| ry: The top educators in most English-speaking | | | | solution! I have a student who is in 2nd grade. He |
| countries have waged a relentless war against Flesch. | | | | repeated 1st grade due to his reading inability. He |
| His crime: being correct about reading. Their crime: | | | | turned 9 last fall. He's a straight A student in all |
| being comfortable with illiteracy. | | | | subjects, except reading. He struggles with sight |
| Rudolph Flesch wrote two famous books, "Why | | | | words above the primer level. He can fly through |
| Johnny Can’t Read" (1955) and "Why Johnny | | | | pre-primer and primer words in a flash, yet if you |
| STILL Can’t Read" (1981). I read both books | | | | take four or five of those same words--even the |
| twice, years apart, and had the sense that Flesch | | | | exact same cards--and lay them out in a sentence |
| was intelligent and honorable. (My reviews of these | | | | form, it's as though it is a foreign language to him. |
| books are on Amazon.) | | | | After his first year in first grade, his parent had his |
| In short, I had a high opinion of Rudolph Flesch. | | | | vision tested and he did have a vision problem, even |
| Recently, however, I have had to reevaluate my | | | | underwent vision therapy. His parents work with him |
| opinion. Not downward! No, here is the startling thing. | | | | at home, yet he simply cannot put it all together |
| I am more and more thinking Flesch was among the | | | | enough to read fluently....Anyone have any ideas that |
| great intellectuals of the 20th century. He was able | | | | can help me help him? It is really wearing on his |
| to tell the world in 1955 everything there was to | | | | self-esteem.” |
| know about a complex subject, namely, learning to | | | | This pattern is very common now. A child is |
| read English. Perhaps that doesn’t seem so | | | | reportedly above average in every way...except this |
| extraordinary to you. Let me make the case. | | | | one little thing called reading. Invariably, such children |
| First of all, every part of "Why Johnny Can’t | | | | have been taught with sight-words. This poor kid, it |
| Read" remains as sharp and true as the day it was | | | | seems to me, is a victim of child abuse. The parents |
| published. Of all the scientific and technical material | | | | must suffer daily with the belief that their son is |
| written in 1955, how much would remain standing | | | | defective. This teacher was clearly miseducated in |
| today? | | | | some goofy teachers college, an intellectual ghetto |
| However, it is not the book’s content but its | | | | from which Flesch had been banished. This teacher is |
| context that places Flesch at the pinnacle. His book | | | | teaching sight-words EVEN AFTER massive failure |
| contradicted every truth about reading then taught in | | | | spread over several years. Flesch wrote his book to |
| the schools of education throughout the land. All the | | | | stop exactly this scenario; but there it is, today. |
| experts rushed to attack him. Every professor of | | | | Don Potter, reading expert, gives us a sweeping |
| education defamed him. Flesch was alone in the arena | | | | picture of what the anti-Flesch forces have managed |
| surrounded by savage lions. Or at the very least | | | | to achieve: |
| braying hyenas. | | | | “The situation across the country is |
| Very few rallied to his defense. Many parents saw his | | | | dramatically worse that anyone can possibly imagine. |
| wisdom. But I’m speaking now of the elite | | | | When I ask the teachers why they teach |
| managers who claim to protect the flames of | | | | sight-words, they inevitably tell me because their |
| knowledge. These people shouted that Flesch was a | | | | students are going to be assessed on them. They |
| crackpot, a malcontent, a misfit beyond the fringes | | | | are totally unaware that sight-words are positively |
| of academic respectability. His insistence on phonics | | | | harmful. They consider sight-words part of a good |
| was entirely wrong, they said. Reading must be | | | | reading program that includes some phonics, not |
| taught with sight-words. Indeed, these people | | | | realizing that sight-words create a reflex that |
| formed the haughty International Reading Association | | | | interferes with phonics instruction. Sight-words are an |
| (IRA) in 1955 so they could gang up on Flesch and | | | | obstacle to reading, not an aid.” |
| try to curtail his influence. | | | | Now do you have some sense of why Flesch was |
| Here’s the kicker. These people and their | | | | one lonely G.I. Joe trying to subdue a Panzer Division? |
| descendents are still saying the same things, still | | | | Consider the vast apparatus that makes all this |
| denigrating Rudolph Flesch. There’s a vast | | | | craziness possible. For convenience we call that |
| horde of these people, a veritable army of dunces, | | | | apparatus the Education Establishment. |
| or so it seems to me. | | | | There’s little good you can say about these |
| It’s precisely the magnitude of the opposition | | | | people, other than that by being so obtuse and rigid, |
| that has prompted me to elevate Flesch to the | | | | they have made Flesch look smarter and better as |
| zenith of American civilization. There have been many | | | | the years go by. |
| lonely geniuses. But typically, after a time, the truth | | | | (NB: I’m convinced that these elite educators |
| prevails and shortsighted opposition falls into the dust. | | | | have been able to keep sight-words in play for so |
| None of this happened in Flesch’s case. He | | | | long ONLY because book-reading parents, |
| died in 1986 thinking his life had been a failure. | | | | comfortably literate for a decade or two, |
| The vast extent of the opposition is proved by the | | | | can’t begin to grasp what sight-words |
| fact that still today millions of teachers and parents | | | | demand of children. I’ve written an article |
| ignore what Flesch said, and continue to teach | | | | that tries to put adults in the child’s place; |
| reading in a way that doesn’t work. Here is a | | | | please see “40: Sight Words--The Big |
| truly sad comment left, in the year 2010, on a | | | | Stupid” on Improve-Education.org. For more |
| website for teachers: | | | | articles about reading, see “42: Reading |
| “I am desperate for help, advice, or a | | | | Resources. |