Education That Works:
The Child is Always Right, Part Eight
Literacy

Edward L. Anderson, Ph.D.

“While only 10 % of Americans say that they have difficulty reading and writing, the usual test of literacy, nearly half of the nation’s 191 million adult citizens are not proficient enough in English to write a letter about a billing error or to calculate the length of a bus trip from a published schedule.”

Morningside techniques have been used with illiterate adults in the workplace. Teaching adults should be easier; they are presumably more motivated and their existing vocabulary and verbal skills are closely related to the job of reading. Closely related, but clearly quite different.

At-risk adults in the program advanced two academic years for each 20 hours of instruction using the Morningside Model; ten times faster than the U.S. government standard of one grade advance per year of instruction. Contract payments were performance-based, that is, paid only for students who progressed at least two grade levels in two skills, chosen from reading, math and writing.

The first group, 32 African-American males, who were government defined as “at risk,” aged 16-26 years, entered with skills between second and eighth grade. Many were homeless, had criminal records, and, in a few cases, were in and out of jail during the course of the program. They were given street cleaning jobs in the morning to learn job-related skills such as attendance, cooperation, and productivity. They attended Morningside in the afternoon, Monday through Friday, from 1 to 3 pm. Twenty-nine of the 32 students successfully completed the program, exiting with skills at or above the eighth-grade level literacy standard.

Figure 6 shows the progress of four representative adults in the literacy program. The horizontal axis is the number of hours spent in school. The vertical axis is the number of months of achieved academic progress. The lower, dotted, line shows the rate at which the individual had previously learned, found by plotting his tested entry level against the number of years he had spent in previous schools. The dashed line shows the gains the government would pay for one month’s progress for each month taught.

The heavy black line indicates actual gains at Morningside.

Progress of Four Illiterate Adults at Morningside

Figure 6

In the last two years, both programs have been replicated and extended at Malcolm X College in Chicago with inner city youth and certified high school graduates who enter college with average 6th grade reading and 4th grade math skills.⁽¹⁸) After one year of training they are carrying Malcolm X’s regular classes. It is so successful that all entering academically deficient students will now be required to take these courses and an additional "thinking skills" program, the objective of which is to turn these students into not just graduates but at least "B" average graduates. Results from the first two years imply that this goal will be met, but more time is needed to scientifically justify the claim.

Six elementary schools in the same Chicago neighborhood, one of the worst slums in America as described in the best seller “There Are No Children Here,” have begun using DI. First year results were evaluated by the University of Illinois Reading Center and found very favorable, but again, not over a long enough period to justify scientific publication. We believe what we say about high standards of proof before publicity and use!

Additional costs have been minimal at both the college and elementary level, primarily the costs of the new curriculum materials and intensive 10 day training courses for the teachers. Because the techniques are so different, a temporary cost is that of continued support of the teachers, especially during the first year.

I have had to omit several other highly successful, demonstrated programs.

Edward L. Anderson, Ph.D.
Ed Anderson was among the founders of the Cambridge Center,
and remains one of its most active supporters.
This paper is based upon a talk that Dr. Anderson gave on August 2, 1994,
sponsored by the Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, New York.

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