School Goals Spelled Out in ‘ABC Bill’ : Education: Legislature is poised to require that spelling and phonics be taught statewide. Poor test scores have sparked re-examination of approach to basic subjects.

In an attempt to swing the pendulum of educational policy and practice back somewhere in the vicinity of the center, the California Legislature is considering making the rather fundamental declaration that spelling ought to be taught in the state’s schools.

Phonics, as part of reading instruction, is a good idea too, the bill up before the Senate Education Committee today says. So are adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, according to the so-called ABC bill.

The bill gets its title both from its unapologetic endorsement of basic skills and the last names of its sponsors, Assembly members Dede Alpert (D-San Diego), John Burton (D-San Francisco) and Mickey Conroy (R-Orange).

The fact that legislators believe it necessary to make such pronouncements is probably more significant than the pronouncements themselves.

In reality, of course, all of those subjects are taught in California schools in one way or another. But many legislators, educators and parents believe that the state’s progressive 1987 language arts curriculum guide went too far in downgrading the importance of such basics as phonics and spelling.

The drive to re-examine the state’s approach to teaching basic subjects has been gaining momentum since state and national test scores released last spring showed that many California fourth-graders are struggling with reading and math. Those test scores spurred state schools Supt. Delaine Eastin to create task forces to re-examine instruction in those subjects.

The reading task force report, due out later this month, will recommend a balance that restores phonics, spelling and grammar to greater prominence--the same approach the legislators are urging.

“What we are actually trying to achieve is some kind of sensible middle ground,” Alpert said. “What we’re trying to say is that you need basic work if you want to move on to higher levels in education.”

Now, the state-approved reading textbooks in use in California schools all but ignore phonics in favor of engaging stories. Those textbooks were an outgrowth of criticism that many students were bored stiff with repetitive skill instruction that did little to feed their enthusiasm for reading.

Similarly, new math textbooks being considered pay little attention to number facts in favor of problem solving that attempts to link math to real-world experiences.

No basic skill, however, has been as neglected in California classrooms as spelling.

Glen Thomas, a top curriculum official with the state education department, wrote in April that spelling had been abandoned altogether in many California schools, and should be taught independently, not just when teachers correct misspellings in writing lessons.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, teachers are trained to help students understand the connection between letters and words when they write, rather than worry too much about misspelled words. The process is known as developmental or invented spelling.

“Sometimes [teachers] don’t recognize the words readily . . . but if the children can read them back to you, then they have that concept,” said Geri Herrera, the district’s administrator of elementary education.

Some schools still have spelling bees, she said. But the words tend to be ones from students’ work in other subjects, rather than standardized lists including words that every student is expected to learn.

If the ABC bill passes, she said, it would bring about instructional changes but would not necessarily help students learn to spell any better.

“We are going to have to spend a lot more money on . . . [spelling] books; teachers love that, parents love it and some kids love it too, but I don’t know that that is going to give us any better results,” she said.

“The main point here is that spelling is taught in schools,” she said. “It’s not taught the way I experienced it, and probably not the way many of the state legislators have experienced it either, but it is taught.”

Research now suggests, however, that that may not be enough. Traditional instructional methods, such as giving students a weekly word list and expecting them to practice it until perfect, are essential not only to become a good speller but to become a good reader, researchers say.

Former state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, who helped draft the language arts curriculum that was adopted by the state Board of Education in 1987, has since reviewed research on reading and now agrees that the reforms failed to place enough importance on spelling.

“There should be a systematic introduction and learning of sufficient words to correspond to the increasing vocabulary in reading materials . . . and a systematic attention to spelling demons which large numbers of students have problems with,” Honig wrote.

According to Honig’s review of current research, good spellers become good readers because they quickly identify letter patterns, which allow them to recognize words, both familiar and unfamiliar.

The spelling books teachers formerly used for the subject were all but banned from California classrooms seven years ago and last approved for purchase eight years earlier, with the justification that spelling, in and of itself, is unimportant.

Ever since, teachers have been scrounging for spelling books, spending their own money, begging for help from PTAs or relying on dogeared copies left over from the old days. Some teachers say they have actually had to teach spelling in secret to avoid criticism from their supervisors.

Burton sponsored a spelling bill that eventually became part of the ABC legislation partly out of frustration, after seeing job applications in his office with numerous misspellings. “We’re trying to re-establish the confidence in parents that their kids are going to have . . . the ability to read, to spell, and to add two and two,” he said.

The ABC bill would require the state Board of Education to approve textbooks that include basic skills, including spelling, and allow school districts to use state textbook funds to pay for them.

That doesn’t mean, Burton said, that the state Legislature will mandate instructional methods. “You can do it the way you want to do it--with a book or a blackboard, a piece of chalk and a pointer--but California will be teaching spelling . . . and basic math and reading,” Burton said.

Passage of the ABC bill is considered highly likely. Bills by Alpert and Burton that were combined to create ABC each received unanimous support in the Assembly. And they have won support, at least in concept, from Eastin, the California School Boards Assn. and Maureen DiMarco, Gov. Pete Wilson’s top education adviser.

“It’s appalling to me that in 1995 . . . we have to still argue about whether kids should get a strong foundation of basic skills,” she said.

Diana Gorchow, a Bakersfield-area teacher who is a member of Eastin’s reading task force, said the legislation is consistent with what the panel will recommend--a return to spelling lists of important words and spelling books, paid for with state funds.

And she welcomes the shift in emphasis.

“I have had people come in and remove phonics books, so that I could not teach the old way. They’ve removed our spelling books,” she said. Meanwhile, “teachers have fought and fought and fought to get phonics included and spelling included in instruction.”