“Students enrolled in a $6 billion federal reading program that is at the heart of the No Child Left Behind law are not reading any better than those who don’t participate,†the Washington Post reported. The study released last week by the Education Department’s research arm found that students in schools that use Reading First, which provides grants to improve elementary reading, scored about the same on comprehension tests as their peers in schools that did not receive such money. Investigators previously found that some federal officials who helped oversee the phonics-focused program had financial ties to publishers of Reading First materials, the Post reported.
Seven Wichita public schools use the Reading First program. Has it been effective here? Yes, said Sue Farag, executive director of the district’s elementary learning services. She said that trend data shows significant gains in reading in each grade level from kindergarten through third grade.
However, the new study questions whether improvements in reading scores are because of the Reading First curriculum or because teachers are spending more time on reading instruction.
4 Comments
$6B? Wow, that is a lot of money. I created a game for kids ages 4-10 that gives them motivation to want to read rather than simply teaching how to read. We just had one 4-year old write his name for the very first time ever in response to a letter from a Giftventure character.
Gee, is EVERYTHING, even education a scam to this administration? With any luck, they should have the country bankrupt by November, and we’ll be owned by banks from the Cayman’s to Switzerland, Chinese bond holders and international arms merchants. Bush and Cheney will be living large on estates in Dubai, Saudi Arabia and other places without meaningful extradition treaties.
Phonics long been known to improve reading skills and spelling.
Why would we be expected to believe any survey that the Washington Post did since it will be biased against anything good.
SSITL,
While Phonics is good at sounding out new words, it also places limitations on reading/comprehension speed. As not only the ability to read but the ability to read quickly became vital in the American workplace, The Look-Say reading techiques were adopted to replace Phonics.
Neither method is fully adequate alone; both must be taught so that reading is as much as possible Look-Say with Phonics readily available when new words are encountered.
Also given that each child conceptually learns somewhat differently than his/her classmates, reading (as well as math and other subjects) should be taught in a broad a fashion as possible for each child to achieve his/her full potential.
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