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these are Russian schoolchildren. If education is part of the Cold war and many experts seem to think it is then these Children are engaged in a war with the Children in our bay area. The Children on your block, the Children in your home. The American Child

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Devotes five days a week to this classroom war. The Russian Youngster Devotes six days a week. By the time he is in the fourth grade, the Russian child will be expected to read 10,000 words. The american fourth grader we are told will be lucky if he

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can read 1500 words. After the launching of Sputnik. Americans suddenly realized that there was a difference between scientific training in the United States and in the soviet union. But the backbone of education is reading. If a child can't read, he can't learn the better and faster

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he reads the better and faster he learns all subjects. The Russians seem to know this. Do we americans realize it? Hello, I'm wanda Remy. The importance of reading is underlined in this new comparative book by an associate professor of english named Arthur trait as you can

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see by the title. It is heavily critical of american book learning. Now we're going to use this book as a basis for an examination of Bay Area schools, four of which we will visit tonight. The first grade classrooms of a parochial school in SAn leandro a

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public school in san Francisco a private school in Los Altos and an unorthodox school in san rafael Nikita Khrushchev has said that he would bury us some think he meant by rockets something he met by economics, something he meant by book learning Daddy tom said flip

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flip that tom Come here, come here now. Yeah. Daddy Daddy look at the map. That girl Professor Trace states that the Soviets give their students a better a more thorough training in reading, in literature, in foreign language, in history and in geography. Then american schools give

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their students and the chief reason for this, he declares lies in the fact that in elementary grades the american reading program is inferior to the Russian reading program in three specific areas. First, as we have already noted in the number of words. Talk second in the

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way words are taught and third in what the students read. The way words are taught at ST Alphonsus Liguori and San Leandro is the way 70,000 Children are taught in 13 northern California counties under the jurisdiction of the San Francisco Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church.

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Sister George Ellen is the first grade teacher at Saint Alphonsus. Like many teachers in the Archdiocese, she has 50 students in her class, she teaches her students how to read by combining the look and say method with phonetic instructions. Let's look up here, we're going to

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have a story in our book about a birthday. This is the name of the story. Which one read it. You can read this title. Alright, you read it for us, Donald real big Happy Birthday. Very good. This is what she told them about. You can read

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the first one. Which one you're going to read Chico about father's first who can come and read the sentence again. Nice and smooth Tommy needed. She told about father's birthday. Come and tell just the part of the sentence that shows what mother told about timothy father's

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birthday. But for you. And when mother was telling the Children about the first date, she told him when it was going to come and this is what mother said. You can read what might have said watch especially for the last word. It hasn't kept on the

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end. All right, Ronnie. It will be here in three days. Very good. Come and find the part when the birthday will be there. Terry just the words that tell when it will come three days. It's good for you. Let's all look at this part jenny, could

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you read this real smooth. Good for you? Many american schools have a problem one that Russian schools may or may not have. And sister Eugenia, principal of ST Alphonsus is in the thick of this problem. Normally we have 40 to 50 in the classroom. It is

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obvious that if we had A group of 10 or 15 we would be able to learn more new words a day, but good afternoon boys and girls. But as it is, we are doing the best we can with the number. We have Good afternoon boys and

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girls. I know look into matt. Much of the controversy over our reading program is found in the way we introduce our Children to reading. Until about 30 years ago, most american Children first learned to read by the phonetic method by sounding out letters and words. But

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since the 19 thirties, the so called look and say method where a child is first taught to read whole words at a time has become the primary method of initial reading instruction in the United States. Professor Trace and other educators claim that our reading program is

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suffering under this method. We talked with father John Saudi, superintendent of schools for the San Francisco Archdiocese. And the man who selects the reading textbooks for his 70,000 elementary school Children. Professor Trace states that unless a good reading program is established in the elementary grades early

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in the student's learning process, in both the public and parochial schools in this country, all the attempts to improve the teaching of all the other subjects will flounder. Now you've read what even knows. I think, do you think our reading program needs a closer examination? I

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think that any educator would agree that nothing is perfect and we must always try for the improvement of subjects. Perhaps one of my objections to Mr Tracy's book would be the assumption in his presentation that the educators haven't been thinking very seriously about reading over the

