Former California schools chief urges parents to watch reading instruction By S.L. Wykes San Jose Mercury News   SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Former state schools superintendent Bill Honig sent a warning this week to those who might think state education policies mean a quick end to dismal California reading scores. Honig urged parents to find out how their children are being taught ``because even though (new) policies may have been set up, you can still lose (policy implementation) in the field ... and you're going to get snookered.'' Honig, once a proponent of the so-called ``whole language'' approach to reading, is now a San Francisco State University researcher in reading instruction. He supports strong instruction in phonics skills. He was the featured speaker during a two-day Hoover Institution symposium on ``What's Gone Wrong in America's Classrooms.'' While some schools may give lip service to state support for teaching phonics, many are still avoiding direct instruction of the learning method, Honig said. The reasons range from loyalty to the whole language approach to lack of proper teaching, he added. Honig said schools nationwide continue to try to teach students without the full range of tools that work best to achieve grade-level reading. In California, only 10 to 30 percent of students read at grade level, among the lowest rates in the nation. Honig said that for children to be solid readers they must be taught individual letter sounds, given practice with text that supports words they are learning to decode, be encouraged to ``play'' with words and their sounds, be read to and taught about word structure and spelling. Failure to give children the full list of techniques results in children who would rather clean a bathroom than read, Honig said, citing one researcher's case study. Many who struggle will give up by the third grade, he said, and only one in seven who are behind will ever catch up. Throughout the symposium, various speakers, including Florida researcher Jack Fletcher and reading specialist Louisa Cook Moats, emphasized the need to teach sound and letter connection as an essential part of reading instruction. Honig, who wrote ``Teaching Our Children to Read,'' said research shows that only 10 percent of words can be figured out from their context, ``and if you spend too much time figuring out a word, you don't have the energy to string them together.'' Honig's remarks on the power of teaching children how to ``decode'' words through clear and repeated instruction in the connection between letters and sounds is not new. In 1991, after an admitted lack of attention to reading materials, Honig tried to reinsert phonics instruction into the curriculum. He left office in 1992 after he was convicted of a conflict of interest over a foundation run by his wife. Since then, he has joined the fight to reverse disastrous drops in the state's reading scores that many attribute to whole language's philosophy of reliance on context for meaning and rejection of sounding out words. He and his administration made a mistake, Honig said, when they changed course without looking at what scientists knew about how people read. Now, research shows that more than just the visual function part of the brain is involved -- that sound is also key, as well as memory. Visit Mercury Center, the World Wide Web site of the San Jose (CA) Mercury News.