricot, 2015; Moreau, 2015).  The hands-on crafts become our teaching tools (Hillman et al., 2014). 
 
Hands-on projects can teach a child how to organize, follow directions, and improve their completion skills on a task.  Children quickly learn that, if they do not complete a project, the project does not go home.  As I like to tell the children, you cannot drive a half-finished car down the road.  We have a make-up day at the end of each session. This gives children a chance to go back and complete their work, but we do not JUST finish the craft project.  Finishing a project means that a child goes back to the original session and completes the vowel clustering tasks from that session.  Our intent is not just to make a craft project, paint a costume, or even to make a pop-up book.  The purpose of both Camp Sharigan and the Reading Orienteering Club is to teach children how to read.  Vowel clustering is the key [see my blog post from 1-27-18].  Vowel clustering is where we teach children to take a word apart letter sound by letter sound and then put those sounds back together and pronounce or read the word.  We also teach children to build new words from a common letter sound.  Vowel clustering fits perfectly with Creative Art Therapy.

For more information about these programs in action, click the Reading News link above. 

Children present a puppet play that they wrote themselves. Each puppet is covered in words that they have captured (that is, tricky words that they learned). Watching the puppet play, family members can see how the children have improved their reading and writing skills. 

Here, a child proudly shows off a puppet made during the Reading Orienteering Club. The puppet is covered with new words that the student captured. Children will work on a project like this much more eagerly than they will work on a boring worksheet.

Children look for excuses not to finish a worksheet. But they look for excuses to finish a Creative Art Therapy project. 

People often ask me, why do your reading programs use so many craft projects? Doesn’t that waste time you should spend teaching reading?  No, it does not waste time: Creative Art Therapy uses hands-on paper projects, painting, and puppet plays to teach children how to read.  Creative Art Therapy enables my group-centered prevention programs, such as Camp Sharigan and the Reading Orienteering Club, to combine learning and counseling. Combining learning and counseling helps students who have struggled in the classroom or possibly even failed in their attempts to learn to read to become successful readers.  We have even had children move up four grade levels in reading in one year through our program.  So yes, we are teaching children how to read.

Let’s look at an example from my Reading Orienteering Club program in Corpus Christi this fall.  The children arrive at 4:00 PM. They have been in school all day, but they arrive eager to see what awaits them because as soon as they walk in the door, they find a brand-new hands-on paper project waiting for them.  I start with very simple projects at first: a paper alphabet snake, a paper panda puppet, and a tissue paper ant named Alfred (“Alfred Ant” for the letter A!).  Each of these hands-on paper projects become puppets in the weekly puppet show.  Each of these puppets is covered in captured words. A captured word is a word the child does not know, cannot read, or cannot spell.  We capture the word and use 4 steps [see my blog post from 2-14-18 on the 4 steps] in learning the word so that we add this new word to our reading and comprehension vocabulary.  Using a simple paper puppet, the children start the late afternoon program excited.  Then, they are excited to go from workstation to workstation to find new words to capture so they can finish their puppet and take it home.  Each puppet is assigned a certain number of new words that it must capture before it can join the puppet show and go home.  In this way, five minutes tracing a puppet pattern becomes not a waste of time, instead, a paper hands-on puppet becomes an intrinsic motivator and a teaching technique for helping children to learn new words [for more see my blog post from 3-17-18].

You may be asking, could you not accomplish the same thing with a worksheet or a simple cut-and-paste activity?  No, Creative Art Therapy involves making a project, a puppet the child can then go on and use in a puppet play or take-home to practice with.  Worksheets simply do not have the same impact as a creative art project.  Be careful, because Creative Art Therapy is much more than just simply making a craft project.  Children love to make craft projects, but Creative Art Therapy projects are teaching tools. 
 
Creative Art Therapy hands-on projects encourage children to go out and learn new words, work on vowel sounds that may be difficult for them, and read challenging stories and puppet plays.  We have a rule at my reading programs that projects do not go home until they are finished.  A finished project must include the 20 or 30 capture words included in that session.  It’s about finishing what is being taught for that session.  In this way, Creative Art Therapy projects become a basic part of teaching.  Our goal is to teach children to read at their age level. 
 
Creative Art Therapy projects also teach completion skills—finishing what you start. We use Creative Art Therapy projects to accomplish that goal.  Why?
 
First, research tells us that combining learning and counseling together in one program is a much more effective way to teach students to read (Kvarme et al., 2010).  When you combine teaching and counseling together in the same program, you have a much stronger teaching approach (Baskin et al., 2010; Brigman & Webb, 2007; Huang et. al, 2005). Creative Art Therapy projects also have a healing factor.  They help students overcome the sense of failure that comes from not being able to read like other students in the classroom (Jensen et al., 2007; Trout, Lienemann, Reid, & Epstein, 2007).
 
