This is an outstanding resource if you are interesting in literacy and reading-

https://childrenofthecode.org/interviews/index.htm

John Fisher- a Medievalist on The Origins of the English Writing System and the Roots of its Letter – Sound Confusions

https://childrenofthecode.org/interviews/fisher.htm

I would take a look at the interview by Todd Risley from Hart and Risley- Meaningful Differences- a foundational work in early language development now.

https://childrenofthecode.org/interviews/risley.htm

Ed Kame’enui- is a native Hawaiian, now retired, we worked with in our own doctoral studies- first introduced me to Thomas Kuhn- and the The Structure of Scientific Revolutions- but became the first director of Special Education Research Division of IES.

https://childrenofthecode.org/interviews/kameenui.htm

Zig Englemann- father of direct instruction- I talked him into giving the last seminar on Design and Theory of Instruction to our own cohort before he passed away.

https://childrenofthecode.org/interviews/engelmann2.htm

Reid Lyon is also now retired- was Director of NICHD at the National Institutes of Health-

https://childrenofthecode.org/interviews/lyon.htm

UNCONSCIONABLE:

Dr. Reid Lyon: So, there is a fascinating set of disconnects that you see among an ostensibly learned and knowledgeable prophesoriat. It’s one of the most silliest things and saddest things I have ever seen. The bottom line is for a country like America to be leaving behind about thirty-eight to forty percent of its youngsters in terms of not learning to read is unconscionable.

What makes it equally or doubly unconscionable is if you disaggregate those data, seventy percent approximately of young African Americans kids can’t read. Seventy percent! If you look at Hispanic kids, the figure is sixty-five to seventy percent. That means we are producing failure where it doesn’t have to be. We know what we can do to help those youngsters; we know how to get to them early; we know how to identify these kids at risk, at four or five years of age; we know how to bring to bear good evidence-based programs that if applied and implemented will move those kids all the way from the tenth percentile right up to the average range, to be concrete. We can reduce illiteracy in many of our research sites – in real classrooms in real schools with real kids at risk where ninety-eight percent are free and reduced lunch, and eighty percent are a minority. That is seventy percent of kids leaving the first grade as failing readers reducing to two to six percent when we do it right. When I’m saying we do it right that means we bring to bear what we know from those four questions.

We have to get back to this type of thinking in the field somehow. And it is the same issue/same problem- for decades- and I blame mostly academia for much of the nonsense. This is something we know how to do. MDB