Is Professor AVKO right?

Is Professor AVKO Right?

A Challenge to Educational Researchers at Every Level

by Don McCabe

Foreword

When this paper was first written, twenty-five copies of it were sent to some of the leading educators in the United States. With it was a simple request for a response. To respond required only checking one of four boxes, writing a few appropriate comments, then putting it inside a stamped self-address envelope that we provided. A month later we had not received a single response from any of these top people in the field of reading.

A second set was sent out to the same people, this time with a checklist that they could simply mark and return in another stamped self-addressed envelope. Among the choices was: "Somehow it got lost. Please send me another copy." One educator did that. Another was sent to him that same day his reply came. Not another answer came from him or anyone else. That was in 1991.

We invite everybody to try the experiment that is in this challenge. We invite you to see for yourself IF Professor AVKO is right. If you agree, just maybe, you might help us spread the word that the current rate of illiteracy in the United States does not have to continue. If we follow AVKO's simple concepts we can drastically reduce the rate of illiteracy.

And by the way, the greatest of all discoveries have been simple. Fire. The wheel. The alphabet. The printing press. Asepsis (Doctors, wash your hands!). The last simple medical discovery has saved more lives than any other medical discovery. But when Dr. Semmelweiss, who made the simple discovery, tried to convince his colleagues in the medical profession that the death rate from puerperal (childbirth) fever did not have to be 13.10%, his ideas and his statistics were not accepted. To do so, the medical profession would have had to admit that they were needlessly killing women because they were too lazy to wash their hands. It was much easier to lock Semmelweiss up in an insane asylum than to shut him up. And so they did.

I suspect that Professor AVKO's ideas are much like those of Semmelweiss. They are so simple, so filled with common sense, that educators do not want to accept them because to do so, they would have to admit that they have allowed millions of people to remain illiterates, because they didn't bother to teach them what they need to know in order to learn to read: the real phonics of the English language which does not necessarily require "phoney phonic rules.".

This last sentence must have so infuriated a college instructor that she fired off a rebuttal. This highly negative response was written by J.R., the resident expert on reading instruction at Mott Community College. It got into her hands because Dr. Fred Duprai, who was a pediatric dentist at the Mott Community Health Center, was so impressed with it, he gave it to a friend of his at the college who gave it to J.R.

Dr. Duprai was amazed at the highly negative response. So I not only have included her response but my responses to hers. Now for the essay, then the responses.

Is Professor AVKO Right?

For years, Professor AVKO has maintained that the cause of our nation's literacy problem is largely iatrogenic. That is, teacher induced. AVKO claims the underlying cause of illiteracy or dyslexia is a failure of our educational system to teach. His explanation is that it is too easy for educators to shift the blame to parents, economic factors, racial factors, socioeconomic factors, cultural factors, underpaid and/or undereducated teachers, lack of discipline, or whatever (Anderson, Herbert, Scott, et.al, 1985). Psychologists have long maintained that projection is common to all of us, educators included. We teachers are not immune to passing the buck. These college instructors blame the elementary teachers for not practicing what is taught to them in their college education classes (Kerr, D.H., 1983). They will not accept the responsibility for neglecting the teaching of one crucial area of educational curriculum. That is, phonics is not being taught in any American university at the present time! Mentioned in textbooks, yes. Taught, no. It is this area that this challenge is all about.

AVKO once offered $1,000.00 to any college instructor whose students can pass the phonics test that all AVKO tutors are required to pass in order to receive AVKO tutor certification. The offer still stands.

Professor AVKO maintains that no matter how much money is thrown at education (witness the 60 Minutes segment on the Kansas City, Missouri school system), no matter how many computers are purchased for schools or for students, no matter how highly paid our teachers become, no matter how small our classrooms become, we will not greatly reduce the number of functional illiterates in our society. He accepts that definition of functional illiteracy as identified as Level 2 in the most comprehensive literacy survey conducted to date, Adult Literacy in America. This book is the result of the National Adult Literacy Survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics under authorization of the U.S. Department of Education (Kirsch, Jungeblut, Jenkins, Kolstad, 1993).

