Why johnny still cant read

In , prompted by the reading problems experience by the child of a friend, Rudolf Flesch wrote the book Why Johnny Can't Read. The book became a huge bestseller and is still in print today. Flesch realized that the reason many children were not learning to read was because of method of reading instruction they were exposed to in school.

Hirsch called the popular method of his time the "look-say" method. The look-say method was just one of many whole word or whole language or word-guessing methods of teaching reading that have plagued students since the early twentieth century.

Hirsch advocated the teaching of phonics, a method that teaches children the common letter-sound correspondences of English words and a handful of rules they can use which, together with the sounds, allows them to read the word. Why Johnny Can't Read was one of the first shots fired in what later became known as the "Reading Wars," a series of public debates over how children best learn to read.

And always phonics advocates have had to contend with the educational establishment. In an attempt to settle the issue, the National Reading Panel was convened in The Panel reviewed all of the research done on reading since You will be notified in advance of any changes in rate or terms. You may cancel your subscription at anytime by calling Customer Service. Skip to Main Content Skip to Search.

News Corp is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and distributing authoritative and engaging content and other products and services. Dow Jones. Want to Read. Buy on Amazon. Rate this book. Explores the question of literacy among American school children, arguing tha the common look-and-say method of teaching reading is ineffective and advocating the traditional phonic system.

Education Nonfiction. More Details. Rudolf Flesch 22 books 26 followers. From Wikipedia, Rudolf Flesch 8 May — 5 October was an author, readability expert, and writing consultant who was an early and vigorous proponent of plain English in the United States. That's right. It's We have been through countless iterations of the reading wars. The National Reading Panel has, for all practical purposes, settled the issue. But teacher colleges apparently never got the memo.

Leaders of the Bethlehem schools swung into action and fixed the problem. They now teach phonics, and so far, reading has improved. But thousands of children are still languishing in schools that apparently don't know how to teach the most basic of all academic skills: reading.

This article was reprinted from Intellectual Takeout.