READING, WRITING, GRAMMAR AND SPELLING: EMPOWERING KIDS TO BE ILLITERATE

The latest numbers from The National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as “the nation’s report card,” are grim.

“In both reading and math, most fourth- and eighth-graders in 2024 still performed below pre-pandemic 2019 levels.” (January 29, 2025 Heard on Morning Edition)

This three-minute video elaborates. Click on the YouTube arrow.

If you skipped the video, here’s a summary.

“Everyone’s achievement dropped. Boys and girls, White, Black and Hispanic students. Students in poverty and wealthy students,”

Our schools have been failing for decades; COVID exacerbated the problem, but did not cause it. Sometime in the sixties, educrats decided that education needed new and exciting methods. The old ways were boring; the time had come to make learning dynamic, fun and exciting.

The vitally important subjects of English, grammar, and spelling were replaced by......well, listen to this proposed standard from a Boulder, Colorado task force.

Students play an active, cognitive role in creating meaning from language by drawing upon their personal experience. Efficient and effective language users practice and master their skills in the context of authentic tasks rather than in isolated activities.

It sounds good: words like active, efficient, effective, master, and authentic, imply “new and dynamic.” But what does that really mean? Why are "isolated activities" like writing spelling words, learning grammar and punctuation, or memorizing times tables, not "authentic tasks.” Local pundit, Al Knight, called the Boulder standards, "a retreat from the educational mission, a subversion of the educational process and a collectivist attempt to make everyone equally stupid."

The national "Standards for the English Language" continued this march of folly when they referred to "word identification strategies," (Did they mean reading, or is this some kind of a new game like Pictionary?), and using "different writing process elements," (which used to be called, writing). But beyond the garbled jargon, what really goes on in English classes? The answer is (at least in some places) a decided lack of grammar, while "creativity" is all the rage.

In the quaint old days, teachers would take out a red pen, correct your spelling, and have you write the word six time; she would correct your grammar, question your logic, insist on paragraphs and correct usage and so on. After all, if mistakes are not pointed out, then how would you learn? The teacher's red pen has been placed in the Museum of Oppressive Instruments. Red marks on student’s work might interfere with the creative process, and even worse, shatter the child’s self-esteem. Xs are negative and might be crushing to their fragile egos.

BAD GRADING

Better yet, don’t worry about incorrect answers at all. It’s called "inventive spelling." Michelle Chabra, a second-grade teacher at Bryant Elementary School in San Francisco said, “When kids are limited to words they know how to spell, they write 'good' instead of 'wonderful.' They use simpler language, and their thoughts become more stilted." In other words, creativity is more important than accuracy. If kids are worried about misspelling, or they actually have to look up the word, the creative process might be interrupted.

Laura Thurman, a teacher at Conant elementary School in Bloomfield, Illinois said, "I point out the letters and sounds that are there, but never say a word is wrong. You are setting children up for failure you do that." On the contrary, not correcting mistakes sets them up for failure because they learn the mistakes. Children's egos are not that fragile; they understand that the teacher’s job is to correct mistakes. "Inventive spelling" had been the official policy in Arizona. The Arizona Department of Education, in its language arts curriculum guidelines, made this astonishing statement.

Instruction in grammar may actually harm a student's writing ability especially if grammar instruction decreases time for writing instruction. Also, knowledge of grammar can inhibit student writing, making students less likely to take risks with language.

The trouble with this attitude is that success in the real world requires grammar, spelling and punctuation. Yes, of course, there is always a need for creativity, but in most situations, correct grammar and accuracy will get you a job; incorrect grammar will label you as a moron.

GOOD GRADING

But Not Accepted!

It's not hard to guess the results of a system that finds correct English inhibiting. The following unedited letters were published in a Middleton California newspaper. They were written in response to a wave of school vandalism.

'We just got are new cumperters.

"Yor relly dameg are thing." '

l am verey mad at you."

"And it herts to see my teacher's cry. ther is know punishment that can fix wate hapend."

"Our teachers our upseat, and so are the students. I think you should rote

in..."

How old were the children who wrote these letters? Third grade? Fourth grade? No. They were eighth grade students.

A prospective employer doesn't give a flying flapdoodle for creative spelling. He wants employees to speak correctly. He wants them to write correctly. He wants them to add and subtract correctly. He wants accuracy. He is not impressed by turgid jargon.

ENGLISH AND GRAMMAR: TOOLS OF OPPRESSION

What is the rationale for these educational experiments?

One of the unspoken reasons for this policy is “equity education.” Since grammar and spelling require objective assessment (it's either right or wrong), we can level the playing field by eliminating them. If there is no correct answer, objectivity is replaced by subjectivity; suddenly, everyone is an A student.