Headstart is a start, but only a start. No matter what reading system is used, no matter how small the classes, no matter how well paid and well educated the teachers, no matter how many computers are in the classroom, no matter how slick and glossy the books being used in those first three grades, a large segment will start slipping further and further behind as they progress through the grades. No matter if we finally throw out the drug dealers, take back our neighborhoods and our neighborhood schools, and restore old-fashioned discipline, the results will essentially be the same. Unacceptable.

Why doesn’t the system work? Because there is a serious flaw in the underlying assumption held by those who have decision making ability regarding curriculum, whether in the colleges of education or in the public school systems.

The faulty assumption is:

In grades 1-3 students learn to read.

From grade 4 up students read to learn.

What really happens is that in grades 1-3 students are just beginning to learn how to read. They are only being exposed to words that, for the most part, follow what we call simple spelling patterns (McCabe, 1992). These words may contain many letters. For example, the word misunderstandings contains 17 letters and five syllables. Yet, it has a base of only one syllable, stand. All of the word parts can be found in other words used in the curriculum of grades 1-3. Mis- is a common prefix. Under is both a common word and a common prefix. And -ing is a common suffix as well as the -s.

You can take that word misunderstandings and match it with any word in column B on page 38 and you will find that nearly everyone who can read at all will be able to read that word misunderstandings, but may not be able to read a much shorter word such as precious in column B. Whole word advocates have a difficult time explaining that phenomenon. Their typical explanation for a "big" word like elephant being easier is that it is a concrete noun and has a high frequency of occurrence. However, the word misunderstandings does not ever occur in books, charts, magazines, or even on bulletin boards or chalkboards in grades 1-3. The word precious, by all concepts normally associated with readability, should be easier to learn to read and to spell than the word misunderstandings. But it isn’t, obviously.

Tentative conclusions:

Students in grades 1-3 learn little story telling words such as: See Spot, Dick, and Jane come running and hopping down the bunny trail to our house. But they have not learned to read well enough to read to learn. Students from the fourth grade up are expected to correctly apply what they have learned from reading little story telling words to reading "big" subject matter related words that have patterns within them that do not regularly occur in the reading materials used in the first three grades. In the next sentence a sampling of these subject matter related words are italicized.

For democracy to function in a multi-cultural society, it’s absolutely crucial that concepts such as justice and social consciousness are taught.

Not only are these words long but these words contain abstract concepts that need to be taught. And, each one of them contain at least one phonic element not taught and rarely encountered in early children’s story telling literature. Teachers in grades four on up should be taught to recognize specific reading problems and to teach the reading, spelling, and the meaning/s of those words that contain these special phonic patterns.

But don’t blame the teachers. Even if they wanted to take courses in phonics, there is not a single course in phonics and/or the patterns of English spelling taught in any major university within their schools of education! Surfing and wine-tasting, maybe. Phonics, no!

Teachers in grades four through college must not be allowed to continue to blame teachers in the first three grades for not doing a good enough job teaching the youngsters to read.

Learning-to-read is an ongoing dynamic process.

It’s not static. Although a fourth grade teacher would never expect a fourth grade student to be able to handle a college text, they do expect a fourth grade student to handle a fourth grade text with only third grade reading ability!

On the following page is a test that anyone can use to validate Professor AVKO’s arguments. Most researchers design a test, administer it, and report the results and make their conclusions based on correlations that show statistical significance as opposed to practical significance. The fault many critics find with educational studies is that replication is difficult and often inconclusive when attempted (Rowntree, 1981). Professor AVKO has the unmitigated audacity to challenge the educational system to come up with results that don’t almost perfectly match his.

The Survey Test was given to over 1,000 adults (mostly teachers). 53.85% had perfect scores. 32.69% missed only 1. 9.61% missed two. Only 3.84% missed more than two! Both the mode and the median was 100% correct. Only the mean was less.

Mark the easier word to read, spell, teach, learn, (your choice) with a check mark.