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years. We are quite concerned about the improvement of any subject. We have. I would also agree with him that all the subjects depend upon the ability to read and to read well. And that's a fundamental and educational doctrine over the years now with Mr traces book

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I I would think there are a few observations we might make in advance. Perhaps we ought to express gratitude to our unwitting allies here. The Russian educators when we were distressed about science. Why it was the Russians who launched Sputnik and alerted our people to the

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importance of giving encouragement to science. Shortly thereafter, why the liberal arts people were a little distressed that all the boys were going into the field of science and math and perhaps overlooking literature and so forth. And now we find a book that's coming along emphasizing the

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importance of literature. So I would say we have to be a little grateful to him. Now comes the argument between the site word method of teaching reading and the phonetic one. Mr Trace believes in phonetics. Some other people do too. Would you care to comment on

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that? Well, I might mention that reading is a very, very complicated subject and there's no very simple solution to the entire problem. And I'd say if there have been difficulties in reading it has been due to overemphasis of just one single method or approach. No, I

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don't believe any school could ignore either. The phonics on a site method you need both of them. Apparently there was a reaction some generations back against phonics because it was developing a nation of lip readers and slow readers and obviously to get along in college you

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must be a quick reader. So they did seem to pay a little too little attention to phonics but there has been a trend back to a happy combination of all those Uh methods. And I don't think it's at all true that we're ignoring phonics, it's just

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that we aren't paying attention to them to the exclusion of all other methods. Now he does mention that 49% of the public schools in the United States do not teach modern foreign languages. Now I don't know of any public school in the san Francisco Bay Area

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that does not teach modern languages. So I don't know to what he is referring. At least one school in the Bay Area, The private ford Country day school in Los Altos believes in teaching foreign languages at an early age, the first graders at ford learned french

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in a conversational and most appealing way. Ford. Country day school teaches its first graders a variety of subjects, from french to math, from music to art. And it's reading instruction combines the looks a and phonic methods of instruction. Nothing lollipop grab it.

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Mhm. Cup mouse baby dear. Mr and mrs john ford have been directing their country day school for 27 years in Los Altos having read the trace book Mr Ford takes issue with traces, conclusion that because Russian second graders read Tolstoy, they are obviously reading much better

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literature than their american counterparts. The second graders read Tolstoy and thanks to dr Harry Collins who did a Russian program on a Francisco television station last year, a Russian teaching program here is a translation of that Tolstoy. That's read by the second graders. The father was

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saying to his son live in harmony, they did not mind the father and often quarreled. So the father ordered them to bring a birch broom and then he said to his sons, break it. Well you know the story they broke, they couldn't break it then he

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took it apart. Then the father untied the broom and ordered the sons to break it by strands. They broke all the strands and the father then said thus will it be with you live in accord then? No one can harm you. Uh huh. That isn't impressive.

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Okay, now look at this carefully. Who can tell what the whole thing says. All right, steven. Good, I will see. Would you come hold it for you all know all of you? Alright let's put another word on it. Here's a great big terrible word. Don't say

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it out loud, but you know all this. Um Now read the whole thing Marilyn everybody would you like to hold this and you know what this word says? Come here is the whole great big between Mayor Peter, you can hold that too. Can you all say

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that altogether? Yes, indeed. Good for you. A far cry from the elaborate Tudor mansion at Ford's is this spartan concrete building of the three Our school in san rafael, a nationally famous outpost of a rebellious approach to learning. Students find no p ta hear no music

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or art classes, no recess, no dances, no student government, no team athletics. Rather, they find a heavy concentration on the classical solids of reading, writing and arithmetic with 30 minutes a day of calisthenics for physical development. Unlike most modern schools, three hours start their kindergarten students

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with phonetics exclusively until they demonstrate their ability to combine sounds and read words here in the first grade, limited to 15 students as our most classes at three R five hours a week are devoted to funny G H I J K L O. Until

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30 years ago. Most american Children had learned to read first out of such textbooks as the 19th century McGuffey readers and their 20th century imitators and followers which stressed phonics as the first step in reading. But believing that Children could actually learn to read words faster

