Gillingham: Contemporary After 76 Years

]ane McClelland

Northwest Center for Dyslexia

Seattle, Washington

It is impossible to separate the woman from the work; both are

impressive! All the more impressive is the fact that after 76 years the
work of Anna Gillingham remains a contemporar)~ holistic technique
for teaching children.
I shall not resist the temptation to note some highlights regarding
one of my favorite topics, the development of Gillingham, the educa-
tor. In 1969 the late, and sorely missed, Sally B. Childs, compiled a
Monograph entitled Education and Specific Language Disability. It in-
d u d e s biographical information, reprints from bulletins of the Ethical
Culture School, from early manuals, and from The Independent School
Bulletin. This Monograph is required reading for my teacher trainees
and, in my opinion, should be required reading for all educators.
Some of this biographical information was iterated most ably by
Margaret Rawson in her article, "The Orton Trail" in the 1987 Annals of
Dyslexia. The life of Anna Gillingham is especially fascinating for me,
as one of the teachers she trained. However, it belongs to a period for
which young people today have little frame of reference. There seems
to be an unfortunate trend among college students to check the
copyright date of publications and to ignore those which were written
years ago. I have often thought how fitting it would be to change the
dates on Gillingham's biography and her papers, and to republish
them. Her scholastic and pedagogical achievements, especially re-
markable for a woman in her time, would be no less so today.
Annals of Dyslexia, Vol.39, 1989.
Copyright ©1989by The Orton DyslexiaSociety
ISSN 0474-7534

34
GILLINGHAM" CONTEMPORARY 35

Had Gillingham wanted to be just another teacher, she could have

attended Normal School as was customary for teachers of her era. In-
stead she chose to seek knowledge at the highest levels possible, con-
tinuing to delve into the classics, mathematics, and psychology.
Gillingham virtually planned her own curriculum, a truly contempo-
rary thought.
There was no lock-step about Gillingham, as she moved from
school to school, ever seeking new learning and teaching oppor-
tunities. No sooner had this Phi Beta Kappan completed her first BA
from Swarthmore and her second a year later from Radcliff than she
launched into graduate study toward a master's degree which she ob-
tained, with honors, from Teachers College, Columbia University
(1910). Her self-confidence was such that she seemed not to be overly
concerned about job security. She continually enriched her life, taking
a year off here and there to travel to Europe. Imagine an elementary
school teacher taking a sabbatical!
Gillingham's study of the classics, philosophy, German, and math-
ematics influenced her later work greatly. We see this in the enthusiasm
and care taken with research into language itself and into language
learning. She started along the road to psychology in later graduate
courses, knowing that the value of psychology cannot be underesti-
mated in the teaching of children. It was from this study of psychology
that she developed an active interest in tests and measurements. Di-
versification in her study led to the broad scope of GiUingham's
teaching.
While teaching mathematics, and heading that department at the
Ethical Culture School in New York, Anna Gillingham met Bessie Still-
man. She was to become a lifelong friend, associate, and influence
upon what Gillingham later termed "my life's work. 'q Gillingham's
name never appeared on published teaching materials without Still-
man's, even after Bessie's death.
The Ethical Culture School is worthy of mention for several rea-
sons. President Theodore Roosevelt's mania for fresh air and his "gos-
pel of the strenuous life," which he felt had helped him overcome se-
vere asthma, had swept the entire country. The school established an
"experimental elementary department for very high IQ children" with
Gillingham as the principal. This was literally an "open air" depart-
ment, operating on the covered roof of the building with roU-down
canvas awnings to protect the children. Winter on a roof-top in New
York City was far from warm, but the children were well-bundled.
Anna told me that rarely was a child taken with a cold. When the
1Undated and unreferenced Gillingham quotations are taken from personal
letters written to the author and from conversations between the author and Anna
Gillingham, ED.
36 "TnE PAST IS PROLOGUE"

