In an editorial opposite the editorial page of the Boston (MA, US) Herald, Edward Moscovitch advocated continuation of the Reading First program. Under the 8 July 2008 headline “No time to close book: Though threatened, reading program is working,” Mr. Moscovitch addresses many of the concerns discussed about Reading First. Here’s his lead:
Reading First, a major part of the No Child Left Behind law, encourages schools in low-income districts to use frequent assessments and research-based instruction to improve student reading. Report after report shows student gains.
And yet today the program is headed for the congressional chopping block - a victim of misunderstood studies and even more specious charges of insider dealings. If that happens, the nation’s children will be the real losers.
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Shep Barbash published “Looking Beyond the Reading First Controversy” in Education Next, the quarterly journal of the Hoover Institute that examines issues related to US education reform. Although he probably wrote his piece before the recent release of the interim version of the study examining the impact of Reading First, Mr. Barbash makes a spirited argument for the benefits of Reading First. Here’s his lead:
“Reading First is the most effective federal program in history.” So reads the opening line of a report that Alabama superintendent of education Joseph Morton sent to his congressional delegation last June, in which he recounts how the program has raised reading achievement for poor students in his charge. Morton’s view is shared by leaders in many other states, where thousands of Reading First elementary schools have reported unprecedented progress closing the “literacy gap” among the poor.
Continue reading ‘More RF’
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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.
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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’
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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.
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Over on EdBizBuzz, one of the Ed Week blogs, Marc Dean Millot has reprinted a letter from Bob Slavin in response to the recently published analysis of Reading First by Sol Stern. Professor Slavin lists a set of concerns that Mr. Stern omitted from his analysis. Read it here.
Please remember that I am a member of the Reading First federal advisory committee. I am not, however, speaking for the committee, my fellow panelists, nor the US Department of Education here.
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This past week, while I was attending a meeting about the US Federal initiative to improve early literacy instruction, Sol Stern published an analysis of that same program. In his extended article entitled “Too Good to Last: The True Story of Reading First,” Mr. Stern presents his account of how Reading First came into being with a foundation on rigorous scientific evidence, was watered down, became the focus of a frenzy based on “sloppy media coverage,” was abandoned by its initial patron, and finally was eviscerated for political reasons. He calls it a “cautionary tale,” but his treatment makes it read more like a tragedy.
Link to Mr. Stern’s article. Mr. Stern, who usually writes for the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, presents a view that is consonant with the position advocated by Garrison Keillor to which I referred in an earlier post on Teach Effectively; here’s a link to the earlier post on Reading First by Mr. Keillor.
Obligatory disclosure: I am a member of the Reading First advisory committee, but my statements are my own. I am not speaking on behalf of the committee nor of my colleagues on the committee.
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In “Massive Funding Cuts to ‘Reading First’ Generate Worries for Struggling Schools,” Kathleen Kennedy Manzo of Education Week reports about the views of educators and policy analysts on recent reductions in funding for the US government’s Reading First program. Ms. Manzo, whose article includes the opinions of both those who consider the RF program to be succeeding and those who are frankly critical of it, uses this lead.
Continue reading ‘Reading First cuts’
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