Creative Art Therapy projects work hand-in-hand with intrinsic motivation, offer something new and challenging, and help students rebuild self-efficacy or the belief that they can learn to read (Bandura, 1977).   The more involved students become in the process of learning to read, the more students will improve in reading (Froiland and Worrell, 2016; Reeve & Lee, 2014).  
 
My next post, coming later today, shows how Creative Art Therapy motivates children to read while combining learning with counseling.

The latest findings by the Nation’s Report Card show that 63% of children across the nation cannot read proficiently at grade level by fourth grade.  That is more than half the students across the nation.  At eighth grade, 64% cannot read proficiently at grade level and even by 12th grade 63% cannot read proficiently at grade level when they graduate from high school (Nation’s Report Card 2017 scores).
 
Why can’t we teach these students to read?  Well, we can.  The problem is that we are using teaching methods in the classroom that have been proven not to work effectively for all students.  Research shows that the method you use to teach a student to read can determine whether the student succeeds and learns to read or fails and does not learn to read.  (Chronis-Tuscano et al., 2015).
 
Research proves that whole language, phonics—even systematic phonics, and balanced literacy are failed teaching methods.  Yes, I know, some children do learn to read using phonics and some even learn to read under whole language, but, if over half of the students across the nation are not learning to read proficiently at their grade level, then something is wrong.  We need a new teaching method.  As neuroimaging research has proven:  

Whole language doesn’t work. 

• Louisa Moates says that the problem with whole language is that it doesn’t work.
•  Yoncheva, Wise, & McCandliss (2015) show that whole language does not teach children to sound out words—decoding and encoding are essential for effective reading. 

Phonics does not work for many students, especially struggling students.

• Jeanne Sternlicht Chall (1967) stated that phonics leaves many students failing.
•  Sebastian P. Suggate’s 2016 study showed that phonics was not as effective as phonemic awareness teaching techniques.
•  National Reading Panel (2000) stated that even systematic phonics wasn’t effective with “low-achieving readers in 2nd through 6th grade.

 
Balanced literacy doesn’t work, either.

• Louisa Moates says that balanced literacy is simply a failed idea.
• Merely combining whole language and phonics together as balanced literacy does not correct the problems of either teaching method.  As Dr. Sally Shaywitz (see Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003) explains, “Children do not learn to read by memorizing a word list.  Most children, especially those who struggle in reading, do not learn to read by memorizing phonics rules” (p. 78). 

   
Why do these teaching methods not work? 
 
1. “Until recently, almost everyone thought that we store words by having some type of visual image of every word we know….  Many teaching approaches presume this…. [both whole language and phonics make this assumption]. We assume that if students see the words enough, they will learn them. This is not true…. I believe this assumption that we store words based on visual memory is a major reason why we have widespread reading difficulties in our country." (David Kilpatrick in Equipped for Reading Success, pp. 29-39).
 
2. “In order to read, a child must ‘enter the language system;’ this means that the child must activate and use the brain circuits that are already in place for oral language…. “ (Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003, pp. 59-68).
 
3. “The letters of our printed language are supposed to represent the sounds of our spoken language…. We use our oral-linguistic filing system as the basis for word recognition…. orthographic mapping will only occur if the student has adequate phonemic awareness/analysis. If he cannot pull apart the sounds in words, he cannot align those sounds to the order of the letters…. Mapping must not be confused with phonics. Mapping and phonics differ in some very important ways….”(David Kilpatrick in Equipped for Reading Success, pp. 29-39).

What teaching methods do work?
 
We do have teachings methods that have been researched, tested, and proven to work for all students.  Researchers are beginning to develop teaching methods based on the oral language system.  One such approach being used with dyslexic students is the Davis Program. 
 
I use vowel clustering in all of my reading programs.  Vowel clustering has been proven to work with all ages, with students who have failed for multiple years, and even for students from low socio-economic neighborhoods.  (Clanton Harpine & Reid, 2009). Vowel clustering (See my book After-School Programming for At-Risk Students Clanton Harpine, 2013) teaches students to decode or break words down into individual letter sounds and then to encode or reassemble those sounds back into pronounceable words.  Vowel clustering also teaches students to build new words from a common letter sound.  There are no rules to memorize and students are never allowed to guess at a word. My vowel clustering method also teaches spelling, handwriting, oral reading fluency, comprehension, and story writing
 
Vowel clustering works with the brain and helps students relate letter sounds to their oral language system.  Vowel clustering uses visual, auditory, and hands-on teaching techniques.    Vowel clustering teaches students to match consonant and vowel sounds with their corresponding letter symbols.  This emphasizes the oral letter-sound relationship.  Remember, we are training the brain, building “pathways” in the brain.  When these neural “pathways” are developed, reading can take less than half a second.   Therefore, it is important to organize how we teach so students can organize how they learn. We want to work with the brain, not against it. Vowel clustering is a teaching approach that presents a visual and oral picture that struggling students can immediately identify with.  Visually, students match words by how they sound not by how they are spelled.  This teaches children that words can be pronounced one way but spelled another.  This visual-auditory learning technique allows students to both see and hear letter sounds (phonemes).  Vowel clustering also teaches handwriting because it is very important for students to write words correctly as they practice reading, spelling, and matching written letters to oral sounds. 
 
