by Rudolph Flesch
... Collier's magazine of November 30, 1946 published an article entitled "Why Can't They Read?" After stating that "A third of all school children are illiterate," the magazine went on: It's nothing new, it's been going on for years. It is common knowledge among educators that at least one third of our school children lag behind their age and grade in reading, all the way through school. Thousands emerge from high school totally unable to read and comprehend so much as the daily paper. As for reading for pleasure - only a lucky minority ever learn to do that.Now that the Deweyites (psychologists not concerned with cognitive learning) had confirmation that they could induce massive illiteracy in the classroom by using their methods, there was nothing to stop them from eradicating that hated independent intelligence that stood in the way of socialism. They would fight tooth and nail any attempts to go back to the old methods of teaching reading. And that's exactly what they did when Why Johnny Can't Read was published in 1955. The book was important because it identified the cause of the reading problem: the look-say method. Other writings in popular and education magazines had told about the reading problem, but none of them had identified and pin-pointed its cause. Rudolf Flesch had done it in no uncertain terms, and he named the professors by name. And that's why their reaction to Flesch was so vehement. He made them appear stupid, as if they really didn't know what they were doing. Flesch presented eleven research studies that proved phonics to be superior to look-say as a method of teaching reading. He seemed to say: "Look, you silly fools, phonics works better than look-say." What Flesch didn't know is that the professors already knew that. They knew it when they devised the look-say method. Dewey had in fact admitted that children taught by look-say would not read as well as those taught by phonics. Huey happily admitted that children taught by look-say would misread all over the lot, Hall had shamelessly extolled the virtues of illiteracy, and Gates had acknowledged that slow learners found look-say "overwhelmingly difficult." It is obvious that Gray and Gates knew exactly what their mentors' aims were since they were the very disciples chosen and groomed to carry them out. It is naive to assume that the disciples were not as devoted to these aims as were their masters, for the key to their advancement within the hierarchy was the degree of devotion they brought to their mentors' cause. - Excerpt from Samuel Blumenthal's, NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education. A PROPHET OF READING REFORM "As Rudolf Flesch writes in WHY JOHNNY CAN'T READ, 'Ever since 1500 B.C. - wherever an alphabetic system of writing was used - people have learned to read by simply memorizing the sound of each letter in their alphabet. Except in 20th-century America. We have thrown 3500 years of civilization out the window... "'What I suggested,' Flesch said recently [about his writing of this book], 'was very simple: go back to the ABCs. Teach children the 44 sounds of English and how they are spelled. Then they can sound out each word from left to right and read it off the page: What he advocated has come to be known as phonics-first instruction. "Although the reading establishment has ignored Flesch's system [preferring the look-and-say, or 'guesswork,' method], the U.S. government has not. In its recent report 'Becoming a Nation of Readers,' it ... recommends that 'teachers of beginning reading should present well-designed phonics instruction' ... "Flesch points out that with phonics instruction, a child learns to read by mid-term of first grade. 'There should be no such thing as levels of reading,' he says. 'Once a child knows how to read, he reads. He doesn't have to spend hours circling consonants on worksheets.'" - Edward Ziegler, from the Foreword
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