University Researchers Discuss Pros and Cons of Phonics for "Education"

     

Two long-time faculty researchers of reading disabilities are prime sources for information in Education Week magazine’s Nov. 12 article, “Dealing With Dyslexia.”

Frank Vellutino, director of the School of Education’s Child Research and Study Center, and Richard Allington of the Department of Reading are each quoted extensively in the article which identifies newly defined types of reading disabilities and explores treatment methods for educators to treat childhood reading problems early.

“If you want a quick diagnostic, give children a set of nonsense words, and the child who can’t pronounce them is the child with basic reading disabilities,” Vellutino is quoted in the article. Education Week writer Debra Viadero goes on to write, “in his studies, Mr. Vellutino has been able to identify potential poor readers as early as kindergarten by asking them to pronounce nonsense words, to identify the letters of the alphabet, or to distinguish the sounds that make up words.”

A Vellutino-led study is referenced dealing with 76 poor readers of average to above average intelligence from middle class homes. A system of one-on-one tutoring brought 85 percent of the children up to average reading ability after two semesters.

Vellutino stressed that “a diverse set of strategies” — such as whole language and phonics — is needed in dealing with reading problems.

Allington, wrote Viadero, warns that researchers “may be overreaching by trying to apply findings drawn from poor readers to the regular classroom.” He said that until positive results are shown on the abilities of children in “sophisticated stages of reading,” current results are not totally reliable for “real-word reading, fluency and comprehension.”

Walter P. Zenner of the Department of Anthropology and affiliated professor of Judaic studies, will deliver the Marshall Sklare Memorial Lecture on the topic of “The Ethnography of Diaspora: Studying Syrian Jewry,” at the annual meeting of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry on Dec. 21 in Boston.

Zenner has engaged in research on Jews from Syria since 1958, including scholarship on Syrian Jewish communities in the U.S., Israel, and Great Britain, as well as historical work on the communities in Syria and Latin America. A member of the Albany faculty since 1966, his most recent book is Jews Among Muslims, published by New York University Press in 1996.

The lecture was established to remember Marshall Sklare, one of the pillars of the sociology of Jewry.

Laura Cohen, a network librarian at the University, was featured in The Scout Report for her Internet Tutorials page. The Scout Report is one of the most respected of quality Internet sites for the educational community, published every week, found on its own Web site and also distributed by e-mail.

This summer’s issue of Choice featured The Scout Report prominently — in part because Cohen alerted its editor to this resource that she uses weekly in her Internet collection development.

Cohen maintains a collection of beginners’ tutorials for Internet users. It includes the five major categories of Basic Internet, Research Guides, Search Engines, Netscape, and Software Training , with a total of 19 tutorials at present, each containing easily understandable advice on how to use and search the Internet.

John B. Conway, associate dean of the School of Public Health and a nationally recognized environmental health specialist, has received the distinguished service award of the Environment Section of the American Public Health Association.

The award, presented at the Washington D.C.-based APHA’s annual meeting earlier this month in Indianapolis, Ind., states that it recognizes an “outstanding environmental health worker for exceptional service and accomplishment in the profession.”

Conway, who became director of professional education and the School in 1993 and associate dean in 1994, has had a broad experience in environmental health as a public health officer in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming as well as in a variety of state and local public service projects in the state of California and on the Mexican border.

During the 1960s, he served first as a publish health sanitarian for the San Diego County Health Department and then a public health biologist for the Division of Environmental Protection in the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

“It’s delightful to be recognized for doing something that you thoroughly enjoy,” said Conway, who is also a professor in the School’s Department of Environmental Health and Toxicology. “I love my work identifying environmental insults to human health, and it’s wonderful that I now have the chance to teach that subject to enthusiastic students.”

Adjunct professor of Accounting and Law and New York State Senator Hugh T. Farley of Schenectady was selected a winner in the “Third Age Achievement Awards,” a special event of the Senior Services of Albany Foundation.

Farley, a member of the New York State Senate Aging Committee and legislative advocate for senior issues, received his award on Nov. 20 at a dinner at the Desmond Hotel in Colonie. As reported in the Nov. 12 Update, another honoree was former long-time University men’s basketball coach Richard “Doc” Sauers.