SHOULD A LARGE AMOUNT OF MONEY BE SPENT ON AN UNINFORMATIVE TEST AS THE PHONICS SCREENING CHECK?

Australia is considering Phonics Screening Check, used in England.  Academics, there are highly critical of this non-essential national test instigated by politicians and professionals on the periphery of the school/classroom (e.g. speech therapists).

I will begin by explaining the Phonics Screening Check.

-          In England towards the end of year 1, children are checked on the ‘sounding out’ or blending of 40 phonemic words.  20 are pseudo (nonsense) words, for example, ’f-e-p’ and they are placed first on the check, followed by 20 known English words, for example,

c-a-t, f-l-i-p. Note: pseudo words are a part of the Sutherland Phonological Awareness Test used by ‘periphery’ professionals.

-          This check is given to all year 1 children towards the end of the school year, regardless of the time spent at school, and regardless of whether they are considered age-appropriate competent readers.

-          Children’s pass mark must be 32. If they ‘fail’ they repeat the test the following year.

That piece of ‘checking’ cannot happen unless the teaching of Synthetic Phonics teaching happens (see: lizsimonliteracyconsultant.blogspot.com October, 2017).

In England, publishers have eagerly publishing books and video games that cater for this type of contrived, limited word learning.

As the Phonics Screening Check is being seriously considered as a national test in Australia, let us firstly analyse it.

Margaret Clark et al, point out the pass/fail decision will result in parents being told their 5-6 years old are failures. So young to have this ‘badge of honour’ hanging around their necks. My philosophy of teaching is that children begin with what they know and teachers continue to build on that knowledge (and skill development).

Margaret Clark et al are concerned about the lack of any diagnostic features as the check is a numerical recording only. Furthermore, there is no suggestion of alternative interventions other than the continuance of Synthetic Phonics.

If governments want a check on children’s progress after a full year at school, I would suggest that a teacher who is concerned by the lack of reading progress of a child/children in his/her class administer this diagnostic assessment that Marie Clay, devised (1993), ‘An Observation Survey of early literacy achievement. Teachers learn to assess individual progress and that information guides their teaching. The 5 aspects of the assessment cover all the early functions of a child learning to read independently, for example:

-          Concepts about print, e.g. ‘knowing where to start reading, line by line direction, etc’.

-          Letter identification, where children recognize all letters both the lower-case and 
           uppercase.

-          The word test, assesses a variety of word patterns, phoneme-grapheme match e.g. ‘and’ 
            and sight words e.g. ‘was’.

-          A Hearing and Recording sounds in words (a dictation task).

-          Writing words assessment.

-          Running Records, which are taken as a child reads, ‘smoothly’ if they are understanding 
           and ‘word on word’ which may indicate a problem. Further, children are asked 
           questions to check their comprehension.

The Observation Survey is an informative assessment, with no confusing elements such as the inclusion of pseudo words. Teachers are trained to analyse each part of the assessment and are trained to use appropriate intervention strategies. This would have more ‘bite’ than the simplistic Phonics Screening Check training.

During my appointment, recently, as a Literacy Consultant in an Adelaide school, the principal asked me to diagnose 5 children he was concerned about (the information of this concern came from knowing teachers). I applied the Observation Survey. This is what was found from one of the children’s assessments:

LETTER IDENTIFICATION Confusions                           G  Y   HW    F                                               Y  Q   M      G Unknown capital   I   Confusions                        n    e    p     b      e                                            h    l     q      d     i Letters unknown     v Useful STRATEGIES USED: X knows many letters. He can move from alphabet names to sounds. Problem STRATEGIES USED: The lower-case  letters to work on immediately are h, l, q, i and the  confusion between d and b. RECOMMENDATIONS: X has not learnt all letters in Jolly Phonics programme. Try another way.  Alphabet books (must be similar to PM’s), finger writing on desk, back of chair, teacher/assistant’s  back. Independent Activities – alphabetic jigsaws etc. Although there are 5 capital letter confusions (Y, Q, M, I, G) only attend to  ‘I’ as he will need to know that letter if he wants to write the pronoun ‘I’ when beginning a sentence. Place a ‘b’ on his desk for him to trace his finger around any time during the day, saying ‘b’ quietly.

