The role of skills in teaching reading

Edmund H. Henderson Director, McGuffey Reading Center University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia S ome years ago the idea that there were specifiable skills underlying the learned ability to read was universally accepted. Methodologists did differ widely, of course, in their opinion about how and when and in what context such skills should be taught. The validity of the skills themselves, however, was not questioned. Formal reading programs today, moreover, be they synthetic or analytic, linguistic, whole word or phonic in design are built on the premise that such skills exist and that they can be arrayed in a meaningful scope and sequence. The state of language research today is such that the concept of a reading skill is now under heavy challenge (Cooper and Petrosky, 1976). Indeed one must begin to see those skills, as operationally defined in reading programs, as the emptiest of concepts. It may be argued, in fact, that they are both invalid and at variance with the far more global, natural and highly complex things that children do and learn as they advance toward literacy. My interest in this paper is to present some part of this argument against reading skills. In doing so it is unavoidable that I will question the soundness of most contemporary programs of reading instruction. It is quite necessary, I think, that this should be done. My task, however, will not be ended until I succeed in putting the pieces back together. It is simply not the case that things we have done traditionally as teachers are all wrong. It is our Understanding of what we did that was benighted. Thus when we see the skill demolished, we must be prepared to see in its place broader actions taken by children and teachers that advance progressively. It is these I will argue that must replace the errant skills as the building blocks of formal reading instruction. Let me begin my account with a metaphor and personal experience. This is a form of discourse that used to be frowned upon in scientific circles, but is enjoying a considerable revival. For far too long we have shunned the simple appeal to common sense with the result that the questions we have asked about reading have become less and less important. No amount of