Dominguez Hills, a California State University education teacher made the following strained connection:

"We cannot afford to become so bogged down in grammar and spelling that we forget the whole story...the onslaught of antihuman [sic] practices that this nation and other nations are facing today: racism and sexism, and the greed for money and human labor that disguises itself as 'globalization."'

In other words, our schools cannot afford to waste a single moment teaching basic English because we must concentrate on teaching children that America is a terrible place.

A generation ago, educators debated two methods of teaching reading: phonics and whole language. Phonics teaches kids to sound out words. Whole language, embraced by California, had students guessing at words from pictures or context. Eventually, we were told, they will recognize words as we do. This seems to be a pedagogical debate free of politics and ideology, but it’s not. It’s all about ideology.

Constance Weaver, author of a college textbook, Reading Process and Practice From Socio-Psycholinguistics to Whole Language, warns that teaching phonics is a "far right" conspiracy whose "hidden agenda" is "to promote religion." Phonics advocates, we are told, want children to get all the words "right" so they will be able to read all the words in the Bible instead of guessing at some. The purpose of phonics, she continues, is to prevent children 'from reading or thinking for themselves."

One wonders how such a conclusion is possible. We could just as easily have said they teach phonics so people can read The Communist Manifesto. There is no political or religious agenda for phonics; it simply teaches reading. It enables the individual to read whatever he wants: comic books, satanic literature, War and Peace or Harry Potter. How does learning to sound out words prevent children from reading or thinking on the one hand, while encouraging the reading of the bible on the other?

Weaver tells prospective teachers that the "far right" uses phonics to promote "docility and obedience on the part of the lower classes," in order to "maintain the socioeconomic status quo" and preserve "socioeconomic stratification.” Here again, one must use leaps of imagination to understand how learning to sound out words is a capitalist conspiracy to keep people poor. Teaching children how to read does not make them docile but has the opposite effect: it makes them informed and educated and better able to rise out of poverty. "The fact is" wrote the late Phyllis Schlafly, "that nothing, nothing at all, has done more to prevent the 'lower classes from rising above their 'socioeconomic stratification' than the failure to teach them how to read."

HOW DID WHOLE LANGUAGE WORK OUT IN CALIFORNIA?

From 1950 to 1990, California’s reading scores were amongst the highest in the nation. After three years of using whole language state-wide, California reading scores fell to dead last of the fifty states.

What motivates such political claptrap? Perhaps it makes her feel good to be fighting against "far right oppressors." At least part of the answer is the trendy egalitarian outlook that sees "class struggle" behind every tree. Apparently, the thousands of nice ladies teaching phonics in their first-grade classes from Maine to California, are really capitalist pigs trying to keep the lower classes in their place.

The English Leadership Quarterly, went even further, suggesting teachers should encourage students to purposely make mistakes in English as “the only way to end its oppression of linguistic minorities…" The implication is that bad grammar and incorrect spelling are signs of defiance against the ruling classes.

Central Michigan University warns that "Traditional grammar books were unapologetically designed to instill linguistic habits which were intended to separate those had made it from those who had not." James Sledd, professor emeritus of English at the University of Texas, wrote that standard English is "essentially an instrument of domination." The professor asked his class for an activity exemplifying the dominant class. An education student answered, 'Going to the doctor." Why? 'That's an ideology. It benefits the group of doctors at the expense of native healers and herbalists."

Stop and think about that. The real reason people wrote grammar books was to maintain social class stratification. Is it possible that grammar books were written to teach grammar? And who most needs grammar instruction? Minorities! The poor! Instead of accepting grammar instruction as a means to rise out of poverty, it becomes an instrument of oppression. We live in a world of doublespeak where black is white and white is black, and "equity' is the Holy Grail of social policy.

A professor at Eastern Michigan University believes that the children's book, "Tootle," is really about the dominant class exploiting workers. The professor asked his class for an activity exemplifying the dominant class. An education student answered, 'Going to the doctor." Why? 'That's an ideology. It benefits the group of doctors at the expense of native healers and herbalists."

Carrying this one step further we could argue that going to Target is exploitative because it benefits Target at the expense of Wal-Mart.

Does any of this make sense? Well, yes if you are proselytizing for Marxism. (This may sound like a tired refrain, but the words they use are right out of the Communist playbook.) It seems like they are stretching to find a demon to destroy. It’s all about oppressors and oppressed.

We can almost hear the ghost of Marx shouting, "Illiterates of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your brains!"

Year after year, decade after decade, educators can’t leave well-enough alone. They feel compelled to experiment, come up with the latest innovation, as they shine their haloes as champions of the downtrodden.

And year after year, the Nation’s Report card continues to be dismal.