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Reading Reform Group Urges Return to Phonics

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See the article in its original context from August 6, 1965, Page 24 Buy Reprints TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Full text is unavailable for this digitized archive article. Subscribers may view the full text of this article in its original form through TimesMachine.

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Credit... The New York Times Archives

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

No single picture or illustration can convey fully how schools go about teaching reading. But the two shown here offer some idea.

At the left is perhaps one of the most famous pages in all of children's literature. It comes from "We Work and Play," a first grade reader published in 1956 by Scott, Foresman & Co. Spot, Dick and Jane were the central characters in one of the bestknown sets of materials used in the "whole word" or "look‐say" approach to the teaching of reading.

In this approach, basically, children are taught to recognize a word by studying its over‐all form while they or the teacher or both repeat the word aloud. By attempting to match over‐all form with over‐all sound for each word, the children are supposed to build up a vocabulary of "sight words."

At the right is a page from "Basic Reading," published by the J. B. Lippincott Company in 1963, a first grade reader embodying the phonics approach. In this approach, children learn to associate each individual letter of the alphabet (in this case, "T,") with its oral sound.

The children then learn how this sound, with its matching letter, can be used many times over to help form different words (Tim, Ted, tan, and so on).

In the example above, the children presumably would already have mastered the other sounds and letters on the page before being introduced to "T." Thus, using their new‐found knowledge, they should be able to "decode" any word on the page -as well as most other words made up of the same letters and sounds.

The "whole word" approach is on the wane today, and most reading programs have at least some elements of phonics.

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This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

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Credit... The New York Times Archives

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

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LEAD: William Bennett, the former Secretary of Education, was right on target when he pointed the way to closing the literacy gap between minorities and the middle class by teaching phonics. In fact, by using phonics - the relationship between letters and speech sounds and meaning - as a first step to teaching reading, Israel, Cuba and the Soviet Union solved widespread illiteracy problems in a single generation.

William Bennett, the former Secretary of Education, was right on target when he pointed the way to closing the literacy gap between minorities and the middle class by teaching phonics. In fact, by using phonics - the relationship between letters and speech sounds and meaning - as a first step to teaching reading, Israel, Cuba and the Soviet Union solved widespread illiteracy problems in a single generation.

Phonics allows children to break the code of written language. Traditionally, the mastery of explicit phonics was the first step toward fast, accurate word identification. In more recent times, however, the teaching of reading has become a sort of religious battlefield - one side believes in teaching explicit phonics and the other side does not.

In Israel, for example, the reading establishment, like the reading establishment here, did not believe in this first step, so phonics was not taught. Israel had a serious problem teaching minority children to read Hebrew, the language used in the schools. Sephardic Jews, for instance, who had immigrated to Israel from diverse countries in North Africa and the Middle East, could not read Hebrew.

Researchers found, however, that in some classrooms Sephardic children learned to read, while in other classrooms they did not. When they examined the differences in these classrooms, they found that successful teachers taught explicit phonics that made it possible for Sephardic children to break the code of written Hebrew and then learn to read.

After researchers found the crucial missing ingredient, schools were required to include explicit phonics as a first step. Widespread success followed. Illiteracy went from 13 percent in 1969 to 5 percent in 1984. And, as a result, the Sephardim are merging into the mainstream.

Teaching children the logic behind the structure of the language is the best foundation for reading. The reason for ''dumbing down'' textbooks is that students can't read challenging material if they can't figure out what the words are, and they can't figure out words they haven't seen before unless they can sound words out. As soon as they can decode, not only can they read words, they begin reading books.

A major review of research on reading, published in 1985, found that research over the last 30 years strongly supports teaching explicit phonics systematically.

Several methods that teach phonics and reading effectively are used in this country. One of these, the Spalding method, has been used since 1957. It is inexpensive, gives children a deep understanding of the structure of English spelling, coordinates all the language arts and moves children quickly into reading classic books.

Because of its documented success with minority students, sales of a phonics method manual, ''The Writing Road to Reading,'' were up 75 percent last year. One expert, a psychiatrist working in New York schools, believes that the Spalding method would prevent reading disabilities if it were introduced in kindergarten.

We know how to close the literacy gap between ethnic groups and it won't cost billions of dollars. However, in order to make it possible for all our children to learn to read, teachers themselves will have to be taught to teach reading systematically - taking the first step, phonics, first.

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Opinion | the anser iz faniks [ the answer is phonics ]

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LEAD: William Bennett, the former Secretary of Education, was right on target when he pointed the way to closing the literacy gap between minorities and the middle class by teaching phonics. In fact, by using phonics - the relationship between letters and speech sounds and meaning - as a first step to teaching reading, Israel, Cuba and the Soviet Union solved widespread illiteracy problems in a single generation.

