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Invest
in life�s greatest treasure, our children.
Although the findings
of the National Reading Panel offer detailed information on strategies that
have proven to work in reading instruction, the
report does NOT
meet the needs of our schools. The Partnership for Reading encourages educators and parents to go
deeper into the research to discover what really works and to learn how to
activate those concepts in the classroom and at home. Here are some of the
fundamental findings of the NRP:
- Certain instructional methods are more
effective than others. Many of the more effective methods are ready
for implementation in the classroom.
- To teach reading well, teachers must use a combination
of strategies, incorporated in a coherent plan with specific goals. A
teacher who addresses only one area of reading or uses one instructional
approach will probably not be successful.
- To become good readers, children must
develop phonemic awareness (an understanding of the sounds that make up
spoken language), phonics skills (an understanding of the sounds that
letters and letter combinations make), the ability to read fluently and
accurately, and the ability to comprehend what is read.
- Systematic and explicit instruction in phonemic
awareness directly causes improvement in children's reading and
spelling skills.
- Systematic and explicit phonics instruction
produces significant benefits for children from kindergarten through sixth
grade and for children having difficulty learning to read. Effective phonics
instruction involves teaching a sequence of phonics elements, not just
highlighting elements as they appear in a text.
- Guided
repeated oral reading
is important to developing reading fluency - the ability to read with
efficiency and ease. Guided repeated oral reading helps students recognize
new words and understand what they read.
- While programs such as Accelerated Reader
significantly improve comprehension skills, the research is not conclusive
on whether reading silently helps to improve reading fluency. It is
not yet clear whether independent silent reading by itself improves
reading skills or whether good readers simply like to read silently more
than poor readers. Therefore, reading silently should be combined with
other types of reading instruction.
- Vocabulary
should be taught both directly (apart from a narrative or text) and
indirectly (as words are encountered in a text). Repetition and multiple
exposures to words contribute to the understanding of word meaning.
- Reading
comprehension
- understanding what is read - is best supported when teachers use a
variety of techniques and systematic strategies to assist in recall of
information, question generation, and summarizing of information.
- Teachers
must be provided with appropriate and intensive training to ensure
that they know when and how to teach specific strategies. Teachers must
know how children learn to read, why some children have difficulty
reading, and how to identify and implement instructional strategies for
different children.
- Computer
technology
can contribute to the improvement of reading instruction. Early
indications from the research suggest that additional studies and further
analysis are necessary to determine the specific, proven contributions
computer technology can make in this area.
See chapter 7, Minority View, for information from
the only elementary teacher involved in the study. The research failed to discuss many important questions.
She concludes that the report is narrow and biased.
In the end, the work of the NRP is not of poor quality it is just
unbalanced and too some extent irrelevant.
(Joanne Yatvin, Ph.D. has more than 40 years of experience in education
and is the only member of the NRP who has lived a career in elementary schools.)
The report does NOT meet the needs of our schools.
The following are a few of the areas not
reviewed in the NRP study.
- Direct
instruction
- Use of
decodable texts
- Imbedded
skills instruction
- Reading aloud
to children
- Invented
spelling
- Use of
predictable texts
- Early
language development (vocabulary, grammar, and literary language)
- Integrated
reading and writing
- Home teaching
programs
- Access to
quality literature
- Whole class
instruction
- Scripted
instruction
- Teacher
modeling
- Children�s
understanding of print conventions
Hot Topics not seriously investigated (from International Reading
Association as listed in Reading Today, December 1999):
- Balanced
Reading Instruction
- Decodable
texts
- Direct
instruction
- Early
intervention
- Performance
assessment
- Standards
- State/national
assessments
- Volunteer
tutoring
Three reading models not considered in research:
- Word
identification model of reading
- Word
identification plus skills
-
Integration of language and
thinking
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For questions about this Website, please e-mail Robert
Ferguson.
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