1a. ___ painter	6a. ___mistakes
1b. ___ partial	6b. ___missions

2a. ___ precious	7a. ___unions
2b. ___ pretends	7b. ___unsafe

3a. ___chronic	8a. ___petite
3b. ___chimney	8b. ___petted

4a. ___annoyed	9a. ___completed
4b. ___antique	9b. ___confusion

5a. ___mechanized	10a. ___spotted
5b. ___meaningful	10b. ___special

Skeptics are encouraged to substitute words for those chosen by Professor AVKO. All he asks is that in any computer generated list of words chosen at random:

l The same initial consonant blends or digraphs are used.

l That the total number of letters in the easier words is exactly the same as the total number of letters in the harder words.

l That in each pair of words one contains only patterns commonly encountered in grades 1-3 (the easier).

l and the other contains at least one pattern rarely encountered in those crucial first three grades. For example, in the pair meaningful and mechanized, meaningful has 100% simple commonly encountered parts, i.e., /m/ ea /n/ ing /ful/. However the word mechanized has two patterns rarely encountered. First the ch in mechanized is not pronounced /ch/ as in chop, chicken, and church. Rather, it is pronounced /k/ as in chaos, echo, anarchy, and Christian. The letters an in mechanized are not pronounced to rhyme with Dan and fan even though they are in the words mechanic and mechanical! The words containing patterns such as these usually occur in the curriculum after the third grade.

Do you know where you can find a complete listing of all these power patterns found in "big" words not taught in the first three grades? Answer: they can be found in The Patterns of English Spelling (McCabe, 1992). You should be able to find a copy of it in your local library, but you won’t. In fact, 99.9% of all colleges and university libraries do not have a copy of this book. The U.S. Department of Education does NOT have a copy of this book! No State Department of Education has a copy of this book! At present only a few teachers, usually teachers of dyslexics and the learning disabled possess a copy of this book. The Center for the Study of Reading does not have a copy of this book. Nor does the Institute for Research on Teaching! But the Orton Dyslexia Society, The Disabled Reader Group of the International Reading Association, The Reading Reform Foundation, The Center for Family Literacy, and the Texas Reading Institute do!

Analysis of the Survey Test

Column A Simple Words Base of One Syllable (Easier)				Column B Power Words Base of More than One Syllable
	Number of letters	Number of syllables	Level of Frequency		Number of letters	Number of syllables	Level of frequency
painter	7	2	49.1	partial	7	2	49.7
pretends	8	2	39.1	precious	8	2	53.2
chimney	7	2	50.0	chronic	7	2	47.0
annoyed	7	2	48.6	antique	7	2	45.8
meaningful	10	3	49.9	mechanized	10	3	41.7
unsafe	6	2	46.0	unions	6	2	52.8
mistakes	8	2	52.7	missions	8	2	47.0
petted	6	2	41.4	petite	6	2	35.2
completed	9	3	55.4	confusion	9	3	53.1
spotted	7	2	51.9	special	7	2	65.0

Averages:	7.5	2.2	48.4		7.5	2.2	49.1

Note the words opposite each other have the same beginning letters, e.g., pa- in painter and pa- in partial. Notice that they have exactly the same number of letters and the same number of syllables. The only significant difference between the words in column A and column B is that the words in column B contain patterns that are not taught in the first three grades or that are not generally learned through exposure no matter what system of teaching reading is employed. That is why the words in column B are more difficult—not because they are less frequently encountered!

George Bernard Shaw was wrong.

He claimed, tongue in cheek, that the word fish could be spelled ghoti

gh = /f/ as in enough. o = /i/ in women. ti=/sh/ as in nation.

But in English there is not one single word in which the letters gh are used to start a word having the /f/ sound. Nor is there a single word ending with the /sh/ sound spelled ti. However, the sound "fish" is always spelled "fici" in words whose base has more than one syllable.

We say "uh fish ul" but we spell official.

We say "ben uh fish ul" but we spell beneficial.

We say "ee fish unt" but we spell efficient.

We say "suh fish unt" but we spell sufficient

In "A fisherman is fishing" the base is

fish which has only one syllable.

Yet, the patterns that make the words in column B above more difficult are highly regular. For example, the pattern ci- is almost always pronounced /sh/ as in racial, special, social, spacious, suspicious, etc. Somehow good readers learn to respond to them. Dyslexics have a miserable time with them.

Good readers who are horrible spellers will often substitute sh for the ci pattern and spell the words rashul, speshul, soshul and spashus.