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This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

In the 1980's, California was among the first states to adopt a philosophy that children could learn to read, faster and better if encouraged to experiment -- to guess at words and invent their own spellings and grammar.

Called "whole language," it was an approach widely adopted around the country. But now, stung by poor test scores in reading and writing, the State Board of Education in California is among the first in the country to reconsider whole language and give more emphasis to the method that taught baby boomers: phonics.

In phonics, widely adopted in the 50's, children learn to read primarily by stringing letter and vowel sounds together. The premise is that a child who can read "c-a-t" can easily figure out "p-a-t," "b-a-t" or even "ch-a-t."

"The research is very clear," said Jack Pikulski, president-elect of the International Reading Association and a professor of education at University of Delaware. "Phonics is a necessary part of a balanced reading program. There is plenty of evidence that phonics can get children off to a good start."

Earlier this month, the California board approved a new reading outline for the state's school districts that stresses phonics in early grades. Ohio, New York and Wisconsin are also considering measures to re-emphasize phonics.

Gov. Pete Wilson of California, who usually espouses local control of curriculum in schools, set up a state incentive for schools that use the phonics approach, offering them an extra $127 million for new text books and teacher training.

The movement to re-emphasize phonics in California began in 1994, after results of standardized tests showed the state's children to be tied with Louisiana's as the worst readers among 39 states tested.

Many attributed California's faltering student literacy to whole language, a method adopted to spice up reading lessons after a critical report by state school officials in 1987 criticized phonics instruction as dull.

Whole language favors creative writing, literature comprehension and discussions of spelling and word sounds. In a whole-language lesson on plants, for example, children would read books about plants, touch plants, raise plants, talk about plants and write about plants. By doing so, advocates say students would learn vocabulary without being stifled by language rules.

State education officials now agree that their plan was too unstructured, and partly responsible for producing thousands of children who could not read at grade level.

"What came before 1987 was lopsided to the skills," said Dianne Levin, a language arts consultant with the state education department. "Since then, instruction has been lopsided towards literature. What we need is balance."

At Kelso Elementary School in Inglewood, just south of Los Angeles, teachers believe they have found that balance. For the past three years, Kelso has been among a small number of California schools using a phonics-intensive curriculum in kindergarten and first grade, with encouraging results in test scores.

The other day at the school, Kelli Raycraft-Manos was leading her first-grade class in chanting vowel sounds and clapping on consonants. Students looked at "fin" and "fine" to learn the difference between a long vowel and a short vowel.

"I think kids really need the phonics to be able to attack every word," Ms. Raycraft-Manos said. "If not, what are they going to do with words they've never seen before, especially when they get to second grade?"

Marjorie Thompson, the school's principal, said that phonics was one component of a good reading program, but that such a program should also include literature like "Little Red Riding Hood," writing, spelling and grammar. Ms. Thompson said she was concerned that the fervor to return phonics to the classroom, while beneficial for young readers, could be overdone. She said it would be unacceptable if students were only to study traditional phonics sentences like "Sam pats Nip."

"It's sterile," Ms. Thompson said. "There is no meaning. It's rote. That's what whole-language people are against."

Barbara R. Foorman, a professor of educational psychology at University of Houston, released a study this month that showed students from a low-income neighborhood performing significantly better with phonics instruction.

Kenneth S. Goodman, a professor at University of Arizona, and a prominent advocate of whole language, said that phonics students tested better than whole-language students only because they were trained for single-answer questions. Mr. Goodman said California's poor levels of student achievement could also be because of low per-pupil spending and library expenditures, and large class sizes.

"Even if whole language is a failed process, which it isn't, that doesn't say phonics is good," Mr. Goodman said. "Mandating phonics says teachers must all teach the same way, using scripted materials in a scripted way."

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California Leads Revival Of Teaching by Phonics

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This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

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A SENSELESS war over reading instruction still rages between proponents of phonics, who emphasize skills like sounding-out words, and of whole language, who emphasize that reading motivation and fluency come from exposure to literature. In truth, there is little difference between the two camps.

They agree that beginners should learn that sounds, or phonemes, are symbolized by letters that make words. They also agree that beginners get vocabulary from hearing adult talk and need trips to stimulating places like zoos so they can relate written words to real or imaginary life. Children need to be tempted by books around them and hear reading aloud to learn how stories unfold.

G. Reid Lyon, chief reading researcher at the National Institutes of Health, has directed important studies that show the benefits of phonics instruction. But, he says, some children need this more than others, and phonics is never enough. He calls for a ''comprehensive'' approach combining skills with literary experiences.

