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Jill Kerper Mora's avatar

We researchers and practitioners need to remember that the National Reading Panel Report (2000) is not the last word on literacy education research for multilingual students. The Language Minority Panel Report (August & Shanahan, 2006) was published six years after the NRP report.

August, D., & Shanahan, T. (Eds.). (2006). Developing literacy in second-language learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-minority Children and Youth. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

This 670-page report reviewed 970 total research studies, 293 of which met the Panel's rigorous criteria for relevance to the research questions regarding literacy achievement posed and met the methodological criteria established by the Panel. So, when we look at what the NRP report that claims to be a comprehensive view of the Science of Reading says and does not say about monolingual readers of English, we must also examine what the Language-minority Panel report says about second-language and multilingual learners' who face additional challenges and bring diverse assets to their literacy and biliteracy learning.

I oppose legislation that is proposed for the purpose of limiting the research that supports the pedagogical knowledge base for teachers of multilingual learners to an adherence to or alignment with the Science of Reading. The reason for my opposition is that no singular body of research literature and no singular interpretation of research serve the academic needs of language-minority children and youth. My reasoning is supported by the fact that the NRP Report was supplemented and augmented by an expert panel that reviewed and reported on the research that informs multilingual literacy and biliteracy education.

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Dr. Andy Johnson's avatar

This short video identifies some of the things that seem to be overlooked by our SoR friends.

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Harriett Janetos's avatar

You mention that you never see single words 'floating in space'. In my neck of the woods, I often see the single words stop, yield, detour, private, exit, information, caution and danger all by their lonesome.

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Andrew Evans's avatar

That's funny. Maybe we should try to "guess" at what the words mean based on the shape or color of the sign or what's around it.

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Harriett Janetos's avatar

One-word chapter titles:

Moby-Dick (Herman Melville): “Loomings”, “Cetology”, “Whiteness”

Frankenstein (Mary Shelley): “Letter”, “Conclusion”

The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins): “Fire”, “Mutations”

Twilight (Stephenie Meyer): “Phenomenon”, “Complications”

Walden (Henry David Thoreau): “Economy”, “Solitude”, “Conclusion”

Educated (Tara Westover): “Choose”, “Graduation”

Becoming (Michelle Obama): “Becoming” (also the book’s title).

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Andrew Evans's avatar

It took me a while to figure out what you were doing here.

Did you put this into one of those stupid chatbots and ask it make up names to book chapters?

It's been a long time since I read Moby Dick, but I'm pretty sure the chapter is entitled "The Whiteness of the Whale." And even if it was a one-word chapter title, it's surrounded by a ton of context -- pun intended.

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Harriett Janetos's avatar

The complete list of one-word chapter titles in Moby Dick:

Loomings, Breakfast, Nightgown, Biographical, Wheelbarrow, Nantucket, Chowder, Postscript, Ahab, Cetology, Sunset, Dusk, Hark, Surmises, Brit, Squid, Ambergris.

Mark Seidenberg on phonics: Get in, get out--move on. Why some object to "getting in" I'll never understand.

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Andrew Evans's avatar

For the same reason I object to you posting for me a bunch of chapter titles for a book I read ages ago, including a few that were made up by some chatbot. For me, that was entirely unnecessary and confusing.

Maybe you could have found someone who needed it for some reason.

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Jill Kerper Mora's avatar

All of these words are comprehensible because we see them and understand them in their context of use for communicative purposes. This is the language subsystem of pragmatics.

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Harriett Janetos's avatar

When I lived in Paris, I'm really glad I was able to decode the single word 'secours'. Just to say--decoding skills are NECESSARY but NOT SUFFICIENT for comprehension. This discussion of phonics vs. comprehension has outlived its usefulness. I hope you'll read my piece about my concerns related to overteaching phonics, The Science of Reading Meets the Science of Learning: Fast-tracking Phonics (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/the-science-of-reading-meets-the?r=5spuf)

(BTW you never responded when I pointed out that you have misunderstood orthographic mapping. That concerns me.)

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Andrew Evans's avatar

Re: "That concerns me."

See "concern trolling."

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Jill Kerper Mora's avatar

Andrew, you got it!

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Andrew Evans's avatar

Stop projecting.

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Dr. Andy Johnson's avatar

This short video identifies some of the things that seem to be overlooked by our SoR friends.

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