Teacher preparation programs continue to ignore the sound science behind how people become readers. 
​By Emily Hanford
Ms. Hanford recently released a radio documentary on science-based teaching.

Our children aren’t being taught to read in ways that line up with what scientists have discovered about how people actually learn.
It’s a problem that has been hiding in plain sight for decades. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, more than six in 10 fourth graders aren’t proficient readers. It has been this way since testing began. A third of kids can’t read at a basic level.
How do we know that a big part of the problem is how children are being taught? Because reading researchers have done studies in classrooms and clinics, and they’ve shown over and over that virtually all kids can learn to read — if they’re taught with approaches that use what scientists have discovered about how the brain does the work of reading. But many teachers don’t know this science.
​What have scientists figured out? First of all, while learning to talk is a natural process that occurs when children are surrounded by spoken language, learning to read is not. To become readers, kids need to learn how the words they know how to say connect to print on the page. They need explicit, systematic phonics instruction. There are hundreds of studies that back this up.

But talk to teachers and many will tell you they learned something different about how children learn to read in their teacher preparation programs. Jennifer Rigney-Carroll, who completed a master’s degree in special education in 2016, told me she was taught that children “read naturally if they have access to books.” Jessica Root, an intervention specialist in Ohio, said she learned “you want to get” children “excited about what they’re reading, find books that they’re interested in, and just read, read, read.” Kathy Bast, an elementary school principal in Pennsylvania, learned the same thing. “It was just: Put literature in front of the kids, teach the story, and the children will learn how to read through exposure,” she said.
These ideas are rooted in beliefs about reading that were once commonly called “whole language” and that gained a lot of traction in the 1980s. Whole-language proponents dismissed the need for phonics. Reading is “the most natural activity in the world,” Frank Smith, one of the intellectual leaders of the whole-language movement, wrote. It “is only through reading that children learn to read. Trying to teach children to read by teaching them the sounds of letters is literally a meaningless activity.”

These ideas had been debunked by the early 2000s. It may seem as if kids are learning to read when they’re exposed to books, and some kids do pick up sound-letter correspondences quickly and easily. But the science shows clearly that to become a good reader, you must learn to decode words. Many whole-language proponents added some phonics to their approach and rebranded it “balanced literacy.”
But they did not give up their core belief that learning to read is a natural process that occurs when parents and teachers expose children to good books. So, while you’re likely to find some phonics lessons in a balanced-literacy classroom, you’re also likely to find a lot of other practices rooted in the idea that children learn to read by reading rather than by direct instruction in the relationship between sounds and letters. For example, teachers will give young children books that contain words with letter patterns the children haven’t yet been taught. You’ll see alphabetical “word walls” that rest on the idea that learning to read is a visual memory process rather than a process of understanding how letters represent sounds. You’ll hear teachers telling kids to guess at words they don’t know based on context and pictures rather than systematically teaching children how to decode. 
​Many teachers learn these approaches in their teacher preparation programs. Publishers perpetuate these ideas, and school districts buy in. But colleges of education — which should be at the forefront of pushing the best research — have largely ignored the scientific evidence on reading.

We have recently been informed about a research study being conducted at Brock University.  This study is being conducted by Sarah Kupferschmidt, MA, BCBA with Dr. Kendra Thomson, BCBA-D.  If you are interested in participating, please contact Sarah or Dr. Thomson directly.

Our very own principal was a featured contributor in Ontario ASCD's spring/summer 2016 newsletter.  Read all about how Connecting Math Concepts uses instructional scaffolding and visual supports to build mathematical skills.

If you have a child with a disability, you have probably thought a lot about their financial future.  Your child may need lifelong care, and eventually the time will come when you will be unable to care for them yourself.  You should have an up-to-date Will when you are planning your estate and there are some options that you can consider in order to best provide for your child.

As your child becomes as adult, they are eligible to apply for the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) which can provide your child with money for their basic needs, and depending on their living situation, a shelter allowance.  The program can also provide health benefits and disability-related support, including drug coverage, dental coverage, and vision care.  ODSP will provide your child with a monthly cheque that they can spend on their needs.  Unfortunately, this program may not provide enough of a financial contribution to adequately provide for your child’s care, depending on their individual situation.

When planning your estate, you may want to leave additional monetary funds for your child’s care.  However, you must carefully consider your options if your child does receive ODSP.  Part of the criteria for eligibility of ODSP is that a person must have insufficient means of income and assets to support themselves.  All assets are included when determining eligibility and these assets can include cash, RRSPs, trust funds, etc.  A viable option for keeping your child’s ODSP intact is establishing a Henson Trust.

A trust is an arrangement whereby assets are held, or entrusted, by one party for the benefit of another.  The holding party is you or someone you choose, or the trustee, while the benefitting party is your child, or the beneficiary.  A Henson Trust is an Absolute Discretionary Trust whereby the trustee is given absolute discretion as to when and how the funds it contains are used.  This means that the beneficiary cannot compel payments from the trustee.  The Henson Trust is named for Leonard Henson, who had a daughter with a developmental disability who had support through the Family Benefits Act, the precursor to ODSP.  Mr. Henson wished to provide extra monetary funds for his daughter’s care but did not want to impact her social assistance which she relied on.  If he were to have left his estate to her outright, she would be disqualified from receiving her disability benefits because those funds would be considered assets.  Instead, in his Will, he established an Absolute Discretionary Trust for her.

Because the trustee has total control over the trust, any funds placed in a Henson Trust are not considered property of the beneficiary.  This therefore leaves all ODSP benefits intact and allows for your child to receive extra money when necessary.  Please keep in mind that is it very important to set up a Henson Trust in compliance with all elements because any discrepancies could lead to ODSP benefits being temporarily stopped or revoked.

This blog should not be considered to be advice, but rather general information.  Please consult with your financial or legal advisor when estate planning to determine if this is the right option for you and your family.