If Professor AVKO’s theories are wrong, then it follows logically that people who can read will, half the time, pick a column B word as the easier word. Certainly, total non-readers (such as those whose native written language is not a Roman alphabetic language)will average 50% when quizzed. But readers, whether dyslexic or not, will invariably pick the word in Column B as the more difficult word. And they don’t know why. All they know is that somehow the word precious is a tougher word than pretends even though precious occurs more frequently in print than the word pretends.

Prediction: The obvious is true: Words whose phonic components are either systematically taught in the first three grades or whose phonic components are in words commonly presented for learning in the first three grades will be chosen as the easier word. Words whose phonic components are not taught and rarely, if ever, occur in words commonly presented for learning in the first three grades will inevitably be chosen as the more difficult.

Significance: If the vast majority of students are to become good readers and not just the "elite" who can read the word elite, educators should find a way to ensure that all students are given the opportunity to learn the words that contain the phonic components that are neither taught systematically nor occur in words presented for learning in the first three grades.

Note: The consensus among the reading experts selected by the NIE for its report, Becoming a Nation of Readers, was that the teaching of simple phonics should be completed by the end of grade 2 (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, et.al., 1985)! From there on in, instruction in phonics is not indicated! Professor AVKO disagrees. He does agree that idealistically the teaching of "simple" phonics should be completed by the end of grade two. Professor AVKO wouldn’t mind if the completion of the teaching of "simple" phonics were to be completed by the end of grade three. However, AVKO contends that mastery of "simple" phonics is not enough for the majority of learners. The phonics of words whose base has more than one syllable should be taught systematically starting at least as early as grade four.

Tests: On this page are two simple pencil and paper test that can be administered to as many individuals at the same time as a researcher desires. Please notice that the second test is a control version of the first test. If a researcher wants to verify that the number of letters and specific letters has nothing to do with the difficulty, but rather the patterns, the control version totally eliminates the patterns while retaining the identical letters. The letters are the same. However, the consonants in each word are put first and deliberately placed in such a fashion that pronunciation cannot take place. The vowels are placed at the end of the word. Again, if there are multiple vowels, care was taken to order them in such a way as to make any reasonable pronunciation difficult. Previously we supplied cards to enable different methods of giving the test individually. Now, they are available only upon request.

The Survey Test given to over 1,000 adults (Mostly teachers). Nearly everybody had a perfect score! The lowest score recorded was by a featured speaker at a reading conference! The median and the mode was 100% correct. Only the mean was lower.

The Control Survey Test given to over 1,000 adults (Mostly teachers). Nobody had a perfect score! On this test the mean, median and the mode was where it is supposed be—around 50

Mark the easier word to read, spell, teach, learn, (your choice) with a check mark.

Mark the easier word to read, spell, teach, learn, (your choice) with a check mark.