weather was so severe that ink in the inkwells froze, the children were
taken indoors.
The year 1912 proved to be an historic date for remedial teaching in
America. At the Ethical Culture School, while working with very high
IQ children, Anna Gillingham discovered a "baffling difficulty" in
reading and spelling. Some of these bright students were being
thwarted educationally. Hinshelwood (1895), Morgan (1896), and Kerr
(1896) had become aware of a problem in some patients which they re-
ferred to as "word blindness". This was, in part at least, Gillingham's
baffling difficulty. It is quite possible that the problems resulting from
years of teaching the whole word method were causing serious
concern.
With the help of Marie Moore, a teacher on the staff, and Bessie
Stillman who knew how it felt "deep down inside," Gillingham set
about creating methods and materials to help these children. Margaret
Rawson's observation that they worked on "educational technology" is
particularly fitting. They began developing a multisensory technique.
No better way to teach children with disabilities in language has been
found in all the years since Gillingham encountered the problem.
Horace Mann wrote of the Prussian and Saxon Schools (1844)...
About twenty years ago teachers in Prussia made the important
discovery that children have five senses, --together with various
muscles and mental faculties, --all of which, almost by necessity
of their nature, must be kept in a state of activity. It is much easier
to keep the eye and hand and mind at work together, than it is to
employ any one of them separately from the others.
Gillingham, an educator and scholar and a student of the German lan-
guage, visited schools in Germany (1910) on one of her journeys. She
was impressed with the teaching of reading in the schools, where they
still emphasized the use of the "senses" in teaching.
In America in the early eighteen hundreds, teachers of early read-
ing were referred to as "abecedarians." Six months were dedicated to
teaching the twenty six letters of the alphabet. However, Worcester ad-
vocated the use of the word method in his Primer of the English Language
(1828) and the The New Word Method (1846) was introduced in a primer
by John Russell Webb. In 1953 Gillingham wrote, in a letter to me,
"This sight-word method has been creeping on for the last century. My
mother taught the Indian children very largely by the whole word
method in the 1870s. Another teacher in the 1880s taught total word
configuration and jumped her children about from page to page point-
ing out words to be said at once. No heed to the letters." Unfortunately
the phonics taught today is largely "functional phonics," in which the
word is presented and then sounded out, rather than alphabetic phon-
GILLINGHAM: CONTEMPORARY 37

ics in which phonograms are taught and used to construct words.

"Ninety percent of the schools are still teaching the whole word" (En-
field 1987).
Gillingham was far from being an abecedarian, but she realized
the importance of the gift of the Phoenicians! She and Stillman, finding
that children having the "baffling difficulty" could not retain whole
words, set about developing a sequential, alphabetic-phonetic (now
graphemic-phonernic) multisensory program. The alphabet was used
as the tool with which children formulated meaningful syllables. Non-
phonetic words are a reality in our language which must be dealt with,
but how much better for a child to have only those to memorize instead
of every word he encounters.
While techniques to help children learn to read were being de-
veloped, GiUingham became interested in the measurement of intel-
ligence. She began working with Dr. Henry H. Goddard who brought
the tests of Simon and Binet to America from France (where they had
been used to identify retarded children), adapting and translating
them. Goddard was then Professor of Abnormal and Clinical Psychol-
ogy at Ohio State University. Gillingham used the Goddard version of
the tests to determine superior intelligence, thus becoming one of the
first school psychologists in the country. After the Terman Revision of
the Binet (1916), she initiated the routine use of that test at the Ethical
Culture School's Fieldston Lower School and Midtown School as well
as at others.
Gillingham, in consultation with Dr. Goddard, began extensive
research into the baffling difficulty. As School Psychologist--she now
had that title--at the Ethical Cultural School during the years from
1929 to 1936, she screened children for her newly established Remedial
Department. The materials and techniques on which she and Stillman
were working were constantly tested and revised.
Gillingham wrote, "In 1929, Dr. Samuel T. Orton came to New
York and I consulted him about many cases." As Gillingham had suffi-
cient points for her doctorate, lacking only a dissertation, Goddard had
invited her to work with him and write about her work" . . . and the
relation of this work to Dr. Orton's theories, possibly the neurological
implications and some speculation as to the significance of this for the
pedagogy of the future."
Gillingham followed Goddard's suggestion, focusing even more
upon refining a technique which was "neurologically and pedagogi-
cally sound." However, Gillingham, having found a kindred spirit in
Dr. Orton, and having an opportunity to work with him, decided to
remain in New York.
She made application to become a Doctor of Philosophy at Colum-
bia University. The subject of her dissertation was, in part, the study of
38 "THEPAsT~PROLOGUE"

