Teach Effectively!

In an article on about.com under the heading “special education,” Sue Watson recommends what she considers important steps to help students with reading problems. The list reveals a common misperception about disabilities.

According to Watson, “The first step in helping struggling readers is to ensure that they experience some form of success – to boost confidence levels.” On subsequent pages she follows this recommendation with others: Make reading enjoyable and use a variety of approaches.

If the target is improving students’ reading outcomes, these recommendations fall short of the mark. The recommendations may be the result of a heartfelt desire to ease children into reading, the hope that a student who is favorably disposed toward reading will be easier to teach. But, as far as I know, those good intentions have no scientific documentation that they help children learn better. Instead, we have copious documentation that systematic, explicit instruction in the building blocks of reading helps children succeed (see the National Reading Panel report). In addition, there are good reasons to believe that success is a powerful motivator.

Sadly, recommendations such as those offered by Ms. Watson are common, not just on the Internet with it’s wide-open publishing standards, but in education itself. They appear to be founded more on theory and personal opinion than evidence. It is up to those of us who know better to counter these sorts of recommendations and demand that educational practices be based on evidence. What methods, techniques, practices, and procedures produce documented benefits? Let’s use those rather than falling back on unfounded intuition.

Furthermore, let’s be wary of misrepresentations of the nature of disabilities. Arguments about the primacy of motivating students with reading problems perpetuate the myth that these problems are a result of the student not trying hard enough. Indolence isn’t the cause of learning problems. These kids are not just lazy. They need effective instruction. “LD” doesn’t stand for “lazy and dumb.” (Try Googling learning disability “lazy and dumb.”)

To be sure, encouraging effort and helping students understand that their successes are related to their effort are important aspects of teaching. But let’s not confuse motivating students with teaching them.