351 critique 3 language - Department of English at Illinois State

Critique 3
LANGUAGE
ABOUT
LANGUAGE
by
GINA COOKE
HYPERTEXT
SPRING 2010
Overview
“Supporting growth in teachers’
knowledge of reading, spelling,
writing and language . . . through
publication, instruction and
advocacy.”
This website (www.louisamoats.com) is a
recent―and still unfinished―development in
Louisa Moat’s significant body of work. Dr.
Moats is the author of a number of books,
articles, and curricula for audiences including
teachers, teacher trainers, parents, and policy
makers. She is a nationally renowned speaker in
my professional field of structured language
education and one of the primary personalities
in the broader field of evidence-based reading
instruction. She is currently vice-president of the
International Dyslexia Association (IDA). I have
long been familiar with her work (see sidebar).
Dr. Moats already had a strong presence
online prior to the development of this
eponymous website. She is featured on a
number of websites about reading experts,
such as www.childrenofthecode.org and
www.readingrockets.org. She also has
profiles on the websites of publishing
companies Sopris West and Paul H. Brookes
The original target for this critique was the
website for Dr. Moat’s professional
development program, LETRS (see box
below). Along the way, I encountered this
new identity-driven website and decided to
critique it instead.
The target website provides a platform
for promoting Dr. Moats, her research,
writing, products, and the professional field
that houses them all. It includes links to
external websites, including the above
expertise and publishing sites. Users can also
link to Dr. Moat’s new blog, which will be
included in the evaluation as well.
Dr. Moats & Me:
In 2000, I read Dr. Moats’s well-known book
Speech to Print, which endeavors to bring
knowledge of the linguistic structure of
English to an audience of educators.
In 2001, I met and worked with Louisa and
her co-author, Susan Hall, on a professional
development project in northwest Indiana.
For years, I read and recommended her
work as the only linguistic voice in ‘evidencebased’ reading research and instruction.
However, since 2009, with a much deeper
understanding of English orthography myself,
I have taken a critical eye to her body of
work, and have discovered logical fallacies,
linguistic imprecision, and ideological biases
about language and about teaching. She is
a leader in my professional field, and my
doctoral writing calls for a higher standard
of evidence in ‘evidence-based‘ instruction.
In addition to her rich publishing history, Dr. Moats is well known for her professional development program
for teachers. Comprising 12 modules, LETRS focuses on teaching teachers the component language
knowledge and skills supported by a broad body of research into effective reading instruction. In 2008, I
trained in Modules 1-6, and became a certified trainer for Modules 4--6. While the training program is
among the best available for teachers, it places a strong emphasis on phonemic awareness and
phonics, but diverges from linguistic evidence in its presentations of morphology and
etymology, both demonstrably critical components of the system of English orthography.
Language Essentials for
Teachers of Reading and Spelling
Gina Cooke
Hypertext - Critique 3 - Language
Page 1
What Moats Gets Right
Louisa has pioneered language for language
structure in reading instruction, introducing
linguistic terminology to teachers. She works
to redirect reading research spellingward,
and calls for meaningful professional
development for teachers from an evidence
base rather than habits, belifs, and trends.
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What Moats Gets Wrong
Things That a Language
Expert Should Get Right
1. The answer is NOT blowin’ in the wind.
A “teacher knowledge survey” authored by
Moats indicated that the words ventilator,
invent and adventure all share a root. In fact,
vent and ventilator derive from Latin ventus,
‘wind,‘ while adventure and invent derive
from Latin venire, ‘to come.’ I e-mailed her
about the error and she corrected it.
educational circles as she does. I know her
work, and I want to see how she promotes
herself online.
My goal in this critique is to critique the
website itself, although it will admittedly be
colored by my critique of Dr. Moats’s body
of work. My intent in doing both is to
advance the research-based agenda in the
instruction of written language. Dr. Moats
has has contributed enormously to significant
changes in reading and spelling pedagogy
(see sidebar, below), but she also ignores
and misapprehends linguistic data over and
over again (see sidebar). I want to see how
she promotes herself and her products in
terms of linguistic expertise. Finally, I am
interested in what she offers her audience
that won’t cost them anything. I’d like to
figure out how to achieve a balance
between cultivating a commercial audience
for my own current and future offerings, and
providing free tools and information to build
teachers’ and students’ knowledge, curiosity
and independent thinking about English.
Interest & Motivation
Louisa Moats’s website interests me
both for my own Creation website and for
my graduate project, an academic blog
called LEX: Linguist-Educator Exchange.