left-handedness and a discussion of the findings of a project "to study

variations in the acquisition of cerebral dominance and their influence
on language acquisition." The subject went on to "offer a description of
the methods of diagnosis of cases of aberrant acquisition of language
skills and of the technique and results of experiments in their retrain-
ing." Orton stated in a letter to the university that Gillingham would
prepare her dissertation in the Department of Neurology, under his
direction. For some reason this was not acceptable to Columbia.
Gillingham made the decision, regretfull)~ to give up her long-
sought quest for a Ph.D. Dr. Goddard, aware of the sacrifice Anna was
making, told her that the advanced degree wasn't necessary and that
"her devotion to children had dictated the issue." Desiring to continue
her work with Dr. Orton, she was appointed Research Fellow in Lan-
guage Disabilities of The Language Research Project of the New York
Neurological Institute (1932).
Here she added her expertise to that of Orton. Gillingham de-
scribed her contribution as being one,

to organize remedial techniques in reading and spelling in confor-

mity with Dr. Orton's neurological explanation. Miss Stillman had
retired and was working with individual cases at Fieldston
[School] and helping me to organize the remedial technique. We
were working on the beginnings of the Manual, which has now
been revised six times. A large part of the Manual is the result of
her [Stillman's] research.

One has only to peruse the Fifth and Sixth Editions of the Manual to
become impressed by the amount of work which was done by these
two women. They sorted, with computer-like efficiency, the words of
our language containing various single phonograms, those containing
digraphs and diphthongs, and those which followed a certain pattern
of syllable division. They developed spelling rules and located excep-
tions to them, determined which spellings of vowel sounds occurred
with the greatest frequency in our language, and then developed pro-
cedures for mastering nonphonetic words.
Gillingham and Stillman worked with the precision of engineers
erecting a building, beginning with a firm foundation, block by block,
testing and retesting their methodology. As surely as lives could be lost
if a building were poorly constructed, the contribution of a mind could
be lost if a child were unable to process his own language. As they
worked with students, and later in the training of teachers, they re-
vised the Manual which is the blueprint of the technology.
After 30 years of service at the Ethical Culture Schools, Gillingham
retired in 1936. She and Bessie Stillman went to the Punahou School in
GILLINGHAM: CONTZMPORARY 39

Honolulu, where they had been asked to establish a Remedial Depart-

ment. Gillingham and Stillman met Beth Slingerland who was Head of
the Primary Department and although they were only in Honolulu for
a year, their association resulted in a long and productive friendship.
Ten years after their return to private practice and continued asso-
ciation with Dr. Orton in New York, Bessie Stillman's death changed
the focus of Gillingham's career. At age 69, a time when she might well
have retired, Gillingham began a most arduous program. She became
consultant for several schools throughout the country, visiting them
regularly to institute her preschool testing program, to supervise her
remedial and preventive programs, to train teachers for teaching indi-
vidual students, and to train classroom teachers.
Each of the Manuals through the years was a different color and
the Red Manual (Fifth Edition) was the first hard-cover edition. An-
other edition followed four years later. Dr. Paul Dozier, upon whom
Gillingham relied heavily after the deaths of Orton and Stillman, urged
Anna to revise the Red Manual because its phonetic approach was no
longer compatible with the dictionaries. He was a tremendous help
with that revision.
In order to conform with the new editions of Webster's Dictionary,
the Green Manual (Sixth Edition 1960) was written deleting some of
the important concepts for word attack and syllable division which
were no longer applicable. (Table I) The schwa\ \which represents the
sound of the obscure a (~) was adopted to replace some of the vowel
sounds. However, it sends no clear auditory signal to the aid the poor
speller. In many words, pronunciation of the vowels in the final sylla-
bles has disappeared completely and the old rules of syllable division
no longer apply. Loss of the basic phonetic spelling is creating a hope-
less memory load for poor spellers.
Gillingham, ever scholarly, wanted her work to conform to the
latest linguistic principles. However, there were those of us who did
not want to see Anna undertake a revision of her "life's work" at the
age of 80 years. When she presented me with a copy of the new Green
manual there was none of the enthusiasm which she had expressed
when the Red Manual was presented. Anna said that she felt that the
revision had to be done but that she had reservations about the
changes which had been made. She suggested that the Green Manual
be used as a reference source. The Red Manual, containing material
which had proven successful for many years was to continue as the
textbook for her courses.
Teacher training was the key. For years Gillingham had refused to
sell her materials to anyone not working under her careful supervision.
The Manuals were written as texts for those studying with her, "not
something with which the uninitiated could experiment." How right
40 "THE PAST IS PROLOGUE"

