Random Critiques

Admittedly, it must be the end of summer, because I am running out of material. Fortunately, Qualitative Research class at William and Mary begins next Wednesday and I'll begin on a whole new series of writings. If this course allows me to focus on cultural competency (again, my preferred dissertation topic), the blog may feature a number of articles centering on this topic. I have been pondering the idea of focusing the subject toward high school coaches. For today, I'm going back four years to several critiques I wrote - one on phonics, another on spelling and the third on literacy training.

JOURNAL CRITIQUE  #1: PHONICS: A Large Phoneme-Grapheme Frequency Count Revised

     The first article I chose to review comes from Edward Fry in “The Journal of Literacy Research” and was published in the spring of 2004. Fry aims to retrieve previous data gathered by academics such as Hanna et al (1966), Thorndike and Large (1944) and to simplify this data and make it more usable. Fry centers on two questions:

1. What are the most useful (highest frequency) phoneme-grapheme correspondences?
2. What are the most frequent ways of spelling these phonemes?

     I found this research to be well prepared and well presented. By using data from over

a half-dozen studies covering a sixty year period, Fry brings a wealth of facts to the table. He can divide his study between vowel classification and consonant categories. One interesting note about the former comes from the tidbit that Merriam Webster dictionary’s vowel classification system went from 33 vowel sounds to 22 to facilitate their original algorithms.

     The consonant section gets more technical with multiple phonemes and consonant digraphs mentioned at the forefront. Fry points out the differences among the studies while focusing on certain items – such as the digraph TH and how it is used in high frequency words (i.e. this, that, these), but only used in 411 different words. I was surprised buy the intensity of the findings and how the author attempts to make sense of such a plethora of data.

     At this point, I’ll have to determine how this material will relate to my teaching. It has surprised me over the past three weeks to learn how little I know about phonics. I now have a newfound respect for the work that reading teachers do. Working with their students is like detective work, in that they use different techniques to find the problems while developing solutions to solve the problem. I look forward to using these methods myself to help students, but in a sense, right now I’m the student.

CRITIQUE #2 – A NATIONAL SURVEY OF SPELLING INSTRUCTION: Investigating Teachers’ Beliefs and Practice

     For the second critique, I revisited the Journal of Literary Research and found an article on spelling, penned by Mary Jo Fresch. Fresch was seeking information on current spelling practices of teachers from grades 1-5.

     Fresch’s thoughts went along the following line. She feels that teachers in the early grades, in spite of having new strategies available, choose to continue using traditional models for teaching spelling. With this in mind, her group purchased 2200 teacher names from Market Data Retrieval. These teachers were evenly split between grades 1-5. Fresch surveyed these teachers with three main questions in mind.

1. What are some common instructional practices?
2. What do teachers believe about spelling instruction?
3. How are beliefs and practices aligned in the teaching of spelling?

My critique of this article, published in the fall of 2003, focuses on two areas – the survey response, and the findings.

     First, the survey response. Of the 2200 teachers who received surveys, only 355 responded. The group was pleased with the 16% response rate, but my knowledge of surveys recalls that at least 1000 people need to be surveyed for any findings to be deemed meaningful (i.e. Nielsen, Arbitron ratings). Therefore, as a reviewer, I am not sure that Fresch’s numbers constitute a full finding, and may be skewed. After all, if the surveys were evenly divided, then there are only 71 responses per grade.

     Second, the results of the survey leave something to be desired. If not enough people were interviewed, then the results have to be in question. In fairness, Fresch and her co-workers only had enough funds to buy 2200 names, so it was not a question of oversight. However, some of her findings can be proven valid. For example, 72% of teachers used one spelling list for the whole class, while 86% used a weekly list. No argument here. Other results without such a resounding response in one direction must be held up to the light. Overall, this survey is a good start to finding if spelling instruction has changed over the past 50 years.

CRITIQUE #3 – LOOKING FOR LEADERSHIP IN LITERACY TRAINING – How is New Zealand addressing this issue, and what can we learn from it?

     I found an interesting literacy issue halfway around the world worth reviewing. As Americans address our own issues of improving literacy, there is a unique situation occurring in New Zealand. On the world scale, New Zealand students have one of the highest reading levels in the world. This is admirable, but the next statistic is ironic. New Zealand also has the biggest gap between its best and worst readers. The purpose of this article, penned by Anne Alkema and Pam O’Connell for Literacy Today, addresses the measures which the New Zealand Ministry of Education has taken to help principals raise achievement in their schools.

     My first impression about the article was that it is a firsthand account of what has happened in New Zealand. Ms. O’Connell, one of the authors, is indeed the Ministry of Education’s Learning Media manager. If anyone could explain the assets and liabilities of the program, this would be a good stakeholder to interview.

     In my opinion, this article makes sense for three reasons. First, it agrees with the theory that the most important factor in learning is the quality of interaction between the student and teacher. In other words, the teacher affects student achievement more than any other factor.  Second, it notes that teacher capability is linked to the quality of management and leadership within a school. Finally, the article also makes a strong point that all subject teachers are teachers of literacy. Perhaps these are obvious points to American educators, but it is refreshing to see the same views held 12,000 miles away.