All of my reading programs teach vowel clustering.  Vowel clustering has been tested and proven to work with struggling, at-risk, and failing students.  A student who failed for nine years using balanced literacy and phonics, learned to read in 3 ½ years using vowel clustering.  I have even had struggling students move up four grade levels in one year using vowel clustering.  These were students who had failed multiple years in schools that taught whole language, balanced literacy, and phonics.  So yes, we can teach students to read, but to do so, we must change the methods that we use to teach reading. (see my 2019 book, After-School Programming and Intrinsic Motivation, hitting the book shelves in a couple weeks).     

We know that students who struggle in reading often have a motivation problem.  No, I am not saying that students struggling in reading are lazy.  What I am saying is that students who struggle to learn to read or have failed in reading for multiple years have developed what Dr. Kerry Hempenstall calls “self-blame.”
 
Think about it.  If you are struggling to learn to read, trying, feeling totally confused, and still failing—year after year, would you continue to work as hard as you possibly can even though you know that you are going to fail?  The answer for most of us is no.  Unfortunately, the same is true for students who are returning to school this fall still struggling to learn to read.  For this reason, all of my reading programs teach vowel clustering and intrinsic (internal) motivation (see my 2019 book After-School Programming and Intrinsic Motivation.     

We cannot continue to ignore reading failure:

• Reading failure is an education problem because it leads to academic failure and increases the number of students dropping out of school before graduation.  The Nation’s Report Card states that 63% of students tested cannot read proficiently at the fourth grade level (see my post of 1/2/2018).   It has been estimated that two thirds or approximately 6.6 million students are at high risk for dropping out of school before graduation because of reading failure.  Reading failure is a major educational problem but one that we could solve—if we’d only change how we teach reading. 

 

• Reading failure is a mental health problem because reading failure increases the risk of mental illness—anxiety, anger, depression, and even suicide.  Approximately 80% of teens diagnosed with depression have also been diagnosed with reading failure.  Children and teens are very vulnerable to feeling different than their peers.  The fear of criticism from peers, teachers, or parents over reading failure, sometimes causes students to feel inferior, even ostracized. 

 
As Morgan, Farkas, & Wu (2012) stated:  “poor readers in third grade were about twice as likely to consider themselves as angry, distractible, sad, lonely, and unpopular in fifth grade as those who had not been poor readers in third grade. Being poorly skilled in mathematics increased children’s risk of feeling sad or lonely but not of feeling angry, distractible, or unpopular. The results provide additional empirical evidence that reading failure contributes to generalized socioemotional maladjustment in young children.” (p. 360)  
 
Such feelings of inferiority can lead to anxiety and/or anger. Reading failure has been documented to show an increase in unacceptable behavior, bullying, and violence. 

• Reading failure is a criminal justice problem because 60% of adult prison inmates in the U. S. cannot read or write; 75% of these inmates dropped out of school before graduation.  About 85% of juveniles going through the courts are illiterate and cannot read or write. (National Center for Adult Literacy 2007).    

 

• As Michael Brunner (1993) of the Department of Justice explains, “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure.”   

We can solve each of these problems by changing how we teach reading in the classroom and in after-school programs.  Poverty does not cause reading failure.  Incorrect teaching methods cause reading failure.  Neuroimaging research proves that, if we change how we teach reading, even children who have previously failed can be taught to read.  Neuroimaging research shows that intensive training in phonemes (letter sounds) changes the “brain and the way it functions.” This change allows even struggling at-risk students to make significant improvement in reading (Meyler, Keller, Cherkassky, Gabrieli, & Just, 2008).  
 
Vowel clustering  teaches students to decode or break words down into letter sounds and then to encode or reassemble those sounds back into pronounceable words.  Vowel clustering does not stop at simply decoding and encoding.  Vowel clustering also teaches spelling, oral reading fluency, comprehension, and writing.  Vowel clustering has been tested and proven to work with struggling, at-risk, and failing students (Clanton Harpine & Reid, 2009).
 