CONCEPTS ABOUT PRINT – Directionality Ö     Bottom of upturned picture Ö    Knew ?         Match Hh (not Mm) Did not find line, word, letter alterations. Does not know punctuation     , “  “ Knowledge, what is a word/letter not secure. Does not know capital letter. RECOMMENDATION: X concepts of print are not secure, this learning will be improved through Shared Reading, explicitly highlighting these concepts one at a time and repeated for a week. Also, working with an assistant who also highlights these concepts.

WORD TEST – few words known – me, not, too Not able to get to most words without using sound-out method m-o-t-h-e-r, a-m, a-w-a-g, c-i-l-b-r-e-n, w-i-d-h confusions         lick    with                            help    here unknown – meet Useful STRATEGIES USED: has a small collection of 2-3 letter words. Build on these by making  analogies. Problem STRATEGIES: not listening/looking for first sound, first letter Lack of knowledge of words will interfere with comprehension,

WRITING VOCABULARY   - 11 correctly written words Confusions -   A   too   het   he   ti     it        got                         a     to     am   in   of    like    go                        r          he    ret    let      rot   sot                                                                          are       me   car   look   for    so  unknown – my, went, going, this, came HEARING SOUNDS IN WORDS        (a Dictated piece)     9/37 sounds SPELLING      Writing collection of words that often do not begin with the sound, end with the sound. Left many words that he was unsure of.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                RECOMMENDATIONS: It seems that X’s strength is writing words, so this must be utilized. He learns to decode/encode words flowing from sentences, not as individual words. All word learning is done within a sentence. He is to say the word slowly to hear the sounds. He is to look carefully at sight words, find the ‘tricky parts’.

RUNNING RECORDS: TEXT reading Useful STRATEGIES USED: prediction: ‘Monsters’ (title of book) Problem STRATEGIES: not 1-1 matching, not at Level 3 reading COMPREHENSION – not enough correct reading to ask comprehension questions. RECOMMENDATIONS:  X to be considered as a new reader (not attended school for a full year). Begin with Interactive writing and make small books for him to take home for reading. Read these books during his day at school. For more information about Interactive writing, see Should Synthetic Phonics be controversial, lizsimonliteracyconsultant.blogspot. October 2017)

NOTE: Shared reading each day with a particular focus for the week; each day the focus would have a different emphasis and would be followed up by an activity that relates to the focus of learning and be included in Independent Activities. This would allow Text, Word and Letter problems to be catered for.

Rather than being told, your child has failed the phonic test, a parent conversing with the teacher about intervention strategies that will be put in place based on the analysis of performance, is a positive approach.

Reading is about making meaning and yet the Phonics Screening Check has not shown any reading comprehension improvement when a child is tested on comprehension in future national tests (Margaret Clarke et al).

-          In the Phonics Screening check there is no analysis of the child’s strengths/weaknesses (how can they when the test is contingent on one part of literacy learning) and no consideration is given to a child being utterly confused by the inclusion of pseudo words!

-          Margaret Clark et al, points out that “political intervention in England plays fast and loose with evidence.” With this an appropriate Shakespearean quote comes to mind,

There are more things in heaven and earth [education ministers] than are dreamt of in your philosophy [about literacy learning].

GENERAL COMMENT

It is an insult to the professionalism of the education community that teachers have implanted on them a Mickey Mouse assessment and further told to teach only phonics and to teach it a certain way and neglect learning about word patterns per se.

I would want to know far more than whether the children in my class can make phoneme-grapheme match.

Train teachers, how to implement diagnostic assessment, especially for children who are not progressing normally. Provide teachers with the resources where they confidently make decisions about each child’s true literacy understandings and whether to provide challenges or whether to intervene by giving children strategies to help themselves.

Margaret Clarke et al, 2017 Reading the Evidence: Synthetic Phonics and literacy learning: an evidence-based critique, e-book, Australian Literacy Education Association.

Should SYNTHETIC PHONICS BE CONTROVERSIAL?

