Back in those days, teachers stressed the basics. As a frequent speaker before school boards, parent groups, and educators, I have learned that certain questions and comments are inevitable. Most often they are raised by a parent whose child is having difficulty with reading. Sometimes they come from school board members troubled by media reports of low test scores. Occasionally they are even asked by an educator, who admits to a degree of uneasiness about difficult and challenging changes in instructional practice.
Many questions focus on beginning reading.
Most often, that means phonics. The queries are right on target in recognizing that reading instruction has changed. Ironically, however, many of the changes we see today were also prompted by concern about low achievement. Educators sought instructional alternatives to the kind of teaching that encouraged the accumulation of isolated skills and left many children devoid of long-term competence and with little ability to apply those skills during actual reading and writing. Faced with large numbers of such children, teachers began to realize that skills are worthless as isolated knowledge but powerful as strategies used purposefully and masterfully.