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9486 in the collection
In findings on reading, some surprises
Stephen Krashen
Comment: How about also including a brief
history of the rake, starting with the
Estruscans, and how about a brief discussion of
the metal used, and the process for making it.
Then let's talk about the leaves and a simple
discussion of photosynthesis. Do you think life
forms on other planets are also carbon-based?
And of course, some phonemic awareness
activities: Let's remove the r- sound from
rake, what's left?
Has this writer ever met a three year old?
Stephen posted this
analysis on the Education Week website
following "Early-Literacy Findings
Unveiled."
The NELP (National Early Literacy Panel) study
appears to have come
down in favor of phonics and was apathetic
about read-alouds.
This sounds familiar: The National Reading
Panel, we were told, came
down in favor of phonics and was apathetic
about self-selected reading
in school. A close look at the National Reading
Panel by Elaine Garan
in a Kappan article in 2001 questioned the
phonics conclusion, and in
another Kappan article, also in 2001, I
questioned the conclusion
about self-selected reading in school.
A close look at NELP gives us reason to
question their conclusions
about phonics and read-alouds.
The claim: Code-related interventions are the
most effective.
Previous research has shown that heavy code-
emphasis approaches are
indeed effective on tests of decoding, that is,
tests of pronouncing
words outloud. NELP found this also.
Previous research has also shown that heavy
code-emphasis approaches
have very little or no impact on tests of
reading comprehension given
after grade one, tests in which students have
to understand what they
read. Reading comprehension tests given to very
young children, as the
National Reading Panel has noted, "generally
use extremely short
(usually one sentence) 'passages.' On these
short passages, the
effects of decoding should be strong" (National
Reading Panel, 2000,
p. 2-115). (For discussion, see Elaine Garan,
2002, Resisting Reading
Mandates, page 15).
The only reading comprehension tests included
by NELP were given in
grade one or earlier.
NELP thus does not address the important
question of whether heavy
decoding approaches really help children learn
to read, if we define
reading as understanding texts.
The claim: Reading aloud to children is not as
effective as
previously thought, having only a moderate
effect of oral-language and
knowledge of print features.
Read-alouds (actually "shared reading
interventions") showed a fairly
strong effect on oral language in the NELP
analysis, with most of the
impact on vocabulary (d = .6). Shared reading
interventions did not
relate to phonemic awareness or knowledge of
the alphabet, but that is
not how read-alouds are claimed to help
reading.
Jim Trelease (2006, The Read-Aloud
Handbook, sixth edition) states
the case for read-alouds succinctly. Reading
aloud:
1. conditions the child's brain to associate
reading with pleasure
2. creates background knowledge
3. builds vocabulary
4. provides a reading role model.
NELP confirmed number (3), and did not consider
the others. In other
words, read-alouds help familiarize children
with the special language
of writing, and gets children excited about
books, inviting them into
the literacy club (Frank Smith, 1986, Joining
the Literacy Club).
By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo
If a 3-year-old asks you, "What's that?" when
you're holding a rake, tell her more than just
its name. Say it gathers up the fallen leaves,
that it's made of metal, that it's blue. Tell
her it starts with the letter "R" and show her
the word. Expounding on a simple lawn tool will
be a better springboard for her to eventually
start reading and writing.
That's one takeaway from the first
comprehensive look at preparing children from
birth to age 5 for literacy. In this report,
some of the findings reinforce the value of
common practices, such as teaching young
children the alphabet. But "some of the
patterns are different from what people
predicted, and that's going to change
practice," says Timothy Shanahan, chairman of
the National Early Literacy Panel, which
released the report Thursday.
One indicator of the need for stronger early
literacy is the fact that by fourth grade, one-
third of students haven't reached a basic level
of reading achievement, according to the 2007
National Assessment of Educational Progress.
The picture is even more stark for students
from non-English-speaking homes or low
socioeconomic status, who tend to start
kindergarten behind in preliteracy skills.
Early-childhood education has been expanding in
many states, and during the presidential
campaign, Barack Obama proposed $10 billion a
year in additional investment. The report is
well-timed, panelists say, to guide such
investments.
Training for preschool teachers in Little Rock,
Ark., has already shifted based on an early
glimpse that district leaders had of the
panel's findings. "When a child gives a one-
word answer, the teacher will ... encourage the
child to explain further," says Glenda Nugent,
director of early childhood education.
Another practice doesn't fare so well against
the report's findings. Having kids memorize
lists of words is "creeping into a lot of
preschools," says Mr. Shanahan, who is also
director of the Center for Literacy at the
University of Illinois at Chicago. But it turns
out that it's much better to also know word
meanings and exhibit skills such as listening
comprehension.
One strain of educational philosophy posits
that such young children should simply play,
with no intentional instruction. But that view
represents less than 20 percent of early
education now, estimates Susan Landry, a panel
member and director of the Children's Learning
Institute at the University of Texas in
Houston. "The biggest challenge now," she says,
"is to not go to the other extreme, making it
too highly structured."
Little Rock's preschool classrooms aim to
reflect the balance that panel members say is
best: Children spend a lot of time on fun
activities of their choice, but in each
learning area there's printed material – books,
word labels on objects, an alphabet chart.
Teachers help students understand the parts of
spoken words, such as syllables, and how they
fit together.
The panel found strong evidence that such
skills are best learned in "small-group, short,
targeted activities," Ms. Landry says. "That
could inform policy about teacher-to-child
ratio or aides in the classroom."
The National Institute for Literacy funded the
panel's work, which examined patterns from
about 500 research articles on the skills and
teaching approaches that predict later success
in reading, writing, and spelling. The
institute will share the results on its website
and in booklets designed for audiences such as
teachers, policymakers, and parents. "People
are willing to take the time to do things
correctly if they understand why," says Andrea
Grimaldi, a senior program officer at the
institute.
Parents might be shown, for instance, why
talking about a rake can be so educational.
"Once [children] have all those pieces of
knowing what a rake is and what it can do," Ms.
Grimaldi says, "it opens up a whole other world
of how it relates to other words and other
situations." Sources: National Early Literacy
Panel and the National Institute for Literacy
— Stacy Teicher Khadaroo with analysis by Stephen Krashen
The Christian Science Monitor
2009-01-09
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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