Yes, we can teach children to read.  We have the teaching methods to do so.  Research proves it.  If you need statistical research to bring change to your school, my forthcoming book (hitting the shelves in September), After-School Programming and Intrinsic Motivation (2019), demonstrates eight years of research showing that children who had failed in the classroom under whole language, phonics, and balanced literacy could indeed be taught to read successfully at their age level with vowel clustering, even children from low socioeconomic neighborhoods.  We had children who moved up four grade levels in reading in one year. 
 
Yes, we can end reading failure today.  We can help all struggling students learn to read.  We just need to change how we teach in the classroom.
 
I’ll be teaching a free training workshop on vowel clustering, September 9, 2019 at 4:00 PM in Corpus Christi, Texas.  Come join us.   Click the email button at the top right of this page and ask for more information on the training workshop.

School will be starting soon and many parents will be told that their child has a learning disability in reading.  Unfortunately, some children do, but even worse is the fact that many children are misdiagnosed with a learning disability in reading.  I always encourage parents to learn as much as possible about learning disabilities, and I also encourage you to go to reputable Internet sites.  Don’t just take advice from anyone.  There is a lot of information available on the Internet that is completely and totally wrong.  There is also good information on the Internet, so, check the source.  Does the person know what they’re talking about?  For example, I recently read a blog post by Amanda Morin, a teacher who earned her bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Maine.  She also states that she had special education advocacy training from the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates.  Unfortunately, she gives inaccurate information.  She presents the following list as “signs of a learning disability:"

"Has trouble understanding and/or following verbal or written directions.

• Loses her place while reading.
• Confuses words that look similar when reading. For example: word/world.
• Reverses letter order when reading. For examples, reads "was" as "saw."
• Avoids reading or reads under protest.
• Fails to follow tasks through to completion, such as schoolwork, homework or chores.
• Tries to avoid activities that call for long periods of concentration."

​
Wrong.  These are not necessarily signs of a learning disability.  They can also be signs of a poor teaching method, inadequate teaching curriculum, poor classroom management….  The list can go on and on.  Let’s go to some reputable sources on the Internet and find a real list of learning disabilities in reading.

In a Psychology Today article written for the general public, authors give a definition and a list of learning disabilities:
 
"Learning disabilities are disorders that affect one's ability in the domains of spoken or written language, mathematical calculation, attention, or the coordination of movements. They can occur in young children but are usually not recognized until a child reaches school age. An estimated 8 to 10 percent of U.S. children have some type of learning disability….

"Some specific categories of learning disabilities include:

• Dyslexia, which causes difficulties with word recognition, spelling, and comprehension
• Dysgraphia, which results in impaired handwriting, impaired spelling, or both
• Dyscalculia, which affects the ability to learn arithmetic and mathematics
• Nonverbal Learning Disorder, marked by trouble receiving and interpreting nonverbal forms of communication such as body language and facial expressions
• Apraxia of speech, which involves difficulty saying what one intends to say
• Central Auditory Processing Disorder, which involves difficulty with recognizing and interpreting sounds

 
"For diagnosis of a Specific Learning Disorder, the affected skills must be markedly and measurably below what is expected for the individual's age, and the difficulty must significantly interfere with performance or daily activities."
 
There is a difference between poor reading habits and dyslexia just as there is a difference between sloppy handwriting and dysgraphia.  There is also a major difference between a child losing their place while they are reading and the child having dyslexia. 

Children often refuse to read or read only under protest not because they have a learning disability but because they have not been properly taught how to read.  Every day, I encounter more and more students who have been taught using balanced literacy, systematic phonics, or even whole language who are struggling, sometimes even failing, and yes, occasionally refusing to read.  These students do not necessarily have a learning disability.  Some do, but most just need a new approach to teaching them how to read. 

That is why we have been so successful with the vowel clustering teaching method.  Vowel clustering is a completely and totally new approach to teaching reading. Vowel clustering is nothing like phonics or whole language. Vowel clustering helps students relate the words they are reading to the oral language system in the brain. There is no memorization, no sight word lists, and no phonics rules.
Some of our success stories have been:

• A student who failed for nine straight years in public school is now reading.
• A student diagnosed with ADHD and failing in reading moved up two grade levels in one year.
• A student diagnosed with dyslexia and whose parents tried everything, including expensive private one-on-one systematic phonics tutoring, learned to read, and moved up to beginning chapter books in one year.
• Six children who entered the program reading at the pre-K level ended the year reading at the 2nd grade reading level.  Only one child in the group was a first grader.
• One student started at the pre-primer level (pre-K) and ended the year at the third-grade reading level while a second grader started the year reading below first grade and ended at the fourth-grade level.
• Three students moved up four grade levels in reading, four students moved up three grade levels in reading, and eight students moved up two grade levels in reading in one year. 
• A fifth-grade student moved up from the 3rd grade reading level to the 6th grade reading level in only five months using the vowel clustering teaching method. 