1a. ___ pntraie	6a. ___mstksiae
1b. ___ prtlaia	6b. ___mssnsiio

2a. ___ prcsueio	7a. ___nnsuio
2b. ___ prtndsee	7b. ___nsfuae

3a. ___chrncoi	8a. ___ptteie
3b. ___chmnyie	8b. ___pttdee

4a. ___nnydaoe	9a. ___cmpltdoee
4b. ___ntqaiue	9b. ___cnfsnouio

5a. ___mchnzdeaie	10a. ___spttdoe
5b. ___mnngfleaiu	10b. ___spcleia

JR's Rebuttal	A Rebuttal to Jr's Rebuttal
I’ve read your *pamphlet* and I’ve also used one of Mr. McCabe’s books, so I’m rather well *acquainted* with his *opinions* and *methods*.	ï As will become obvious, JR is neither *well* *acquainted* with my *opinions* nor my *methods. JR does not have even one of the over 40 books listed in AVKO’s current catalog. J.R. has only one* book of mine. I gave it to J.R. over 15 years ago. It is out of print now.
As with most *multi-part arguments, I agree* with some of the *statements* Mr. McCabe makes and I disagree with others. Let me be *specific. His first premise* is that *phonics* *instruction* is not taught in *American* *universities* to *education* *majors. I personally* know that this is not true, for I taught reading *methods* at both Oakland *University* and the *University* of *Michigan-Flint for many years. Although the class title was something like "Reading in the Elementary* schools," it *included* *phonics* *instruction. The title* doesn’t *include* "*comprehension" either, but obviously* that is *implied. As an aside, there was one professor* at one of the above *universities, who taught nothing but phonics. Students* were bored and the *university* was pleased when she *retired. After all, it does not take sixteen weeks of three hour classes to teach adults* *phonics. They basically* know most of it.	ï Notice that JR never quotes one single statement that I made in the pamphlet with which she agrees. The vast majority of J.R.’s responses have nothing to do with "Professor AVKO’s challenge." Nearly all of J.R.’s statements concerning phonics indicate clearly to me that J.R.’s personal knowledge of the phonics of the English language is terribly deficient. And that is not meant to be a personal criticism or personal attack upon J.R.’s intelligence. J.R. probably knows as much and probably more about phonics than 90% of all college education instructors. And therein lies the problem!
Most universities teach the three methods of instruction: phonics, sight, and the whole language approach. Phonics is used for words that can be sounded out, such as cat or coat. Sight words include those which do not follow phonetic principles such as "said" or "one." Researchers differ on how much of our language is phonetically*** standard from 50% through 75%.
Nevertheless, there are numerous words which are not phonetically regular and must therefore be memorized, or recognized by sight. The third method, the whole language approach, is very popular today. The proponents of that theory use trade books (regular books that anyone can buy at any bookstore) and teach the children to use the story and phonics to figure out new words---in other words, the strategy most adults use when noting an unknown word in a sentence. They read the whole sentence, deleting the unknown word, and then guess what that word must be, and mean, by noting the letters (phonics) and inferred meaning in the sentence. An example: "The angel played a lovely tune on the lyre." "Lyre* does not follow standard phonetic rules. However, almost any child, even dyslexics, know the sounds of "l" and "r." Therefore, they know those two sounds will likely be in the word, plus they also know from context that the lyre is probably some sort of musical instrument. Now, any good teacher goes through any lesson to find words that are new and not phonetically standard and teaches** those words to the students, of whatever age, before they read the lesson.	ï The word lyre* does follow standard rules of power phonics. In words from the Greek, the letter y is used for both the long i and the short i as in psychologist and physician. I have taken the liberty of putting into bold italics J.R.’s words which have a foreign derivation. These are the words JR feels are phonically irregular. They aren’t. These are the words JR says good teachers teach before lessons. They don’t. Most teachers would assume that their students can read all the words in J.R.’s memo except possibly: imbedded, atypical, auditory, perception, Orton-Gillingham, correlates, fetal, and panacea.
Therefore, to sum up, there are necessarily at least three common methods to teach reading. Phonics is a method of de-coding unknown words. Memorizing, or teaching students to recognize a word by sight, is necessary for words which are not phonetically regular. The whole language method is used to figure out unknown words, meanings, and pronunciations, using phonics when those words are imbedded in a sentence and the reader is seeking the message, the information, or the story.	ï There is a vast difference between phonics and phonetics. JR knows the difference. However, JR does not know the phonics of the power words in our language. But JR is not alone. My personal estimate is that at the present time a minimum of 95% of college instructors cannot demonstrate mastery of the power phonics of the English language by scoring a minimum of 90% on a test that AVKO tutors who lack teacher certification will score 100% on.
It is my opinion that Mr. McCabe believes that phonics is not taught, or that it is not taught exclusively, and it is not taught long enough. Let me be clear that I cannot speak for every school or every teacher. As you know, when a teacher is in a classroom, few outside that classroom know what transpires there, but generally, I believe, as Mr. McCabe, that most children receive fairly extensive phonics training in the first two grades. Most children have learned as much phonics as they will ever need after two years.	**ï That the phonics of little story telling words is either taught directly or acquired by most students indirectly is not disputed. It is the phonics of the power words of our language that isn’t taught in the first three grades but is assumed to be known by teachers from the fourth grade up through college. I would love to see an average third grade student read JR’s memo. Guess what words that student would miss!
However, some children have not yet learned those sounds, and those are generally the children who have great difficulty with letter-sound relationships. Most dyslexics have deficiencies* in letter-sound relationships for their entire lives.	ï True. Most dyslexics have deficiencies in letter-sound relationships.* However, I have yet to meet a dyslexic who could not be taught to read and spell proficiently.
