Hello Rochelle,

Thanks for raising this issue.  I have already cross-posted this to FocusOnBasics, because of a thread on learners views, and copying to Alan Wells at the UK Basic Skills Agency, mentioned in my postscript.

In the text you quote in your email, Tom Sticht discusses why many people believe that adults can't learn to read, and suggests it is because people tend to put nature before nurture.  But he does not consider that poor literacy of adults may be due to poor teaching of those adults as children.  This is a very strong argument towards nurture!  Let me elaborate.

There is an underlying assumption that learning to read is difficult, and that many people with LD or dyslexia cannot be taught to read.  But the experience of the Clackmannanshire study was that 100% of school children in a deprived area of Scotland could be taught to read, given the right teaching method.  Is there any logical argument why adults could not all be taught to read by the same method - synthetic phonics?

The idea that you can "mix and match" methods according to the "learning style" of children, putting them in the right "learning environment" and addressing their "psychological needs", has been a failure, and now, after decades of failed teaching, we have one in five adults (in UK, US, Canada..) unable to read satisfactorily, costing the economy around 1% GDP.

What is more, when asked about their reading problems, the adults blame themselves!  To quote from another NIFL message (see FocusOnBasics 337 learners on learning to read):  "Their focus makes clear that the starting place for success is within them."

So I'd reinforce Tom's message - keep on at the teaching.  But I would like to see a study on whether synthetic phonics works as well for adults, as it appears to do for kids.

Cheers,

John

P.S.  There has been some doubt on the merit of synthetic phonics (where segmentation and blending is done with individual phonemes) over other phonics methods.  In particular a paper by Torgerson et al. threw doubt on the supremecy of synthetic phonics over analytic phonics and other methods. This has raised doubts for others, such as the Basic Skills Agency in the 
UK, see:
 http://www.basic-skills.co.uk/site/page.php?cms=2&p=1723.

But the Torgerson document has been convincingly rebuffed by Diane McGuinness, see http://www.rrf.org.uk/Torgersonarticle.pdf, to quote:

"This is a dense document, with numerous tables and appendices, arcane discussions of statistical minutiae and issues regarding experimental design, etc., all to the end (it appears) of drawing a vague set of conclusions which lead the reader to believe that synthetic phonics 
programmes have not been proven to be effective beyond other methods by any margin sufficient to be trustworthy. The reality is, that every statement under the heading key findings is incorrect or seriously compromised by the true facts."

and later...

"When the results for onset-rime/analogy based phonics programmes were compared to those for phoneme-based synthetic phonics instruction, there was another parting of the ways. Rime/analogy programmes were singularly unsuccessful, producing an effect size of .28. The pooled data for the phoneme-based programmes on their own produced an effect-size shot of around 1.0 (one-standard deviation advantage over the comparison groups). This effect is very large, and it is reliable."

-----

John Nissen
Cloudworld Ltd - http://www.cloudworld.co.uk
maker of the assistive reader, WordAloud.
Try WordAloud with synthetic phonics:
http://www.cloudworld.co.uk/teaching-synthetic-phonics.htm
Tel: +44 208 742 3170  Fax: +44 208 742 0202
Email: info at cloudworld.co.uk



----- Original Message ----- 
From: RKenyon721 at aol.com
To: learningdisabilities at nifl.gov
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 4:28 AM
Subject: [LearningDisabilities 471] Adults Can't Learn to Read - by 
TomSticht


Hello all,

If you have never read or attended a presentation delivered by Tom Sticht, 
you are in for a treat.  Below, please find a message that is being posted 
for him.

Rochelle Kenyon, Moderator
National Institute for Literacy Learning Disabilities Discussion List
RKenyon721 at aol.com



June 12, 2006

Theoretically You Can’t Teach Adults to Read and Write:
But Just Keep On Doing It

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

Why is it so hard to get funding for adult literacy education? Innumerable
studies, reports, TV shows, and statistical surveys in most of the
industrialized nations of the world declare that their nation is being
brought to its economic knees because of widespread low basic skills
(literacy, numeracy) amongst the adult population. But repeated calls for 
funding commensurate with the size of the problem go unanswered. Why?

Beneath the popular pronouncements of educators, industry leaders, and 
government officials about the importance of adult basic skills development 
there flows an undercurrent of disbelief about the abilities of illiterates 
or the poorly literate to ever improve much above their present learning. 

[snip]

Taken together, these statements by a senior government scientist advisor to 
both the President and the Congress of the United States indicates that the 
NICHD considers that in some cases low literacy may result from genetic, 
neurological, sub-average intellectual capability or a combination of these 
and other factors. Again, this may contribute to widespread beliefs that 
adults with low literacy may possess faulty genes, brains, and/or 
intellectual abilities and are unlikely to benefit from adult literacy 
education programs. From a policy perspective, then, policymakers may think 
that funding such programs may be regarded as a poor use of public funds.

1997. In a January 7, 1997 article in the Washington Times, a prominent
newspaper published in Washington, DC and read by many members of Congress, 
columnist Ken Adelman wrote:

Quotes: The age-old nature vs. nurture debate assumes immediacy as the new 
Congress and new administration gin up to address such issues as poverty, 
crime, drugs, etc. …This, the most intellectually intriguing debate around, 
is moving far toward nature (and far from nurture) with new evidence 
presented by an odd pair - gay activist Chandler Burr and conservative 
scholar Charles Murray. …In brief, their new findings show that 1) 
homosexuality and 2) educational-economic achievement are each largely a 
matter of genes – not of upbringing. …If true, as appears so, the scope of 
effective government programs narrows. Fate, working through chromosomes, 
bestows both sexual orientation and brainpower, which shape one's life and 
success. Little can be altered - besides fostering tolerance and helping in 
any narrow window left open - through even an ideally designed public 
program.   (page B-6) End Quotes

[snip]

We can find these pieces of scientific debris all the way back to the
Moonlight Schools of 1911.  Following her account of those educators and 
academics who declared that teaching grown people to read and write was 
contrary to the principles of psychology, Cora Wilson Stewart said, Quote: 
While they went around saying it couldn’t be done, we went on doing it. We 
asked the doubters this question, "When a fact disputes a theory, is it not 
time to discard the theory? There was no reply. End Quote

Today when we ask why the funding for adult literacy education is so little 
so late, there is still no reply. So we just keep on teaching adults to
read and write. And we do it on the cheap, even though it is theoretically
impossible.

Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: tsticht at aznet.net


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