 
So, be careful as you read on the Internet.  Be careful when you label children or identify learning disabilities.  Be careful not to blame children for not learning when it is often a failure to teach.  No, I’m not blaming teachers.  I am blaming administrators, public school systems, and anyone and everyone who maintains teaching methods that have been proven not to work.  Whole language, systematic phonics, and balanced literacy have been proved to be failed approaches to teaching reading.  It’s time for a change.

Stores are being restocked with school supplies.  Back-to-school clothing is being advertised everywhere.  Schools and communities are sending out ads saying, “Start the New Year Right,” but are they?

No, actually, it will be another year of reading failure—guaranteed.  Why?  School superintendents, school boards, politicians, book publishers, universities training teachers, and others who actually control how reading is taught in the classroom are neither planning nor preparing changes that will make it easier for children to learn to read.  Instead, it will be the same old failed teaching methods as usual.  Most schools still use whole language, phonics, or balanced literacy—a combination of whole language and phonics.  Yet, each of these three teaching methods has been proven over and over to be a failed teaching method [see my blog posts for 4-12-2019 and 1-21-2019 for research on the failure of phonics and whole language].  Yes, that’s right, scientific research has proved that whole language, phonics, and even balanced literacy are ineffective teaching methods. They do not work for all children and are believed to be one of the main causes of reading failure.  So, why do we still use failed teaching methods?

Dr. Mark S. Seidenberg, a cognitive neuroscientist from the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, describes the problem by saying,
“How reading is taught is indeed a significant part of the literacy problem in the US and other countries…. In the US, the conflicting and often strongly entrenched interests of various stakeholders—educators, politicians, scientists, taxpayers, labor organizations, parent groups—make it hard to achieve meaningful change within the existing institutional structure of public education.”  (p. 10)
 
Dr. Seidenberg points out three main problems on his new book, Language at the Speed of Sight:  How We Read, Why so Many Can’t, and What Can Be Done About It (2017):

• current teaching practices are based on outdated assumptions.
• scientific research in reading has had very little effect on how reading is taught in the classroom.
• new neurobiological brain research in reading is being totally ignored by today’s educators.

Dr. Seidenberg argues that the scientific study of reading through cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience is one of the most successful research areas being studied today. Scientific research can clearly tell us

• the brain bases of how reading skill is acquired--phonemic awareness.
• the basic mechanisms that support skilled reading—relating written script to the oral language system—spoken language.
• the causes of reading failure—primarily the teaching methods being used in the classroom.

Dr. Seidenberg goes on to point out that we have decades of research showing that the only effective way to teach children to read is to teach skills that connect reading with oral speech. Here are links:Louisa Moates 1998, Gaab et al., 2007, Keller & Just, 2009, David A. Kilpatrick in Equipped for Reading Success, Meyler, Keller, Cherkassky, Gabrieli, & Just, 2008, National Reading Panel, 2000, Norton, Beach, & Gabrieli, 2015, Saygin, et al., 2013, Sebastian P. Suggate’s 2016 study, Yoncheva, Wise, & McCandliss, 2015. 

One reviewer goes so far as to state that every teacher should read Seidenberg’s book. Great idea, but the problem is that classroom teachers in today’s schools do not decide how they will or will not teach reading.  The teaching methods that are being used in the classroom this fall are mandated and handed down by school administrators, school boards, and politicians—local, state, and federal—and by money.  Yes, those who make money from whole language and phonics textbooks, workbooks, and other teaching materials do not want to see new teaching methods brought into the classroom.  In some instances, even tutors, particularly phonics tutors, do not want to see changes brought to the public-school classroom.

Yes, we can teach children to read.  We have the teaching methods to do so.  Research proves it. We just refuse to change and use a teaching method that works.  If you need statistical research to bring change to your school, my forthcoming book (hitting the shelves in September), After-School Programming and Intrinsic Motivation (2019), demonstrates eight years of research showing that children who had failed in the classroom under whole language, phonics, and balanced literacy could indeed be taught to read successfully at their age level, even children from low socioeconomic neighborhoods.  We had children who moved up four grade levels in reading in one year. 

​Yes, we really can teach all students to read.  We just need to quit fighting the “whole language-phonics wars” and start teaching with a totally new method that actually can teach children how to read.

It’s almost July and schools, administrators, teachers, and parents are already talking about how to make the next school year more successful.  The question is, how can we teach reading more effectively?  How can we help students do well in reading? Some phonics enthusiasts insist that as long as a method is teaching decoding and encoding and matching letters to sounds it will be successful.  Wrong.  Yes, teaching decoding and encoding is essential.  Teaching that letters represent sounds is essential.  The problem lies with the method that you use to teach decoding and encoding, the method that you use to teach that letters represent sounds, and the method that you use to teach students to identify letter-sound relationships.