Margaret Clarke et al, 2017 Reading the Evidence: Synthetic Phonics and literacy learning: an evidence-based critique, e-book, Australian Literacy Education Association, is a worthwhile read. In London, end of October 2017 and the ghouls and ghosts and witches are in the streets. In keeping with the theme, I have just completed reading Margaret Clark’s e-book about England’s experience with teaching synthetic phonics (first implemented 2005) and phonics screening check. Latter, see BLOG title Should a large amount of money be spent on an uninformative test as the Phonics Screening Check?) Synthetic Phonics is a teaching method put in place when children begin school; children are taught letter sounds before they learn to read. Children learn immediately, words that have phoneme-grapheme match c-a-t and they pronounce the words by synthesizing, blending phoneme sounds c...a...t. In Reading Recovery (a 1-1 intervention programme, Marie Clay, 1993) it is called 'hearing sounds in words', saying the word slowly rather than sounding out each letter c,a,t. The aim is for Synthetic Phonics to be first, fast and only way to teach a young child to successfully read, which could be described as akin to rote learning.  I am assuming it replaces the learning of individual phonemes (letters) one at a time. Children can quickly learn a range of words, just for example, using the phonemes ‘m’, ‘s’, ‘a’, ‘t’.  Ostensibly Synthetic Phonics is most suitable for children who are have had little literacy experience before beginning school or have a disability (e.g.  dyslexia). The argument for adopting teaching phoneme-grapheme matching only, is that it will alleviate confusion for these children. But for these children ‘fast’ seems erroneous as these populations would probably move at a more repetitive and slower pace. The ‘only’ requirement causes a niggle. It seems there is the presumption with Synthetic Phonics that children have not read before attending school. It seems to discount children listening to their parents reading stories, children taking a book in their hands and turning the pages ‘reading’ from memory, interpreting pictures looking at advertisements and repeating catchy phrases; in fact, these are examples of children reading. Children who have had rich literacy backgrounds when beginning school would need to move into analysis of word patterns, for example, sight words ‘was’, ‘the’, as they appear on the pages of written texts. Almost immediately, they learn to employ a variety of strategies when spelling and reading. All learning must meet the needs of individuals not the ‘one size fits all’ mentality. Consider, a child beginning school, s/he must have their name recognized– this helps them to feel as though they belong in their new environment. If the child’s name is Dan, he will fit into synthetic phonics ‘only’ learning, but if the child’s name is Sarah, what happens? The same with the word ‘I’ which is one of the first words they write and can you imagine sentences that do not include ‘was’, ‘to’, ‘the’, ’like’, 'blue'? A good reader adopts problem-solving strategies when confronted with unfamiliar words. For example, a reader will be aware of the meanings contained in the sentence and predict the word, being aware of the first letter, middle and ending to confirm his/her prediction. A strategy they will use is looking into words. This, especially, applies to sight words which the English language, being an analytic language, has an overabundance. There are much better ways to develop reading understandings than using phonic books that are contrived, Kit is in Don’s cot. Pod tops Sid (from Margaret Clarke et al). What does it mean? Big print (Big Books) teach children so much about what reading is about. They have repetitive, catchy, “I want to read” ideas and language. Interactive reading of Big Books stimulates children as they read creative stories that stir their imagination. For example, the Tricky Truck Track (Era Publications, Adelaide) includes repeated word sounds, poetic, rhythmic language constructions and humour … Mick drove a truck, a truck full of ducks, a truck full of ducks up the Tricky Truck Track. Big books are literary books used to teach varied aspects of reading at the letter level, words (sound, sight), word meanings, sentence meanings and text meanings. Furthermore, children’s learning from big books are reinforced during practise games, activities and tasks. If phoneme-grapheme constructions are the learning focus in the early weeks of children at school a teacher would highlight these words with transparent, coloured, removable tape and children would view and discuss models of word patterns presented to them during the reading of sensible, continuous print. Phonemic teaching and learning methods are suited to orthographic languages such as Italian, but a language like English, which is determined by logo-graphics requires more than a purely phonic approach (Simon, 2004, Strategic Spelling, Every writer's tool). Phonemes are based on sound which, many times, do not reflect conventional English words. So, the argument for phonics to promote reading and comprehension is not justified. Also, phonics learning, learning about words in general, is more associated with spelling.  I will bring to the fore, Interactive Writing for children beginning school. Interactive writing is a supportive method a teacher uses with new or unsure writers. During this teaching and learning situation ideas are nurtured and children are shown how language composes a story. With teacher support the class share, with each other, the same pen to construct text they would not be able to do alone. The children first think of an idea and each child has a turn jointly constructing sentences on a large white board situated close to eye level. Writers and readers learn about: The correct place to begin a sentence, the role of a capital letter, spaces between words and sentences finishing with a full stop, the writing making sense.  During the writing on the board and the rereading of the idea, phoneme and grapheme connections are made and sight words can be delved into. Children are helped to make correct letter shapes, discuss the difference between a letter and word. At the end of a week, the children’s ideas are gathered into a small book form and each child takes home a copy as part of their reading programme. The children read these books with confidence, fluency and understanding. Margaret Clark and other educationists questions the veracity of evidence that politicians and professionals on the periphery of the school/classroom (e.g. dyslexic tutors, speech therapists) call upon to prove that Synthetic Phonics, develops comprehension thus inevitably, raising national and International reading tests scores. A very simplistic view. The worry is that in England, large sums of money have been given over to training and resources for teachers to implement Synthetic Phonics only (and the Phonics Screening Check) where it may have more affect in other training avenues. In the International PISA test, 2015 for 15-year-olds, students were tested on their scientific literacy ability. The test required students ‘to read scientific explanations of phenomena alongside data, charts, and tables and interpret the information, analyse it and give a written rationale for their interpretation and analysis’. If students have not been taught this way of thinking they will fail the test. It seems that putting the vast resource allotted to synthetic phonics and phonics screening check would be more effective if higher grade teachers were trained to help students tackle the different ways to work on texts. In the NAPLAN (national) tests, Australian children failed because of their poor vocabularies and inability to read complex syntax structures (nominalized phrases, see my BLOG February, 2016). Learning to read does not stop at year 2. As children move into the higher grades, reading materials change from speech-like language to being more abstract; teachers teach children the complexities of advanced texts – also they show children how to transform what they have read into another form.   Again, professional training in ways to teach children to read more complex texts, see how grammar functions, to assist reading and understanding e.g. morphological knowledge, would be more appropriate. When considering Synthetic Phonics, I am reminded of my experiences as a literacy/education consultant in New York/Jersey City, U.S.A. American teachers were given a foolproof way of teaching…they were required to use a manual which contained a story for each week and scripted lessons. Sounded appropriate, until I realized that teachers' pedagogy did not include planning their own programme. There was no inclination towards promoting a social and intellectual environment in the classroom. They did not assess their children, instead, relying on District, National and Federal Tests. In general teachers ‘taught to the test’ and coupled with the teaching by the ‘manual’ made classroom teaching and learning rather mechanical. Australian consultants were at the forefront to change teaching practices mainly in the low-socio economic areas, for example, teaching literacy through the reading of Big Books and using the books as models of ideas, sentence structures, word studies and much more.  Unfortunately, USA has now moved to other methods and I believe, they are similar to Synthetic Phonics in the lower grades. I can confidently say that U.S.A. remains low in the PISA (International) Tests.

