Over at Skeptic’s Dictionary Robert Todd Carroll has an extended and detailed analysis of the bologna marketed under the brand name “Brain Gym.” Mr. Carroll, who retired as professor of philosophy in 2007 after teaching taught courses on logic and reasoning, created a Web site (and wrote a book) that covers diverse lunch meats ranging from supernatural, paranormal, and pseudo-scientific. His examination of Brain Gym shows that it falls into the third category of those three…at least, he doesn’t go into any connections between Brain Gym the supernatural or paranormal.
Continue reading ‘Skeptics’ Brain Gym workout’
Archive for the 'Research' Category
Michael F. Shaughnessy has published responses by Reid Lyon, one of the architects of Reading First, to questions about the “Reading First Impact Study: Interim Report” by Beth Gamse and colleagues. Here’s a link to his comments. They are wide-ranging and detailed.
Continue reading ‘Lyon on RF impact study’
The US Institute for Education Sciences released an important report about the effects of Reading First program at the end of April. In the report, “Reading First Impact Study: Interim Report,” Beth C. Gamse and colleagues describe the methods and findings of a study mandated by law to examine the effects of the RF program on instruction in classrooms and outcomes for children attending those schools where it it is implemented.
For those of us who think RF methods represent an improvement over garden-variety reading instruction, the results are disappointing. Although teachers were found to be devoting more time to phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, students were not experiencing significant improvements in their reading outcomes.
Here’s the executive summary from the report.
Continue reading ‘Weak impact for RF’
Over on d-edreckoning, Ken De Rosa has a wonderful post explaining how some widely discussed educational constructs fail to have the impact that teaching effectively has. He’s constructed normal curves showing the relative effects of class size and socio-economic status on the average achievement when low-level achievement is the base.
Continue reading ‘Sucky pet reforms’
The Division for Research of the Council for Exceptional Children (DR-CEC) awarded Michael Coyne, of the University of Connecticut, its 2008 award for distinguished achievement in research about special education. This prestigious award recognizes Professor Coyne’s substantial contribution to understanding individuals with disabilities and the provision of services to those individuals. According DR-CEC,
Continue reading ‘Coyne receives early career award’
Former “reading czar” G. Reid Lyon has responded to questions posed by Michael F. Shaughnessy about the U.S. Reading First program. As those who have been paying attention know, the federal foray into guiding schools to use scientifically based reading instruction ran into rocky allegations of malfeasance, allegations that at least one reporter has questioned strongly. Mr. Lyon describes his disagreement with some of those allegations, and you can read why he does.
Continue reading ‘Lyon on Reading First’
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