Search -
Why Johnny Still Can't Read: A New Look at the Scandal of Our Schools
Why Johnny Still Can't Read A New Look at the Scandal of Our Schools Author:Rudolf Franz Flesch Explores the question of literacy among American school children and reviews the scandal of poor student performance in our schools., arguing that the common look-and-say method of teaching reading (ie: Scott-Foresman's Elson-Gray Basic Readers) is ineffective and advocating the traditional phonic system (ie: William McGuffey's phonics-b... more »ased primers, which emphasized the sounding out of words by learning letter-sound associations). This is an educational and political battle going on between proponents of a phonics emphasis in reading and a whole language emphasis. There is speculation that publishing company profits for the Dick and Jane series helped drive the switch.« less