Parent addresses Board of Education with reading program concerns
District to review request for program revaluation

By Ann Genader

Laura Fuhrmann addressed the West Milford Board of Education on October 28 because of her concerns over the district-wide core-reading program. She said she did so because "it is important that we ensure that our children are getting the best education possible." Added Fuhrmann, "That is why I am asking for a reevaluation of the core-reading program."

Fuhrmann said her speech at the Board meeting was intended to be a follow up to a letter she delivered to the school Administration Office for each Board member on October 16, but it actually became an introduction as the administration did not give the material to members of the Board until the Monday night meeting.

Fuhrmann provided Aim Publications with a copy of her letter, printed below.

School Superintendent Robert Gilmartin responded to Fuhrmann at the Board meeting that a lot of issues are involved which he wanted to discuss. He said he knows the Board will have questions and believes that what is involved is "an information issue".

Gilmartin went on to say five years ago the series was one of the first models recognized by the state for Language Arts, and subsequent to that standard there were revisions which started 2002 or earlier. He said other publishers were cross-referring and reviewing standards.

Gilmartin said that a process is underway with the publisher, and there will be cross references. He said with legitimate issues raised, he doesn’t think some of Fuhrmann’s letter is accurate. "We’re waiting for information from the publisher" said Gilmartin. He said he and Head of the Reading Department Irene Michaud will have discussion with Fuhrmann when that information is obtained. Information is needed on the topic so you can fully understand the program".

Fuhrmann took exception to Gilmartin’s questioning of her knowledge and attempted to say so, but Board President Midge Touw ended the subject saying, "There will be no debate now", and she suggested Gilmartin and Fuhrmann continue their discussion after the meeting.

October 15, 2003

Dear Mr. Gilmartin,

It has come to my attention that the first grade reading program in my daughter’s school, Apshawa, and the entire West Milford School District is not in compliance with the standards set forth by the State of New Jersey. Our core-reading program is a literature-based program which means it has a whole language (or whole word) foundation with little direct phonics instruction. On the other hand, the NJ standards demand a more balanced approach that recognizes the validity of comprehensive instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics. However, the district wide curriculum improperly rejects this traditional form of early reading instruction.

In July of 2002, the NJ Core Curriculum Content Standards (CCCS) for Language Arts Literacy (K-3) were revised due to the findings of the National Reading Panel (NRP). The NRP’s 2000 report identifies 5 essential components of reading instruction as follows:

1. Phonemic Awareness Instruction
2. Phonics Instruction
3. Fluency Instruction
4. Vocabulary Instruction
5. Text Comprehension Instruction

The present core-reading program teaches phonics in a non-systematic, non-explicit manner. Referring to the enclosed Put Reading First book, on the bottom of page 17, it states that literature-based programs are not systematic and explicit phonics instruction programs. In fact, whole words are being introduced in the classroom before students have even been exposed to some of the letter-sound correspondences. Classroom instruction focuses on reading strategies not the development of phonics skills. For example, Mrs. O., Apshawa Reading Specialist, stated that since students should be reading for meaning, the children should be concentrating on beginning consonant sounds and familiar "chunks" of unknown words. She further explained that while there is some phonics instruction in the classroom by working with beginning consonant sounds, the children should not be looking at the individual letters and thinking about the sound correspondences. Based on these statements, it is clear that any phonics instruction is implicit and embedded in the language arts curriculum.

While the teachers claim that phonics is taught systematically, there is no logical instructional sequence of the alphabetic principle (i.e. all letter-sound relationships not just beginning and ending consonants and "chunks" of words). Students in the early literacy stage need to gain an understanding of the alphabetic principle through effective and proven reading instruction. A program of systematic and explicit phonics instruction would follow the steps shown in Appendix II - Six Steps to Reading and teach The Essence of Phonics as shown in Appendix III. Systematic and explicit phonics means that phonics skills should be taught directly to students starting from the simplest concepts like short vowel and consonant sounds and moving to more complex skills like adding prefixes and suffixes. Furthermore, this instruction should be supported by activities for students to apply what they are learning to decodable texts.

According to Mrs. O., our core reading program focuses on "reading for meaning" and the teaching of reading strategies for decoding unknown words rather than phonics skills. Decoding is the application of phonics skills to read unknown words by blending, building and segmenting. See Appendix IV - Decodable Words Versus Predictable Text and Appendix V - Decodable Words in Reading Textbooks : Why They Are Imperative. Simply put, decoding is what is more commonly referred to as "sounding out" a word. Decoding via phonics skills is not the definition applied to the word in our school district. Instead, decoding is renamed to represent the use of "reading strategies" to discover the identity of unknown or unfamiliar words. Please refer to Appendix VI - Grade One Parent Workshop, an Apshawa School handout from the October 14th language arts curriculum meeting. On page 2, under the heading Responding to Your Child’s Reading Errors, the "decoding strategies" are listed with the admonition not to let students "sound out" words. That admonition and those strategies completely disregard the real meaning of decoding in the NJ standards.

I agree that "reading for meaning" or comprehension is most important. In fact, proper phonics instruction "significantly improves children’s word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension" as stated on page 18 of the Put Reading First book. To state otherwise, one would have to completely disregard scientific based reading research, the findings of the NRP and the Read First New Jersey program. But, in general, emerging literacy students cannot derive meaning if they are not directly given the skills to understand the alphabetic principle. Science based reading research has irrefutably shown that systematic and explicit phonics instruction consistently leads to overall reading success if taught for two years in the early grade levels of kindergarten through second grade.

Per the Parent Workshop, the teachers are encouraging the memorization of texts, sight (or high frequency) vocabularies, and word families (like -at, -ig, -ix) for "chunking" under the assumption that children will pick up on their own whatever phonics information they need to recognize words. For example, I asked Mrs. O. about the word "pumpkin" that is part of the assigned book the children are "reading." I asked if my daughter should break up the compound word by first sounding out "pump" by saying the p, short u, m & p sounds and then blending to make "pump" and doing the same with "kin". Mrs. O. stated that my daughter should not be concentrating on the individual letters but should be looking at the overall word. She further explained that since my daughter should have already memorized "jump" from the high frequency vocabulary, my daughter should be able to see -ump in pumpkin and that all-important 1st consonant sound of p, and then look at the picture to know the word is pumpkin. Mrs. O. added that her decoding method is much more interesting as it has my daughter looking for the meaning not blending and building letter sounds.

I am not saying that the core-reading program does not meet some of the standards set forth by the CCCS. The problem lies in meeting standards 3.1B and 3.1C for first grade. I have gathered substantial, documentary evidence that clearly demonstrates the misalignment of our core-reading program with the CCCS regardless of what "spin" the teachers and reading specialist may want to put on it. When a parent at the Workshop asked about phonics teaching, Mrs. O. erroneously stated that students will do just as well memorizing sight words and utilizing their reading strategies in place of phonics skills. Mrs. M., one of the Apshawa first grade teachers, added that parents teaching skills that focus on phonics "goes against everything we are teaching." Mrs. M. is correct but what she fails to realize is that the core-reading program’s method of teaching goes against the state standards. Please see Appendix VII - Phonics as defined by the Read First New Jersey program.

The current reading program is four years old, and no adjustments have been made to it to accommodate the recent CCCS revisions. I respectfully request that these revisions be made as soon as possible so that my daughter and all the other students in the West Milford School District are given the best opportunity to learn to read -- an opportunity that should be aligned with the state standards.

Sincerely,

Laura Fuhrmann

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