Reading Recovery and Book Bands are obsolete
Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 7:00 pm
Awareness is rising globally that 'phonics' is an important component of 'being a reader' although the degree of importance of phonics in the English language with its very complex alphabetic (phonics) code is still not yet commonly known and understood well enough. Explicit, systematic phonics teaching for both reading and spelling is not provided in every school.
Awareness is rising about the notion of multi-cueing reading strategies (known as the 'Searchlights' reading strategies in England or the 3-cueing system in America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) which, in reality, amount to prompting beginners and struggling readers to guess words they cannot read from a variety of clues - for example, the picture, the context, initial letters - even word 'shape'.
If children are provided with books to read INDEPENDENTLY that include words the children cannot lift from the page - then they are forced to 'guess' to 'get through the book'.
This gives children entirely the wrong idea about the reading process and instills damaging bad habits in children from an early age.
Many teachers, tragically, still think it is OK and legitimate to ask children to guess words 'which make sense' rather than teach them well enough to attend to the alphabetic code in the words from left to right.
Here in England, it is very high-profile politically and educationally to provide beginners and strugglers with reading books for children to read INDEPENDENTLY that include the alphabetic code (the letter/s-sound correspondences) that children have been TAUGHT. This type of book is described as 'cumulative, decodable reading books'.
BUT at the same time, publishers and schools continue to use a system of cataloguing their reading books based on 'Reading Recovery's Book Bands' system.
This is crazy.
Reading Recovery is based on an outdated multi-cueing reading strategies approach to reading - and multi-cueing has been discredited by a body of international research - but everyone carries on regardless as if this is not the case! Reading Recovery is huge throughout the English-speaking world.
This causes such a quandary as, here in England, more and more publishers are producing 'cumulative, decodable reading books' which are designed to match the alphabetic code that beginners have been taught - but people still keep trying to 'Book Band' these books.
This is nothing but one huge FUDGE.
It is high time that the Book Bands cataloguing system was abandoned and replaced by a system that fits with the evidence from research and stops perpetuating the acceptance of Reading Recovery and forcing children to read reading books which many children simply cannot read without resorting to guessing.
Schools in England are in a right old muddle - and no wonder with continued mixed messages from some universities (the Institute of Education for a start which is the home of Reading Recovery in England), teacher-trainers, advisors, publishers, special needs specialists - and so on.
We have no real consistency and it continues to be 'chance' - 'pot luck' - whether children end up in a genuinely Systematic Synthetic Phonics school and system or whether they end up in a school continuing with a hotch-potch of ideas, methods and beliefs.
This is not good enough.
Book Bands need to go and Reading Recovery needs to go.
With the Simple View of Reading in mind, schools could equip their schools with plenty of cumulative, decodable reading books for their beginners and then wonderful 'real' storybooks and literature which teachers can read TO children and SHARE with children to expand on their vocabulary, their language comprehension, their knowledge and understanding of the world. Either type of book and reading experience can be organised in one to one, group or whole class scenarios.
Shame on the publishers that keep on fudging those early reading scheme books.
Shame on the universities which continue to be in bed with Reading Recovery.
If reading books are to be used for children to read INDEPENDENTLY, they should be designed so that children CAN READ THEM WITHOUT GUESSING.
The only way to really guarantee this shift away from guessing and the acceptance of guessing as legitimate is to get rid of the Reading Recovery Book Bands system and to stop tolerating and promoting Reading Recovery as an intervention programme.
This is the time for change.
Book Bands should go.
Reading Recovery should go.
Awareness is rising about the notion of multi-cueing reading strategies (known as the 'Searchlights' reading strategies in England or the 3-cueing system in America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) which, in reality, amount to prompting beginners and struggling readers to guess words they cannot read from a variety of clues - for example, the picture, the context, initial letters - even word 'shape'.
If children are provided with books to read INDEPENDENTLY that include words the children cannot lift from the page - then they are forced to 'guess' to 'get through the book'.
This gives children entirely the wrong idea about the reading process and instills damaging bad habits in children from an early age.
Many teachers, tragically, still think it is OK and legitimate to ask children to guess words 'which make sense' rather than teach them well enough to attend to the alphabetic code in the words from left to right.
Here in England, it is very high-profile politically and educationally to provide beginners and strugglers with reading books for children to read INDEPENDENTLY that include the alphabetic code (the letter/s-sound correspondences) that children have been TAUGHT. This type of book is described as 'cumulative, decodable reading books'.
BUT at the same time, publishers and schools continue to use a system of cataloguing their reading books based on 'Reading Recovery's Book Bands' system.
This is crazy.
Reading Recovery is based on an outdated multi-cueing reading strategies approach to reading - and multi-cueing has been discredited by a body of international research - but everyone carries on regardless as if this is not the case! Reading Recovery is huge throughout the English-speaking world.
This causes such a quandary as, here in England, more and more publishers are producing 'cumulative, decodable reading books' which are designed to match the alphabetic code that beginners have been taught - but people still keep trying to 'Book Band' these books.
This is nothing but one huge FUDGE.
It is high time that the Book Bands cataloguing system was abandoned and replaced by a system that fits with the evidence from research and stops perpetuating the acceptance of Reading Recovery and forcing children to read reading books which many children simply cannot read without resorting to guessing.
Schools in England are in a right old muddle - and no wonder with continued mixed messages from some universities (the Institute of Education for a start which is the home of Reading Recovery in England), teacher-trainers, advisors, publishers, special needs specialists - and so on.
We have no real consistency and it continues to be 'chance' - 'pot luck' - whether children end up in a genuinely Systematic Synthetic Phonics school and system or whether they end up in a school continuing with a hotch-potch of ideas, methods and beliefs.
This is not good enough.
Book Bands need to go and Reading Recovery needs to go.
With the Simple View of Reading in mind, schools could equip their schools with plenty of cumulative, decodable reading books for their beginners and then wonderful 'real' storybooks and literature which teachers can read TO children and SHARE with children to expand on their vocabulary, their language comprehension, their knowledge and understanding of the world. Either type of book and reading experience can be organised in one to one, group or whole class scenarios.
Shame on the publishers that keep on fudging those early reading scheme books.
Shame on the universities which continue to be in bed with Reading Recovery.
If reading books are to be used for children to read INDEPENDENTLY, they should be designed so that children CAN READ THEM WITHOUT GUESSING.
The only way to really guarantee this shift away from guessing and the acceptance of guessing as legitimate is to get rid of the Reading Recovery Book Bands system and to stop tolerating and promoting Reading Recovery as an intervention programme.
This is the time for change.
Book Bands should go.
Reading Recovery should go.