Shared Reading, Shared Writing are they not fashionable anymore?

My mantra (motivating chant) has always been, “All new literacy learning happens within continuous print, all new literacy learning happens within continuous print” therefore the biggest surprise, since continuing my role as a consultant in schools (2017), has been that teachers are not using BIG print (whole class can view) to show how words work, to demonstrate how sentence structures allow meaning to develop. Children are not exposed to all those wonderful ideas in Big print nor are they instructed in what comprehension strategies to put in place to make meaning of an author’s ideas.

Modelled reading, listening to a parent/carer reading story books, is part of a child’s early reading. The music of language and the drama of ideas are infused in picture books and are forwarded through expressive reading and the asking of questions, commenting and the giving of explanations at appropriate times. The child enters an inventive world beyond their daily experiences. Adult readers introduce language and ideas that children could not read alone and  may not be able to comprehend alone.

When children begin school their experiences of similar-type readings continue. Schools are fortunate to have Big books, which are written and illustrated by excellent authors and artists. Big books for early readers contain interesting language, alliteration, rhyming, speech-like language, onomatopoeia (sounds of animals) and visual representation of the ideas that children can relate to. Because the stories are so stimulating, children want repeat readings of the narrative, poem, prose or information.

As children become more experienced readers (and writers), Shared or modelled Reading does not stop. Instead readers are exposed to more complicated texts – language structures are not always the speech-like language they have been used to as a young reader. Sentence structures change from the personal, “I like to play football’ to more abstract, nominalised forms (see BLOG February, 2016), ‘Football is the favourite sport of many Australians’. With the change to more unknown vocabulary (consider historical and scientific language as examples) and the making of varied sentence structures (from simple to compound, to complex as examples), teachers, before children independently read (or write) deconstruct big print texts, either Big Book form or pieces shown on Interactive White Board to show children how meaning is made).