Since one goal of my Creation website is to
provide accurate, accessible information on
dyslexia, language structure and effective
instruction, I wanted to explore the ways in
which Dr. Moats makes those aspects salient
on her website. And since my graduate
project may critique some of Dr. Moats’s
research and writing directly, I wanted to
examine her online presence and how it
furthers her reach and broadens her
audience(s). Moreover, Dr. Moats is a
tireless and successful self-promoter,
something I try to eschew myself in
deference to presenting spin-free linguistic
data instead. So, I am interested in
discerning how Dr. Moats’s website
promotes effective instruction and linguistic
evidence versus how it promotes the
commerce of her personality, publications,
publishing companies, conferences, curricula
and professional development opportunities.
I have read most of Dr. Moats’s writing
from the last decade, have seen her in
keynote addresses, workshops and videos. I
have worked in some of the same
Gina Cooke
2. LETRS missed a big Language Essential.
In LETRS, Moats made the claim that “the root
phon in the words phonological, phonetic,
phonemic and is derived from the Latin root
for ‘sound’.” Some colleagues and I found it
on her website while studying English
orthography in France. In reality, the base
<phone> is derived from the Greek root for
‘voice, speech.‘ The digraph <ph> is a dead
etymological giveaway. Again, this error was
corrected after we sent an e-mail.
3. The OED is just a giant wiki.
In personal correspondence, Moats claimed
that the OED entry for wisdom says the word
is “wise + dom”. It actually says “see wise a
and -dom.” This distinction matters in spelling.
4. Real language experts don’t guess.
Moats lets her pedagogical framework drive
the language ‘evidence’ she offers rather
than vice-versa. For example, she writes that
farmer and grocer are Anglo-Saxon because
they’re short, common, and spelled with the
agentive <-er> and not <-or>. Unfortunately,
both words derive from French.
Ultimately, my interest in this website
lies in this: Louisa Moats is the best there is
at doing what I’d like to be doing, and I
think it could be done better. Let’s see if the
same is true of her website.
5. Physician, heal thyself.
Moats often teaches from the same kinds of
hunches, guesses and ideologies that she
cautions teachers against. She writes from a
phonological bias and make surface
observations about language rather than
structuring an investigation into evidence from
the language itself.
Hypertext - Critique 3 - Language
Page 2
Louisa’s Blog
The Who, What, Where,
Why and How
1. Who’s it for?
The blog is for teachers: it’s really just a
recapitulation of the main site. It features the
same tagline, and the 3 short text entries are
about spelling assessment and instruction.
2. What’s it about?
Ostensibly it’s about teaching reading and
spelling, but again, it’s really all about Louisa
Moats. There are five entries: two Reading
Rockets videos (including the same one that
appears on louisamoats.com) and one is an
excerpt from published materials.
Audience
3. When is it written?
The blog is new. All five entries were posted
in early 2010, the two videos in January and
the three texts all on February 25th. I am
taking note that an outdated or irregular
blog does not look so professional . . .
The website has an ostensive audience of teachers, as evidenced by the homepage tagline,
“Supporting growth in teachers’ knowledge of reading, spelling, writing and language . . .
through publication, instruction and advocacy,” and by the three major navigational options on
the homepage:
4. Where is it?
This is a wordpress.com blog, and it can be
linked to from a louisamoats.com tab.
offers information on conferences for teachers.
5. Why is she writing it?
First of all, I’m not sure that she is writing it,
or updating it. She’s busy. Perhaps someone
handles this for her. Second, thus far, it seems
to be intended for teachers and for selfpromotion.
links users to Louisa’s publications,research,
products & programs, and professional development. This grouping does not make clear the
difference, if any, between research and publications, or programs and professional
development. We’ll revisit this in the navigation page.
6. How is it useful?
I’m not sure that it is useful. It seems to be
more a response to some nebulous pressure
to have a blog, as it doesn’t really feature
much that the regular website doesn’t.
Lessons Learned
1. If you have a blog, then by all means,
keep it updated.
2. If you have a couple of websites, make
sure that they have distinct purposes, if
not distinct audiences.
3. Video is good. People like video, even
of talking heads. A video blog entry is
worth considering for me, especially
for demonstrating teaching a concept.
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Gina Cooke
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features a video of Dr. Moats discussing teacher preparation,
professional development, phonemic awareness, the alphabetic principle, and phonics, and
telling an anecdote about a kindergarten teacher with a classroom full of successful readers.