Yet when whole language advocates urge this and term it ''balanced'' teaching, Dr. Lyon scoffs. Balance, he says, is only an excuse to ignore phonics research.

A prize should go to anyone who can distinguish a comprehensive from a balanced approach.

Certainly, the gap between camps was once huge. But those who emphasize skills now say that some children pick them up implicitly in literate homes, and all must be exposed to books as well.

It does children little good to read a word aloud if they cannot comprehend it.

Those who emphasize literature now agree that many children, especially from less literate homes, also need explicit letter-sound lessons.

But partisans of each view fail to credit the other's concessions.

Bills now in Congress provide reading instruction money only for states using ''scientifically based'' reading research.

This is tricky because scientific study is easier for phonics than whole language.

Researchers can teach about phonemes, then test if children know they get ''car'' by removing a sound from ''cart.'' It is harder to design experiments to see if storytelling spurs a desire to read.

So the requirement for scientifically based research was first intended as a weapon against whole language.

Placed in the Reading Excellence Act of 1998 by Republican lawmakers, the requirement was transformed when the Clinton administration carried it out. States did have to certify research-based programs, but this was broadly defined. Balanced teaching was supported.

President Bush and Congress now propose similar language. There will probably be little change in what qualifies. ''Comprehensive'' (read ''balanced'') programs will do.

Last year, the National Reading Panel set up by Congress reviewed scientific reading research. Its report was interpreted as endorsing an emphasis on skills, not literature. But its findings were more complex.

For example, it said children with reading problems needed phoneme lessons. This was seen as repudiating a whole-language idea that phonemic awareness can grow from hearing rhymes and stories read aloud.

But the panel also found that 18 hours of phonemic instruction was enough. That leaves lots of time for a ''comprehensive'' program.

At a White House conference in July, Assistant Secretary of Education Susan Neuman lamented how few children's books were found in libraries and stores in low-income areas. Dr. Neuman's own researchers counted 12 children's book titles available for every child in a middle-class neighborhood, but only a single title for every 353 children in a poor one.

Little access to books, she said, leads to poor achievement: low-income areas need an ''environment rich in print -- children need books in view.'' And they need these books read aloud to develop a feel for the flow of words and stories.

These points could easily have been made by Stephen Krashen, a prominent whole language theorist at the University of Southern California. Dr. Krashen has often argued that surrounding children with interesting books creates good readers.

You could get another prize for distinguishing these views of Dr. Neuman and Dr. Krashen, who are allied with opposite sides in the reading wars.

Scientific studies of separate parts of a reading program exist, but there is no well-established science that precisely balances phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary lessons and storytelling. The balance differs for each child. Teachers fluent in both skill- and literature-based techniques are needed.

Reading experts have had too much fun denouncing each other. Secretary of Education Rod Paige should lock phonics and whole-language advocates in a room, releasing them only when they announce a joint training program for reading teachers that everyone agrees is now needed.

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LESSONS; Consensus in Reading War If Sides Would Only Look

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A SENSELESS war over reading instruction still rages between proponents of phonics, who emphasize skills like sounding-out words, and of whole language, who emphasize that reading motivation and fluency come from exposure to literature. In truth, there is little difference between the two camps.

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The education bill President Bush signed into law today includes an ambitious federal commitment to teaching reading, which is expected to emphasize phonics over other methods of early reading instruction.

In two separate initiatives, the administration is requiring schools to adopt ''scientifically based'' ways to teach reading, a phrase that education officials interpret as referring to systematic phonics in contrast to other approaches. While not explicitly requiring phonics instruction, the administration has sent educators throughout the country some 328,000 booklets summarizing the findings of a Congressional National Reading Panel that in 2000 highlighted the success of phonics in giving children the building blocks for reading.

The effort is expected to heat up a debate between educators who emphasize teaching children to read through immersion in good books, an approach known as whole language, and those who believe in phonics, which drills children in sounding out letter combinations and words. Most teachers try to balance the two approaches, but the Bush administration has contended that the balance has shifted too greatly away from phonics.

While educators contend that the bill allows for a certain latitude in defining research-based approaches to teaching reading, the administration's promotion of the main findings of the National Reading Panel report is controversial.

The report concludes that systematically teaching children phonics contributes to enduring growth in reading skills. It also found that children's ability to connect sounds with letters when they enter kindergarten is a strong indicator of whether they will do well at reading.

