A reading rebellion.

Excerpt from an Indianapolis Star editorial, March 6, 1998

CALIFORNIA'S READING SCORES had to sink to rock bottom before lawmakers realized something was amiss. The state's fourth graders, once in the top 12 nationally, tied for last in reading proficiency in 1994 with 60% scoring below grade level.

Within a year of receiving that dismal news, the governor, school superintendent, and legislature swung into action. Whole language, adopted in 1987 as the state's official method of reading instruction, was replaced by a mandatory phonics approach. This time, the state didn't throw the baby out with the bath. The good parts of whole language, such as a belief that kids should be exposed to lots of great literature, remained on the books. Independent reading is stressed in the California law right alongside phonics instruction.

Indiana shouldn't wait to sink to the bottom to adopt a similar initiative.

Reading advocates and teachers across the state are calling for a law that would bring phonics back into the classroom as part of a balanced approach that also encourages children to pick up books and read. At a minimum, every school building should have on hand a specialist with multi-sensory phonics training.

Predictably, the halls of academia are up in arms at the prospect. Experts in the education schools at Indiana, Indiana State, and Ball State universities all oppose a phonics mandate, which they fear will turn classrooms into dreadful places of repetition and drills.

"Even if phonics instruction is effective in helping kids sound out words and do better on ISTEP, if another consequence is that it makes kids hate literature, we've done them a significant disservice for the rest of their life," warns Landon E. Beyer, associate dean for teacher education at Indiana University.

That attitude is incredibly defensive and counterproductive in light of the reams of research that back phonics. To continue to polarize the issue is to ignore not only common sense but the latest medical imaging technology, which proves the brain can't read without the ability to sound out words.

But the higher education schools that train our teachers will not tell students about the value of phonics unless they're nudged. A mandate from the state would go a long way toward ensuring all children get the reading instruction they need -- to pass ISTEP and to succeed in life.