US - Emily Hanford 'Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?' Relevant Internationally!

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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US - Emily Hanford 'Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?' Relevant Internationally!

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

This audio documentary is being circulated by Alex Baumhardt and others via Twitter and various networks:
I’m a producer at APM Reports, the documentary and investigative journalism group at American Public Media. Each year we produce a season of hourlong audio documentaries about education that are broadcast on public radio stations across the country and are available on our podcast Educate.

I’m writing to you because we just released a documentary called Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read? and I think it may be relevant to your work. Our correspondent, Emily Hanford, began her reporting on this topic back in 2017 with a documentary about why so many students with dyslexia have a hard time getting the help they need in school. She discovered that the kind of reading instruction students with dyslexia need is the same kind of instruction all kids need. But many kids are not getting this kind of instruction in school. Emily has come to think of kids with dyslexia as canaries in a coal mine, a warning sign that something is wrong with the way reading is being taught. More than 60 percent of American fourth-graders are not proficient readers. According to Emily’s reporting, a big part of the problem is that many educators don’t know the science on how children learn to read, and they are not using approaches to reading instruction backed up by that science.

You can subscribe to our podcast here to get Hard Words and all of our documentaries (you can also find them wherever you get your podcasts). If you give it a listen, please let me know what you think, join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook, and share with colleagues and others who might be interested in this program. We hope it will help spark a productive dialogue about the need to improve reading instruction in our schools.

Thanks.
--
Alex Baumhardt
Associate Producer
APM Reports, Educate Podcast
American Public Media
abaumhardt@apmreports.org
Office: 651-228-4991
Cell: 612-801-7809
Hard Words

Why aren't kids being taught to read?
https://www.apmreports.org/story/2018/0 ... ht-to-read

Emily's documentary from 2017:
Hard to Read

How American schools fail kids with dyslexia
https://www.apmreports.org/story/2017/0 ... rd-to-read
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: US - Emily Hanford 'Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?'

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

I've also posted Emily's documentary/podcast at the 'Research and Recommended Reading' forum as it is very worthy of note:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1103&p=2188#p2188
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: US - Emily Hanford 'Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?'

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

https://hechingerreport.org/kids-strugg ... onics-out/
Kids struggle to read when schools leave phonics out

Schools too often leave out a key piece of the reading puzzle because teachers aren't trained to teach phonics

by EMILY HANFORD September 11, 2018
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: US - Emily Hanford 'Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?'

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

There is much response to Emily Hanford's work on phonics including this blog post at Eduvaites:
Why is everyone and their mother talking about phonics?
https://eduvaites.org/2018/10/13/why-is ... t-phonics/
Noticed that the whole world is suddenly buzzing about phonics?

You can thank Emily Hanford and her astoundingly-good documentary Hard Words: Why aren’t kids being taught to read?, which has been BLOWING UP in social media lately.

How did long-form journalism about phonics – uhh, arguably the least sexy topic in all of K–12 education – become this year’s literacy must-read??

Maybe it’s the wowza reading outcomes in Bethlehem Area School District after they invested in phonics instruction:
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: US - Emily Hanford 'Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?'

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

See this thread featuring outstanding posts by Professor Pamela Snow - including one aimed at student-teachers and their uni education - all relevant to America too, starting with:
An open letter to students
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1070

And featuring a truly outstanding post set in Australia's context but so relevant internationally:
It's time for a Reading Renaissance
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: US - Emily Hanford 'Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?'

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

Long-standing and understandably frustrated phonics advocate, Bruce Deitrick Price, responds to Emily Hanford's article in the New York Times - because he's been describing this scenario for years:
K-12: The politics of illiteracy

The New York Times awakes from a long sleep


By Bruce Deitrick Price

November 1, 2018
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/bprice/181101
A real OMG moment occurred last week when the New York Times published the truth about reading.

Yes, it's true. The New York Times came right out and told the world that if you want children to learn to read, they need phonics. No ifs, ands, or buts. No weird digressions into context and balanced this-or-that. No claims that people can learn to read simply by picking up a good book and reading.

The article is titled "Why Are We Still Teaching Reading the Wrong Way?" Why, indeed? Here's the gist of it: "First of all, while learning to talk is a natural process that occurs when children are surrounded by spoken language, learning to read is not. To become readers, kids need to learn how the words they know how to say connect to print on the page. They need explicit, systematic phonics instruction. There are hundreds of studies that back this up." Hundreds!

Well, if it's all so clear and obvious, how has our Education Establishment managed to keep tens of millions of American children less than literate? After all, Rudolf Flesch explained everything you need to know in his famous book "Why Johnny Can't Read" (1955). But somehow our public schools engineered a strange disappearing act. Phonics wasn't taught. Children couldn't read. Almost everybody had at least heard the truth. But somehow an illiteracy crisis was allowed to go on and on and on.
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Re: US - Emily Hanford 'Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?'

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

See Episode 18 for the Emily Hanford broadcast:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/voi ... 21441?mt=2
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: US - Emily Hanford 'Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?'

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

Emily Hanford to speak at:
The Third Annual Conference of The Reading League

October 17-18, 2019
https://www.thereadingleague.org/conference/
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: EMILY HANFORD

Emily Hanford is a senior producer and correspondent for American Public Media. Ms. Hanford sent shockwaves across the US and around the globe when her September 2018 documentary, Hard Words: Why Aren’t Kids Being Taught to Read, brought much needed mainstream attention to the importance of teacher knowledge of the science of reading. Ms. Hanford has been working in public media for more than two decades as a reporter, producer, editor, news director and program host. Her work has won numerous honors including a duPont-Columbia Award, a Casey Medal and awards from the Education Writers Association and the Associated Press. In 2017, she won the Excellence in Media Reporting on Education Research Award from the American Educational Research Association. Emily is based in the Washington, D.C., area.
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Re: US - Emily Hanford 'Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?'

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

Here is Emily Hanford's follow up piece - including an audio recording:
At a Loss for Words

How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers
https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/0 ... ch-reading
For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have repeatedly debunked. And many teachers and parents don't know there's anything wrong with it.
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Re: US - Emily Hanford 'Hard Words: Why Aren't Our Kids Being Taught to Read?' Relevant Internationally!

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

The debate about reading instruction is really hotting up in the USA thanks to the journalism of Emily Hanford.

Here is thread featuring author Lucy Calkins' reaction and criticism of Emily Hanford's contribution. Lucy wrote an essay entitled, No One Gets To Own the Term 'Science of Reading' - just look at the immediate rebuttals:


viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1327
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