Table I
Closed syllable, short vowel concept no longer applicable in new Webster's
Dictionaries.
Examples of syllable division and vowel treatment
Former Current
Pronunciation Pronunciation
tandem ( tan' d~m ) \ 'tand - m \
system ( sis' t~m ) \ 'sist - m \
pepsin ( p~p' sin ) \ 'peps - n \
vandal ( van' dal ) \ 'rand - l \
Examples of use of schwa
velvet ( v~l' v~t ) \ 'vel - vat \
duchess ( dfich' ~s ) \ 'duch - as k
profit ( pr6f' ~t ) \ 'pr~f - at k
crisis ( krV sis ) \ 'kri - sas \
unit ( fi' nit ) \ 'yu - nat \
confuse ( k6n' ffiz') \ kan - 'fyuz \
Examples of altered pronunciation
cancel ( kan' s~l ) \ 'kan(t)s - 1 \
pencil ( p~n' sil ) \ 'pen(t)s - l \
handsome ( hand' s~m ) \ 'han(t)s - m \
excuse ( ~ks kfiz' ) \ iks - 'kyfiz \

she was! Today I find teachers w h o sa36 "I tried Gillingham a n d it

didn't work." Small wonder, w h e n it takes two years of intensive s t u d y
in order to master this technology. There is no "quick fix" for becoming
proficient in the GilIingham remedial technique. The teacher m u s t be
able to cope with the m a n y facets of specific language disability. Nor is
there, in my opinion, a quick way to retrain those having specific lan-
guage disabilities. Levinson (1980) a n d Irlen (1988) would probably not
agree.
Gillingham's zealousness in training teachers w h o would "control
the destinies of children" was well-known. The Head of one of the
schools using her program wrote, "She regiments teachers to operate
with the ruthless compassion of a surgeon a n d she would no more per-
mit any deviation in technique than a good surgeon would permit de-
viation in the operating room. The technique has to be established a n d
used first, before any kind of variation should be practiced." Although
used ambiguousl)6 perhaps, in that statement, "compassion" is a key
to the appreciation of GiUingham. Despite her remarkable academic
credentials and her dedication to precision in teaching, Gillingham was
G IL LINGHA M: CONTEMPORARY 41

a warm, humorous person who challenged teachers and students

alike.
Gillingham taught three teacher training courses: one for individ-
ual remedial teachers, one for the teachers of children in the special
preselected groups, and one for classroom teachers.
Prior to remedial "retraining," as Anna referred to it, each child
had to have an individually administered IQ test (Binet or WISC), a
thorough hearing test, and an eye test, "administered by a competent
oculist, not by the school nurse with a Snellen Chart."
The two-year course for teachers of individual students began
with her careful selection of a student who had a primary disability in
just one area and who also had an above average IQ. It was important
that the student be able to assimilate the Gillingham concepts and
move ahead steadily. When the teacher-in-training had demonstrated
the ability to take the first student through the beginning work, an-
other with a disability in a different area was added, then another, and
yet another. As each student advanced, the teacher was constantly re-
peating the initial work with the new ones. By the end of the two-year
period, the first student was either up to the level of his native intel-
ligence in reading and spelling, or very nearly so. The teacher's experi-
ence included teaching students with weaknesses in the visual, audi-
tory, and kinesthetic areas, at least one left-handed student, and one
with a stammer, or similar speech problem, if possible.
The course for teachers of the special groups (selected by the
Gillingham prereading tests) required three years. During that time
the teacher learned to assess each student's area of disability (V-A-K)
and to group them accordingly. Rarely did one of these children need
individual teaching, and in those cases it was usually the kinesthetic
area which required additional reinforcement. Because the children in
this program had never experienced failure, they quite naturally
succeeded.
The classroom teacher training came about as an extension of the
special groups. Parents, observing the success of those children, felt
that theirs would also benefit from this analytic approach to language
learning and to its attendant enrichment. Therefore, some of the
schools for which Gillingham was consultant instituted her preventive
program for all students in the first three or four grades.
Prior to the time of my training with Gillingham, she had not
awarded certificates for the work. I expressed a desire to have one as
tangible evidence that I had completed my studies with her suc-
cessfully. The idea pleased her. Anna then decided to award certificates
to teachers with whom she had worked in the past. The first certificates
(1955) were proof that one was really a Gillingham Teacher. A hard-won
42 "THEPAsT~PROLOGUE"

