Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Right to Read

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]

The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) recently released the results of its inquiry into human rights issues affecting students with disabilities titled Right to Read. The report begins with a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Moore v. British Columbia, in which the Court held that Jeffrey Moore, a student with dyslexia, was entitled to supports that he required to learn to read.  

The Court’s decision in Moore held that the Province of British Columbia, in asserting that the purpose of education is to ensure that “all learners . . . develop their individual potential and . . . acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to contribute to a healthy, democratic and pluralistic society and a prosperous and sustainable economy,” acknowledged that children are entitled to an education necessary to make such a contribution, including the right to read.  

The focus of the OHRC report is upon the lack of attention to “word-level reading and the associated early reading skills that are a foundation for good reading comprehension.” It asserts that, in failing to heed the accumulated, multi-disciplinary evidence about effective reading instruction, Ontario is systematically failing the students for whom it is responsible. The failure has an especially profound impact on children from marginalized or human rights code protected groups.  

The OHRC report takes a comprehensive view of language arts instruction. It argues in favour of robust, evidence-based phonics programs but only as one essential part of a broader language arts program that includes “story telling, book reading, drama, and text analysis” as well as “evidence-based direct, explicit instruction for spelling and writing.”  

Stephen Lecce, Ontario’s Minister of Education said the province will change its curriculum to align with “scientific, evidence-based approaches that emphasize direct, explicit and systematic instruction.” It is encouraging to see education policy and practice reflect the accumulated evidence. But I worry that, in the highly politicized environment in which we all seem to live, that there will be reflexive opposition to Lecce’s statement and resistance to the changes that will be introduced. I hope my worries are unfounded. It would be refreshing to find that, having considered the OHRC’s report and the underlying evidence, educators would see the merit in what is being recommended.  

I am hopeful that change comes without further resort to human rights inquiries, cases, and the litigation that often ensues. I am optimistic that people can place evidence above ideology.  

The report brings much needed attention to students affected by dyslexia. The kind of professional support teachers will need to help learn how to best assist these students' learning is not going to be a casual, one-day training session.  It's going to take a lot of on-going practice and constructive feedback from skilled teachers.  

I also hope that Minister Lecce realizes that significant resources will be required to support teachers who need assistance in making the changes necessary to bring their practice in line with the evidence. One of the resources at the Minister’s disposal are the many teachers who have used evidence-based phonics programs and direct, explicit instruction as part of their language arts programs.