Beginning to Read and the Spin Doctors of Science: The Political Campaign to Change America's Mind about How Children Learn to Read

Bumpy at times, shrill at others, this book is nevertheless a compelling and convincing history of our very recent past. And anyone involved with or concerned about educational reform should read it, alert to the dictum that "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."Taylor documents in excruciating detail the grim story of how a dedicated group of ideologues "reformed" reading teaching in California and spread their insupportable beliefs throughout the country and (now) even into mathematics teaching. That they did so by lying may be no surprise - this is always the path of ideologues. But that they lied so baldly, that so many politicians rolled over so supinely, that so many anxious parents jumped to the raised fist of these demagogues is an eye opening story.When Taylor and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) published this book in 1998 it was seen by many as a finger-in-the-dike against an incredible wash of success of the pro-phonics movement in turning reading education in this country on its head. Many had watched in surprise as a small handful of mere drafts of narrowly conceived research studies were fronted as proof that wholly new approaches to reading education were demanded. But the surprise turned to horror as, sometimes in mere months, this sheaf of papers pulled from a pumpkin was turning California and other legislatures toward a frenzy of legislation implanting phonics-as-policy. Turning them, even to the extent of legislatures defining what would heretofore be allowed to be called "research" in support of a reading program. Twisting, even, when the circulated draft studies were shown to be built on narrow assumptions and flawed statistics. Spinning, still, when the final, published copies were similarly flawed but suspiciously lacking some of the lies that, in draft form, had convinced legislators to leap into the parade.While the other reading teachers association, the International Reading Association (IRA) was nervously twiddling its thumbs in committees discussing the need for balance and accommodation of all views, the NCTE, at least saw the paint splashed on the wall and commissioned this work. Within months of California and other states enacting sweeping legislation this book exposed the incredible suite of lies and manipulations underlying the successful campaign leading to that legislation.But it is a campaign that is to this day continuing. Mouth the words "Whole Language" in public in 2001 and you will notice the knee-jerk responses quickly engulf you in a fog of disdain. Yet the `Whole Language' approach to reading instruction - an approach that included but did not offer primacy to phonics - was at the heart of a research-based model for reading instruction that was embraced by large numbers of teachers, parents and administrators as recently as five years ago. Now they mostly shake their heads and talk about "what works", pointing to California (or Texas where the flawed studie

In Beginning to Read and the Spin Doctor's of Science, literacy researcher and author Denny Taylor examines the pro-phonics legislative campaign afoot in the US, which has the dual goals of controlling how children are taught to read in this country, as well as changing, shaping, and delimiting public and professional discourse on how children learn to read. The book explores the assumptions behind this campaign, as well as how language and policy-making are being used, and abused, by pro-phonics forces to shape perceptions of reality. The Spin Doctors of Science focuses on the players, but Taylor never lets readers forget that it is children who will suffer the consequences of this religiously, politically, and profit-motivated campaign to control how they are taught to read. Filled as it is with deconstructions of research, explanations of reading theory, and senate testimony so banal and filled with doublespeak as to have a sedative effect, The Spin Doctors of Science could have been a deadly dull book. But Taylor, in this narrative tour de force, keeps readers on the edges of their seats. The stakes are too high for her to let our attention wander. Taylor's writing "puts us there." We are in Texas, listening to Foorman, or in California, listening to Doug Carnine. And Taylor's ironic, and painfully hilarious, running commentary on these events makes readers feel as if she is sitting in the next chair, whispering like-minded asides as we writhe in silence while another "expert" stands up to disseminate lies, damn lies, and statistics. Taylor steps further into the fray by showing us the tools we must use, the literacies we must learn, if teachers and professors and parents are to learn how to stand in noticeable opposition to the spin doctors of science and their corporate-friendly sponsors. This is a brilliant book. It is too bad it had to be about a nightmare.