Midlands Voices:
Phonics often cures the 'learning disabled'

I was saddened to see that Case School for Children with Learning Disabilities in Omaha has closed its doors because it was too costly for most families. Any school with the intention of meeting the needs of struggling children is an asset to the community.

The unfortunate truth is that the label "learning-disabled that is put upon children who don't learn to read in a regular education classroom is, most of the time, wrong. Most of these children don't fail to learn to read because they are learning-disabled. The real culprits are poor classroom curriculum and instructional methods, commonly called "whole language".

My oldest son was nearly labeled as one of the 16,000 learning-disabled youngsters in Nebraska. When he attended first grade in Omaha, he did not learn to read. His teachers recommended testing him to see what his learning disabilities were. My husband and I said "no thanks" to their suggestion of special education services and instead enrolled him in the Phoenix Academy of Learning in Rockbrook Village.

He was taught Spalding phonics. In three weeks he learned to read, and by the end of 61 days he had jumped from a pre-primer reader to a child reading at the level of third grade, second month. Not so miraculously, his "disability" disappeared. It wasn't a miracle, because there was nothing wrong with him. Like many other children, he was simply being "disabled" by ineffective reading curriculum and instructional methods.

As the Kansas/Nebraska director of the National Right to Read Foundation, I have heard the same story from hundreds of devastated parents. "My child can't read, and he is being enrolled in federally funded reading programs and special education!"

Well, that is baloney. My son proves it. I hate to think what would have happened to him if he had gone into special education. Instead, today he's an honor student and considered one of the best readers in his class. And there are thousands and thousands of children just like him who aren't given a chance because, for whatever reason, they aren't being granted the right to read.

The National Right to Read Foundation is dedicated to "eliminating illiteracy by returning research-based, direct, explicit, systematic phonics to every first-grade classroom in America. Empirical, replicated research states that phonics instruction is not a method but rather is a body of knowledge that is an essential component of any effective, comprehensive reading instruction program.

A child cannot possibly use an alphabetic language if he does not know how the alphabet works. No one can argue this point.

Using phonics instruction in every classroom and remedial program will assure all children the knowledge and skills they need to read at or above grade level.

According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, if all children were taught intensive, systematic, explicit phonics in kindergarten through third grade, the percentage of children needing special education services would drop significantly. Dr. G. Reid Lyon, chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch of the NIH, states: "Our data strongly show that the 20 million children today suffering from reading failure could be reduced by approximately two-thirds. While still a totally unacceptable rate of reading failure, such reduction would allow us to provide services to the children who are in genuine need of special education services with substantially greater focus and intensity.

In contrast to my oldest son's happy ending because of proper phonics instruction, my youngest son has an identifiable medical disability. He has autism. He is my driving force to continue my crusade to change the status quo. He is also the reason my family was forced to leave Omaha in search of an appropriate program for his disability. A solution has been found in Lawrence, and he is on his way to recovery.

Hilde L. Mosse, M.D., a physician specializing in child and adolescent psychiatry, wrote "The Complete Handbook of Children's Reading Disorders." Mosse's scientific-based studies have shown that the national rate of illiteracy is in direct correlation to the absence of phonics taught explicitly in the classroom:

"It took years of painstaking examination of children," she wrote, "to make me realize that reading and writing disorders were not necessarily signs of psychopathology or organic defects but may instead be consequences of inappropriate teaching methods. Until I actually observed sight/word teaching in classrooms, it had not occurred to me that anyone would attempt to teach a child how to read while withholding from him the information that letters and letter combinations stand for sounds. When I realized that this had become the standard curriculum in most schools for beginning readers in kindergarten and first grade, I had to revise my diagnoses of reading disorders."

Reading failure is classless; it crosses all genders, race and socioeconomic levels. Reading failure does not discriminate. All children need explicit phonics. In public schools and most private schools, they're not getting what they need.

Proper phonics instruction develops automatic recognition of written words. Once this ability has been mastered, the reader's brain has freed space for comprehension. If we continue to use the same failed methods, even more of them at greater expense, we will continue to have failure - at greater expense. We need to teach children the right way the first time, with intensive, systematic, explicit phonics.

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