certificate it was, and not all of those teachers who began her courses
were able to complete them. If she felt that a teacher was not suited to
working with children with language disabilities, she would terminate
the course and refund the teacher's tuition.
Gillingham's priority was always the children. She would not start
a teacher in training without ensuring that another teacher could take
over in case the training teacher was unable to complete the student's
program. Sometimes it was she who was the back-up teacher. There
was no question of "practicing" on children, teaching them for a little
while, and then returning them to their classrooms to flounder.
Gillingham used the analogy of children in a lifeboat with others
flailing in the cold water beside it. She said that it was cruel to take one
of them into the warm lifeboat for a little while, then push him back
into the cold water in order to make room for another. Each time help
was offered only to be withdrawn, the feeling of rejection increased
until the child became a problem child rather than a child with a
problem.
Continuing failure creates the "Wall of Fear" (Portier 1987) that we
encounter in older students, the Wall of False Evidence Appearing
Real. False evidence that failure is a foregone conclusion becomes a re-
ality. Recently I taught an adult who had been diagnosed as dyslexic in
the third grade. Many teachers had worked with him during his un-
successful school career which ended in delinquency and attempted
suicide. Although he was very bright, he could not accept the fact that
the teachers, and not he, had failed! His reason for seeking help was to
learn to read well enough to obtain a high school diploma. He worked
hard and did well, improving from a third grade reading level to the
ninth-grade reading level adquate for achieving his goal. However,
when given the opportunity to take a junior college course to fulfill the
requirements for the high school equivalency certificate, he refused.
He admitted that he was afraid to face failure again. He said he just
wanted to stay the way he was. At age 37, the Wall of Fear was insur-
mountable.
Throughout her teaching career Gillingham held to the theory that
too early exposure to reading and writing was harmful to children.
This was due in part to her own early education. Having spent the first
ten years of her life on a Sioux Reservation in South Dakota and on a
ranch in Nebraska, she referred to herself as "a prairie child." Of her
first school experience in Topeka, Kansas, she wrote,

I was advanced in mathematics, geography, history etc., by having

these subjects read to me and discussed. I was not taught to read
until I was nearly ten. My parents believed in my having as wide
general knowledge as possible before being introduced to the
GILLINGHAM: CONTEMPORARY 43

symbolism of written l a n g u a g e . . . I believe that such postpone-

ment of reading and writing would be a great saving of the child's
time and tax-payer's money.

CiraneUo writes (1988):

Unlike the brains of most animals, the human brain is very imma-
ture at birth. Not until a child reachers age six or seven are all the
processes involved in brain development complete. Moreover, dif-
ferent parts of the brain mature at different rates, so even when
one part of the brain is relatively developed, others are still in the
process of maturation.

At Gillingham's insistence, some of the schools for which she served as

consultant held off the teaching of reading until the second g r a d e - -
thereby "buying a little more time" for the children.
It is true that some very young children can be taught to read. We
need to ask, "For what purpose?" It has been my experience that the
dyslexic child who has had the auditory reinforcement of having been
read to learns to read more rapidly and with better comprehension
than those who have not had this experience. How much better to read
for children while their visual and auditory discrimination develop to
the point where they are better prepared physiologically to process
language.
One summer while working together in Denver, Dr. Dozier, Anna
Gillingham, and I had interesting discussions about the results of the
preschool testing program. The consensus was that some students
would not face the risk of either early failure or of an insecure start in
school if they were given a little more time for the maturation of areas of
the brain involved in reading.
One wonders what Gillingham would have thought of the new
phenomenon to which I refer as "Day Care Dyslexia." This may be ei-
ther true dyslexia, manifesting itself with the introduction of abstract
symbols (letters), or pseudodyslexia--not dyslexia at all, but a show-
ing of reversals typical of most very young children. Some parents of
children in day care are alarmed. Several of them, who know some of
the signs of dyslexia, have telephoned me in great consternation be-
cause their four- and five-year-olds are bringing home papers filled
with reversals. For some reason many of those in charge of these little
ones cannot resist trying to teach them the alphabet, start them read-
ing, and establish handedness. Incorrect management may create a
problem where none exists.
Most very young children will reverse the direction of letters and
numbers. "Inability to retain a correct orientation of the visual image of
44 "THEPAsT~PROLOGU~"