Besides the “Meet Dr. Moats” video on the homepage, another video entitled “Watch &
Learn: Text Comprehension” (above) is buried below the fold on the Recommended Resources
page. It shows a classroom teacher modeling and demonstrating a reading comprehension
technique to children in a small group. It seems to me that this video would be far more helpful
to teachers than Dr. Moat’s resume or a list of awards she has received. The decision to make Dr.
Moats’s credentials very prominent may be to establish her credibility among teachers, but I
would argue that users would likely already have a sense of her credibility from seeing, hearing,
or reading her before visiting this site.
Purpose
The stated purpose of the website is to support teachers (see above). However, I would
submit that the more consistent message of the website is to promote Dr. Moats, her credentials,
her perspectives, her research and professional writing, her commercial products, and, to a lesser
extent, the organizations she is affiliated with.
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Hypertext - Critique 3 - Language
Page
home
The site navigation is
accessible form the homepage
in three different ways:
1. From a single-layer menu
bar at the top of the page
(above), some of which
drop down as well
2. From a similar list of options
at the bottom of the page
(below), re-organized under
the categories in the yellow
boxes in this grid.
3. From the four pictures in the
right-hand third of the
homepage.
join the dialogue meet dr. moats
find a resource
news & events
education & bio
publications
This link takes the user to a page
with no content. Goodwill: -2
This links to a page of 4
paragraphs about Dr. Moat’s
credentials and experiences.
Journal articles; Policy papers;
Books & book chapters;
Instructional materials ; About
LETRS. The LETRS page has the
only commercial link.
blog
positions held
websites
This links the user directly to the
external blog at wordpress.com.
The bog’s identity, content and
design are not notably different
from the main site.
This page reads just like the
“Professional” section on a
resume.
Links to 8 recommended websites,
and - inexplicably - at the bottom,
below the fold is one of the best
thing of the website: a video of a
teaching demonstration.
faq
boards & awards
conferences
This page has a list of 13 topics,
like “spelling” and “leadership”
but the list items do not link (yet).
You guessed it -- this section also
reads like part of a resume.
Right now, this page provides links
to two conferences held by
organizations affiliated with Dr.
Moats.
Navigation & Information
Architecture
Design
This aspect of the site is frustrating, for
three main reasons:
First, sine the site is new, there are a lot
of dead end pages. I think the site author(s)
could maintain a lot more goodwill with
something as simple as “Coming soon!”
Second, I don’t like that the blog
navigates you away from the main page, in
the same window. The blog is really just an
echo of the main site; if it must be separate, I
think it would be better to link to it in a new
tab.
Third, and most significantly, the
organization is confusing. There are eight
pages, as listed in the top menu bar (above).
Each page, except the home page, also has a
left-hand sidebar with sub-pages. For
example, the Recommended Resources page
has sub-pages of Readings, Websites,
Conferences, Products & Programs in its left
sidebar. This all seems fairly straightforward,
and I really like the structure of universal top
menu bar and the page-specific left menu.
The problem arises in the separate navigation
bar along the bottom of the home page. It’s
organized differently, and both I and my user
found it difficult to retrace our steps or figure
out exactly where we were on the site. Some
of the bottom links on the homepage take the
user to one of the eight pages, and some link
to sub-pages. That mixing of navigational
levels is difficult to track.
Gina Cooke
Overall, I have little to critique about the
design. The color scheme and graphics are
consistent with Louisa’s branding in her books
and curricular materials.
Contrast: The muted blues and greens
contrast with light or dark hues, and against
white backdrops or white text. Also, the
visually rich home page contrasts with the
other more spartan, texty pages, giving it a
definite “hub” character.
Repetition: The repeated navigation bars
(top and left) are a strong feature of the site.
The marine color scheme repeats from page
to page, and the LETRS logo repeats
frequently throughout the site.
Alignment: Overall, this aspect of the
design is well done. The left-aligned Louisa C.
Moats Ed.D. is in the same position on every
page, as is the neat navigation bar at the top
of the page. The only place tis breaks down
some in on the home page, where the page is
divided into three unequal thirds. The
organization of those three pieces took me
some time to figure out, and the alignment
plays a part in that confusion.
Proximity: Since several pages just
feature lists (Boards & Awards, Education &
Bio, FAQ, for example), there’s not much
work to be done in terms of proximity. Also,
because the pages are fairly sparse -- there’s
only one topic addressed on any given page
other than the home page -- there is little room
for proximity errors or confusion.
Hypertext - Critique 3 - Language
The above article is available for
download from louisamoats.com. It was
co-authored by Louisa, Malt Joshi,
Rebecca Treiman and Suzanne Carreker,
the field’s leading experts on spelling.
