S02E08 (19). Richard Allington, Ph.D.
Richard "Dick" Allington, a nationally known scholar in reading instruction and winner of numerous awards in the field of literacy, served as a professor of reading education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville from 2005 to 2017. He is past-president of the International Literacy (Reading) Association. Prior to his appointment at UT, he held faculty positions at the University of Albany (where he chaired the Reading Education program) and at the University of Florida where he held the Rose Fein Distinguished Professorship.
Transcript
Dr. Richard Ellington, emeritus Professor at the University of Tennessee is a former classroom teacher and celebrated scholar in literacy research theory and practice. Dr. Ellington is a former president of the International Reading Association and the Literacy Research Association. In addition, Dr.
Association's Hall of Fame in:Welcome to the show. Thank you for being a guest today. How are you?
Well, you are one of my heroes. I wanted to ask you some questions about your transformational work. Before we get started, could you share a little bit about why did you go into the field of education and teaching? Like what, what, what was the spark?
[:I, I went to college thinking I was going to become a vocational agricultural teacher, and, um, somewhere along the line, I, I ended up in elementary ed. I found out I liked working with young kids and so that's where I stayed. Um.
I went to work in these [:I wasn't smart enough at that point in time to realize that I was stepping on toes and, and so I issued a write a to write a report on the, the reading issue because they were on the state exam there doing very poorly. And I simply, as far as I.
[:So we don't make 'em read the. To graduate school in Michigan State and went back to graduate school and ended up a professor.
[:[00:03:33] Richard Allington (2): wild. My job well, although I think teaching graders was a lot more fun, right. Teaching. Graduate students? Well, they're doctoral students. They're hard to teach.
[:I love teaching elementary students. So you were at Michigan State, is that where you met Jerry? Is that where that relationship started? That's
[:I.
Formerly was on sabbatical as President ira. They said, go Duffy. So I said, okay. So I went in and I passed the test when he took me to lunch, along with a couple of doctoral students, he offered graduate assistantship to be a research assistant on doing a dissertation. Letter refers whether they meant anything.
Mm-hmm. And whether there was a way to eliminate them.
[:How about some other highlights in your career? What did you enjoy most and why?
[:and why? On computer programs that mm-hmm. Are, uh, useless in terms of developing kids' reading ability. Mm-hmm. I say that advice of the people at the Office of Education, uh, but they'll spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a and they still have dorm plus libraries, but they still have small [00:06:00] school library.
They aren't using the classic book club or any of the other book clubs they could be using, and it didn't cost them anything. All they have to do is fill out the form, tell how many kids they need catalogs for and they'll get 'em. Yeah. In high poverty schools, the number of kids who order books is slightly above zero.
Wow. The cost of a book is about as the six pack cost c.
Families that don't have enough money for dinner or for beer are unlike you spend what little money they have to buy books. And in fact, the Dolly Parton initiative was a widespread in Tennessee. Mm-hmm. It's giving the kids new newborn starting route when they were born. One new book every month. Yeah.
ou wanted to see a bunch of. [:Nice.
[:[00:07:16] Margaret Vaughn: Right. Right.
[:And lo and behold, that one boy at told he didn't want a book to read. He still, he did, but he said, you know, I, I started out, I told my sister she could them, she wanted, she only three wanted. So I was looking at the books that were left and, and I [00:08:00] started reading and it was, it was a missing book. It was one of those spotlight books that poor
mm-hmm.
[:[00:08:29] Margaret Vaughn: Yeah.
[:[00:08:31] Margaret Vaughn: That makes me think of your work where I think about this every time I do, I'm teaching a reading kind of clinic class this semester and I. The, the piece, the hidden Push for phonics legislation where you talked about poor readers. The teachers almost always interrupted and made comments, including things like should be a long, a short bowel sound.
they just, you know, waited. [:Every pretty, you know, every week or so when I'm working with students and teaching them how to become better reading teacher,
[:I said, well, they can't read it. You pick the wrong damn book. Yeah, so go find book. They can read. I said the interruption interrupts the development of, of any kind of sensible response until after a while. But kids don't care if the word makes any sense. A word out. And I kept the teacher from interrupt.[00:10:00]
You let kids read and don't bother if they miss the word and read it wrong and, and keep on reading. When you get to the end of the page, you could either could say that once again, don't tell them the word wrong. Just see if they can read it and that's, does that makes sense? Read aloud the way they read it.
Typically the sentence didn't make sense suddenly.
So then the teacher goes, that was my point. It doesn't sound right. So we'll come back to that on Friday, but start with the next page. All trying to move kids towards spontaneous self-correction and using everything they have, whether it's a picture that Dick and Jane book or his surrounding context to figure out what the word might be.
[:[00:11:22] Richard Allington (2): I learned things in the first grade, fourth grade teacher study. The best example is from, uh, a male fourth grade classroom in a, in a inner city school, and he had a bunch of kids reading below grade level, and I remember the one boy who was wearing gang colors because it was becoming, it was, had been retained at least twice, as I said, majority of the classroom.
them alone, except he walked [:I don't know a better way to do that because once you get the kids in a group, everybody doesn't have the same problem. That morning I was sitting there and a joke wasn't reading. He was just doodling one of the little, little toys, you know, like a car that you pull backwards on the desk and let it go.
nd you know, and about after [:You know that? And he said, I can't find anything good to read here. GI had a marvelous classroom library with a thousand books or more. Not all of them were displayed. Some of them were in a storage, storage unit, and when the year was half over, he brought them in and took some these your books out. You had the supply of high interest books that kids would love grab onto and go crazy with those books.
uld gom onto, and he went up [:Oh boy. Trying to learn to shoot squirrels or something, you know? Mm-hmm. Whatever. But may be of interest to him. He gave him the book and the next thing you know, I went up the next day what I was observing, and he came in and went read to reading. I goes, your reading today and yesterday, you didn't start reading.
mean, the books were all like:Mm-hmm. With about five minutes left, he'd say, okay, if you book, see if you can find one.
