McNee & Coleman 'Great Reading Disaster': was look/say introduced to damage children's reading?

[Rerevisionist]

2007 detailed book which says (my summaries):---
[1] Before 1945, almost everyone learned to read, by the age of 7.
[2] They learned by being taught letters, and then words where the sounds blended (e.g. CAT, DOG, ... HOSPITAL). Oddities (foreign words, adopted words, proper names, remnants of other languages - opaque, pyjama, Edinburgh, children...) were left till later
[3] After about 1945 the look-say method 'was introduced'; they have a list of 'guru' names and books, but don't know about the promotional methods
[4] Look-say in their view used just the SHAPE of words, i.e. the outline, to try to teach reading - ignoring differences in lower-case, capitals etc
[5] There's another version in which the whole word was shown, but it was deliberately withheld that the letters had some meaning, and even that words are read left-to-right
[6] As a result there was a vast increase in illiteracy. Large numbers of pupils spent years learning nothing of reading (and the parents seemed to not comment, or be bewildered). And a vast increase (or invention) of dyslexia, since of course the kids had no idea about reading.
[7] This continued at least up to the time of their book, 2007.

Their book is interesting and convincing, but (for example) omits some names of Education Secretaries, omits actual evidence of what happened in classrooms, is somewhat anecdotal about McNee's success with dyslexics, and also makes some claims which seem hardly credible, such as teaching words purely by shape.

I wonder if anyone has informed comment, preferably being familiar with the book? I'm exploring the idea that the whole process was deliberate, part of the 'Labour'/ Frankfurt School etc 'critique' attack on Europe/USA. (Alice Coleman was resonsible for the attack against tower blocks - 'Utopia on Trial')

maverick, you say 'that would be my opinion of the book'. You don't seem to have read it. You say McNee is keen on corporal punishment and Prof. Coleman believes in graphology. McNee likes orderly classes; Coleman thinks there's a correlation between handwriting and character, as in fact there obviously is. Can you please do me a favour and not waste any time here? Thanks.

mrz, there's a tricky issue, which is that it seems quite difficult to find out what in fact happened in schools. For example, many schools were forced to adopt 'look say', but it seems likely that many pretended to, but didn't.

MaizieD - W E Forster 1870 Education Act ? compulsory edn from 1880 INTENDED TO HELP ONLY 5% WITHOUT SCHOOLING, MAINLY IN RURAL AREAS - my note from McN & AC. It seems to have got out of control, and large schools were built, wrecking the small paid ones. But this is NOT VERY RELEVANT to the issue here

DilysPrice - it is quite simply not possible to learn by the 'whole word method'. There are too many words, too many shapes, etc. Try it with Arabic or Russian or Georgian if you don't believe me. The whole thing is manifest nonsense.
littlebrownmouse - I'm interested in the big picture. Maybe your parents hated London. or loved the cinema, or hated coffee, or loved magazines. So what?

rabbitstew, they evidence they produce is a bit of a mixed bag; and there must be evidence somewhere (e.g. maybe job application letters, or exam scripts) which would provide evidence. There are estimates of millions of illiterate or more or less illiterate adults, so much so that even educators have noticed. But you're not entitled just to say bllocks unless you were alive both before 1939 and up to the present day, and have evidence spanning the whole of Britain.

OK, then, message from my father and grandmother: "What a load of bllcks."

I ignore the "evidence spanning the whole of Britain" bit because I am quite convinced that there is just as much "evidence" out there that could go towards disproving the hypothesis as there is evidence proving it, given that the evidence of those setting it out is such a "mixed bag." I'm also not sure why it is helpful to have been born before 1939 when it comes to assessing the evidence... Unless you were the person responsible for carrying out and collating the research before 1939 and also the latest research, which would make you an exceptionally old researcher, now, and a child genius earlier.

It is, of course, an awful lot harder these days to find a job (or to claim benefits) that doesn't require some level of literacy. It is also far harder to avoid having your personal data farmed for research into levels of health, wealth and education than it was in the past. It was extremely easy for an illiterate person to find a job in the days when this country was highly industrialised, so illiteracy could far more easily have gone by unnoticed and unrecorded pre-1939 than it does now.

rabbitstew, the question is whether reading was possible for almost everyone by the age of 7. That's the essence. Everything you've said is carping and adds nothing. Can't you understand that? Why should your dad and grandma be regarded as vital sources of evidence?

