To the Editor:
Re “As Literacy Lags, Governor Proposes Changing the Way Reading Is Taught” (news article, Jan. 4):
New York State’s shift back toward phonics-based literacy instruction is of utmost importance. The yearslong regression in literacy worsened by the pandemic has placed children from New York’s most vulnerable communities at an unprecedented academic and social disadvantage. We may not fully comprehend its repercussions for over a decade.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s initiative is a step in the right direction. Phonics plays a crucial role in developing reading skills by illustrating the correlation between letters and sounds.
In our 22-year history, the Reading Team, which follows the same “science of reading” principles in the governor’s proposal, has shown that understanding these relationships empowers learners, particularly young children, enabling them to decode words and enhance fluency. Our students, who come to us with poor reading skills, go on to score consistently higher on tests than other children in the city’s schools.
I hope we will see further expansion of these policies across the country. In the interim, one of the most effective ways to assist our children in improving their reading skills is to encourage them to read aloud alongside an adult who can offer real-time guidance, correction and encouragement.
Charon Darris
New York
The writer is the executive director of the Reading Team, a childhood literacy organization.
To the Editor:
If you want to improve reading, improve writing, because when you read, that’s what you do, but when you write, you read and write. If you do only one, you’ll pay the price for not doing both, and 10 years from now the price will be more than the $10 million proposed by the governor of New York State. It’ll include disenchantment.
Allen Berger
Savannah, Ga.
The writer is emeritus professor of reading and writing, Miami University (Ohio), and founder of Teens for Literacy.
To the Editor:
As an elementary-school teacher for over 40 years, I read with interest about Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push to bring back phonics. I worked through the era of Dick and Jane and repeated sight words, as well as the “balanced literary” method, which as you report “encourages independent reading and includes some practices that experts say are problematic, like teaching children to guess words using pictures.”
The truth is there’s no one way to teach reading, because every student learns differently.
While surrounding a child with books and being read to daily are important and help to make reading pleasurable, there’s no substitute for phonics. Yes, some will learn to read without it; my own children did just that. But most kids will benefit from learning the keys and strategies that are inherent to understanding the mystery of how letters and sounds translate into words.
And it’s not just young children who can benefit from phonics. In retirement, I’m teaching English as a second language at a senior center and using many of the same techniques and materials I used in elementary school.
The term “balanced literacy” should be used in today’s teaching to mean love of and exposure to literature, but with the phonics element intact.
Daina Schuman
Stamford, Conn.
Trump Has Immunity? Nonsense!
To the Editor:
Re “Immunity Claim by Trump Meets Doubts in Court” (front page, Jan. 10):
Donald Trump’s claim to immunity from the charges leveled against him is pure nonsense.
A president of the United States is, first and foremost, a citizen of the United States. And like all citizens he is subject to the country’s laws and Constitution. He was elected to lead the country, not to try to overthrow it and its Constitution, laws and principles.
Americans should recognize that had they done just one of the things Mr. Trump is being charged with, they would probably already be in jail. And yet here we are debating whether he has some kind of immunity from our laws. Nonsense!
Let him be tried before the law like any other citizen and let the judges or juries decide whether he is guilty or innocent of the charges. Just like any other citizen.
Edward A. Gallardo
Sun City West, Ariz.
Mr. Biden, Address the Age Issue
To the Editor:
David Brooks’s Jan. 5 column, “What Biden Needs to Tell Us,” misses an important point. Besides talking about law and order and economic policy, as Mr. Brooks suggests, President Biden needs to directly address the real elephant in the room — fears that he is physically too frail to handle another term as president.
He needs to explain why the recurring videos of his awkward gait and his often cautious public demeanor are not reasons for voters to worry that he is too old for the job.
Instead of refusing to talk about such fears, he should look to the example of John F. Kennedy, who, as a candidate, directly and publicly addressed widespread concerns that he would put his Catholic religion ahead of his duties as president in a famous campaign speech.
We need to hear something similar from 81-year-old Mr. Biden. Avoidance will not do.
David Goldberger
Silver Spring, Md.
Having Hope When Facing Death
To the Editor:
Re “Can Hope Ever Be a Form of Medicine?” by Daniela J. Lamas (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Dec. 25):
Several years ago, my sister was on a ventilator, her heart in atrial fibrillation, her lungs like glass. Yet she welcomed each day with hope. Hope she could spend a few minutes off the ventilator, hope to have a crumb of chocolate cake, her favorite.
A doctor who had never seen her before (but had quickly perused her chart) stood at the doorway to her hospital room, telling her that there was no way she could ever get off the ventilator or even leave the hospital. I was by her bedside as my sister cried.
I looked that doctor directly in the eye and said, “But there’s always hope, right?” He directed his gaze at me as if he just noticed I was there, and said, “Yes, I guess there is.”
Relief seemed to wash over my sister, and her tears stopped. Her face showed a sense of resolution.
My sister did die within a few months from that day, but she lived her last weeks still holding onto hope, greeting each new day.
And she did get to enjoy that crumb of chocolate cake, followed by a sip of coffee.
Anne Skalitza
Spring Lake, N.J.
To the Editor:
As a medical psychologist, I always valued hope as an important factor of emotional well-being in severely ill patients. But as a partner to a man who died of A.L.S., I witnessed that hope can also be potentially medically dangerous.
A new medication came on the market that promised only minimal benefit. For patients with an illness like A.L.S., minimal is better than nothing, and hope is inflated.
When my partner first started this treatment, he nearly died from the implantation of the port through which the intravenous medication was administered. The procedure created a huge blood clot in his chest. Next, daily infusions further interrupted our life. This experience revealed another less positive side of hope or, should I say, the selling of hope by pharmaceutical companies.
The medication — which had physical risk, cost and lifestyle disturbances — provided hundreds of millions of dollars to the drug manufacturer, and robbed us of some of the better part of the days we had left.
Esther Lerman Freeman
Portland, Ore.