State revises 1st grade books

AUSTIN — The State Board of Education yesterday made last- minute changes to phonics requirements for first-grade textbooks, a move that could lead to litigation from outraged publishers.

The change, which came as the board approved $90.6 million for the new first-grade reading and language arts textbooks, comes two years after the State Board issued guidelines for the books, and about a year after the Texas Education Agency issued an interpretation of those guidelines for publishers.

The publishers then spent over $100 millions producing textbooks to meet those guidelines, said Joe Bill Watkins, an attorney representing the Association of American Publishers. He said his clients must now spend millions of dollars more to make the corrections.

"As business people we would like to have some predictability before we invest an enormous amount of money," said Watkins. "This is a revision, a change, two years after the fact. ... I don't think that's right and I don't think that's fair."

State Board member Geraldine Miller, who called for the last-minute changes, blamed publishers and possibly bad advice from the Texas Education Agency staff for the mix-up. She said publishers could recoup any losses by marketing the textbook in other states.

"We never came into this wanting to kick out good publishers," said Miller, R-Dallas. "We came into this wanting the best books for our kids. And we want to do it in a cost- effective way."

At issue is what percentage of words should be "decodable," or simple enough that students can read by sounding out letters or combinations of letters.

Words that beginning readers can decode, or sound out using phonics, include straightforward spellings such as cat, see and it. Many simple words do not follow phonics rules, however, and children must learn to read them on sight.

Two years ago, the state board said that "most" words should be "decodable;" and almost a year ago, the education agency told publishers that "most" was defined as 51 percent.

During a September board meeting, Miller said she was outraged by the education agency's 51 percent interpretation, saying that the board's intention was to include a much higher proportion of decodable words.

She led the 11-3 vote yesterday to increase the proportion of decodable words in first- grade texts to 80 percent.

In the same resolution, which was adopted 11-3, the state board also adopted textbooks meeting the previous guidelines, with the caveat that publishers revise those books to meet the new 80 percent standard.

The board, which under its rules must reconsider the vote today, is expected to give their final approval to the revised books in January.

Board member Will Davis, who voted against changing the requirements, said the revision was illegal because state law prohibits the board from reviewing content or quality of textbooks. Phonics, he said, are part of a book's content and quality.

Davis also said that rewriting the phonics requirements violates the board's contract with publishers, and warned that the board risks litigation.

"We used the word `most,' and if the debate was to have occurred properly, we should have used `80 percent' or `90 percent'," said Davis, D- Austin. "But we didn't, and the TEA correctly stated what `most' means. And now we're going to change this, which is a very serious breach of the law."

Watkins said publishers "will look at all their legal options." He declined to discuss what legal action the publishers may take.

The changes were applauded by some teachers at the meeting who said that the revised books are desperately needed to augment the phonics-based curriculum approved by the board two years ago.

"Teachers should not have to teach phonics surreptitiously," said Zelda Frazier, a retired music teacher from Waco. "There must be better choices of reading material."

The debate cuts to the heart of the sometimes contentious debate over how to best teach reading: either through phonics, or whole-language instruction.

In contrast to the phonics method of sounding out words, whole language emphasizes reading through the use of context, encourages children to draw inferences from clues within the text and permits children to invent their own spellings.

As supporters of phonics, many board members want a high-percentage of decodable words in early reading textbooks.

R.A. Dyer, (512) 476-4294
Send comments to ryder@star-telegram.com

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