MaizieD - W E Forster 1870 Education Act ? compulsory edn from 1880 INTENDED TO HELP ONLY 5% WITHOUT SCHOOLING, MAINLY IN RURAL AREAS - my note from McN & AC. It seems to have got out of control, and large schools were built, wrecking the small paid ones. But this is NOT VERY RELEVANT to the issue here

I just hate to see misinformation being perpetrated However much you quote from Mona's book on this point it is just wrong.

I am actually quite puzzled as to what you do want from this thread. And amused by your hard line with the perceived deviants...

.............DilysPrice - it is quite simply not possible to learn by the 'whole word method'. There are too many words, too many shapes, etc.......

Wrong! I started school in 1967 and was taught the whole word method. I didn't know any phonic sounds until I was about 10 or 11 and even then, only some of them.

I struggled with reading until age 7 and then just flew. I read incredibly fast and recently, an early years teacher did a test on us Mums to see how many words we regonised, purely by shape - she blacked out the letters and so we had the whole word in a silouhette block. I could read the whole sentance, without seeing any of the letters. I didn't even think about it!

Rerevisionist - you were the one who told me I had to have been born before 1939 to be allowed an alternative point of view.... I merely illustrated why that was a silly argument on your part. As for the question as to whether reading "was" possible for almost everyone at the age of 7, I still think the "vital sources of evidence" you seek are seriously missing from the book you keep quoting. You practically admit so yourself by describing the evidence a "bit of a mixed bag" - it certainly sounds like a case of scraping the barrel of to me. Their case is clearly NOT proven or they would have produced more solid evidence for it...

(ps when I referred to this country's highly industrialised past in an earlier post, I was referring to the days of heavy industry, mining, farming and manufacturing, pre- the computer and service industry age, when jobs requiring no ability to read or write were still easily come by, of which there were still plenty pre-1945).

Has the OP escaped from a conspiracy theorist site?

OP, have you tried posting at David Icke's site. They might be more receptive to your theories.

"Literacy levels have remained almost static for the past 70 years so everyone certainly didn't learn to read pre 1945."

Pre 1945 many children were in ridicolously large classes. It is not surprising that some children failed to learn to read. The health of children is better and fewer children live in extreme povety than pre 1945. Before the welfare state some children would have been living in squalid slums with no heating and a terrible diet.

It must be substantially easier to teach a class of 30 with a TA and a highly trained teacher. Schools also have computers and better resources than pre 1945. The fact that reading levels have remained static inspite of a dramatic improvement in resources surely shows that phonics is the most effective way to teach children.

Of course, moving on from being unable to prove that levels of illiteracy have increased vastly since 1945, we could go on to argue that these unproven increases are the result of a Marxist conspiracy.

Before the Welfare State, many children would have gone completely under the radar when it came to keeping track of their health, wealth and education...

reallytired, there are several issues: it's obvious the look-say idea cannot possibly work, and must have been supplemented by alphabet related teaching. Realted to this is the question whether kids before say 1939 could read ins ome sense, almost all by the age of 7; and if, after 1945, there was a huge decline. Then there's the issue of why an obviously phoney system was foisted on people - or at least some of them. You don't seem have have grasped any of that.

Rerevisionist. It's a question of evidence. Are you stupid? You just don't appear to have any. I don't actually need any, because I'm not trying to prove a very stupid theory. I'm not even trying to disprove it, just to point out you can't hang a theory on no evidence, one way OR the other.

Although, trying to clarify the theory, is your viewpoint that there was a Marxist conspiracy to overthrow the West by convincing its educationalists to attempt to teach children to read by using a look-and-say method of reading and disallow any other method to be used? And are you attempting to show that this worked by proving that hardly anyone in this country can now read and write?

I know one shouldn't rise to conspiracy theorists because they are live in a parallel dimension and it is quite pointless trying to have anything approximating a normal conversation with them, but I have reported Rerevisionist because I think that the comments made earlier are really quite nastily anti-semetic and whilst it's always handy to know who not to talk to I'm not sure that they should stand. without challenge.

But we've all told you - 99% of kids could not read before 1939.

If you couldn't read though you didn't graduate from school, so the stats for kids graduating could be 99% literate.

So you'd need to know not only how many kids left school able to read - and how many kids there were in the UK in total.

An awful lot of jobs required no literacy skills at all.

My relative left school at 12 unable to read, and went to work om a farm.

You're right Nooka.

Rerevisionist you seem to be saying that the information in this book is completely true and accurate but refusing to accept the numerous other sources that contradict it are incorrect.

