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Are We Understanding the Language of Literacy Instruction?
Richard D. McCallum, Ph.D.
Graduate School of Education
University of California, Berkeley

It is not easy being a literacy educator. It's hard in fact. Not only do we have the kids' needs to address but, we have to face the hard questions being directed at us from every quarter. What's wrong? seems to be the most popular question from parents, teachers, administrators, policy makers and University faculty. This question is most often followed by a series of other equally difficult questions: How have we gotten ourselves into this mess? Have you seen the most recent test scores? Can anyone read?

A series of experiences and encounters have given me reason to pause and reflect on the nature of the problems facing literacy educators today, the nature of our "profession" and some of the endemic problems that continue to plague our field. Are we, in fact, a "profession?" And, if not, why not?

The literature suggests that members of a particular occupation or profession share a common body of knowledge, and used shared practices in exercising that knowledge which has been developed over time and is commonly understood to form the basis for practice.

Unfortunately, the reality in the field of literacy education is that there is only a very shallow body of shared knowledge. What I have come to realize is that, we know very little about language and literacy development -- in spite of a long history of research and practice in this area, and the central role of such knowledge in our practice. And, I have come to believe that this low level of knowledge about language is the main problem that confronts literacy educators today. This knowledge, more importantly, the absence of this knowledge, is what is in part responsible for our inability to communicate with each other, our inability to provide consistent and effective teacher training, and our inability to provide reasonable and believable responses to parents.

During the Spring of last year a colleague and I were asked to go to Sacramento as representatives of the University of California to discuss proposed legislation that would mandate that all students enrolled in a teacher training program be required to take a three unit course on teaching systematic and explicit phonics. Our task was to provide our perspective on the impact and consequences of the bill. It is not the bill per se, or the issues that motivated the legislation that is at issue here, but what is important is what transpired during our trip to Sacramento and discussion about the bill.

Once in Sacramento my colleague and I were joined by representatives of the California State University System (CSU) and as a group we met with a State Assembly member, legislative staff and other interested parties. During our presentation one of the representatives of the CSU system, a former teacher, University faculty member and administrator, made an impassioned plea that "every child in California's school should receive systematic instruction in phenomenological awareness" (my emphasis added). She went on to mention this very important issue several times in the conversation. At the time, not one person flinched or looked askance. Clearly, what she meant to say was phonemic awareness, but somehow it got turned into something all together different.

There are two key points that this event represents to me -- both of which show clearly the sad state of language knowledge in the field of literacy. First, one would hope that our University faculty members and so called literacy "experts" would have a solid understanding of the basic language issues at the heart of current debates. Unfortunately, in this case, rather than clarify the issues, the inappropriate use of terminology (has she invented a new branch of philosophy I wondered at the time?) only acted to create more confusion.

Second, after the second time that the faculty member made reference to phenomenological awareness , I attended closely to the faces of the rest of the crowd. Other than the knowing glances passed between my colleague and I, I did not get the sense that anyone else in the room had the foggiest idea what she was talking about, or that she had strayed from a focus on language to a sojourn into philosophy. No one flinched. Clearly the lack of language knowledge seemed to be shared by the group.

In the pre-service reading course that I teach I spend a great deal of time on basic concepts and terminology. I do this because students who are learning about teaching reading need to learn four new languages: the language of the psychologists, the language of reading educators, the language of textbook publishers, and the language of linguists. To develop competence in each of these areas, of course, requires extensive practice and experience within the culture of each "discipline." Nevertheless, my goal is to equip students with "survival" vocabularies in each of these domains -- to help them stay afloat in the sea of uncertainty that surrounds the language of literacy instruction.

As part of this process students in my pre-service course participate in an ongoing series of activities where we exercise the concepts associated with literacy development. In one such exercise, students are broken into groups and given a stack of "phonogram" cards (i.e. word families) drawn from a reading series that was, at the time, being considered for adoption in California. These sound cards, within the program, are introduced to students in kindergarten and students are expected to memorize both the letter sequence and the various sounds associated with the phonogram (students are also given a hand gesture or other symbol to assist in the memory process).