Critics complain that the 500-page initial report examined only reading studies based on laboratory models, thereby ignoring the vast majority of more qualitative studies on whole language approaches to reading, and that government summaries of the report are simplifying its conclusions to the point of distortion.

Alan Farstrup, executive director of the International Reading Association, said: ''We are not against phonics, but the danger is that a superficial reading of the National Reading Panel report and superficial interpretation could lead to a narrow and superficial program of instruction. And we don't want to see that.''

The administration has pledged at least $900 million a year over six years to the effort to teach reading, and will award the grants on a competitive basis to needy schools. Some $75 million will be awarded directly from Washington for reaching pre-kindergarten reading initiatives.

''I want to change the face of reading instruction across the United States, from an art to a science,'' said Susan B. Neuman, the assistant secretary of education for elementary and secondary education. ''From a science it becomes a mission.''

This July, the Department of Education will send education officials around the country guides that will ''carefully content analyze all core reading programs to see whether or not they are scientifically based,'' on the National Reading Panel's findings, Dr. Neuman said. Poor school districts that do not use a standardized reading curriculum ''would have to provide evidence they work,'' she said, adding, ''I suggest they purchase a core reading program.''

She said the administration was not pressing schools to adopt phonics programs, per se, so much as programs with proven track records, and would insist on strict accountability.

She said the report would play an ''essential'' role in determining what works in reading.

An article by Elaine M. Garan in Phi Delta Kappan, an educational journal, faulted the report, which claimed to be an overarching analysis of all the research on education, for basing conclusions on phonics on only 38 studies that met its criteria.

While the report emphasizes that reading text and understanding it is the ultimate measure of a technique's effectiveness, Dr. Garan noted, most studies of phonics examined only isolated skills like word recognition, rather than comprehension or fluency. Dr. Garan found that ''phonics had no statistically significant impact on tasks requiring authentic application.''

She detailed inconsistencies between the original reports of the panel's subcommittees, and the executive and other summaries. For example, she noted that the subcommittee report found that among children over 6, ''Phonics instruction appears to contribute only weakly, if at all, in helping poor readers'' to ''read text and spell words.''

''There were insufficient data to draw any conclusions about the effects of phonics instruction with normally developing readers above 1st grade,'' the report said.

Dr. Garan and others also note that studies on reading that met the Congressional requirement for scientific rigor were largely done by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and focused heavily on children with learning disabilities.

Despite the limitations, she noted, the National Reading Panel's summary describes its analysis as ''indicative of what can be accomplished when explicit, systematic phonics programs are implemented in today's classrooms.''

Dr. Neuman rejected the criticism, saying that studying isolated results from phonics instruction, such as word recognition, constituted a valid approach to research.

Jerry Sroufe, director of governmental relations at the American Education Research Association, said the studies on phonics appeared to him almost self-fulfilling. ''If you emphasize phonics, children are better at alphabetics,'' he said. ''But how does that translate into better reading?''

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Education Bill Urges New Emphasis on Phonics as Method for Teaching Reading

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The education bill President Bush signed into law today includes an ambitious federal commitment to teaching reading, which is expected to emphasize phonics over other methods of early reading instruction. In two separate initiatives, the administration is requiring schools to adopt ''scientifically based'' ways to teach reading, a phrase that education officials interpret as referring to systematic phonics in contrast to other approaches.

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President Bush's top adviser on reading said yesterday that the citywide phonics program unveiled this week by Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein had no proven track record, suggesting that its adoption could cost the city millions of dollars in federal aid.

The adviser, G. Reid Lyon, a researcher at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said there is no scientific evidence that the curriculum, called Month by Month Phonics, is effective with students who struggle academically.

''We can find no published research indicating that this program has been tested with well-defined groups of kids and shown to be effective,'' Dr. Lyon said. ''And clearly one would want to know those kinds of details before incorporating any program into use.''

Under the new federal education law, No Child Left Behind, school districts can receive federal funds for reading instruction only if their curriculum is scientifically proven to improve children's reading skills. Each state must submit a grant application detailing the programs and strategies it intends to use to improve reading scores; New York has not yet filed its application with the federal Department of Education.

New York State is scheduled to receive about $70 million of the total $900 million that the law provides for reading instruction this year. And much of the state's allotment would go to New York City, the nation's largest school system.

A federal rejection of the city's program would be a major embarrassment for Mr. Klein and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who are imposing uniform reading and math curriculums on all but the top-performing city schools as part of an overhaul of the school system.

Mr. Klein announced on Tuesday that Month by Month Phonics would be a cornerstone of the reading curriculum for students in kindergarten through third grade. In addition to phonics, students will practice reading and writing for 90 minutes a day using books from classroom libraries instead of basic readers.

