Monday, August 19, 2002
By Judy Putnam, Lansing Bureau
Booth Newspapers

LANSING -- Michigan's 31,000 teachers in public kindergarten to third-grade and special education classes are in line to be trained in a traditional phonics method to help get kids reading by age 9.

And teacher training programs at 32 Michigan colleges will be reviewed to make sure they include phonics, the "sound-it-out" method learned by many baby boomers.

The requirements are being pushed by the Bush administration and are tied to a new $28.4 million Reading First grant for Michigan.

Phonics helps kids connect sounds to letters and combinations of letters. A competing method called "whole language" teaches children the whole word first.

A debate about which is the better method, known as Reading Wars, has raged for more than a decade. But Michigan is generally considered a "balanced literacy" state that uses the best of both methods, said Faith Stevens, a Michigan Department of Education Reading First consultant.

Still, most familiar with the debate agree that the hook of dangling dollars in front of state officials is steering Michigan toward phonics or what's being called scientific-based reading research.

"What the Bush administration has successfully done is incorporate one side of that argument into their law and into the funding,'' said Rachael Moreno, an instructional specialist for the Michigan Education Association, the state's largest teachers union.

The bulk of the federal grant, $22.7 million, will buy phonics-oriented textbooks and hire reading coaches to work with early elementary teachers in 75 to 100 schools with high poverty and low reading scores.

Three charter schools and 47 schools in seven districts were awarded the first round of grants last week.

In addition, $3.7 million of the grant will be used to train teachers statewide in phonemic awareness (the knowledge that words are made of sounds and letters), phonics (connecting sounds to letters), fluency, vocabulary and text comprehension.

Moreno said all Michigan elementary teachers have been taught phonics, but those attending college a decade ago were likely exposed to more whole language, which emphasizes comprehension.

Generally, kids in whole language classes use lots of journal writing and invented spelling while kids in phonics classes drill until they memorize the sounds of letters.

The money is especially significant in Michigan, one of only 11 states missing out on reading grants from the U.S. Department of Education over the past three years. Ohio reaped $30 million in reading grants in 1999 and Minnesota received $24 million in 2001 while Michigan received nothing. Some speculate privately that Michigan may have been viewed as too oriented toward whole language to earn the grant from both the Clinton and Bush administrations.

This time, the state took few chances in writing its grant application. Officials consulted with University of Michigan Professor Joanne Carlisle, a reading specialist who favors Reading First. As a result, Michigan was one of the first six states to win the grant. Over six years, the grant could total $186.5 million

It's great news, said Cathy Froggatt, the Michigan director of the National Right to Read Foundation, a conservative group that promotes phonics.

"It means to me that it's a good indication that the state is serious about moving reading instruction in the direction of what scientific research shows,'' she said.

Froggatt, a St. Joseph mother of three, was living in Maryland in 1993 when her first-grade daughter's class switched to whole language. Her daughter and other classmates couldn't read by the end of the year, Froggatt said. She's been a phonics activist ever since.

Educators such as Elaine Weber, a reading specialist for Macomb Intermediate School District, worry that an overemphasis on phonics will stifle creativity and a love of reading and writing. She favors a state program called the Michigan Literacy Progress Profile, which starts in the other direction, finding out first if kids can understand the whole word then working on the individual sounds and letters if need be.

"That's my big concern that children who don't need this instruction will have to sit through it,'' she said. "They ought to be reading books and entertaining ideas at different levels.''

She's also concerned that White House policy will prevail over individual teacher judgment.

"My huge concern is that there's no longer an opportunity to explore new ideas and debate ideas because this is it,'' she said.

But Michigan State University Professor Michael Pressley said kids in poorly performing districts stand to gain from Reading First. Pressley, just hired by MSU from the University of Notre Dame, is a well-known reading researcher.

"As I look at the whole scenario, I think an awful lot of good comes from these funds coming available,'' he said. "Good school districts that have solid language arts programs and performance are pretty much going to ignore this. There's no check in the mail for them.''

Contact Judy Putnam at (517) 487-8888 or e-mail her at jputnam@boothnewspaeprs.com.
© 2002 Booth Newspapers. Used with permission of Booth Newspapers Lansing Bureau.

Home | About Us | About Phonics | Resources
Research | Topics | Reading Reform | Links | Search