We must remember that reading is attached to our “oral language system.”  As David Kilpatrick, an educational psychologist from the State University of New York College at Cortland who specializes in working with students with reading difficulties, explains:

• “I believe this assumption that we store words based on visual memory is a major reason why we have widespread reading difficulties in our country. Until we properly understand how to promote permanent word storage, we will continue to have many weak readers…. Orthographic mapping is the mental process we use to permanently store words for immediate, effortless retrieval…. The big discovery regarding orthographic mapping is that this oral “filing system” is the foundation of the “filing system” we use for reading words. We have no 'visual dictionary' for reading that runs alongside our oral dictionary. I suspect that the reason this idea was not obvious to researchers for the last 100 years is simple: speech is auditory and reading is visual. Because reading involves visual input, everyone presumed that it also involved visual storage. However, input and storage are not the same thing…. Mapping must not be confused with phonics. Mapping and phonics differ in some very important ways.” David Kilpatrick in Equipped for Reading Success, pp. 29-39).

 
As Dr. Kilpatrick states: 

• “Understanding why words sound different is phonemic awareness.” (p. 16)
• “… phonemic awareness is not “optional” if one wants to be a good reader.”  (p. 16)
• “Phonemic awareness is a linguistic skill that is essential for learning to read. It is different from phonics….”  (p. 18)
• “The vast majority of students with word recognition difficulties lack sufficient phonemic awareness.”  (p. 35)

If Dr. Kilpatrick is correct and phonemic awareness and phonics are not the same, and we need phonemic awareness to tie into our “oral language system,” then how should we teach students to use this oral language system?

I use vowel clustering.  My new book (to be released later this summer) documents eight years of research that shows that we have taken students from the public schools who have failed two and sometimes four years under whole language, balanced literacy, one-on-one phonics tutoring, and Reading Recovery.  We have had students move up four grade levels in reading in one year through vowel clustering.  The actual statistical data analysis for eight years of research is included in the book.  
Vowel clustering can be used in the school classroom or as I have done in after-school programs.  Why does vowel clustering work where phonics and whole language have failed?  Vowel Clustering ties into the “oral language system” that is necessary and used for effective reading. 
 
Research clearly shows that how a child learns, or the method that is used to teach a child to read is just as important as the content contained in the lesson being taught (Chronis-Tuscano et al., 2015). The teaching method used in the classroom is the key to successfully teaching students to read, comprehend, spell, and read fluently.  We must remember that reading failure is connected to crime, violence, bullying, academic failure, dropping out of school, and even suicide (see  Chapter 1 of my forthcoming new book for details on the mental health dangers of reading failure).

• The National Reading Panel (2000) stated that, “systematic phonics approaches are significantly more effective than non-phonics [whole language] …. However, phonics instruction failed to exert a significant impact on the reading performance of low-achieving readers in 2nd through 6th grades” (p. 94).

 
The students I work with at my after-school programs are, unfortunately, students who are already failing in reading. To continue to use whole language or even systematic phonics would be a disaster for these students. Phonics simply does not work for all students.  We need to face reality.

• As Morgan, Farkas, & Wu (2012) stated:  “… poor readers in third grade were about twice as likely to consider themselves as angry, distractible, sad, lonely, and unpopular in fifth grade as those who had not been poor readers in third grade. Being poorly skilled in mathematics increased children’s risk of feeling sad or lonely but not of feeling angry, distractible, or unpopular. The results provide additional empirical evidence that reading failure contributes to generalized socioemotional maladjustment in young children.” (p. 360

 
Yes, research has shown that students who are failing in reading are more likely to contemplate or even attempt suicide (Daniel & Goldston, 2009). So this is no longer an academic argument over my method is better than your method.  This is serious.  When the Nation’s Report Card shows that we have 63% of fourth graders failing and unable to read at the fourth-grade level, it’s time that we change to a more effective teaching method than whole language or phonics.  We cannot continue to make students fail by clinging to failed teaching methods such as whole language, balanced literacy, phonics, or Reading Recovery.  We have neuroimaging research that shows how children can best learn to read.
 
Yes, we can teach every child to read, we are just not willing to do it.

A phonics enthusiast recently tried to claim that decoding and encoding were just another form of phonics.  Wrong.  Decoding and encoding are not a form of phonics, nor are they used just with phonics.  Phonics does use decoding and encoding, but so does vowel clustering and many other teaching methods.  Trust me, the fact that we have been able to use vowel clustering to move children up 4 grade levels in reading in one year has absolutely nothing to do with phonics rules.  Most of the children who come to my reading clinics are failing because of whole language and phonics.  I teach many children to read who have failed with phonics, balanced literacy, and whole language.  Fortunately, vowel clustering succeeds where phonics fails. 