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and better as a whole. And believing that with phonics alone, the Children had not been learning the meaning of words are educators began to emphasize the look and say method and as the look, say, method took command. McGuffey and friends were supposedly buried for good. But

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the ghost of McGuffey has recently returned to some american schools, including the three R's where teachers find the Magothy superior to many looks say readers in three ways, in the number of words talked in the phonetic approach and in the literary content With the founder of

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the three our schools is controversial. James Pashanski, whose maverick approach to teaching has brought him national attention. Mr chris Szymanski believes that the trace book is the sound analysis of the national problem. Could you tell me your comment on mr traces point he makes in the

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book that the average Russian student or soviet student in the first grade learns at least 2000 words. The average american student learns 2 to 300. I would say this was quite, quite accurate. The american school, unlike the Russian or the Russian phonetic Russian school, we are

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basing our reading, shall I say on what we call the developmental series. A child going through eight years of elementary school would be lucky to come out with 4000 words so called active words at his disposal simply because he's taught at the rate of 3-400 words

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a year. I give him the benefit of the doubt that he will pick up the extra by his reading. The Russian language. On the other hand is phonetic predominantly they approach it from a genetic standpoint, we could do the same thing because our language is in

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the neighborhood of 85% phonetic, there's no need for us to be stumbling around in 3, 400 chosen words. Question I'd like to ask who chooses the words. Well, who does, who does in your particular system? Well, how do you select your textbooks? We had quite a

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rough time on that. We were at one time when the school started involved with the basic core basal readers, luckily for us, on the advice of James lynch of university California, we wound up at the Mcduffy. This happens to be a non developmental reader. We made

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a word count today out of curiosity and we found that the primer in the first grade first reader, we'll give a child Approximately 2400 words, new words. It's a phonetic structured book. So that by the third grade, all the rules of phonics are at the child's

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disposal. And from that time on he just reads. Well, some people will say that the phonetic system causes a slower reader than one who learns correctly the sight system. I would I would forego speed any time in a week to get some reading under their belt.

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Professor Trace also states that the literary and artistic content of the Russian textbooks are so much greater than the american ones on the average. This makes sense simply because once the child has grasped the language you can feed him in quotes, the literary language, so to

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speak. If you are regurgitating or you are making up a story out of a basic text or out of a basic set of words. You cannot give him literature. This is why we've used the McGuffey because it does represent an introduction, a very valid introduction into

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english and american lit. The only thing that I would, I'd be surprised that it doesn't go far enough. It's dated in that respect. There's there's been much literature afterwards following the McGuffey is that I think should be in the books. We overcome this by bringing in

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other books. Mr Chris Szymanski plans to extend his three our schools to 15 Bay area communities including his three already established at San Rafael Calistoga and Santa Rosa. If he should come to San Francisco, he will find 54,000 elementary public school Children who probably will never

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see the likes of McGuffey learning to read by a combination of the look say method and phonic instruction. Unlike private institutions, public schools cannot limit classrooms to 15 students. We visited the first grade classroom of commodore Sloat Public school in san Francisco. We cannot pretend that

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these are average readers. In the san Francisco school district. They are top notch first grade readers and commodore Sloat is one of the city's best schools and what can be. He's very, very like me from the heads up to the head and I see him jump

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before me when I drop it to my bed garden spider. This black, there are many many spiders this black and yellow one is a garden spider. Look at her age. Yes, there are eight of them. All spiders have eight ft. That is one way to know.

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They are spiders. Enos is the first Japan to orbit the world. He went around the Earth two times before he landed. He was in a Mercury castle. We are happy he made it safely. Cynthia. What's the name of your story today? Do you know what this

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is? Well, that's an interesting name, correct. All right dear. All right. At one time it was a little egg, the egg looked like a drop of honey days with but the egg begins to get dark. one day something came out of the edge of black. It

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found green things to eat. I ate and ate and ate. Soon it looked like this Ronnie look at me, look at me, look at me now. It is fun to have fun but you have to know how I can hold up the cup and the milk

