Language at the Speed of Sight Quotes

“Phonics never went away; it was outsourced. If the schools were not providing adequate basic skills instruction, concerned parents could try to fill the gap by other means.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“American attitudes toward teachers are frankly incoherent. We want outstanding people to enter the field but provide little incentive to do so. We expect teachers to be able to educate every child, including one for whom the obstacles to learning originate outside the school. They should be able to do this without adequate training, having figured it out on their own.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“K-12 teaching is a low-status profession in this country, and in academia, teaching (what is already known) is less highly valued than research (expanding what is known). Teaching teachers is then the lowest of the low, totem pole-wise.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“The persistence of the [whole language] ideas despite the mass of evidence against them is most striking at this point. In normal science, a theory whose assumptions and predictions have been repeatedly contradicted by data will be discarded. That is what happened to the Smith and Goodman theories within reading science, but in education they are theoretical zombies that cannot be stopped by conventional weapons such as empirical disconfirmation, leaving them free to roam the educational landscape.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“Teaching children to read has been superseded by an emphasis on developing literacy, which includes text, but also using sound, pictures, video, and other media. Reading as I've construed it is hardly a part of literacy in this sense, its role being comparable to spelling or typing. Yet the reading education part—helping children to become skilled readers, to be motivated to read, and to be able to comprehend and interpret texts for various purposes—is not easy.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“The evidence that the gap is to some extent "built in" is certainly consistent with some of these observations. However, advocating alternative forms of literacy seems like poor advice given that print remains an essential medium, and reading skill (the traditional kind) continues to be a prerequisite for engagement with major institutions that greatly affect quality of life. Are alternative literacies a means to empower a minority population or to ensure their disenfranchisement? A bleeding-edge theory that creates additional barriers to print literacy or encourages opting out does not look like progress to me, a higher-SES white person who has benefitted from the traditional concept of literacy. Perhaps these options would be judged differently by parents for whom it has been an obstacle. More likely, they would not have a say in the matter because they would be unaware that this educational theory was being tried out on their children.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“The US education system works well, just not for lower-SES students, it's said. Ravitch and friends would take credit for successes in the segment of the population where educational quality has less impact and relinquish responsibility for the children for whom educational quality matters most. Rather than focusing narrowly on the undeniably large role of poverty in poor achievement, we might also focus on the undeniably large role that education could play in improving outcomes.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“Reading Is Phondamental
phonological information is an essential element of skilled reading in every language and writing system; impairments in the use of this information are typical of poor readers and dyslexics. The claim is not that phonics is all there is to reading. Rather, it is that use of the phonological pathway is an essential component of skilled reading.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“For reading scientists the evidence that the phonological pathway is used in reading and especially important in beginning reading is about as close to conclusive as research on complex human behavior can get. The opposing view, that using phonology is an inefficient strategy used by poor readers, is deeply embedded in educational theory and practice.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“If I were asked to propose a standard for reading beyond the twelfth-grade level, it would be “Demonstrates ability to comprehend the Common Core standards for reading.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“Given that the written code didn’t inherit the limits of spoken language, did it expand our linguistic capacities? Absolutely. The medium allows writers to create texts that are far more complex than speakers can produce. It’s the difference between oral storytelling in preliterate cultures and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“I question the ethics of a teacher education curriculum predicated on learning on the job. It’s an important job. It’s an important time in the child’s development. The fact that a substantial proportion of fourth graders have already fallen behind, as indicated by the NAEP and other assessments, may be related to the fact that many of them will have had K–3 teachers who were learning on the job.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“The closest (Clive) James will come to an emoticon is a discussion of John le Carré’s Smiley.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“Degree programs in teaching came to focus on the social and cultural contexts of education and the role of the teacher in promoting social justice.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“Unlike mozzarella and engineering, reading aloud and comprehension are closely connected in English. Children who struggle when reading texts aloud do not become good readers if left to read silently; their dysfluency merely becomes inaudible. Reading aloud and silent comprehension are causally connected because they both make use of the phonology -> semantics pathway.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“However, our culture's emphasis on the importance of reading to children creates the impression that it plays the same role in learning to read as speaking to children plays in their learning to talk.
That's not correct. Whereas talking with children guarantees that they will learn to speak (in the absence of pathological interference), reading to children does not guarantee that they will learn to read. In short, reading to children is not the same as teaching children to read. I emphasize this point because the mantra about reading to children makes it seem that this is all that is required. A child who has difficulty learning to read therefore has not been read to enough. Among the first questions that will be asked of the parents of a childe who is struggling is whether they read to the child and if there are books in the home. Reading to children is important but not sufficient; children benefit from it, some quite a lot, but it neither obviates the role of instruction nor vaccinates against dyslexia. Children who are read to until the cow jumps over the moon can still have difficulty becoming readers.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“The path to orthographic expertise begins with practice practice practice but leads to more more more. Only a limited amount of spelling can be taught, and instruction typically ends by fourth grade. Orthographic expertise is not acquired through the years of deliberate practice required to become an expert at playing chess or the tuba. We don't study orthographic patterns in order to be able to read; we gain orthographic expertise by reading. In the course of gathering all that spelling data, a person can also enjoy some books.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight

“The serious way to improve reading-- how well we comprehend a text and yes, speed and efficiency-- is this (apologies, Michael Pollan):

Read. As much as possible. Mostly new stuff.”
― Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight