The Great Reading Disaster

by McNee, Mona; Coleman, Alice

• ISBN13: 9781845400972
• ISBN10: 1845400976
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-10-01
• Publisher: Imprint Academic

Summary

By the late 1980s half the nation's children were receiving eleven years of progressivist schooling that failed to give them even the elementary basis of education that was completed by the age of seven in earlier days. This great reading disaster was caused by the ?look?say? method of teaching, which presented whole words not individual letters. This book explains the causes and provides the solution to this problem. In 2006, the Secretary of State for Education and Skills has ordered schools to use the phonic method but there seems little evidence that its implications are properly understood or that any serious re-training programme for teachers is being put in place. The authors believe their explanations and recommendations in this book are thus needed just as much as ever.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. 1
Understanding the Great Reading Disaster
Schools for Scandal	p. 7
Phonics V The Whole-Word Method	p. 15
Progressivism	p. 27
The Explosion of Illiteracy	p. 53
The Watchdogs that Failed
Watchdogs Galore	p. 73
Teachers	p. 77
Teacher Training	p. 93
Head Teachers	p. 109
The Inspectorate	p. 113
Local Education Authorities	p. 117
Central Government	p. 125
Publishers and the Media	p. 149
Voluntary Organizations	p. 163
Conspiracy Theory?	p. 171
In the Struggle for Reform
Reform and Backlash	p. 185
Progress towards Phonics	p. 211
Testing; A Pyrrhic Victory	p. 233
Disintegrating Discipline	p. 239
The Price we Pay	p. 255
The Way Ahead
The Best Way to Teach Reading	p. 269
Truly Objective Testing	p. 281
Restoring Order	p. 291
Conclusion and Recommendations	p. 301
Postscript	p. 315
Acronyms	p. 317
"Step by Step" Materials	p. 319
Bibliography	p. 321
Index	p. 336
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