[NLA] Re: Reading Instruction and Policy Advocacy

[AWilder106@aol.com]

Eileen,

I would mandate certification which included instruction in phonics and 
phonology and whole language techniques.  I invite anyone who demurs from 
advancing down this path to read some of the Goodmans' work.  I would also 
mandate training in the recognition and remediation of learning disabilities, 
in the understanding that about 2-3% of the population has a learning 
disability (not "difficulty," the consequence of poor teaching, poor teacher 
training).  

As certification is under state control, I believe, this would be done at the 
state level.  I do think it verges on the criminal not to require teacher 
mastery of knowledge about learning difficulties, and learning disabilities.  
In volunteer programs a program manager could be trained to teach and train 
volunteers.

"Whole language" is a very big umbrella, it covers, for example project work 
like that which produced the videotape "Together We Bloom,"  as well as 
systematic use of "miscue analysis" which Art, for example, used in a casual 
way by giving entering students the newspaper to read.  

Others will have ideas about the best ways to bring this about.  My guess is 
that these techniques are already in some use in adult literacy classrooms.

Andrea
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