There is plenty of evidence if you are willing to open your mind and accept that the gospel according to MM&AC is flawed.

Have you studied education? Have you studied sociology? The book is seriously inaccurate and anyone who has done any serious research would laugh at it.

I was taught by ITA at a small prep (private) school. I moved to the local state primary aged 8 and boy did I have a lot of catching up to do! I now have an English degree (from an ancient) so it didn't hold me back long term, but I do come from a book reading house, which I think helps any child. Motivated children will probably teach themselves to read whatever the method.

My mum was a primary school teacher for over 30 years so saw many trends come and go. In her view, the best teachers payed lip service to the current trend to please the inspectorate, but taught children how they needed to learn, which was often a mix of approaches. The ITA thing didn't worry her as apparantly she had confidence in my innate intelligence (plus, I think parents were far more 'hands off' in the 60s & 70s).

My view is that silly fads in the teaching of reading are the result of silly people over-inflating their evidence and twisting facts to fit their pre-conceived theories and then pushing everyone else along in their blast of hot air. That's why I don't like books which exaggerate and overplay their hand, as per McNee and Coleman - they are being just as bad as the gurus of the past whom they criticize.

@CecilyP - You seem unable to understand and reply to specoific issues! That's very tiresome.

Sorry, I thought I had taken specific issues and replied to them as far as I was able. Sorry that you should find it tiresome when I have tried my best.

Of course specifying or measuring literacy is difficult. However there are many pointers, such as exam results, the papers themselves if they are available,

What exams are you thinking about? Until fairly recently, the majority of pupils did not take public exams. Public exams are taken at 16, so only the most able took them when the schools leaving age was 14 or 15. The only public exam that most will have taken is the 11+ but I doubt if children's scripts have ever been released for public perusal.

comments made on difficulties in form-filling, what books and papers people actually bought, the number of remedial institutions, examination of things written by people, examples of incomprehension, and so on. The claim being made by McN & AC is that there was a dramatic fall in literacy, and they provide various examples of evidence, though they have no really sound overview (in my opinion).

Problems with form filling may be as much to do with the forms themselves as the people completing them. Have you tried the passport form recently? We can all give examples of people with low literacy but unless we make a comprehensive study, we can't really make any convincing claims.

You don't seem able to understand that education in itself is social engineering, and there must be possibilities for such things as deliberate dumbing-down and deliberate multiplication of makework jobs. The fact that there are dim adults who must count as being able to read is true, but not the point.

Do I need to understand that education is social engineering? It seems totally unlikely that the government in the immediate post-war period needed to produce makework jobs. Also, it is only since the 1980s that the government has taken to micro-managing what goes on in schools with the introduction of the national curriculum etc.

You also seem hopelessly self-contradictory in your attitude to McNee and her dyslexic pupils or patients. If they have been in classes for ten years without learning to read, how can you seriously claim that a few sessions for a short tiem will turn them into fluent readers?

I don't think I am being contradictory, just doing the maths. I haven't read the book that you are referring to, so do not know the age of the children being taught, but being in classes for '10 years' would not have taught children who had fallen behind to read, if those classes involved no focused reading tuition. On the other hand, a weekly or twice weekly one to one, perhaps for a year, would enable considerable progress.

Rerevisionist, are you newly arrived from outer space? No, seriously, what is your background? You seem to have absolutely no prior knowledge, yet you seem to be able to read and write - how did you learn? You have read a book that you are a little sceptical about and yet when other posters also convey scepticism and, in some cases provide concrete evidence, you rubbish their posts.

So in answer to your question [2] The question is - could 99% of people read by the age of 7 by 1939 ish?, why don't you go away and do some research and come back and tell us. Why post on a site for mums? Why not post your question on a site for historians or educationalists or even eductional historians. When you have gathered all your evidence, with relevant sources, dates and statistics, and hopefully some resources used by schools prior to 1939, you are welcome to come back and present them to us.

maizieD - [1] Have you read and studied Forster's 1870 Education Act, and checked if all its provisions were in fact carried out? I would imagine not.

Have you?

Anyway, my original post had nothing to do with whether or not provisions of any Education Act were implemented. It was merely to point out that prior to the 1880s (1891 to be exact) all education was paid for by children's parents.

[2] The question is - could 99% of people read by the age of 7 by 1939 ish?

The answer is that it is highly unlikely.

Definitions of what constitutes 'reading' are numerous and vague, and the collection of comprehensive and definitive statistics was so unlikely at that period, that it is impossible to make a definitive judgement.