Things were going fine during the activity until we got to the "oo" card. The back of the card had three different sound patterns listed: we got the "book" and the "boot," but what was the third? We brainstormed, we generated ideas such as "co-operate" but these weren't satisfying because they broke across syllables. At the end of class I said I would take it upon myself to investigate.

Luckily, as I was returning to my office I happened to run into two rather famous linguists, one an emeritus professor of linguistics and the other an expert in second language acquisition and instructor of our linguistic courses in the School of Education. "Ah," I said. "How fortuitous, two linguists. Can you help me? I'm stuck." With that introduction I explained the problem, the activity and showed them the phonogram card.

"What's this?" one of them queried. "Oh my god!" the other one cried after examining the card. As we discussed it further they explained their chagrin. "What are these markings?" they asked referring to the diacritical marks employed in the program, "I've never seen any systems for marking like this. Don't they have a dictionary? Can't they simply follow the existing conventions employed by those who study language? Those markings are right in the front of the dictionary."

Neither of them were placated by my response. I tried to explain how psychologists utilized their own set of terminology, educators theirs and textbook publishers theirs, and that one can find reference to the various terms sprinkled throughout the literature on reading. They stopped me cold when they asked, "Do you think this has anything to do with the current state of literacy education?" "Hmm," I replied. "Let me get back to you on that."

The lack of knowledge about language and literacy development doesn't just affect University professors and textbook publishers -- it can be found in every corner of our profession. Another experience with new legislation gave me, again, much to think about.

In the Spring of 1997 the California Legislature passed AB 1178, the RICA act (i.e. the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment). This legislation mandates that every multiple subject credential candidate must pass a test in the area of teaching reading prior to being issued a credential. The legislature fast tracked this legislation, and quickly moved the contract for developing this test out to bid. The Educational Testing Service (ETS) was awarded the contract and moved quickly to begin the test development process.

As part of this development plan, a task analysis was developed for "the job of teaching reading." In other words, experts and teams of educators were asked to generate the knowledge and skills essential for the teaching of reading. These basic competencies would then form the basis from which items for the actual test would be developed.

Over the course of a several month period independent experts and two "Reading Instruction Advisory Committees" were formed to work through drafts of the "inventory of teacher tasks, knowledge and abilities" being developed for RICA. These advisory bodies were composed of teachers (1/3), reading specialists (1/3) and University faculty (1/3). I was asked to represent University faculty and teacher educators in a two-day meeting of one of the advisory committees. As you have undoubtedly guessed by now, the experience gave me much to consider (as well as a major migraine). These two days, if effect, provided a candid look at the state of language knowledge across the various constituencies involved in teaching reading.

Over the course of the two days it became very clear that the group did not share the same amount of knowledge about basic language and literacy development issues. As a group we spent over an hour and a half discussing the differences between phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. Basic terms such as "strategies," "phoneme," "morpheme," "alphabetic principle," "structural analysis" and "direct instruction" needed to be defined several times -- from several perspectives.

The confusion over terminology didn't stop there. One member objected to every mention of the term" developmental" because to her it represented "remedial." Another member argued for the inclusion of the word "culture" in every item. At one point a member reminded the group that there were only two types of letters -- vowels and consonants!

Some of the discussions around these issues happened in the public forum of the committee. Others of course, took place after hours over drinks in the hotel bar. One member was very frank with me about the situation: "It's amazing that we can talk to each other at all. At times today I thought several other members were speaking a foreign language!" And, to a large extent she was correct -- a variety of "languages" were being used and there appeared to be little commonalty between them!

The state of linguistic confusion that swirled around our group for those two days was not confined to the teachers or to any group. There was a clear lack of understanding across the group -- for each of the three constituencies represented. I was glad that my wife didn't ask too many questions when I got home. I'm not sure how I could have explained the situation in our profession to her.

These three examples are only several of a long list of examples that I might have discussed. The ebonics debate that engulfed Oakland Unified during the Spring of 1997, the proliferation of buzzwords and fuzzwords in the popular press (that phonics mess!), and the swing back to basic skills are just a few other examples. But, given that this is the situation that we find ourselves in, what can we do?