But in assessing whether the overall curriculum qualifies for federal funds, the Bush administration will look especially hard at the phonics component. The No Child Left Behind law, which Dr. Lyon helped write, steers grant money toward programs that embrace explicit training in phonics.

Phonics instruction involves practicing the sounds that build words and matching them with letters. There is a longstanding and bitter debate over whether phonics instruction has more proven results than ''whole language'' teaching, which relies on stories to capture children's interest in reading and uses phonics secondarily. The program that Mr. Klein has in mind -- Month by Month Phonics combined with using books -- treads a cautious line between the two methods.

Dan Langan, a spokesman for the federal Education Department, said that Rod Paige, the education secretary, who is in charge of approving or rejecting states' reading grant applications, was enthusiastic about New York City's overall plans for improving student achievement.

''Secretary Paige has had very good conversations with both the mayor and the chancellor generally about No Child Left Behind and what they are doing to try to implement the law,'' Mr. Langan said.

New York State has until July to submit its application for reading funds, he said.

Diana Lam, New York City's deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, said yesterday that she chose Month by Month Phonics because she did not want a rigid approach to teaching phonics, which is what many better-known, more expensive phonics programs offer. Month by Month Phonics will cost about $4 million, she said, compared with about $20 million for the more scripted Open Court reading program, used in Los Angeles.

Ms. Lam and other department officials said that test scores had risen in District 15 in Brooklyn and District 10 in the Bronx, which used Month by Month Phonics. ''There's no reason for us to believe it's not aligned'' with the No Child Left Behind law, she said.

Dr. Patricia Cunningham, one of the program's authors, said studies showed little difference between phonics programs, and that what was important was doing phonics instruction systematically as part of a broader program.

But Louisa Moats, who advises states on applications for federal reading instruction funds, predicted that Month by Month would not pass muster. ''It's just not in line with what we know works,'' she said.

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Bush Adviser Casts Doubt on the Benefits Of Phonics Program

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G Reid Lyon, Pres Bush's top adviser on reading, says citywide phonics program unveiled by New York City Schools Chancellor Joel I Klein has no proven track record and its adoption could cost city millions of dollars in federal aid; under federal education law known as No Child Left Behind,

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Santiago Lavenant, a second grader at Hawthorne Elementary in Madison, Wis., where officials withdrew from a federal reading program. Credit... Darren Hauck for The New York Times

MADISON, Wis. - Surrounded by five first graders learning to read at Hawthorne Elementary here, Stacey Hodiewicz listened as one boy struggled over a word.

"Pumpkin," ventured the boy, Parker Kuehni.

"Look at the word," the teacher suggested. Using a method known as whole language, she prompted him to consider the word's size. "Is it long enough to be pumpkin?"

Parker looked again. "Pea," he said, correctly.

Call it the $2 million reading lesson.

By sticking to its teaching approach, that is the amount Madison passed up under Reading First, the Bush administration's ambitious effort to turn the nation's poor children into skilled readers by the third grade.

The program, which gives $1 billion a year in grants to states, was supposed to end the so-called reading wars - the battle over the best method of teaching reading - but has instead opened a new and bitter front in the fight.

According to interviews with school officials and a string of federal audits and e-mail messages made public in recent months, federal officials and contractors used the program to pressure schools to adopt approaches that emphasize phonics, focusing on the mechanics of sounding out syllables, and to discard methods drawn from whole language that play down these mechanics and use cues like pictures or context to teach.

Federal officials who ran Reading First maintain that only curriculums including regular, systematic phonics lessons had the backing of "scientifically based reading research" required by the program.

But in a string of blistering reports, the Education Department's inspector general has found that federal officials may have violated prohibitions in the law against mandating, or even endorsing, specific curriculums. The reports also found that federal officials overlooked conflicts of interest among the contractors that advised states applying for grants, and that in some instances, these contractors wrote reading programs competing for the money, and stood to collect royalties if their programs were chosen.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has said that the problems in Reading First occurred largely before she took over in 2005, and that her office has new guidelines for awarding grants. She declined a request for an interview.

Madison officials say that a year after Wisconsin joined Reading First, in 2004, contractors pressured them to drop their approach, which blends some phonics with whole language in a program called Balanced Literacy. Instead, they gave up the money - about $2 million, according to officials here, who say their program raised reading scores.

In New York City, under pressure from federal officials, school authorities in 2004 dropped their citywide balanced literacy approach for a more structured program stronger in phonics, in 49 low-income schools. At stake was $34 million.

Across the country - in Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maine and New Jersey - schools and districts with programs that did not stress phonics were either rejected for grants or pressured to change their methods even though some argued, as Madison did, that their programs met the law's standard.