a symbol prevents recognition of that symbol" (Gillingham 1941). Only

when this confused orientation persists, despite careful teaching, does
it become significant. How tragic for our little dyslexics that they must
face failure even earlier than they would if this exposure to symbols
were delayed at least until school started.
Dyslexic children, particularly those who are mentally gifted, suf-
fer greatly from their failure to achieve. It is my observation that the
brighter they are the more they suffer. School quickly becomes a hos-
tile environment in which these low achievers meet defeat daily in
reading and writing. Early diagnosis and intervention are vital.
Gillingham wrote (1956):

The idea dawned upon me a good many years ago that if there
were some way by which we could select the language disability
children who were going to have trouble with reading later on,
and teach them by the appropriate technique, we might save them
from the heartache and frustration, and their parents from the
anxiety and expense that is now met when the child is a reading
case. I told the idea to Dr. Orton and he was quite interested in it.
We discussed the type of material that might be helpful and when
I later brought my data to him, we went over it together and se-
lected the children who, in all reasonable human probability, were
going to have difficulty in reading and spelling.

The first sets of tests were devised in approximately 1940.

After years of research and development Gillingham's test kit, re-
ferred to as the "Pre-Reading Selection Program," was copyrighted in
1956. The program was interesting. The School had to agree to follow
the progress of each child for a minimum of four years and to offer spe-
cial training to those students who were found to be at risk.
The testing was done individually, thus taking from after
Christmas until June to test an entire class. Each child in kindergarten
or first grade was given the IQ, auditory, and visual tests required of all
Gillingham students. A family history, including family handedness,
speech, reading, spelling, writing and the child's birth, was obtained
in private interviews. From this information a family pattern was
determined.
Teachers' observations of the child's handedness, speech, read-
ing, spelling, and writing were added throughout the year. The direc-
tions for the sensory tests stated, "Testing must be private, that is, lim-
ited to the child being tested and to the examiner. The reason for this is
the necessity of maintaining a test situation free from noise, distrac-
tions, or outside suggestions." Sections of the tests were: Visual Recall
(Linear Drawings, Naming Pictures in Sequence, and Recalling Pic-
GILLINGHAM: CONTEMPORARY 45

1 3 4

Q 0

8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

ix,

Figure 1. Part of Visual Recall section of the Gillingham Prereading Selection of

tests.

tures in Sequence), Echoing, Auditory Recall (Answering from Pic-

tures, Answering from Colors), Kinesthetic Recall (Copying without
looking, Reproducing a Form made with the child's guided hand,
without looking).
The Visual Test (Figure 1) is a simple determiner of reversals which
can still be used with students of all ages--there are now many ver-
sions of this type of test. The forms are drawn on separate pieces of
cardboard or paper which can be kept for reuse. Each is then displayed
for approximately ten seconds, the student is distracted briefly, then
asked to reproduce the form on a sheet of paper. One technique is to
have students put their pencils on the floor, look at the form, then pick
them up and reproduce the form which is no longer visible. The impor-
tance of using arbitrary forms, rather than letters, is that the forms have
46 "THE PAST IS PROLOGUE"

