[AAACE-NLA] Adult Can't Learn to Read reply

[Andrea Wilder]

Colleagues--

Basically, i agree with what Reid Lyon says, the rest are drivel.

The  "sub-average intellectual capabilities" are  what we would call 
"retarded" children.

I think what Tom points out is the following:  "Again, this may 
contribute to wide-spread beliefs that adults  with low literacy may 
possess faulty genes, brains, and/or intellectual abilities and are 
unlikely to benefit from adult literacy education programs."

People who don't know much about  what Reid Lyon says,  then take what 
he says out of  context and hammer  others over the  head with Lyon's 
words.

Andrea


On Jun 16, 2006, at 11:00 AM, Chris Francisco wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> I really appreciated these words.  My mentor and teacher, Emmet Fox,
> defines wisdom as the perfect balance of intelligence and love.  I 
> hear a
> lot of wisdom in these words.  Be well and thank you.....
>
> peace and love,
>
> Chris
>
> At 07:47 PM 6/15/2006, you wrote:
>> All Adults Learn all the Time:
>>
>> According to Paul Candy in his book on self-directed learning most 
>> adults
>> (80 percent) teach themselves new things all the time.  But it doesn't
>> take academic research to to prove what is evident throughout history 
>> and
>> society. Adults are always engaged in learning new languages, skills,
>> technologies, and processes and always have. If that were not true we
>> would not be able to function on this planet as a species.
>>
>> Just because it is difficult for some to reach a reading level in 
>> English
>> commensurate with the first year of college if they start reading 
>> late in
>> life does not automatically confer upon them the impossibility of 
>> doing
>> so. Nor does that prove they are somehow deficient in other skills and
>> abilities in their lives.
>>
>> Besides,the idea of using the IQ to determine intellect is flawed 
>> anyway
>> since it was originally designed to remediate problematic reading in
>> France among 4th graders, not determine a person's human mental 
>> potential
>> based upon polically motivated racial stereotyping (a distinctly 
>> American
>> twist at the turn of the last century.)  What we have is a politically
>> domineering conservative attack on anyone different from their own 
>> view of
>> what constitutes accomplishment. Genetics has been used to bolster 
>> white
>> superiority in all things despite the successes and accomplishments of
>> people of different cultures throughout the world over millenia. It 
>> is a
>> bogus claim.
>>
>> The fact that vocal conservative charlatans such as Ann Coulter have
>> captured the spotlight does not confer truth on what they say - and 
>> she
>> particularly is called on the lack of factual basis for her claims on
>> weblogs everyday. She lies repeatedly, misquotes, and uses ad-hominem
>> attacks instead of reasoned argument based on reliable research, and 
>> makes
>> no apologies for her brand of polemic. But there is no reasoning with
>> people who are so convinced they are right nothing approaching 
>> empirical
>> information can penetrate their defense mechanisms.
>>
>> The reason money is not allocated for adult education rests on the 
>> desire
>> of many anti-intellectual conservative Americans (Read Richard 
>> Hofstadter
>> again if you doubt me there) is because they simply don't want to 
>> spend
>> the money on education. Conservatives have been trying to destroy the
>> public education system since the Reagan administration.  This is not 
>> new.
>> And we also know what political party still brandishes that bloody
>> shirt.  It is no different than the attacks on the Arts and 
>> Humanities,
>> the Public Brodcatsing System (PBS), music education in school and who
>> gets access to quality education in this country.
>>
>> We should not let down our guard on both the continuation of the 
>> Public
>> School system and the needs of all adults to continue to learn and 
>> grow as
>> they (we) age. An educated citizenry is our only hope for continuing 
>> our
>> democracy, and conservative efforts to reshape this country in their 
>> own
>> image must be resisted at all levels of educational discourse.
>>
>> Wm. Peter MacMonagle, M.Ed.
>> Central Piedmont Community College
>> West Campus 2219
>> Community Development/Workplace Basic Skills
>> 704-330-4668
>>
>> If you want what you have never had, you will have to do what you have
>> never done. Anon.
