The Rhetoric and Politics of… Reading Instruction

NICHD National Reading Panel Linnea Ehri (CUNY) Tim Shanahan (UIC) Michael Kamil (Stanford) Joanna Williams (Teachers College) S. Jay Samuels (Minnesota) Joanne Yatvin (Oregon) 8 others

NRP definition of reading: Reading includes behaviors such as the following: reading real words in isolation or in context, reading pseudowords that can be pronounced but have no meaning, reading text aloud or silently, or comprehending text that is read aloud or silently.

NRP findings PA training leads to improvements in students PA, reading, and spelling. Systematic, synthetic phonics instruction has positive effect on K-6 th grade students. Guided oral reading has positive impact on word recognition, fluency, and comprehension No relationship between wide, independent, and silent reading and reading achievement. Vocabulary instruction leads to gains in comprehension. Teaching variety of reading comprehension strategies is effective.

Criticisms of NRP Narrow concept of reading Lack of time to be comprehensive No implications for classroom practice No practitioners on the panel Report is of poor quality and irrelevant Research base inappropriate Findings can’t be generalized

Phonemic awareness knowledge that spoken words are made up of tiny segments of sound, referred to as phonemes.

L. Ehri et al. research on PA examined 52 studies comparing PA training to no-PA training at-risk, reading disabled, normally-achieving students overall effect size =.86 (.34 for reading comprehension) only 6.5% of variance on reading achievement accounted for by PA training

The panel found that the research conducted to date strongly supports the concept that explicitly and systematically teaching children to manipulate phonemes significantly improves children's reading and spelling abilities. The evidence for this is so clear cut that this method should be an important component of classroom reading instruction. The panel also concluded that the research literature provides solid evidence that phonics instruction produces significant benefits for children from kindergarten through 6th grade and for children having difficulties learning to read. The greatest improvements in reading were seen from systematic phonics instruction. [Found on Internet 10/28/02 at

M. Dressman study California –Increased immigrant population –Poor kids getting poorer –Lowest in funding for school libraries –Worst public library system in US Texas –TAAS scores increased? (The “Texas Miracle”) –High minority population –Great increase in school dropout to avoid TAAS

Effective literacy instruction (Pressley et al.) The most effective teachers: –Have excellent classroom management skills –Create positive, reinforcing, cooperative environment –Balance skills instruction and whole language –Match demands to student competence with a lot of scaffolding –Encourage self-regulation –Make strong connections to the curriculum