I will resist the temptation to jump in and try to do a good faith 
summary of what I have so far from respondents. My apologies if I am 
leaving something substantial out. Feel free to correct or comment.

I have received some posts that didn’t go out to the list, and I’ll try 
to include those in a blanket response.

1) There seems a general consensus (all yes votes) to the notion that 
people learn naturally the language they are exposed to as they are 
growing up. Bill cautions us (I think rightly) that it may be wrong to 
assume that it comes easily just because it looks that way from the 
outside. It’s also not clear what kind of modeling or interaction might 
be part of it.

2) The general consensus seems to be that reaching high levels of 
literacy is rare. There’s not a clear consensus on how “direct 
instruction” might influence that. A few people mention ability and 
motivation as factors. Others mention lots of reading and engagement 
with complex texts or ‘being interactively read to.” In those cases, it 
would seem to me that literacy is an indirect result, but perhaps the 
result of being in the right kind of language environment.

3) There seems a pretty good consensus on Standard English: that it 
comes easily to those who hear it around them as they acquire language, 
but not so easily to those who don’t. Standard English is hard for those 
students whose primary use of language is non-standard, and they seem to 
require some attention and instruction.

4) High levels of reading competence often come without direct 
instruction, though most seem to believe that extensive reading and 
conversations about what we are reading are very helpful. One person off 
list mentioned that he has developed much more effective strategies for 
reading complex texts “later in life” and wishes he had been given them 
earlier. I like John’s observation, that readers are often “instructed 
directly by the texts” they are reading. I’m not sure I agree, but it’s 
a thoughtful possibility. Perhaps it rubs off? We pick it up intuitively?
The lack of input from elementary school teachers may be worth noting. 
It seems to me that we are taught reading early on, but then doing 
reading takes over. By high school, English classes seem to focus on 
literary texts. What’s the current status of the phonics versus whole 
language debate?

5) There seems a much stronger belief that writing requires direct 
instruction, especially for those who don’t do it well. One respondent 
says it can happen without direct instruction, but usually doesn’t. 
Another says that students often overvalue their writing and need a 
wake-up call. Another implies that interactive talk about what they are 
writing would create an environment in which they might learn to write 
without direct instruction. In general, though, the consensus is that 
writing seems to require more direct teaching than reading does.

6) There were some differences in the way this statement was 
interpreted. For those who interpreted “leaning about language” as 
somewhat analytical, the consensus seems to be that direct instruction 
is needed (though an individual can discover some of that on their own.) 
There was some questioning of the value of learning about language 
outside the context of reading and writing. Some aspects can be easy, 
but much of it is hard.

Craig

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