A Brief History of Teaching Reading

 

The Alphabet and the Alphabet Method:

Alphabetic writing first emerged in Middle East more than 5,000 years ago.

v  Roman Alphabet -

 

Ø  Descends from the symbols used by the Phoenicians.

Ø  Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet roughly 3,000 years ago.

 

v  The spelling method or the alphabet (ABC) method employed into the 19^th century in Europe and America.

v  The Greek philosopher Socrates discovered that the alphabet method is harmful.

v  Saint Augustine’s doctrine of reading silently came in the year 384.

v  This method fell from use in America in the late 1800s.

 

Early Innovations in Europe 

v  The alphabet method came about 1500s in Europe.

v  In 1527, the German teacher Valentin Ickelsamer prepared a reading book called The Shortest Way to Reading about a new method.

v  Synthetic Phonics Method

v  John Hart introduced a similar method in a 1570 publication with the title- A Methode or Comfortable Beginning for All Unlearned, Whereby They May Bee Taught to Read English, in a Very Short Time, with Pleasure.

Ø  Phonic Approach

v  In 1658, the Moravian educator Johan Amos Comenius published- The Orbis Sesnusalium Pictus.

Ø  The beginning of the word method

Ø  A picture alphabet that taught phonic associations

Ø  Analytic phonics

Ø  The Orbis method was popular in Europe more than 100 years.

 

The Scene in Early America

v  The alphabet method was used in colonial America for teaching reading.

v  Primers and Bible (morality & morality)

v  The spelling method was employed in the colonial primers.

v  The popular primer ‘New England Primer’ was published in Boston in 1690.

v  Spelling books replaced primers in the 1700s.

v  Noah Webster published the spelling book ‘American Spelling Book’ in 1783.

v  The “old blue-back speller” employed the alphabet method.

 

 

Changes and Reforms in the 1800s

v  Horace Mann observed the alphabet method as harmful into European school in 1843.

v  The word method and the phonic method got popularity in the United States during the 1800s.

v  A Midwestern professor William H. McGuffey produced a graded series for the reader.

v  The McGuffey readers provided with the format of the phonic method, the word method, or both in 1879.

v  The sentence method emerged in the late 1800s.

v  George L. Farhnham published his pamphlet- The Sentence Method in 1881.

v  Phonic methods were developed in that time also.

v  Rebecca Pollard described the synthetic method in 1889.

v  Reading scholar Edmund Burke Huey referred the method as a crime….be suffered.

v  Huey praised another method- the language experience approach.

v  Francis Parker and John Dewey called it as the activity approach.

v  Parker attributed this approach to The Orbis.

v  In 1890, Charles W. Eliot, the president of Harvard University, emphasized on the story method in teaching reading.

 

The Early 20^th Century

v  Phonic methods found new popularity

v  The new development prompted in 1915.

v  A new pedagogy- silent reading was superior to oral reading.

v  The activity approach grew popularity in the early 20^th century.

v  William S. Gray at the University of Chicago accomplished the classify and sequence reading skills.

v  Gray developed a comprehensive skills model of reading with four levels, from 1930s to 1960s.

 

The “Conventional Wisdom” of the Mid 20^th Century

v  A historic example by Gray in the 1940s and 1950s was ‘The New Basic Readers’ basal reader series.

v  The ‘look-say’ approach – called oral recitation and Comprehension were included.

v  Oral reading and interpretation were included.

v  Chall referred the basal reader series as the ‘conventional wisdom’ from the 1930s through the 1950s.

 

Alternatives to the Conventional Wisdom

v  In 1955, a professor of rhetoric, Rudolf Flesch published- Why Johnny Can’t Read and What You Can Do about It. It condemned the look-say approach and advocated a return to phonics.

v  Rebecca Pollard promoted ‘guesswork’ with dissatisfaction in 1889.

v  Other challenges to the conventional wisdom emerged in the 1960s.

v  Chall introduced “the great debate” over how best to teach beginning reading.

v  Chall referred two opposing approaches- Code Emphasis and Meaning Emphasis.

 

The Later 20^th Century

v  More fundamental changes were brewing.

v  Kenneth Goodman, Frank Smith, and others brought a change known as- Whole Language in the 1970s.

v  Holistic approach of Parker, Dewey and others.

v  In 1990s, Marilyn Jager Adams published- Beginning to Read.

v  The 1990s was concerned on developing phonemic awareness.

v  A balanced approach was found growing in the close of the 20^th century.