The key to addressing this situation rests with both pre-service and in-service literacy education. New teachers and experienced teachers must be made aware of basic issues in language and literacy development. There are three main tools that I use with the teachers affiliated with our programs to achieve this goal, three tools that may help with this situation.

First, in all of our discussions we examine the nature in the change of the terminology associated with reading and literacy development over time. For example, what do the terms "look-say," "the whole word method," and "analytical phonics" have in common? When working with either pre-service or in-service teachers we have a tendency to utilize only those terms that are familiar and salient to us. But, rather than just teach and reinforce one term, what we need to do is to help extend the semantic maps or webs that surround teacher's knowledge of basic language and literacy issues. Look around -- these kinds of comparisons across time are easy to identify.

Second, whenever we are working with teachers we need to point out the areas of commonalty between theoretical systems. For example, there are a lot of similarities between Piaget's notions of schemes and operations and cognitive psychologists' notions of schemata and strategies. Similarly, the same can be said for notions of child-centered instruction and the adoption of a "transactive perspective," and for the similarities between "cueing system" and "processor" models of the reading process. Again, rather than focus on one system of explanation, as teacher educators we need to broaden our descriptions and explanations -- we need to actively seek commonalties.

Third, as teacher educators we need to examine terminology and basic concepts across the various disciplines which focus on language and literacy development. The advice given to me in the hallway by my colleagues who are trained linguists rings true here: let's get out our dictionaries and allocate the mental energy necessary for coming to understand the positions of those who work in the field of language.

This, of course, has other implications as well. When my students ask (as they always do) why they have to learn four languages, I explain that, at least in the area of reading education, you can't get a Ph.D. unless you have created new terminology for old concepts. For teacher educators and educational researchers the challenge is not to generate new terms but rather to help us understand how the existing terminology is related and how these notions attempt to explain language and literacy development.

Even though it is clear that we need to look at ways to broaden and strengthen teacher education we must be clear about the realities associated with such programs and their inherent limitations. Currently in California, credential candidates take one reading course -- one three unit course in which the expectation is that all areas of K-6 reading will be covered. These areas (as clearly outlined in RICA task analysis) include issues associated with first and second language acquisition, assessment, the management of instruction, materials, and instructional practices.

To expect that any degree of competence can be achieved in such a short time (remember student teachers take more than one class at a time) is overly optimistic. In fact, the task analysis developed for RICA reflects the competence of a ten-year veteran with a Master's Degree in Reading -- not the competencies of a pre-service candidate who takes one class in reading.

Given these constraints, broader solutions to this problem will require action by the legislature. While one might hope for more training and broader grounding in language issues in teacher training, we must not lose sight of the broader issues that mitigate against such changes. The shortage of credential teachers has the legislature and State Department of Education looking for "alternative" routes, not for more requirements.

Even in light of this situation, what the legislature and the State Department of Education can do is to act to coordinate the various initiatives and reform efforts currently proposed. For example, during the discussions with the RICA Advisory Board I asked the representative of the Commission on Teacher Credential (CTC) who attended the meetings what the relationship was between the intent of the RICA legislation and other initiatives. How will RICA fit with the new Language Arts Framework due soon? How does RICA fit with the standards of competence and performance (including preconditions) that govern credential programs? How does RICA fit with CLAD and BCLAD authorizations? How does RICA fit with other programs such as the Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment program (BTSA)? The issue here is that implicit in each of these initiatives is a set of assumptions and standards in the area of literacy instruction. Which one should we attend to?

When I asked the question I was told, in a nice way, not to worry about such things and to keep focused on the task at hand -- the creation of the test. Unfortunately, such an approach may create more harm than good. Does such an approach make it any easier to help teachers develop the knowledge and skills necessary for teaching reading? I think not. The lack of coordination and planning in the reform efforts currently underway only fosters greater confusion. The situation is already confused.

On the other hand, perhaps a mandated examination like RICA is exactly what the profession needs -- a legislative mandate (tied to an accountability measure) to insure that our teacher education programs provide students with knowledge of basic issues in language and language development. While the issues and concerns I have raised are not new, it is clear that these issues must be addressed before literacy educators can speak as a "profession" with a clearly defined field of study and clearly defined terminology.