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: aaace-nla-bounces at lists.literacytent.org on behalf of 
>> tsticht at znet.com
>> Sent: Thu 6/15/2006 3:03 PM
>> To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
>> Subject: [AAACE-NLA] Adult Can't Learn to Read
>>
>> June 12, 2006
>>
>> Theoretically You Can't Teach Adults to Read and Write:
>> But Just Keep On Doing It
>>
>> Tom Sticht
>> International Consultant in Adult Education
>>
>> Why is it so hard to get funding for adult literacy education? 
>> Innumerable
>> studies, reports, TV shows, and statistical surveys in most of the
>> industrialized nations of the world declare that their nation is being
>> brought to its economic knees because of widespread low basic skills
>> (literacy, numeracy) amongst the adult population. But repeated calls 
>> for
>> funding commensurate with the size of the problem go unanswered. Why?
>>
>> Beneath the popular pronouncements of educators, industry leaders, and
>> government officials about the importance of adult basic skills 
>> development
>> there flows an undercurrent of disbelief about the abilities of 
>> illiterates
>> or the poorly literate to ever improve much above their present 
>> learning.
>> This was encountered close to a hundred years ago when Cora Wilson 
>> Stewart
>> started the Moonlight Schools of Kentucky in 1911. Her claim that 
>> adults
>> could learn to read and write met with skepticism. As she reported, 
>> Quote:
>> "Some educators, however, declared preposterous the claims we made 
>> that
>> grown people were learning to read and write. It was contrary to the
>> principles of psychology, they said."   End Quote
>>
>> Today that undercurrent of disbelief still flows, but today it 
>> carries with
>> it the flotsam and jetsam of "scientific facts" from genetics science,
>> brain science, and psychological science. Look here at objects 
>> snatched
>> from the undercurrent of disbelief stretching back for just a decade 
>> and a
>> half.
>>
>> 2006. Ann Coulter is a major voice in the conservative political 
>> arena. In
>> her new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Chapter 7 The Left's 
>> War
>> on Science: Burning Books to Advance "Science" pages 172-174)  she 
>> clearly
>> defends the ideas given in Murray & Hernstein's book The Bell Curve
>> regarding the genetic basis of intelligence. By extension,  since The 
>> Bell
>> Curve uses reading and math tests in the Armed Forces Qualification 
>> Test
>> (AFQT), Coulter is discussing the genetic basis of literacy and 
>> numeracy.
>> In her book she says about The Bell Curve book:
>>
>> Quote: "Contrary to the party line denying that such a thing as IQ 
>> existed,
>> the book methodically demonstrated that IQ exists, it is easily 
>> measured,
>> it is heritable, and it is extremely important. .Among many other 
>> things,
>> IQ is a better predictor than socioeconomic status of poverty,
>> unemployment, criminality, divorce, single motherhood, workplace 
>> injuries,
>> and high school dropout rates.  .Although other factors influence IQ, 
>> such
>> as a good environment and nutrition, The Bell Curve authors estimated 
>> that
>> IQ was about 40 to 80 percent genetic." (p. 173) End Quote
>>
>> Coulter goes on to discuss the misuse of science in the same chapter 
>> in
>> relation to AIDS and homosexuality, feminism, trial-lawyers law 
>> suits, DDT
>> and environmentalists, abortion and stem cell research, and other 
>> topics
>> that are controversial among large segments of the population but of
>> mainstream concern in the far right conservative base in the United 
>> States.
>> Because of her position as a best-selling author and spokesperson for
>> conservative groups, Ann Coulter's ideas about the genetic basis of
>> intelligence and high school dropouts can have a profound impact upon
>> political thinking about basic skills education among adults who have 
>> not
>> achieved well.
>>
>> 2005. The Nobel Prize winning economist James J. Heckman  in an 
>> interview at
>> the Federal Reserve Bank region in Chicago discussed his ideas about
>> cognitive skills and their malleability in later life with  members 
>> of a
>> presidential commission consisting of  former U.S. senators, heads of
>> federal agencies, tax attorneys and academic economists. Later in his
>> interview he discusses what Adam Smith, in his The Wealth of Nations 
>> said
>> and why he, Heckman, disagrees with Smith.