"We had data demonstrating that our children were learning at the rate that Reading First was aiming for, and they could not produce a single ounce of data to show the success rates of the program they were proposing," said Art Rainwater, Madison's superintendent of schools.

Both the House and the Senate are laying the groundwork for tough hearings on Reading First, which is up for renewal this year.

Robert Sweet Jr., a former Congressional aide who wrote much of the Reading First legislation, said the law aimed at breaking new ground by translating research into lesson plans. Under the law, the yardstick of a reading program's scientific validity became a 2000 report by the National Reading Panel.

That panel, created by Congress, with members selected by G. Reid Lyon, a former head of a branch of the National Institutes of Health, set out to review the research and tell Americans what worked. It named phonics and related skills, vocabulary, fluency and reading comprehension as the cornerstones of effective reading instruction.

Mr. Sweet firmly believes that phonics is the superior method of instruction; he is now president of the National Right to Read Foundation, a pro-phonics group. His e-mail address begins phonicsman.

With Reading First, he said, "we felt we could put education on a new path."

Dr. Lyon, another architect of the legislation, also strongly favors phonics. Teaching children to read by reason and context, as Parker did in Madison, rather than by sounding out letters to make words, is anathema, he said in an interview, suggesting that teachers of the whole language approach be prosecuted for "educational malpractice."

Mr. Sweet agreed. "You've got billions used for the purchase of programs that have no validity or evidence that they work, and in fact they don't, because you have so many kids coming out of the schools that can't read," he said.

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Humboldt Park Elementary in Milwaukee teaches phonics. Credit... Photographs by Darren Hauck for The New York Times

But educators in Madison and elsewhere disagree about the effectiveness of phonics, and say their results prove their method works.

Under their system, the share of third graders reading at the top two levels, proficient and advanced, had risen to 82 percent by 2004, from 59 percent six years earlier, even as an influx of students in poverty, to 42 percent from 31 percent of Madison's enrollment, could have driven down test scores. The share of Madison's black students reading at the top levels had doubled to 64 percent in 2004 from 31 percent six years earlier.

And while 17 percent of African-Americans lacked basic reading skills when Madison started its reading effort in 1998, that number had plunged to 5 percent by 2004. The exams changed after 2004, making it impossible to compare recent results with those of 1998.

Other reading experts, like Richard Allington, past president of the International Reading Association, also challenge the case for phonics. Dr. Allington and others say the national panel's review showed only minor benefits from phonics through first grade, and no strong support for one style of instruction. They also contend that children drilled in phonics end up with poor comprehension skills when they tackle more advanced books.

"This revisionist history of what the research says is wildly popular," Dr. Allington said. "But it's the main reason why so much of the reading community has largely rejected the National Reading Panel report and this large-scale vision of what an effective reading program looks like."

Under Reading First, many were encouraged to use a pamphlet, "A Consumer's Guide to Evaluating a Core Reading Program Grades K-3," written by two special education professors, then at the University of Oregon, to gauge whether a program was backed by research.

But the guide also rewards practices, like using thin texts of limited vocabulary to practice syllables, for which there is no backing in research. Dr. Allington said the central role Washington assigned the guide effectively blocked from approval all but a few reading programs based on "made-up criteria."

Deborah C. Simmons, who helped write the guide, said it largely reflected the available research, but acknowledged that even now, no studies have tested whether children learn to read faster or better through programs that rated highly in the guide.

Fatally for Madison, the guide does not consider consistent gains in reading achievement alone sufficient proof of a program's worth.

In making their case, city officials turned to Kathryn Howe of the Reading First technical assistance center at the University of Oregon, one of several nationwide paid by the federal Education Department that helped states apply for grants. But early on, they began to suspect that Dr. Howe wanted them to dump their program.

At a workshop, she showed them how the guide valued exposing all children to identical instruction in phonics. Madison's program is based on tailoring strategies individually, with less emphasis on drilling.

Dr. Howe used the Houghton Mifflin program as a model; officials here believed that approval would be certain if only they switched to that program, they said.

In interviews, Dr. Howe said she had not meant to endorse the Houghton Mifflin program and used it only for illustration, and had no ties to the company. She added that she might have been misunderstood.

"I certainly didn't say, 'You should buy Houghton Mifflin,' " she said. "I do remember saying: 'You can do this without buying a purchased program. It's easier if you have a purchased program, so you might think about that.' "

Dr. Howe said Madison's program might have suited most students, but not those in the five schools applying for grants. "Maybe those students needed a different approach," she said.