Let’s define terms: 

• Phonics from Foorman and colleagues: “Most [standard phonics] programs teach from the traditional perspective of grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence rules…. phonic lessons consist of instruction in initial and final sounds of consonants; short and long vowel sounds; consonant blends (e.g., cr-, srp-,-nd); consonant digraphs (e.g., ch, th, ng); silent consonants (e.g., wr, kn, -mb); and syllabication.” (Foorman et al., 2003, p. 619).

 

• Decoding: From Reading Horizons: “Decoding is the process of translating print into speech by rapidly matching a letter or combination of letters (graphemes) to their sounds (phonemes) and recognizing the patterns that make syllables and words.”

 

• Encoding: Louisa Moates shows that encoding is the exact opposite of decoding.  Encoding uses individual sounds or phonemes to build words.  Decoding and encoding are important because they are the foundation upon which reading is based.  (Louisa Moates, 1998). 

 
The methods that we use to teach children to decode and encode can determine whether a child succeeds or fails in learning to read.  The question then is:  what is the best way to teach decoding and encoding? As Reading Rockets explains:
 
“Phonics is the understanding that there is a predictable relationship between the sounds of spoken language, and the letters and spellings that represent those sounds in written language. Successful decoding occurs when a student uses his or her knowledge of letter-sound relationships to accurately read a word.”
 
Phonics teaches letter-sound relationships, but phonics teaches that letter sound relationships are predictable; therefore; phonics produces a rule to predict when this letter-sound relationship will evolve.  Unfortunately, letter-sound relationships are not always predictable and do not adhere to phonics rules; therefore, we end up with a long list of exceptions to the rules. 

• I recently had the pleasure of speaking with a person who is nearing retirement.  This is a very successful person.  While discussing retirement plans, my husband offered to loan a book that he had found particularly helpful.  This very successful craftsman said, “I can’t read; I can only read very easy-to-read books.”  He then went on to explain that he had been in a pullout program at school from third grade to ninth grade that taught phonics.  Obviously, it failed.
• A 15-year-old student was brought to my reading clinic because the school had said, “she could never learn to read.”  In middle school, she was given coloring book pages and shuffled off to the corner of the classroom.  The school was using “balanced literacy” in the classroom, and the student had received one-on-one tutoring in systematic phonics from early elementary school to middle school.  Again, obviously, phonics failed.  I taught the student to read in 3 ½ years using vowel clustering.
• A very smart third grader was brought to my reading clinic.  The student could not even read at the beginning kindergarten level.  The student’s parents were college-educated and had even paid for private systematic phonics tutoring.  Balanced literacy from the classroom, pullout small group phonics instruction during school, and even private one-on-one systematic phonics instruction failed to teach this student how to read.  Again, I taught the student to read in one year with vowel clustering.

These are just three examples, I have many others, but these three examples show the failure of phonics across approximately a 60-year period of time.  Two of the methods used “systematic phonics.”  These are real people, and we owe these people and thousands more a teaching method that will not fail them.  Systematic phonics is not that method. 
 
Why?
 
Phonics works against the brain instead of with the brain.  Louisa Moates (1998) explained that the manner in which phonics teaches decoding is one of its primary failings:
 
"One of the most fundamental flaws found in almost all phonics programs, including traditional ones, is that they teach the code backwards. That is, they go from letter to sound instead of from sound to letter…. The print-to-sound (conventional phonics) approach leaves gaps, invites confusion, and creates inefficiencies." (pp. 44–45)
 
As Dr. Sally Shaywitz (see Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003) explains, “Children do not learn to read by memorizing a word list.  Most children, especially those who struggle in reading, do not learn to read by memorizing phonics rules” (p. 78).  Some will say, “but she talks about systematic phonics in her book.”  Yes, she does, but she also clearly states that systematic phonics will not meet the needs of all struggling students. 
 
Let’s look at what the experts say:

• Jeanne Sternlicht Chall (1967) an advocate for systematic phonics, visited over 300 classrooms.  While she concluded that systematic phonics was superior to “look say” whole language in 90% of the classrooms, she also clearly stated and warned that a purely phonics approach would leave many students failing.
• Linnea C. Ehri studied 66 phonics vs. whole language groups and again found systematic phonics to be superior to whole language but also found that systematic phonics “did not help low achieving readers that included students with cognitive limitations” (Ehri 2001). 
• As the National Reading Panel (National Reading Panel, 2000)  clearly stated,  “…systematic phonics approaches are significantly more effective than non-phonics [whole language]…. However, phonics instruction failed to exert a significant impact on the reading performance of low-achieving readers in 2nd through 6th grades….” (p. 94).  Phonics simply does not work for many students. 
• In 2013, Tunmer and associates also stated from their research that Reading Recovery (often used to teach struggling students from the classroom) was also not effective with failing, struggling students.  As they stated, “Students with phonological difficulties did poorly [in Reading Recovery].” 
• Sebastian P. Suggate’s 2016 study compared 71 phonemic and phonics intervention groups and found that “… phonemic awareness interventions showed good maintenance of effect…. phonics and fluency interventions … phonics tended not to.”