>>
>> According to Heckman, Adam Smith said, Quote: ". people are basically 
>> born
>> the same and at age 8 one can't really see much difference among 
>> them. But
>> then starting at age 8, 9, 10, they pursue different fields, they
>> specialize and they diverge. In his mind, the butcher and the lawyer 
>> and
>> the journalist and the professor and the mechanic, all are basically 
>> the
>> same person at age 8." End Quote Heckman disagrees with this and says:
>>
>> Quote: This is wrong. IQ is basically formed by age 8, and there are 
>> huge
>> differences in IQ among people. Smith was right that people specialize
>> after 8, but they started specializing before 8. On the early 
>> formation of
>> human skill, I think Smith was wrong, although he was right about many
>> other things. . I think these observations on human skill formation 
>> are
>> exactly why the job training programs aren't working in the United 
>> States
>> and why many remediation programs directed toward disadvantaged young
>> adults are so ineffective. And that's why the distinction between 
>> cognitive
>> and noncognitive skill is so important, because a lot of the problem 
>> with
>> children from disadvantaged homes is their values, attitudes and
>> motivations. .Cognitive skills such as IQ can't really be changed much
>> after ages 8 to 10. But with noncognitive skills there's much more
>> malleability. That's the point I was making earlier when talking 
>> about the
>> prefrontal cortex. It remains fluid and adaptable until the early 20s.
>> That's why adolescent mentoring programs are as effective as they 
>> are. Take
>> a 13-year-old. You're not going to raise the IQ of a 13-year-old, but 
>> you
>> can talk the 13-year-old out of dropping out of school. Up to a point 
>> you
>> can provide surrogate parenting. End Quote
>>
>> Here Heckman seems to think of the IQ as something relatively fixed 
>> at an
>> early age and not likely to be changed later in life. But if IQ is 
>> measured
>> in The Bell Curve, a book in which Heckman found some merit, using 
>> the AFQT,
>> which in turn is a literacy and numeracy test, then this would imply 
>> that
>> Heckman thinks the latter may not be very malleable in later life. 
>> This
>> seems consistent with his belief that remediation programs for adults 
>> are
>> ineffective and do not make very wise investments.
>>
>> 2000. It is easy to slip from talking about adults with low literacy 
>> ability
>> to talking about adults with low intelligence. On October 2, 2000, Dan
>> Seligman, columnist at Forbes magazine, wrote about the findings of 
>> the
>> National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) of 1993 and said, Quote: "But 
>> note
>> that what's being measured here is not what you've been thinking all 
>> your
>> life as "literacy. " The cluster of abilities being examined is 
>> obviously a
>> proxy for plain old "intelligence." End Quote He then goes on to 
>> argue that
>> government programs won't do much about this problem of low 
>> intelligence,
>> and, by extension, of low literacy.
>>
>> These types of popular press articles can stymie funding for adult 
>> literacy
>> education. That is one reason why it is critical that when national
>> assessments of cognitive skills, including literacy, are 
>> administered, we
>> need to be certain about just what it is we are
>> measuring.  Unfortunately, that is not the case with the 1993 NALS or 
>> the
>> more recent 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). These
>> assessments leave open the possibility of being called "intelligence" 
>> tests
>> leading some, like Seligman, to the general conclusion that the less
>> literate are simply the less intelligent and society might as well 
>> cast
>> them off - their "intelligence genes" will not permit them to ever 
>> reach
>> Level 3 or any other levels at the high end of cognitive tests.