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on the cake. I can hold up these books and a fish on a wreck. Man. I want to show the Children with a funny picture. That's in the hat is funny, isn't it? We discussed what Ivan knows that johnny doesn't with miss Tennessee Kent, Assistant Superintendent

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san Francisco elementary Schools who has much to say about what johnny reads in san Francisco Professor Trace states that the american first grader is exposed to only a few 100 words in his basal readers in the first Years. Whereas the Russian Children are exposed to about

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2000 a year. Now would this mean that are reading texts are inadequate? Um This is a very good question because I would like to preface my remarks by saying that I feel that Arthur Trace is sincerely interested in upgrading education. However, the misinterpretation that I find

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is that he is using the basal reader and the reading program as though they were synonymous. Now the basal reader does have a controlled vocabulary but the basal reader is only one type of material which we use. And in the instructional program the teacher provides many

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different kinds of reading experiences and activities and in so doing she uses a variety of reading material. So in addition to the basal reader, she is using newspapers, news readers, reference books, library books, slide film strips and textbooks in all of the different subject fields. So

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that by doing this we eliminate vocabulary control. Professor Trace also states that both the literary content and the the works on democracy and our governmental structure are negligible in the american readers but the Russian ones again teach a great deal about this. Do you think the

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soviet Children are being better indoctrinated in their way of life than our Children are in our way of life and in our literature. No, I do not feel this and here again it resolves itself to the question of use of materials. Now if we just dependent

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upon the basal readers and the supplementary readers, we would perhaps find that the program would need to be improved. But we use a variety of materials in the field of literature. Some besides Professor Trace do not agree that are reading programs are a success. Professor James

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Lynch of the English Department of the University of California is concerned about our classroom reading material and he cites the fact that our colleges are spending and thus wasting $10 million English courses for their students as chairman of the committee on subject day or as the

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students call it Bonehead english. I am aware that there is a great waste, a waste in dollars, a waste in human resources and a waste of individuals capacity. Our own program here shows that many students come to us ill prepared to do college level work and

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for these the remedial english course is offered And in any given year something between 40 and 50% of the students taking that entrance examination failure and are obliged to take the course. I am not an expert in reading and I know that there are many methods

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including the party line method, the look and say method, but there are many others, the audiovisual, the Carden, the Hey wingo and so forth, which you can read about. I do know that the judge amongst them requires impartiality and I believe it is not a mark

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of impartiality to leave this decision to those people who have the largest personal interest in seeing that the present looking the same method which I think is failing is repaint the California State Board of Education issues to official basic readers series for the elementary grades. One

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published by Allyn and Bacon and one published by Ginn and Company. The senior author for the Gin and Company series is Professor David Russell of the education department of the University of California. Consequently, no one has a greater influence on what johnny reads in California on

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what johnny reads in the Bay Area than Professor Russell. The first thing I should like to say is Children are reading better today than they were 50 years ago or even 20 years ago. Mr traced a text american textbooks in his book and I'm sure they

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could be better. A great many people have been working for a long time to give american Children some of the best teaching and learning materials that exist in the world today. I think however, that as we read the Trace book, although we approve it in part,

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we should be aware of several assumptions that Mr Trace makes for example, he seems to assume, although he doesn't say so that if things are harder they're better. I think this assumption goes back to the theory that makes things as tough as you can so that

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Children, Children's minds will be exercised as if minds were muscles. I do not think there is any virtue in having 10,000 words in a book. If 1500 words will do. I think that there is another assumption in the trace book when in the title, he says

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what johnny knows or what Ivan knows. Uh, just having a thing appear in the book is not knowing it. As we said at the start of this program. Reading is the backbone of education and education is the heart of a great country. The question is not,

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we believe how we compare to the soviet brand of education which is geared not only to a phonetic language but also to origen indoctrination in communism. It is rather how good is our reading material in itself. If it is not sound free, public comments can lead

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to correction. If the Cold War is ultimately fought on the battlefield of education. Yeah. Well, wow, bye. You 12. I will place with you mu mu mu I like you come. We will play, we will with David and end. Mm hmm. Okay, well,

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it be a surprise. One day, mother, I said goodbye. David and father and I must go away. We want to get something play here at home. Play with baby mary