This is an overview of a speech I presented at the International Reading
Association's national conference in Atlanta May 6, 2008. My presentation
was part of a symposium celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the
publication of Edmund Burke Huey’s 1908 classic book: The Psychology and
Pedagogy of Reading (MIT Press, 1968 reprinting). Given RIF’s interest in
promoting the giving of books to, and the reading of books to and by
children, I thought you might find the extracts from Huey’s book from 100
years ago of interest. It is satisfying to find that, amidst all the
controversies that swirl around the teaching of reading, there may be some
enduring truths after all! Tom Sticht

Paper Title: Huey's Thoughts on Oral Language in Relation to Reading:
Toward a Multiple Life Cycles Education Policy

Presenter: Tom Sticht, Member, Reading Hall of Fame and International
Consultant in Adult Education.

Overview: In his classic book on The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading
(1908) Edmund Burke Huey includes, among others, a chapter on inner speech
during
reading, a second chapter on learning to read at home in which he
emphasizes the role that parents play in leading children to reading, and a
third chapter in which he comments on the need for schools to teach parents
how to facilitate their children's learning at home. In this presentation
I look at aspects of these three chapters, review research on the
Oracy to Literacy Transfer Effect, the Intergenerational Transfer of
Literacy, and discuss implications of Huey's ideas and the empirical
research
since his writing for what I call a Multiple Life Cycles education policy.

My presentation is built around three extracts from chapters in Huey’s book:

Chapter VI The Inner Speech of Reading And the Mental and Physical
Characteristics of Speech

"The child comes to his first reader with his habits of spoken language
fairly well formed, and these habits grow more deeply set with every year.
His meanings inhere in this spoken language and belong but secondarily to
the printed symbols. To read is, in effect, to translate writing into
speech." (Huey, 1908/1968, pp. 122-123).

Chapter XVI Learning to Read at Home

"The secret of it all lies in the parent's reading aloud to and with the
child. The ear and not the eye is the nearest gateway to the child-soul,
if not indeed to the man-soul. Oral work is certain to displace much of the
present written work in the school of the future, and least in the earlier
years; and at home there is scarcely a more commendable and useful practice
than that of reading much of good things aloud to the children." (p. 332 &
334)

Chapter XV The Views of Representative Educators Concerning Early Reading

"Where children have good homes, reading will thus be learned independently
of school. Where parents have not the time or intelligence to assist in
this way the school of the future will have as one of its important duties
the instruction of parents in the means of assisting the child's natural
learning in the home." (pp. 311-312)

For a copy of my full paper contact me at email: tsticht at aznet.net