>>
>> 1998.  Dr. G. Reid L yon of the National Institute of Child Health 
>> and Human
>> Development provided an Overview of Reading and Literacy Initiatives 
>> to the
>> U. S. Congress Committee on Labor and Human Resources on April 28, 
>> 1998. In
>> his testimony he stated that in learning to read it is important for
>> children to possess good abilities in phonemic analysis. He stated:
>>
>> Quote: Difficulties in developing phoneme awareness can have genetic 
>> and
>> neurobiological origins or can be attributable to a lack of exposure 
>> to
>> language patterns and usage during the preschool years.. It is for 
>> this
>> reason that the National Institute of Child Health and Human 
>> Development
>> (NICHD) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) considers 
>> reading
>> failure to reflect not only an educational problem, but a significant
>> public health problem as well. Within this context, a large research
>> network consisting of 41 research sites in North America, Europe, and 
>> Asia
>> are working hard to identify (1) the critical environmental, 
>> experiential,
>> cognitive, genetic, neurobiological, and instructional conditions that
>> foster strong reading development; (2) the risk factors that 
>> predispose
>> youngsters to reading failure; and (3) the instructional procedures 
>> that
>> can be applied to ameliorate reading deficits at the earliest possible
>> time. End Quote
>>
>> Discussing why some children may have difficulties learning to read, 
>> Lyon
>> went on to say:
>>
>> Quote: Children raised in poverty, youngsters with limited 
>> proficiency in
>> English, children with speech and hearing impairments, and children 
>> from
>> homes where the parent's reading levels are low are relatively 
>> predisposed
>> to reading failure. Likewise, youngsters with sub-average intellectual
>> capabilities have difficulties learning to read, particularly in the
>> reading comprehension domain. End Quote
>>
>> Taken together, these statements by a senior government scientist 
>> advisor to
>> both the President and the Congress of the United States indicates 
>> that the
>> NICHD considers that in some cases low literacy may result from 
>> genetic,
>> neurological, sub-average intellectual capability or a combination of 
>> these
>> and other factors. Again, this may contribute to wide-spread beliefs 
>> that
>> adults with low literacy may possess faulty genes, brains, and/or
>> intellectual abilities and are unlikely to benefit from adult literacy
>> education programs. From a policy perspective, then, policymakers may 
>> think
>> that funding such programs may be regarded as a poor use of public 
>> funds.
>>
>> 1997. In a January 7, 1997 article in the Washington Times , a 
>> prominent
>> newspaper
>> published in Washington DC and read by many members of Congress, 
>> columnist
>> Ken Adelman wrote:
>>
>> Quotes: The age-old nature vs. nurture debate assumes immediacy as 
>> the new
>> Congress
>> and new administration gin up to address such issues as poverty, 
>> crime,
>> drugs, etc. .This, the most intellectually intriguing debate around, 
>> is
>> moving far toward
>> nature (and far from nurture) with new evidence presented by an odd 
>> pair -
>> gay activist Chandler Burr and conservative scholar Charles Murray. 
>> .In
>> brief, their new findings show that 1) homosexuality and 2)
>> educational-economic achievement are each largely a matter of genes - 
>> not
>> of upbringing. .If true, as appears so, the scope of effective 
>> government
>> programs narrows. Fate, working through chromosomes, bestows both 
>> sexual
>> orientation and brainpower, which shape one's life and success. 
>> Little can
>> be altered - besides fostering tolerance and helping in any narrow 
>> window
>> left open - through even an ideally designed public program.   (page 
>> B-6)
>> End Quotes
>>
>> The juxtaposition of homosexuals and those of lower educational and 
>> economic
>> achievement is an obvious rhetorical device meant to stir negative 
>> emotions
>> about both groups, This is a rhetorical device brought back into play 
>> by
>> Coulter in her 2006 book  cited above.
>>
>> 1991. One of the beliefs in our culture is that the brain and its
>> intellectual  capacity  is   developed   in   early   childhood. 
>> There is a
>> widespread belief that if children's early childhood development  is 
>> not
>> properly stimulated, then there is likely to be intellectual
>> underdevelopment leading  to  academic   failures, low aptitude, and 
>> social
>> problems such as criminal activity, teenage pregnancy and welfare. It 
>> will
>> be difficult if not impossible to overcome the disadvantages of
>> deficiencies in early childhood stimulation later in adulthood. So why
>> invest much in adult education? We need instead to put billions of 
>> dollars
>> into early childhood education.
>>
>> That these beliefs about the consequence of early childhood 
>> development are
>> widespread is revealed by articles written by prominent journalists in
>> major newspapers. For instance, on Sunday, October 13, 1991 the San 
>> Diego
>> Union newspaper reprinted an article by Joan Beck, a columnist for the
>> Chicago  Tribune , that  argued  for  early  childhood education 
>> because,
>> Quote: "Half of adult intellectual capacity is already present by age 
>> 4
>> and 80 percent by age 8, ... the opportunity to influence [a child's] 
>> basic
>> intelligence - considered to be a stable characteristic by age 17 - is
>> greatest in early life." End Quote
>>
>> A  year earlier in the same newspaper on October 14, 1990  an adult 
>> family
>> literacy educator was quoted as saying, Quote: "Between the ages of 
>> zero to
>> 4 we have learned half of everything we'll ever learn in our lives. 
>> Most of
>> that has to do with language, imagination, and inquisitiveness." End 
>> Quote
>> This doesn't hold out much hope for the adults in family literacy 
>> programs.