not been preestablished by drill. They can also be used with foreign-
speaking students.
When completed the 13 pages of test information for each child
were placed in large manila envelopes for Gillingham's evaluation. I
shall long remember those tall stacks of manila envelopes we sorted in
the summers during which I acted as her assistant.
Beth Slingerland developed a series of Screening Testsfor Identifying
Children with Specific Language Disability which are an outgrowth of
these Gillingham tests.
While working under Gillingham (1954) as Head of the Language
Training Department at Sidwell Friends School, I had observed the
school testing program very carefully. The test results always indicated
clearly which students had severe specific language disabilities, and
which had none. The borderline cases were the most numerous and
required the greatest deliberation. The problem was to predict which
were the ones "who, in all reasonable, h u m a n probability were going
to have difficulty."
Gillingham questioned the value of administering a single test to a
young child, as many schools were wont to do, with the expectation
that such test results could accurately determine whether or not the
child had a specific language disability. Once the specific disability of a
child had been diagnosed through a thorough battery of tests, and re-
medial training had begun, she objected to further, frequent testing of
a student. I concur. The intensive phonetic retraining of dyslexics,
while building their confidence, cannot be measured by standardized
tests. Anna's statement that, "One should not keep pulling a plant out
of the ground in order to see if the roots are developing" will always be
a valid one.
From time to time Anna presented me with books. One which she
gave to me was Bessie Stillman's book, Training Children to Study (1928).
Another she referred to as the book she had wanted to write but no
longer needed to because Nila Banton Smith had done it so completel3~
American Reading Instruction (1934). It was in the latter that she attached
the following message:

Reading is a skill. It must be taught as a skill just as cutting stone to

a desired form must be taught. Whether or not the stone-cutter
becomes a great sculptor or only chisels out building blocks de-
pends upon many factors, but he must first learn to cut stone.
Whether or not the child becomes a great explorer in the realm of
literature or is always limited to newspapers and Comics depends
upon his native endowment and the cultural atmosphere with
which we surround him. At all events he must acquire the skill to
translate seen symbols into meaningful words. Some children ac-
GILLINGHAM: CONTEMPORARY 47

quire this skill with little conscious effort on their part or ours.
Others must be taught this skill with step-by-step planned tech-
nique. In some way this skill must be acquired.

As one reads the dissertations of today, which would fill volumes,

there seems to be a preoccupation with vocabulary. This tends to lead
us to the belief that there are more new ideas in the teaching of reading
than perhaps there truly are. Use of morphemic, graphemic, dys-
phonetic, dyseidetic, and other good words, new to an old field, occur
frequently today. However, accuracy in use is not always the rule. Table
II demonstrates a random list of words which can be used in sequence
by selecting one from each column. Will use of such words inform
those reading our reports or astonish them?
There is little that is really new since the teaching in the Prussian
schools in the early 1800s and the educational endeavors of Hinshel-
wood, Gillingham, Orton, and others. It is time for us to stop experi-
menting at the cost of children's education--fire has been discovered,
the wheel has been invented. Gillingham said, "It doesn't really matter
how a child got to be the way he is; it is our job as teachers to make him
successful in school", and, "The success of your students will depend
upon your skill as a teacher."

Table II
"Systematic Buzz Phrase Projector"*
The idea is old but the words are new. The following words may be selected at
random, one from each column, to produce an educational gobbledygook. It
was precipitated by a comment taken from a report to parents which stated that
the child had a "graphemic, morphemic, syntactic, maturational deficit."
Column I Column II Column III
pictoral morphemic encoding
graphemic syntactic modality
nominal perceptual decoding
linguistic articulatory subsystem
phonological associational stimulus
isolable perceptive syndrome
interrnodal accustical internalization
unitary tractual synthesis
cognitive dysphonetic deficit
dyseidetic morphophonemic continuum
cognitive intermodal inexactitude
predispositional psychoanalytical methodology
Warning to students: If you use this your professor may require definitions and
derivations.
*Philip Broughton--Newsweek (May 6, 1968)
48 "THE PAST IS PROLOGUE"

I have been careful not to say that Gillingham was the first to do
the many things mentioned, simply because there may have been oth-
ers about w h o m we do not know. Was she, indeed, the first to examine
the "baffling difficulty" in extremely gifted students; to set about re-
medial procedures which were multisensory-alphabetic-phonetic in
character and neurologically and pedagogically sound in their applica-
tion; to rearrange our language into a logical order; to develop spelling
rules and generalizations to use that order; to appreciate the value of IQ
testing for language-disabled children; to extend such testing for all
children within a school; to establish Remedial Departments; to begin
preschool testing for specific language disability; to establish reading
programs which would prevent failure; and to train teachers meticu-
lously? We do not know. We do know that her work has stood the test
of time and is vibrant and current in philosophy and in technique.
One can state, with certitude, that children never had a more de-
termined advocate than Anna Gillingham.

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