Fight for the right to read

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/10/2023 (755 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A recent reading wars skirmish popped up on Twitter (now X) online. What are these wars? Reading teachers or clinicians, politicians, parents and others mix it up, arguing over the single best way to teach reading. These vehement debates rage on. They use words like balanced literacy, the science of reading, phonics, and whole language. The terms come and go. Who knows the ‘best’ approach to reading? How can we prove everyone else wrong?

For a parent, the reading wars look different.

Your kid struggles every night to identify letters, words and concepts. It’s when twins, in the same classroom, have vastly different outcomes: one twin reads. The other increasingly angry and frustrated twin doesn’t.

Teachers tell parents to read to their kids every day. Practice with leveled books sent home. Kids need a “literacy rich” environment full of books and modelling reading. (Our home, with professor and writer parents, is literacy-rich.)

Listening to audiobooks in Grade 1 offered insight from our non-reading twin. He listened to “Fish in a Tree,” a book about dyslexia, and said, “Mommy, this is what I have.”

I should have listened better. His teacher suggested he was “slow to read” and to keep trying. I encouraged him, repeating what I had been told.

Although I have a master’s in education and previously taught high school and university, reading acquisition theory remained mysterious to me. I bowed to the teacher’s knowledge. Manitoba curriculum suggests early years teachers are the reading instruction experts. Research is ongoing though. There are multiple approaches to learning to read.

After we expressed concern, the school offered additional well-meaning but useless instruction by Reading Recovery teachers and a resource teacher. We felt pressured to pull him from the bilingual class he attended to ‘English only’ instruction. This would deny him cultural literacy and lose the support of longtime friends and his twin.

We insisted he stay in the bilingual program — which shouldn’t be only available to “good” students, and floundered at home. I knew that teachers can’t be the experts in everything, current on all research while teaching 20-30 students with differing needs.

It wasn’t until lockdown in grade 3 that I saw things from an educator’s prospective. My child didn’t deserve to struggle this way.

He needed professional assessment immediately.

Who are the reading experts? Psychologists assess children for language disabilities, experts (sometimes professors) with PhDs in education, psychology, and associated fields do educational research in language acquisition and in reading acquisition. Experienced reading clinicians with training in multiple reading acquisition approaches (both phonics AND whole word, for example) can be experts. While teachers — and parents — are knowledgeable and on-the-spot to implement this, they aren’t trained experts in every developmental research field.

No surprise… When assessed, my child had dyslexia. Paying for the private psychologist’s assessment was costly. It was also the only way to identify this student’s challenges and needs.

Our reading successes relied on years of consistent daily reading work with a parent, and private Orton-Gillingham tutoring, complete with cursive writing instruction. Why cursive? Scientific research shows that learning cursive boosts fine motor skills and helps with literacy acquisition. This is why Ontario’s new curriculum includes it.

When I participated in an online advocacy meeting for more dyslexia support, attendees were mostly middle-class teachers and mothers. These families could afford private assessment. Lack of free, in-school, formal assessment means many struggling students won’t even be identified as dyslexic.

According to the International Dyslexia Association, up to 15-20 per cent of the general population show symptoms of dyslexia, the most common language-based learning disability. To improve Manitoba’s graduation, literacy rates and test scores, evaluating every child for language or numeric learning disabilities early and providing research-based support is crucial. Educators learn that students “learn to read” until Grade 3. After Grade 3, we “read to learn.” Those who can’t read are already way behind by Grade 4.

Literacy is a human right.

The Manitoba “Right to Read” movement advocacy spurred an ongoing Manitoba Human Rights Commission project. Right to Read has logical suggested steps for helping Manitobans access literacy. These steps include universal, research-based, early assessment and a research-based curriculum. The Manitoba government recently offered small amounts of funding to some schools for assessment tools, but there are multiple assessments available, with variable research behind them. These tools aren’t consistently used throughout the province.

Learning to read is an essential step to a successful future. Literate workers are more capable. Healthy and safe communities consult scientific research and experts to improve everyone’s lives.

Let’s encourage Manitoba to pursue steps that ensure everyone’s basic human right — to read.

Joanne Seiff is an opinion author and writer from Winnipeg.