They are very poor adult spellers. I know; I taught a spelling class at Mott College for many years. It was in that class that I used Mr. McCabe’s book. I found it very helpful, but even then many of those adults who freely elected the class, paid nearly $150.00 to take the class, and collected only non-transferable credits---failed to "hear"** those phonics sounds as most of the rest of us hear them.	ï Re: failing to "hear" I can attest that the guru of phonics instruction, Dr. Patrick Groff, admits that he cannot distinguish the difference between the names, Dawn and Don. I personally am dyslexic and cannot distinguish many individual sounds. I can also demonstrate that 99% of all college reading teachers can fail a simple hearing test of a very specific consonant blend when placed in the context of a nonce word.. Perfect hearing is not necessary for understanding and recognition of phonic patterns**.
They struggled hard with those sounds, just as they have all of their lives, beginning in kindergarten. I can attest that there are individuals who cannot differentiate one vowel sound from another, and that is where most poor readers and writers fail. In addition, those same people are inflexible about phonetic rules. They have great difficulty accepting the "sh" sound of "t" in nation. In my class, they railed against changes in the phonics system. They wanted the system to be standard and constant even when I told them that the problem*** with English is that it has incorporated numerous foreign words (bouquet, intrigue) and newly coined expressions (faxed, snafu). Many of those additions do not follow phonics rules. Even Mr. McCabe’s book notes several atypical words which have only one or two like-examples. I not only taught early reading methods classes, but I also taught content area reading courses for college students who intended to teach middle school and high school content courses.	*ï "The problem with English" is not in the English language but rather in the failure to teach all the phonics of our language which includes hundreds of thousands of words whose derivation is not Anglo-Saxon but they surely are English and no longer foreign. Please note that the "sh" sound in nation is not represented by just the letter t, but by the "ti" digraph*. The letters ti are pronounced "sh" and the letters "on" are pronounced "un" in the ending -tion* which is always pronounced "shun."
There was great emphasis in that university course to teach unknown vocabulary to students before reading their textbooks, and therefore, one needs to examine Mr. McCabe’s thesis* that illiteracy would be eliminated if only we taught phonics.	ï Sorry, JR. That is NOT my thesis*. I am not Johnny one-note.
Phonics is taught** in the early grades. Most children who do not learn it then are identified as poor readers and are generally referred to remedial reading classes where more phonics is taught. Those with auditory perception problems will still find phonics impossible and it is those students who are generally labeled dyslexic and get even more intense, structure phonics of the Orton-Gillingham variety.	ï The methods and materials generally used to teach phonics generally fail because these methods and materials are either boring or basically incorrect! Just because a phonics workbook is used in a class doesn’t mean that phonics is being learned! Those with auditory perception problems can learn to discriminate sounds if properly** taught.
My point is that most of those students eventually learn to read,*** but they do not read well, usually hate to read, and therefore do as little reading as possible.	*ï Most of those students do NOT eventually become readers capable of reading J.R.’s memo**. However, if they are taught the power phonics of English and the esssential academic vocabulary, even dyslexics can read J.R.’s memo.
I realize that it seems that reading has recently become a larger problem than it was previously. I’m not sure that perception is accurate. In the past, students who did poorly in school left. Now, however, we have great campaigns to keep them in school. In the past, reading wasn’t crucial.* One could be an auto mechanic without reading script, but only diagrams. That is no longer true. Mechanics must pass a written exam and deal with computers which do not recognize misspellings. In the past, one could work in the factory. Now the local factories require literacy, math and mechanical timed tests in addition to team problem solving, individual interviews and physical examinations. In other words, our present society requires far more literacy skills than ever before so that the people who have low literacy skills seem more numerous. At the same time the nation has increasing poverty, which correlates highly with illiteracy. There are more substance abusers which is manifested in babies with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Their main characteristic is low intelligence. The state and federal governments are cutting funds for Head Start and remedial reading classes which foster language and phonics development. Our state is pushing charter schools which may hire uncertified teachers and where the curriculum can be whatever the owners want.	*This is the "party line" of Roger Farr and the International Reading Association of which I also am a member. I also agree to the accuracy of the statements but disagree with using this as a defense against not trying harder to solve the illiteracy problem.
I think literacy will not prosper more in the near future. And so, I agree with Mr. McCabe that phonics instruction is crucial, but I do not believe it is the whole answer, the panacea.*	ï At no time have I ever written or said that phonics instruction is "the whole answer, the panacea." It is, however the sine qua non* of literacy. Just as listening comprehension cannot take place over the telephone if the connection is bad, reading comprehension cannot take place if decoding skills are not automatic, well above the 90% commonly given as the instructional level for students.
As a firm believer and practitioner of phonics instruction for 37 years, I believe the problem is far more complex. J.R.	ï JR, like nearly every college instructor I have ever met, is a victim of the Semmelweiss syndrome. All the expert medical opinion in 1843 denounced Semmelweiss as being simplistic and that the medical problems behind puerperal fever were far more complex than just washing your hands. Uh, huh. Sure. But today’s medical opinion vindicates Dr. Semmelweiss and credits him with saving more lives with his simple concept of cleanliness (asepsis) than any other medical discovery. Let’s take care of the horse before we start building bigger and better carts via whole language. DM aka Professor AVKO