I found about 20 boxes of new books. Mm-hmm. In the storage, in the library. And once I found them and saw what they were, I, he about those books aren't on the shelf. Well, they've got stamped and logged in and so on. I'm paid to teach kids and by the day gets done, I and I go home. I'm not gonna waste my time doing all that.
Two years cleaned up the room years ago.
[:[00:15:54] Richard Allington (2): Than just the kids and, and the kids. The kids that had teachers, [00:16:00] which the same classroom except the same library. Except that in most cases, except the teachers be with them and they played, all the librarian should be playing. But one of the things I've learned in the ex teacher study was.
Of teachers who can't teach, in other words, who can't teach. There are a few who even if you wanted to teach them how to teach and you made it the stuff free, and you may brought in pizzas every, every week. So for dinner for them, you still can't get them to come for professional development.
this little school that had [:He probably couldn't read either, so I'm sure the effort teaching you. Yes, it went on like this. That's horrible. Yeah. I said, I see a problem here. The problem is you, yeah. I told this to a group of 20 teachers in the building.
[:[00:17:41] Richard Allington (2): It was one of those things where I could very easily. Had the same sort of reception that I had before, but I'd done silly things and in fact, my wife and I talked about it on the way home.
nd turned the way you did it [:But they are undermined by these four. Yeah. Who always say, are you getting extra money? If not, why are you doing it? Are you staying after school to work with Jimmy? I had Jimmy, uh, two years ago. The kids dumber than, than, than the fast best, you know, and it was all parents problem and poor kids who were stupid.
I have already. I said, uh, [:Make up a, a survey and, uh, I'll ask how many thought Dr. Ellington, Ms. Toley provided a, a great view of a Ballas program, and how many of you thought the, you know, he was giving you answers of, uh, questions that you've always had and, and said, Neil, you can do do it. 5, 8, 3 by five cards if you want one. Huh?
they are. Because all sheets [:I go in this building. Unfortunately all four are long timers. Yeah. One of them was to pretend wife. I said, how about if next time we tell 'em they can't come to the professional development? She said, can't do that. I said, I can. Two of the four didn't show up. They went home. Sat in the back initially just talking, you know.
But after a couple of things in terms of teaching kids who are struggling, primary grade kids, they stopped, started listening when. It's actually working. Yeah. That was one example of the school in my.
h, high quality instruction. [:[00:21:19] Margaret Vaughn: it's another case.
Did they know the insight, the important, um, knowledge you were sharing with them? What is your current viewer advice to the field?
[:That you, this study where one group of kids did, but the other group didn't. [00:22:00] That the group that did them actually ended up with para reading achievement. I'd like to see it. Mm-hmm. So I looked all for 50 years for a study that shows positive effect on reading achievement and hadn't been able to find that.
I'm sure someone could, could, could you? Type activities like work, work, but activities for kids almost nobody does. Mm-hmm. In terms of the core reading programs, it doesn't matter which one, by and large, all of them have foibles and, and, uh, almost none of them have a decent plan for, for teaching comprehension for her teaching kids to, to use reading as a.
ce. Mm-hmm. The neighborhood [:There were teachers who were being forced to teach with the DIBELS program who had figured out how to make DIBELS an interesting and useful reading program. And they do that in part by, by simply skipping big hunks and by having supplemental other material that kids could read. So they solved problem on.
base over ears are the best [:If teachers board, most of the teachers manual, stop producing them. I'm not sure teachers would make work decisions about activities beyond reading that then do the basal publishers. And you have to understand the basal workbooks are relatively recent invention. Mm-hmm. And you know, I mean, back in the early 19 hundreds, the whole goal of reading was just reading loud.
Well. And so comprehension really did come into it, just articulation and, and you didn't be the book for that workbook, but once William SK got a hold of it and started focusing, God had every kid learned, all, every skill he could think of. We got workbooks, we got 'em because Helen Robinson.
[:It's Dick and Jane book that you could use. Has a big book. It's a good idea. It's just that Dick and Jane, well, useless characters. Mm-hmm.
n my career has been like the:Kids go to poor, their group reading group, there's a classroom meets while they're gone and they don't have it at classroom reading instruction. And so title one is becoming an add-on ordering. It keeps give you, give them an extra shot, an extra lesson every day. Um, they come program that takes away time for another lesson.
Mm-hmm. Unfortunately, the materials people created, I was say watching that. What third grader? Uh, on a computerized program. Old workbooks where had in the blank with, with the missing word. And there was always like, how many spaces? Whether it was four letters, three or two. I see kids trying to probably read the sentence.
Yeah. They just [:I, I don't have to teach these kids. I'll learn to read. Mm-hmm. She said, I Don taught me. I learned to read
en every night, tell stories [:However, when the library card, he goes to the library and gets books and just reading them and she takes the kids along and while she's there finding a book, they're there in the public library finding a book. And uh, and the kid starts to see adults. People who they care about reading, think I wanna learn to read like that better to get books that you can read.
Right. But that system provide that. Mm-hmm. But that nearly powerful getting books that you can read. Right.
More important if you.
first of all put a hundred, [:[00:29:13] Richard Allington: Also probably put.
[:[00:29:26] Margaret Vaughn: yeah. Well, that's really good thinking and advice on what we need to be thinking about as we try to think ahead in terms of our reading and what we're doing in classrooms today. You know, I, it's, you are just such a hero in this work, and your work transcends many classrooms in higher ed across the country.
the field. Thank you again. [:[00:30:00] Richard Allington (2): Thank you.