There is so much learning that happens during direct instruction, Shared Book reading. Readers become aware of significant words that convey important ideas and concepts. They experience wide vocabulary and become aware of context clues associated with vocabulary and grammar, relationships and events; this knowledge allows children when reading independently, to anticipate what will come next in a story (or information).

The wonder of having Big Books as models during Shared Reading is that teachers’ questioning can be directed to individual children’s learning requirements as well as focusing on class learning. For example, a child in the class whose understanding needs to be improved would respond to the teacher’s question, ‘Johnny, what do you visualize and infer when I read, ‘The man reading the paper…’ The class learning focus, for example, the relevance of word parts and how they ascertain meaning can be highlighted initially by the teacher isolating certain words for examination, followed by the class forming discussion groups (Think, Pair, Share) where they discuss the different meanings, the root word and the addition of affixes. Not only are you promoting active engagement by all children, you are differentiating learning in this whole class scenario.

For the class, the teachers’ first reading of Big print is the listening of the story and viewing the visuals. The next day’s reading of the same book could be exploring the language, for example, isolating the phrase, clause and sub-clause. The next day phrases and clauses are moved around. The fourth day question phrases are examined, “What time is it?” and the answer reveals two clauses, “The time is 10 o’clock, it is time for a snack.” The fifth day a circle activity has the children reading cards and classifying phrases, clauses and subclauses

As Marie Clay in ‘Talking, reading and writing’ (article in the Journal of Reading Recovery, Spring, 2004 V.3 no 2), advocates, …teachers anticipate unfamiliar usage for readers (and writers) that may inhibit their independancy.  Teachers begin with showing models, deconstructing models and connect the new learning to familiar contexts – talking reading and writing.  Learning new language begins with a model begin shown, [then moves to] re reading experimenting in different context (e.g. writing or activity).

***

Shared writing is a scaffolding approach specifically directed at showing how writing happens. As a teacher in the classroom, I would share write, for example, a whole story or a report. The children would share their ideas and I would write them on a large sheet of paper. Some children would take my pen and write their thoughts on the model. Every day, we would reread the story or report already written and add to it. Note, that I would accept children’s ideas to a point. If they needed to be reworded I would do so, “Think about making that sentence clearer. Would it be better to write…?”

I have learnt, as a consultant, that in the higher grades, adaptations are made to the share writing process. Teachers tend to share write parts of a text, parts that allow children to learn a concept before they independently write. For example, if the aim is for children to write a knowledgeable exposition, shared writing of varied important aspects happens.  You could begin with modelling varied exposition introductions. The teacher may write how auxiliary/modal verbs could, might are part of exposition writing. Rather than listing verbs, show specific examples, sensing verbs, think, believe, saying verbs, persuade, argue are part of exposition writing. During shared writing, phrases/connectives, in addition, another reason, in conclusion, ‘there are reasons why…’ and adverbs, I strongly agree and adjectives, this is the worst outcome, a better outcome would be …  are modelled.

As with Shared Reading, shared writing is not a one-off session, concepts and language are reinforced for a week, at least. And like Shared Reading, you keep to the focus but examples are varied each day and practised during independent activities.

    What I see as the way effective way literacy learning happens Liz Simon 2017

Scaffolding/explicit teaching components and shifting responsibility to the student

This pedagogy is predicated on Lev Vygotsky’s (1978) notions that children are taught by a more knowledgeable other; support is given during the learning process and the zone of proximal development is where new learning begins. Constituent phases of developmental learning (scaffolding) is developed by Pearson, PD & Gallagher, MC.1983. Instruction of Reading Comprehension. Contemporary Education Psychology 8: 317-344,

Teacher provides maximum support SCAFFOLDING Focussed, in-context instruction (generally continuous print) given when new concepts and skills are first introduced. (Generally whole class) Shared Reading – (big print, Interactive W.B.) reading for enjoyment, comprehension, developing ideas. New learning such as decoding concepts of print, letters, punctuation, words, functional grammar, genre constructions, accompanying language. Part of decoding is learning strategies to problem solve. Modelling – deconstructing. Yrs R-7 Read Aloud – comprehension. Yrs Rec – 7. Approx. 20 mins