Mary Watson Peterson, Madison's reading chief, said the city did use intensive phonics instruction, but only for struggling children.

After providing Dr. Howe extensive documentation, Madison officials received a letter from her and the center's director, saying that because the city's program lacked uniformity and relied too much on teacher judgment, they could not vouch to Washington that its approach was grounded in research.

Ultimately Madison withdrew from Reading First, said Mr. Rainwater, the superintendent, because educators here grew convinced that approval would never come. "It really boiled down to, we were going to have to abandon our reading program," the superintendent said.

A subsequent letter from Dr. Howe seemed to confirm his view. "Madison made a good decision" in withdrawing, she wrote, "since Reading First is a very prescriptive program that does not match your district's reading program as it stands now."

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In War Over Teaching Reading, a U.S.-Local Clash

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MADISON, Wis. - Surrounded by five first graders learning to read at Hawthorne Elementary here, Stacey Hodiewicz listened as one boy struggled over a word. "Pumpkin," ventured the boy, Parker Kuehni. "Look at the word," the teacher suggested. Using a method known as whole language, she prompted him to consider the word's size.

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Santiago Lavenant, a second grader at Hawthorne Elementary in Madison, Wis., where officials withdrew from a federal reading program. Credit... Darren Hauck for The New York Times

MADISON, Wis. - Surrounded by five first graders learning to read at Hawthorne Elementary here, Stacey Hodiewicz listened as one boy struggled over a word.

"Pumpkin," ventured the boy, Parker Kuehni.

"Look at the word," the teacher suggested. Using a method known as whole language, she prompted him to consider the word's size. "Is it long enough to be pumpkin?"

Parker looked again. "Pea," he said, correctly.

Call it the $2 million reading lesson.

By sticking to its teaching approach, that is the amount Madison passed up under Reading First, the Bush administration's ambitious effort to turn the nation's poor children into skilled readers by the third grade.

The program, which gives $1 billion a year in grants to states, was supposed to end the so-called reading wars - the battle over the best method of teaching reading - but has instead opened a new and bitter front in the fight.

According to interviews with school officials and a string of federal audits and e-mail messages made public in recent months, federal officials and contractors used the program to pressure schools to adopt approaches that emphasize phonics, focusing on the mechanics of sounding out syllables, and to discard methods drawn from whole language that play down these mechanics and use cues like pictures or context to teach.

Federal officials who ran Reading First maintain that only curriculums including regular, systematic phonics lessons had the backing of "scientifically based reading research" required by the program.

But in a string of blistering reports, the Education Department's inspector general has found that federal officials may have violated prohibitions in the law against mandating, or even endorsing, specific curriculums. The reports also found that federal officials overlooked conflicts of interest among the contractors that advised states applying for grants, and that in some instances, these contractors wrote reading programs competing for the money, and stood to collect royalties if their programs were chosen.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has said that the problems in Reading First occurred largely before she took over in 2005, and that her office has new guidelines for awarding grants. She declined a request for an interview.

Madison officials say that a year after Wisconsin joined Reading First, in 2004, contractors pressured them to drop their approach, which blends some phonics with whole language in a program called Balanced Literacy. Instead, they gave up the money - about $2 million, according to officials here, who say their program raised reading scores.

In New York City, under pressure from federal officials, school authorities in 2004 dropped their citywide balanced literacy approach for a more structured program stronger in phonics, in 49 low-income schools. At stake was $34 million.

Across the country - in Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maine and New Jersey - schools and districts with programs that did not stress phonics were either rejected for grants or pressured to change their methods even though some argued, as Madison did, that their programs met the law's standard.

"We had data demonstrating that our children were learning at the rate that Reading First was aiming for, and they could not produce a single ounce of data to show the success rates of the program they were proposing," said Art Rainwater, Madison's superintendent of schools.

Both the House and the Senate are laying the groundwork for tough hearings on Reading First, which is up for renewal this year.

Robert Sweet Jr., a former Congressional aide who wrote much of the Reading First legislation, said the law aimed at breaking new ground by translating research into lesson plans. Under the law, the yardstick of a reading program's scientific validity became a 2000 report by the National Reading Panel.

That panel, created by Congress, with members selected by G. Reid Lyon, a former head of a branch of the National Institutes of Health, set out to review the research and tell Americans what worked. It named phonics and related skills, vocabulary, fluency and reading comprehension as the cornerstones of effective reading instruction.

Mr. Sweet firmly believes that phonics is the superior method of instruction; he is now president of the National Right to Read Foundation, a pro-phonics group. His e-mail address begins phonicsman.

With Reading First, he said, "we felt we could put education on a new path."

