A Lesson from the Other Literacy

The realms of literacy and numeracy are the two academic conventions by which we communicate and describe our universe. The understanding of words and numbers (letters and digits) are the key foundations necessary to fully participate in that conversation. How the literacies comprising the 3Rs are best taught has been an on-going debate for many, many decades, often fraught with misguided philosophies and motives. And because it’s always easier (and far less threatening) to see the faults in someone else versus ourselves, this recent example from the domain of Language Arts is provided.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, a new wave of teaching Language Arts swept across the nation (and several other English-speaking countries). This new approach to teaching Language Arts was based on the belief that students best learned reading and writing as natural extensions of speaking and listening and should be allowed to develop organically and not be obstructed by traditional, “artificial and contrived” practices such as phonics, grammar and mechanics. The methodology of “Whole Language” (WL) was introduced, disseminated and energetically promoted. The promotion was so impactful that in many parts of the country, WL became mandated as the predominant and even exclusive method of teaching reading and writing. Whole Language was touted as being based on research that clearly showed this approach led to vastly superior student achievement and engagement across all aspects of Language Arts. Whole Language was deemed to be modern, progressive and student-centered.

Additionally, Language Arts teachers who did not fully embrace the tenets of the WL juggernaut were characterized as teachers who preferred to teach subjects rather than teach students, stuck in the past with no desire or ability to grasp the exciting new progressive methodologies...Language Dinosaurs! Further, teachers who continued to teach organized structured phonics and mechanics were seen as "drilling and killing" their students’ creativity, enthusiasm and engagement...one worksheet at a time. Indeed, the most zealous of the WL movement called for the complete rejection of phonics and mechanics instruction.

Fast forwarding forty years to the 2020s, almost all credible Language Arts research (including the National Reading Panel) has concluded that a balanced approach to the discipline is vastly superior to any single methodology and that alphabetics, phonics and phonemic awareness are central to the learning of reading and writing. Yet, for several decades these most important components were downplayed or withheld from millions of students across the English-speaking world, all because of an unbalanced, misguided but powerfully promoted methodology.

Like Language Arts education, mathematics education has also bounced off the walls of extreme and unbalanced methodologies across the decades…..math wars, anyone? Some math programs now de-emphasize and even discourage student mastery of the basic math facts – the mathematical equivalent of phonics. The National Research Council’s “Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics” (Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics | The National Academies Press (nap.edu) provides a very clear and concise description of proficiency in mathematics and the five essential components of proficiency –reasoning, applying, understanding, computing, engaging - that need to be implemented in a balanced, interwoven and evenly-distributed manner.

Complementary Mathematics was created to assist those math programs where the balance of these components is not emphasized or are under supported.

Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics | The National Academies Press (nap.edu)is downloadable for free. It is a 39-page insightful read with findings and recommendations for students, teachers, parents, administrators and policy makers.