Toss into the pot of education the obvious need to teach schoolchildren the skill of reading, add the mystique of computers and the financial resources of one of the nation’s largest corporations, and what do you get? IBM’s new “Writing to Read” program, which is now being peddled to school districts all over the country.
IBM estimates that 300,000 schoolchildren have already used this new reading method. It is being aggressively promoted with the sales and marketing skills of one of America’s most successful corporate giants.
The IBM reading method is dazzling. It has computers, color monitors, printers, typewriters, video and audio cassettes, and games. It involves a lot of movement and action, but what is its method?
Anyone who has followed the controversies about teaching methodology in the early elementary grades knows that all research demonstrates the superiority of the phonics method. Anyone who has followed the controversies surrounding parents’ rights in public schools knows that parents are demanding phonics.
Phonics is a system of drilling the child in the sounds and syllables of the English language, beginning with the standard vowel sounds, and then teaching the child to put them together like building blocks so he can read words of many syllables. As soon as the child learns the building blocks, he can sound out new words and read his entire oral vocabulary which, for the average first grader, is about 25,000 words.
The IBM program cannot claim it is a phonics program because it isn’t. Instead, IBM says it is a language experience program based on learning “phonemes through computer-child interaction.” The trouble with the IBM program is that the phonemes are not taught by the phonics method. They are taught by the discredited word-guessing method, otherwise known as the look-say or whole-word method.
The result is that the child simply memorizes a few phonemes by relating them to the pictures on the computer monitor, but never learns the phonetic sounds so that he can read new words. Meanwhile, the child is dazzled by the glitz of colorful and expensive equipment, so he has a good time playing with all the fancy buttons and keys.
When a child has been taught by the phonics method, he can spell. Children who are subjected to a word-guessing technique have no idea how to spell. They are so handicapped that they can’t even look up a word in the dictionary.
The lack of spelling ability among those who finished school in the last two decades is obvious to any college professor or any employer. Most businesses suffer lost productivity from this drastic decline in basic skills, but some businesses, such as IBM, are able to make big bucks selling their word processors with automatic spellers.
IBM’s “Writing to Read” program will produce more schoolchildren totally dependent on automatic spelling software. Just look at this example actually used on the promotional video designed to sell the IBM reading program to schools: “My mommy is gragwating [graduating]. I can jump my roap at my house. My hare is blond. My mommy is out of school but she hast to go back to school to do afu thangs.”
Here is another spelling example from a child using the IBM program in Florida: “Thek yuo for leling me cum to the capdul [capitol]. We had a vere nis tLime.” Does it bother the IBM salesmen that the program teaches children to misspell words? Not at all. The children are encouraged to spell words according to how the student “feels” they should be spelled.
We are told that the child can unlearn the error and learn correct spelling later. More than likely, the child will never learn how to spell, but will be dependent on IBM’s automatic speller.
The IBM program may not teach children to read, but it surely is expensive. It costs $10,000 to $15,000 to set up a program at one school. The necessaries include a Computer Station consisting of an IBM PC equipped with a Speech Attachment to “talk” to the child, the Work Journal Station at which children can listen to a taped lesson, the Listening Library Station where children can listen to recordings of children’s literature, the Writing/Typing Station where children type on IBM PCs or typewriters, and the Make Words Station where children write letters with crayons and chalk.
The IBM program is designed for kindergartners and first graders, who are five and six year olds. They will do much better with the crayons and chalk that cost only a few cents than with the computers and typewriters that cost thousands of dollars.
The failure of the public schools to teach elementary school children to read is an enormous default of responsibility and a cheat on the children (as well as the taxpayers). No amount of expensive equipment can substitute for giving the child the master key to reading the English language: phonics.
