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OPINION The right things for reading here is what a noted pro fessor of philosophy has written about the power and importance of read ing: “When we read a good story intelligently, we follow the au thor's instruction in the con struction of an imaginary world,” University of Montana Professor Albert Borgmann wrote: The author gives us the blueprint, but we must supply the materials and situate the structure. The materials are our experiences as well as our aspirations ... Thus to read is to gather our past and illuminate our present ... Reading at its best realizes a world view. Like a vision quest, it is solitary and outwardly passive.” Every educator in Capis trano Unified shares Prof. Borgmann’s view of how im portant reading is, even if we don’t quite express it so elo quently. In our district, we have a Comprehensive Literacy Plan that brings together the best of strategies from educational re search. And as some of you may know, reading instruction has often been controversial dur ing the past two decades, when teaching swung back-and-forth among competing strategies. But as I told our Trustees last month in talking about our lit eracy program, the reading wars are over. Some of us may fondly re member the Dick and Jane se ries. This approach to reading, heavily phonics oriented, is how many older adults learned to read. This phonics-based program was effective in teaching chil dren how to pronounce letters and words, and how to put the words together into the forma tion of sentences and para graphs. However, critics of the phon ics approach felt that a heavy-handed emphasis on de coding short-changed a stu dent’s understanding and ap preciation of the context and significance of what they were reading. Over time, reading instruc tion shifted to what is often called the “whole-language ap proach.” The theory was to not bog children down with pronuncia tion of letters and words, but rather to immerse them in reading, having them do the best they could to read pas sages and gain the essence and meaning. Whole-language experts pos tulated that the technical skills associated with the decoding process would come later after students were motivated and conditioned to accept reading as a natural process. But too often the instruction resulted in children who expe rienced continuing difficulties with word pronunciation, spell ing and basic grammar. As the pendulum swung back and forth between phon ics and whole language, many expressed concern about the reading development of chil dren being whipsawed be tween two extremes. Our “best practices” encom pass the following approaches: Providing opportunities dur ing early childhood education for children to develop the nec essary foundations for success in beginning to read. * Teaching decoding skills di rectly and systematically. Developing decoding flu ency through instruction and practice. “ Building broad vocabulary and background knowledge. Teaching, modeling and sup porting ways to apply reading comprehension strategies. ~ Teaching reading as an ac tive process so the reader de velops meaning from the text. * Engaging students in lively, productive discussions to boost comprehension. Motivating students to read widely for enjoyment and learning. At each grade level daily, kindergarten through fifth grade, we include six key com ponents of literacy instruction: read aloud; shared reading; guided reading; independent reading; working with words; and writing. For all grades, kindergarten through grade 12, we cover six reading comprehension strate gies for understanding text throughout core subjects: mak ing connections; predicting, questioning; monitoring; sum marizing; and visualizing. By using the same compre hension strategies at each grade level, we ensure that stu dents hear and learn about the same strategies year after year. For writing instruction at all grade levels, we use strategies that cover: stimulating ideas; organization; voice/style of au thor; word choice; sentence flu ency; conventions; and pre sentation. There is much more to our Comprehensive Literacy Pro gram. You can contact any school principal or visit our Web site for more information: www. F d ing.htm. James A. Fleming is superintendent of the Capistrano Unified School District. CUSD NOTES James A. Fleming
Newspaper Details
Dana Point News
Dana Point, California, US
Thu, Nov 13, 2003
Page 8
Full Page
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Alexander G.
USA 21 Jun 2025
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