Critical issues: Reading and the new literacy studies: Reframing the National Academy of Sciences report on reading

Journal of Literacy Research, Sep 1999 by Gee, James Paul

When classificatory analyses are conducted, phonological awareness in kindergarten appears to have the tendency to be a more successful predictor of future superior reading than of future reading problems [Wagner, 1997; Scarborough,1998]. That is, among children who have recently begun or will soon begin kindergarten, few of those with strong phonological awareness skills will stumble in learning to read, but many of those with weak phonological sensitivity will go on to become adequate readers.. ..

In sum, despite the theoretical importance of phonological awareness for learning to read, its predictive power is somewhat muted, because, at about the time of the onset of schooling, so many children who will go on to become normally achieving readers have not yet attained much, if any, appreciation of the phonological structure of oral language, making them nearly indistinguishable in this regard from children who will indeed encounter reading difficulties down the road. (p. 112)

Tracing the development of reading comprehension to show the necessary and sufficient conditions to prevent reading difficulty is not as well researched as other aspects of reading growth. In fact, as Cain [1996] notes, "because early reading instruction emphasizes word recognition rather than comprehension, the less skilled comprehenders' difficulties generally go unnoticed by their classroom teachers." (p. 77) The "fourth-grade slump" is a term used to describe a widely encountered disappointment when examining scores of fourth graders in comparison to younger children [Chall et al., 1990].... It is not clear what the explanation is or even that there is a unitary explanation. (p. 78)

... for students in schools in which more than 75 percent of all students received free or reduced-price lunches (a measure of high poverty), the mean score for students in the fall semester of first grade was at approximately the 44th percentile. By the spring of third grade, this difference had expanded significantly. Children living in high-poverty areas tend to fall further behind, regardless of their initial reading skill level. (p. 98)

There would seem to be an important theme here, one to which the Academy panel might well have paid a bit more heed. Tests of early phonological awareness (or lack of it) do not fruitfully select those students who will later have problems in learning to read (cf., "many of those with weak phonological sensitivity will go on to become adequate readers"). Interventions based on stressing phonological awareness and phonics do not enhance comprehension, though, of course, comprehension is the basis of learning, and reading is rather pointless without it. Furthermore, although a stress on phonological awareness and overt phonics instruction does initially help at-risk students, it does not bring them up to par with more advantaged students, and they tend to eventually fall back, fueling a fourth-grade or later "slump" (this fact is amply documented in the report; see pp. 216, 228,232, 248-249, 251, 257).