Dr. Lyon, another architect of the legislation, also strongly favors phonics. Teaching children to read by reason and context, as Parker did in Madison, rather than by sounding out letters to make words, is anathema, he said in an interview, suggesting that teachers of the whole language approach be prosecuted for "educational malpractice."

Mr. Sweet agreed. "You've got billions used for the purchase of programs that have no validity or evidence that they work, and in fact they don't, because you have so many kids coming out of the schools that can't read," he said.

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Humboldt Park Elementary in Milwaukee teaches phonics. Credit... Photographs by Darren Hauck for The New York Times

But educators in Madison and elsewhere disagree about the effectiveness of phonics, and say their results prove their method works.

Under their system, the share of third graders reading at the top two levels, proficient and advanced, had risen to 82 percent by 2004, from 59 percent six years earlier, even as an influx of students in poverty, to 42 percent from 31 percent of Madison's enrollment, could have driven down test scores. The share of Madison's black students reading at the top levels had doubled to 64 percent in 2004 from 31 percent six years earlier.

And while 17 percent of African-Americans lacked basic reading skills when Madison started its reading effort in 1998, that number had plunged to 5 percent by 2004. The exams changed after 2004, making it impossible to compare recent results with those of 1998.

Other reading experts, like Richard Allington, past president of the International Reading Association, also challenge the case for phonics. Dr. Allington and others say the national panel's review showed only minor benefits from phonics through first grade, and no strong support for one style of instruction. They also contend that children drilled in phonics end up with poor comprehension skills when they tackle more advanced books.

"This revisionist history of what the research says is wildly popular," Dr. Allington said. "But it's the main reason why so much of the reading community has largely rejected the National Reading Panel report and this large-scale vision of what an effective reading program looks like."

Under Reading First, many were encouraged to use a pamphlet, "A Consumer's Guide to Evaluating a Core Reading Program Grades K-3," written by two special education professors, then at the University of Oregon, to gauge whether a program was backed by research.

But the guide also rewards practices, like using thin texts of limited vocabulary to practice syllables, for which there is no backing in research. Dr. Allington said the central role Washington assigned the guide effectively blocked from approval all but a few reading programs based on "made-up criteria."

Deborah C. Simmons, who helped write the guide, said it largely reflected the available research, but acknowledged that even now, no studies have tested whether children learn to read faster or better through programs that rated highly in the guide.

Fatally for Madison, the guide does not consider consistent gains in reading achievement alone sufficient proof of a program's worth.

In making their case, city officials turned to Kathryn Howe of the Reading First technical assistance center at the University of Oregon, one of several nationwide paid by the federal Education Department that helped states apply for grants. But early on, they began to suspect that Dr. Howe wanted them to dump their program.

At a workshop, she showed them how the guide valued exposing all children to identical instruction in phonics. Madison's program is based on tailoring strategies individually, with less emphasis on drilling.

Dr. Howe used the Houghton Mifflin program as a model; officials here believed that approval would be certain if only they switched to that program, they said.

In interviews, Dr. Howe said she had not meant to endorse the Houghton Mifflin program and used it only for illustration, and had no ties to the company. She added that she might have been misunderstood.

"I certainly didn't say, 'You should buy Houghton Mifflin,' " she said. "I do remember saying: 'You can do this without buying a purchased program. It's easier if you have a purchased program, so you might think about that.' "

Dr. Howe said Madison's program might have suited most students, but not those in the five schools applying for grants. "Maybe those students needed a different approach," she said.

Mary Watson Peterson, Madison's reading chief, said the city did use intensive phonics instruction, but only for struggling children.

After providing Dr. Howe extensive documentation, Madison officials received a letter from her and the center's director, saying that because the city's program lacked uniformity and relied too much on teacher judgment, they could not vouch to Washington that its approach was grounded in research.

Ultimately Madison withdrew from Reading First, said Mr. Rainwater, the superintendent, because educators here grew convinced that approval would never come. "It really boiled down to, we were going to have to abandon our reading program," the superintendent said.

A subsequent letter from Dr. Howe seemed to confirm his view. "Madison made a good decision" in withdrawing, she wrote, "since Reading First is a very prescriptive program that does not match your district's reading program as it stands now."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
In War Over Teaching Reading, a U.S.-Local Clash

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
MADISON, Wis. - Surrounded by five first graders learning to read at Hawthorne Elementary here, Stacey Hodiewicz listened as one boy struggled over a word. "Pumpkin," ventured the boy, Parker Kuehni. "Look at the word," the teacher suggested. Using a method known as whole language, she prompted him to consider the word's size.