>>
>> Joan Beck was quoting research by Benjamin Bloom in the 1960s. But 
>> Bloom did
>> not show that half of one's intellect was achieved by age 4. Rather, 
>> he
>> argued that IQ at age 4 was correlated +.70 with IQ at age 17. Since 
>> the
>> square of .7 is .49, Bloom stated that half of the variance among a 
>> group
>> of adults' IQ scores at age 17 could be predicted from their group of
>> scores at age 4. But half of the variability among a group of 
>> people's IQ
>> scores is a long way from the idea that half of a given person's IQ is
>> developed by age 4. This is not even conceptually possible because 
>> for one
>> thing there is no universally agreed to
>> understanding of what "intelligence" is. Further, even if we could 
>> agree on
>> what "intelligence" is, there is no such thing as "half of one's 
>> intellect"
>> because no one knows what 0 or 100 percent intelligence is. Without 
>> knowing
>> the beginning and end of something we can't know when we have half of 
>> it.
>>
>> 1990. A report by the Department of Defense shows how these beliefs 
>> about
>> the
>> possibility of doing much for adults can affect government policy. 
>> After
>> studying the job performance and post-service lives of "lower 
>> aptitude,"
>> less literate personnel, the report claimed that they had been 
>> failures
>> both in and out of the military. Then,  on February 24, 1990, the 
>> Director
>> of Accession Policy of the Department of Defense commented  in the
>> Washington Post newspaper, Quote: "The lesson is that low-aptitude 
>> people,
>> whether in the military or not, are always going to be at a 
>> disadvantage.
>> That's a sad conclusion." End Quote  A similar report of the 
>> Department of
>> Defense study was carried in the New York Times of  March 12, 1990. 
>> Then on
>> April 8, 1990 Jack Anderson's column in the Washington Post quoted 
>> one of
>> the Department of Defense researchers saying, Quote: "...by the age 
>> of 18
>> or 19, it's too late. The school system in early childhood is the only
>> place to really help, and that involves heavy participation by the
>> parents." End Quote
>>
>> Regarding the news articles about the Department of Defense studies 
>> of "low
>> aptitude" troops, the conclusions were based on analyses of the job
>> performance of hundreds of thousands of personnel in both the 1960s 
>> and
>> 1980s with Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores between the 
>> 10th
>> and the 30th percentiles, the range of  scores which the  Department  
>>  of
>> Defense  studies  called "low aptitude."
>>
>> But contrary to what the Department of Defense researchers and 
>> accession
>> policy maker stated, the actual  data  show that in both time periods,
>> while  the   low aptitude personnel  did  not   perform  quite   as  
>> well
>> as   those   personnel  with aptitudes above the 30th percentile,  
>> over 80
>> percent of the low aptitude personnel did, in fact, perform 
>> satisfactorily
>> and many performed in an outstanding manner. As veterans they had
>> employment rates and earnings far exceeding their rates and earnings 
>> at the
>> beginning of the study. Further investigation by the media would have
>> revealed these discrepancies between what the Department of Defense's
>> researchers said and what the actual findings were. But as it stands, 
>> these
>> popular media types of stories reinforce the stereotypes about adults 
>> with
>> who score low on intelligence or aptitude tests and perform poorly on 
>> tests
>> of the basic skills of literacy and numeracy.
>>
>> We can find these pieces of scientific debris all the way back to the
>> Moonlight Schools of 1911.  Following her account of those educators 
>> and
>> academics who declared that teaching grown people to read and write 
>> was
>> contrary to the principles of psychology, Cora Wilson Stewart said, 
>> Quote:
>> While they went around saying it couldn't be done, we went on doing 
>> it. We
>> asked the doubters this question, "When a fact disputes a theory, is 
>> it not
>> time to discard the theory?"  There was no reply. End Quote
>>
>> Today when we ask why the funding for adult literacy education is so 
>> little
>> so late, there is still no reply. So we just keep on teaching adults 
>> to
>> read and write. And we do it on the cheap, even though it is 
>> theoretically
>> impossible.
>>
>> Thomas G. Sticht
>> International Consultant in Adult Education
>> 2062 Valley View Blvd.
>> El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
>> Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
>> Email: tsticht at aznet.net
>>
>>
>>
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