How To Scientifically Construct Your Own Test

of Professor AVKO’s theories

The logical first step is to list the different patterns of English spelling and then check them against those patterns that are in your curriculum. Sounds easy enough. Except, where are you going to find either list? It only took me a little over 20 years to make my list of patterns and to categorize them and cross index them so that I can look up any word in the index and find the page or pages that contain all the words that share the same pattern. This reference tool I named The Patterns of English Spelling. It contains almost 1,000 pages. It is in a 3 inch 3 ring binder to make it easy for teachers to remove individual pages for copying purposes. It is available from the AVKO Foundation.

A school’s spelling or reading curriculum might contain lists of initial consonants, consonant blends, digraphs, short vowels, and long vowels as if these lists contained all the patterns. They don’t. For example, let’s take the word, word. The vowel o is neither a short nor long o. Rather, it sounds the same as the -ur sound in fur. The onset w is consistent, but the "rime" is not ord as in ford, cord, lord, etc. But there is a pattern, the wor- pattern which is the only way we spell the sound "wur" except in the word were. A few examples are: work, worth, world, and worm. The sound "or" is spelled "ar" when preceded by the w or qu (/kw/)! The words war, ward, warp, wart and quart do not rhyme with car, card, carp, and cart!

Sorry, but you will have to use The Patterns of English Spelling to locate the patterns that need to be taught in order to check your school’s spelling or reading curriculum. What can I say? I’m prejudiced. I’m the author.

References

Anderson, Richard C., Hiebert, Scott, Wilkinson et. al. (1985) Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading (p. 118). Washington, D.C.: Dept. of Education.

Greene, Harry A. and Bradley M. Loomer, The New Iowa Spelling Scale. University of Iowa, 1977.

Kirsch, Jungeblut, Jenkins, Kolstad (1993) Adult Literacy in America (p. XV). Washington D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Education.

Kerr, D. H. (1983) "Teaching competence and teacher education in the United States" in L. S. Shulman & G. Sykes (Eds.) Handbook of teaching and policy (pp. 126-149). New York: Longman.

McCabe, D. J. (1992) The Patterns of English Spelling. Birch Run, Mich.: AVKO Foundation.

McCabe, D. J. (1993) The Mechanics of English Spelling. Birch Run, Mich.: AVKO Foundation.

McCabe, D. J. (1990) English Spelling: The "Simple," the "Fancy," the "Insane," the "Tricky," and the "Scrunched Up." Birch Run, Mich.: AVKO Foundation.

McCabe, D. J. (1997) The Reading Teacher’s List of Over 5,500 Basic Spelling Words Arranged by Order of Difficulty. Birch Run, Mich.: AVKO Foundation.

Rowntree, Derek (1981) Statistics without tears. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Zeno, Susan, et. al. The Educators Word Frequency Guide. Brewster, N.Y.: Touchstone Applied Science Associates, 1995.

If you have comments about this website or questions concerning spelling, invented spelling, whole language, phonics, learning disabilities, homeschooling, etc., you may always e-mail DonMcCabe@aol.com. We appreciate any comments that will help us make this website even more useful.

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