Guidance Subsequent - constructivist approach, learning is active; new knowledge built on learner’s existing knowledge – specific concepts, skills practised, building competency. (Groups, individual) Guided Reading – instructional, making connections, prior knowledge, strategies - levels Independent activities/tasks, participate and practise concepts learned in Shared reading and writing, skill practised using a range of modes, revisiting of specific concepts, Yrs R-7. Research skills, Information process, study skills are practised – Yrs 3-7 Interacting with teacher and peers e.g. conferencing, discussion groups, blogs, using reliable ICT sites, Yrs 2-7

Independent Moving to independence, analytical phase, problem solving, creating. (Groups or single) Independent Reading – pleasure, Yrs R-7 Research / assignments - Yrs 3-7 Independent Writing for various purposes, audiences Independent Research – presentations Yrs 3-7 Reciprocal teaching – non-fiction. Yrs 3-7 Book Clubs – fiction. Yrs 3-7

Shared Writing – joint construction of texts (all elements that are part of Shared Reading). In this learning scenario, encoding happens. Yrs R-7 Interactive writing – for Rec, delayed learners, disabilities. Small books are made from class writing and become part of child’s reading. Read Aloud – comprehension, appreciation. Yrs Rec - 7 ‘Hooking’ stimulating entry into new learning topic or Inquiry (e.g. multi-media, excursion). Yrs Rec-7 Demonstrating research skills – e.g. headings, key words Yrs 3-7 Information process – define, locate, select, analyse, transform, organize, synthesize, presentation, evaluation (Liz Simon, Bringing Critical Thinking Alive, 2010, Hawker Brownlow) Yrs 3-7 Study skill development – scanning, skim reading, note taking, summarizing, annotating (Liz Simon, Brining Critical Thinking Alive, 2010, Hawker Brownlow) Yrs 3-7 Presentation construction, language. Yrs 2-7 Emphasis: learning strategies, for problem solving, for making meaning

Emphasis: using prior knowledge, strategies, for problem solving, for making meaning

DO NOT FORGET MY BOOKS!

Look in the section Pages, Books Published, for my books (information about each book is in this section). 

The literacy themes range from Literacy Activities, Spelling, Writing genres, Critical and Creative thinking and my latest book Truly Guided Reading. 

There is information and practical and stimulating ideas for teaching these literacy areas.

Some of these books I can send to you if you email me: lizstempaddress@yahoo.com.au

Truly Guided Reading which I have been using as I train teachers in two schools this year, has had a 'jump' in price due to increased printing costs. It is now $25. I am sure you will agree this is still a remarkable price for a teacher resource. 

There is nothing in place of effective teaching

I am always perplexed when commercial enterprises spruce their new education hardware. When working in U.S.A. publishers there created a manual which dictated what the teachers taught each day. The teachers did not plan, assess or differentiate learning. The manual was supposed to fix the failures by giving teachers a foolproof way of teaching. It did not fix the failures.

I have the same view of  'gimmicks' as the below author expresses, so it was refreshing to read her comment in her latest book.

Quick fixes, current fads, marketing and publishing companies hone in on an aspect of reading theory in order to produce and package a quick fix – products that guarantee increased profit margins.
(Kay Lowe, PETAA, 2016).

She is the first author I have read who has been brave enough to forward this view to a wide audience.

Teaching is not easy and teachers need to be knowledgeable about their children and about strategies they use, to assist their learning. It is my opinion, that the well entrenched pedagogical practices that have built up over the years, Shared Reading and Writing, deconstructing and constructing texts in front of the children, Literature-based learning and Read Aloud should always be essential teaching in the classroom. As well, children should learn about Genre structures and the accompanying language structures. Diagnostic and Formative Assessment  promotes more personalised learning and these assessments are all part of ‘Guided Reading’, ‘Guided Writing’, ‘Interactive Writing’ and collaborative discussion groups, ‘Reciprocal Teaching’ and ‘Book Clubs’ (where analysis and critical/creative thinking dominates). We could not do without children working in collaborative groups to study issues and topics through Inquiry. 

Teaching is not easy so marketing companies should not distract teachers with ruses. Quick fixes do not work only good solid teaching does.