E.D. Hirsch and Education

I recently read a transcript from an interview with E.D. Hirsch. I am in agreement with Hirsch's Core Knowledge Foundation more than I am in disagreement. In this interview, Hirsch makes some important distinctions regarding elementary education and reading.

Hirsch believes, as I do, that reading is a very content-based skill. He states that "We got into this [area] for the double reasons of wanting a more solid education in the early grades--much needed--and a recognition that reading comprehension itself depended on this solid general knowledge, which is terribly, terribly important for social justice.... The longer you delay the build-up of general knowledge, the greater becomes the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged kids.

We're starting to make a [reading] program which in the early years is the decoding part - is focusing only on decoding. But the rest of the Core Knowledge reading program in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade is focused on oral learning--production of oral speech, reception of oral speech, read-alouds--with a very organized approach to the cumulative building-up of general knowledge. Because it's general knowledge which is the high correlate of reading comprehension."

I have never understood this idea of whole language (decoding) in the early grades. Whole language depends heavily on comprehension which does not even begin to become operational until the middle grades. Hirsch's focus on oral reading is a focus on the one learning cue that is operational in the early years... the grapho-phonetic. My opinion of elementary reading is very similar to Hirsch. Oral reading and modeling should blend with a heavy dose of phonetic training to build a foundation.

Many question Hirsch's approach and define it as limited, but I believe he is accurate in his assessment of the core knowledge for elementary education. He goes on to explain,

"But you have to remember, in the early years, procedural knowledge--phonics, decoding--is itself a content. It's a subject matter that these children have to learn. The symbol-sound correspondences are highly complex, and nothing should detract from the engaging and effective way of teaching decoding. In that strand [of our program], the children never encounter a written word that is pronounced differently from the correspondences that they've already been taught, so they begin to get a great sense of mastery. It's proved to be a very effective aspect of the reading program."

Is not mastery something we have forgotten about in education as a whole? With the emphasis on quantitative, the whole concept of mastery takes a back seat. Couple this with the desire to push abstract thought down deeper into the grades and we have what is now taking place... reading literacy retreating. And, that does not even address the delay of general knowledge referenced early. Hirsch expounds on his approach...

"The other strand of Core Knowledge reading is what we call listening and learning. Notice it's "listening." It's not reading. There are plenty of pictures and there are plenty of books, and the words are there, but it's mainly oral.

One thing that was very striking to me in the research, years and years ago Tom Sticht showed that reading doesn't catch up to listening until about 7th grade, on average. So you really are handicapping yourself in the teaching of the general knowledge that's needed for reading if you insist on doing it through the decoding process. So, particularly in the early grades, we've separated these two elements."

Decoding demands two learning cues not present in the elementary years, semantics and syntax. These are decoding cues and must be maturing and semi-operational to make even the slightest of impacts on reading. If reading is flawed then the entire process of learning will suffer.

The move from excellence that is qualitative to excellence that is found in volume and numbers (quantitative) is a move to mediocrity in not only reading but in all areas. For reading to impact thinking (thoughts about self and world), both reading and listening are needed. Teaching reading in a way that demands decoding delays reading impacting the student in actual thinking cognitive actions until late middle school. This is too late.

I believe Hirsch is right in his assessment of why reading scores have flatten out. He states that "[standardized test] scores went up in decoding in the early grades--the reading tests that are given in those very early grades [are mainly decoding]--and scores stayed flat or even declined in 8th grade and 12th grade." We see this taking place in our international literacy score comparisons. What is the answer?

His answer is for students to know more. It sounds simple, but we must first understand that Hirsch speaks in terms according to the way he defines them. He believes reading is a content-based skill so when he speaks of students knowing more he speaks in terms of knowing more reading. I would define that as a qualitative approach focusing on the developmental aspects of the cognitive abilities present in the elementary student. These abilities will be limited to concrete operational actions like memorizing, repetition, and modeling. These abilities will need time and effort in order to reach mastery, and mastery is a must for reading first, and thinking in higher categories, second. Current trends in reading pedagogy, in my opinion, make it much more difficult to move students to think in higher categories later.

Where does this now leave us? It leaves us where we started... something has to change. Hirsch has seen changes and will gladly allow his schools to be compared to other schools, but he cautions all, change will not happen over night. Real change involves real sacrifice and doing something, as Dr. Grant said so well, not safe. Blessings!