 
In the past and in the present, many experts, even those who recommend systematic phonics, clearly state from their research that they are finding problems with systematic phonics.  I am not denying that phonics is better than whole language, but if we go back to phonics, even systematic phonics, it will sentence many struggling students to failure in reading. 
 
Struggling, at-risk students who are failing need more, and we have the ability to offer them more.  Phonics will not solve reading failure; a 63% nationwide failure rate should prove that.  Neuroimaging research in reading opens a whole new chapter in reading instruction.  No matter how enthusiastic you are about phonics, you can no longer cling to an outdated phonics system that allows students to fail when there are teaching methods available that can teach those same students how to read.
 
Let’s do more than just swap opinions.  Let’s go straight to the actual research.

• Neuroimaging research has changed how we view reading:  “Today scientists can actually watch the brain as it works to read; scientist can actually track the printed word as it is perceived as a visual icon and then transformed into the sounds (phonemes) of language and simultaneously interpreted from the meaning that is stored within the brain” (David A. Kilpatrick in Equipped for Reading Success, pp. 59-68).
• Reading is more than merely associating letters and sounds:  “In order to read, a child must ‘enter the language system;’ this means that the child must activate and use the brain circuits that are already in place for oral language…. Tens of thousands of neurons carrying the final phonological messages necessary for language…. Connect to form the resonating networks that make skilled reading possible…. “ (Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003, pp. 59-68).
• The new scientific understanding -- orthographic mapping:  “Until recently, almost everyone thought that we store words by having some type of visual image of every word we know….  Many teaching approaches presume this. We assume that if students see the words enough, they will learn them. This is not true…. I believe this assumption that we store words based on visual memory is a major reason why we have widespread reading difficulties in our country…. The big discovery regarding orthographic mapping is that this oral “filing system” is the foundation of the “filing system” we use for reading words. We have no “visual dictionary” for reading that runs alongside our oral dictionary. I suspect that the reason this idea was not obvious to researchers for the last 100 years is simple: speech is auditory and reading is visual. Because reading involves visual input, everyone presumed that it also involved visual storage. However, input and storage are not the same thing…. There are several types of research findings that disproved the “visual memory” theory of word storage…. Having a good understanding of how words are stored will determine what we teach, and how we teach it…. But how do words or parts of words become familiar if not visually? Here is where phoneme awareness comes into play…. The letters of our printed language are supposed to represent the sounds of our spoken language…. We use our oral-linguistic filing system as the basis for word recognition…. orthographic mapping will only occur if the student has adequate phonemic awareness/analysis. If he cannot pull apart the sounds in words, he cannot align those sounds to the order of the letters…. Mapping must not be confused with phonics. Mapping and phonics differ in some very important ways…. All of the classical methods (phonics, whole word, whole language) were developed before the discovery of orthographic mapping, so they cannot be faulted for missing some or all of the components of permanent word storage. Given the research findings about permanent word storage, we can now make the training and support of these components a central part of early reading instruction and reading remediation. If we do this, we can make substantial reductions in the percentage of struggling readers…. Students were trained in phoneme awareness, letter-sound skills, and word study skills. This allowed them to map words efficiently to permanent memory. As a result, they became good readers and no longer required extra reading help. Other studies have shown similar results.” (David Kilpatrick in Equipped for Reading Success, pp. 27-43).

  
Vowel clustering works with the brain and the way the brain processes phonemes or letter sounds.  Vowel clustering uses visual, auditory, and hands-on teaching techniques.    Vowel clustering teaches students to match consonant and vowel sounds with their corresponding letter symbols.  This emphasizes the oral letter-sound relationship.  Remember, we are training the brain, building “pathways” in the brain.  When these neural “pathways” are developed, reading can take less than half a second.   Therefore, it is important to organize how we teach so students can organize how they learn. We want to work with the brain, not against it. The vowel clustering teaching approach presents a visual and oral picture that struggling students can immediately identify with.  Visually, students match words by how they sound not by how they are spelled.  This teaches children that words can be pronounced one way but spelled another.  This visual-auditory learning technique allows students to both see and hear letter sounds (phonemes).  Vowel clustering also teaches handwriting because it is very important for students to write words correctly as they practice reading, spelling, and matching written letters to oral sounds. 
 
For more information on how vowel clustering works, watch for my new book, “Why Can’t We Teach Children to Read?  Oh but Wait, We Can.”