And! It is full of some of the most
egregious errors about English I have
seen in scholarly educational writing. To
wit: the authors refer to <punish> as an
“Anglo-Saxon base word” when in fact is
is (1) Latinate and (2) polymorphemic.
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Usability
Who
One of my tutors who knows who Louisa
Moats is but has only read one of her
books, from 1999. She had a very low-key
reaction to this website.
What
Overall, the user found the site helpful and
well-organized. “Seems like if I wanted to
find information about Louisa Moats, I
could find it here,” she said. She had no
problem navigating -- she never used those
links at the bottom of the home page,
which link to different “levels” of pages
and confused me. She stuck with the top
links and sidebars, and had no problem
keeping her place. This showed me that the
whole site’s navigation isn’t off; it’s just that
superfluous set of bottom links from the
homepage.
long list of articles were available. She
liked that the site was not commercial; she
said it felt informational. I asked her if she
would want to read Dr. Moats’s resume;
she replied, I don’t, but someone might.”
The user was not at all annoyed by the
blank pages (News & Events, etc.). Since I
had told her it was a new site (my bad),
she did not mind the unfinished aspects.
Why & How
My user did not have too many
suggestions. She liked that one of Louisa’s
articles had a PDF link on the Publications
page, but wished that more of the long,
To my chagrin, I neglected to ask my user
to visit the blog, and she did not elect to. I
can see the value of multiple usability tests.
Who does Louisa Moats think she is?
Identity
The site identity is strong and apparent:
Louisa Cook Moats, Ed.D. The name appears
boldly across the top of every page, as well as
on every blog page. While the site links to a
handful of books by other
authors, its primary content
is the work of Louisa
Moats. Even the cloud of
linguistic symbols speaks of
her identity: the same or
similar graphics appear on
the cover of her most famous book, Speech to
Print.
Lesser aspects of identity support the Big
Name: the color scheme is consistent (and
oddly calming); the photos and videos make
her face and her work visible; and the site
features other logos and brands that support
Moats’s enormous credibility.
As both a user and a designer (and I use
that term very loosely), I don’t know how I feel
about having such a personal identity on a
website. I can appreciate having a brand, and
putting one’s name on the brand (like LEX or
Real Spelling, or LETRS), but the idea that
Louisa Moats is her work disturbs me. She has
a business called Moats Associates Consulting,
Inc. Why not string that, or at least Moats
Associates across the top of the page?
Perhaps the strong name-based identity is
intended to personalize the site, but for me, it
has the opposite effect. It depersonalizes
Louisa.
Writing & Content
The writing sounds like Louisa Moats.
She’s not at all a bad writer; she’s just a poor
logician and an ersatz linguist. But as long as
she’s not talking about language structure, her
Gina Cooke
Gestalt
writing is generally accurate. I did find
evidence of haste in putting the site together,
such as the <you> for <your> below:
Good overall website
The website works. It’s easily
navigated; it’s readable. One can find
one’s way around for the most part. It
has a clear identity and an accessible
design.
I also take exception with the extremism
expressed in the paragraph below, from the
Policy Papers page:
“Research now shows that a child who doesn’t
learn the reading basics early is unlikely to
learn them at all. Any child who doesn’t learn
to read early and well will not easily master
other skills and knowledge, and is unlikely to
ever flourish in school or life” (emphasis
added).
Lessons learned
As a professional who works to rescue children
with dyslexia from a half-literate existence, I
take offense at the sweeping generalizations
like “any child” and “at all” and “unlikely to
ever flourish.” I know plenty of lousy readers
and even more lousy spellers who “flourish”
just fine. It all depends on one’s idea of what it
means to “flourish.” Louisa Moats is a selfappointed arbiter of literacy and what it implies
for all the children of America, a position I find
unsustainable.
I do not want to come off as a selfpromoter. I want to promote my
ideas, my thinking, my research, and
my teaching, but not me as a person.
I will be vigilant in creating my
professional websites to avoid the kind
of cult-figure presence I find in Louisa’s
career and certainly in her online
presence.
Research
Because my professional / academic
goal is to advance the evidence-based
agenda in reading and spelling
education, I intend to carry a stronger
epistemology than Louisa does in my
statements about language, about
learning and about children’s future
prospectives.
The Work Speaks for Itself
Since most pages are just lists -- lists of
awards, accomplishments, publications,
boards, books, curricula, etc., I would argue
that it’s content-light. Lists are content, I
suppose, but the user who really wants to get
to Louisa’s content has to go elsewhere -- to her
published body of work -- to get it.
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