What is it about?
Bloomfield and C.L. Barnhart, the dictionary maker, formed a partnership in the late 1930s to find a publisher for the linguist's basic reading program. Because Bloomfield's pedagogy was not based on phonics but on linguistic consistency, publishers, unwilling to embark on launching a (perhaps) disruptive text, refused to consider it. This article recounts that publishing history and some early experimentation with the program as well as some critical reactions to Bloomfield's ideas.
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Why is it important?
While the main concern of this article is how Bloomfield's ideas finally reached the public marketplace, it also considers how, even in the face of evidence that traditional reading programs fail many pupils learning to read (the "reading problem" is still with us), vested interests--either intellectual or financial--exert significant control over which ideas are shared and which not. As an original voice in linguistics, Bloomfield's voice was heard in the field of literacy only twelve years after his death.
Perspectives
Bloomfield produced a wonderfully systematic and logical way to teach basic reading skill. I remain convinced of the appeal to young pupils of a way of learning that involves them in the process, which "Let's Read" does. Through its logical and systematic progression it leads a pupil to ultimate mastery of the code of written English, a task more challenging for teachers dealing with multicultural pupils and a goal that for many of them remains elusive.
Cynthia Barnhart
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A little-known aspect of Leonard Bloomfield’s linguistics, Historiographia Linguistica, September 2013, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/hl.40.3.05bar.
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