FIRST TO GINGER—I hope this isn’t offending the tone and intent of this listserve. However, some members have expressed concern about the role of research in mandating instruction and the number of teachers leaving the profession. It seems to me that this all is relevant to MOT in that much of what’s mandated in Reading First schools precludes comprehension instruction until third or even fourth grade and forces a lot of isolated skills instruction and scripted programs. So if I’m straying here, please forgive me. I don’t want to see those issues fall by the wayside and I don’t to leave those listserve members who stuck their necks out to be left dangling out there when I have facts and perspective on these crucial issues that affect us all.
John, in your post yesterday you as well as in points made by Renee, Beverlee, Lori and others—this listserve has addressed many concerns about the diminishing role of professionalism education. Many of those concerns result from what John has identified as crucial and neglected points in the NRP as well as flaws in terms of objectivity and also the selection of the topics. You also rightly raised the point that most of the studies dealt with struggling readers but the findings were nonetheless overgeneralized to all students including ELL's! This is because many influential panel members came from a special ed background and a deficit approach to reading. They also had programs to sell. I want to address and expand on what you said and I also need to address the Big Five that I have seen referred to on this listserve because there is a strong misconception about those so called 5 essential elements of reading. Here's what NRP panel member Joanne Yatvin said about those five elements that are now held sacrosanct. What Joanne states here is not based on her opinions. She has emails, notes from meetings, exchanges among panel members and other documentation to support her statements. To my knowledge, what she says in this commentary about those five elements has never been refuted. Those five elements that are now labeled and mandated as “essential” were based on panel members' interests (rather than on some objective north star of "this is what's essential"-- I know her very well and she doesn't say anything without having the hard facts to back her up. Here is Joanne's commentary in Education Week titled "I Told You So": ---------------------------- FALSE: The panel determined that there are five essentials of reading instruction. TRUE: Although the NRP reported positive results for five of the six instructionalstrategies it investigated, it never claimed that these five were the essential components of reading. At its first meeting, the panel divided itself into three subgroups (Alphabetics, Fluency, and Comprehension), and each subgroup selected its own first topic on the basis of its members' interests. After regional meetings with citizens and educators, two more subgroups (Teacher Education and Computer Technology) were added, and they, too, chose their own topics. At its third meeting, the panel identified 35 additional topics that merited investigation, but soon discovered that it did not have enough time or resources to study them. In the "Next Steps" section of the summary booklet, the panel expresses its regret at not being able to examine all worthy topics, and states: " The panel emphasizes that omissions of topics such as the effects of predictable and decodable text formats on Beginning reading development, motivational factors in learning to read, and the effects of integrating reading and writing, to name a few, are not to be interpreted as determinations of unimportance or ineffectiveness." Nowhere in its report does the panel assert that the strategies found effective are the "essentials" of reading instruction. That determination was made elsewhere, embodied in the No Child Left Behind Act, and then included in the guidelines for Reading First. Ultimately, references to the "five essentials of reading" appeared in state applications, media commentaries, and promotional literature for various commercial programs. ----------------------------------- And so, (back to me, Elaine) It is a big mistake to see the research and that panel's decisions as somehow sacrosanct. It hurts to see so many teachers turn their power over to a lot of people who are SO far removed from the realities and the complexities of the the classroom. The vast majority of the panel were behavioral psychologists, not teachers. As such, they tended to approach reading from a slice and dice perspective. The research and ultimately the panel’s findings were driven by the methodology. They insisted on research that followed a medical model experimental/treatment group compared to a control group. This type of research must necessarily cleanse all extenuating variables from the process. The problem with an absolute insistence on that medical model approach is that real reading is complex and so are classrooms and they cannot be reduced to single variables and then have those hot house conclusions somehow generalized living classroom cultures. Therefore, the panel focused on what could be sliced, diced and measured and to a great extent, they ignored the complexities of real kids, and real reading and real classroom life. Think about this-- each of those five sections of the report was not only treated separately in reporting the research-- at no point were they ever put together. This is a reflection of a world view that sees reading a set of discrete skills rather than an integrated process and that is is the view of that largely traditional panel most of whom never taught a real kid. It hurts to say this too, but a lot of what they focused on was driven by their own interests, to say nothing of their own financial vested interests. In other words, those five elements that are held sacred were arbitrary and based on "Let's do this" rather than any objective, outside research criteria! I wrote the following and was going to post it but I was worried that it sounded too confrontational or negative. Every time some one mentions those sacred Big Five elements, I've been tempted to post how those elements were actually decided upon. So if this sounds too nasty, please forgive me. Those five elements were NOT deemed to be essential by the NRP. That is a myth. I'm attaching part of a commentary written by Joanne Yatvin who was the panel member closest to the classroom and who wrote the minority report. I would add, that there were appalling methodological flaws and unevenness within each section of the NRP as well as across the subgroups. Those panel members as Elisa points out, had not just their own philosophical, but their own financial stakes dependent on the research findings. In fact, many went on to become members of "expert" Reading First panels and essentially mandated their own products to schools. The huge investigation by the Office of the Inspector General found appalling conflicts of interest. Reid Lyon himself --after using his position to pave the way, and blasting teachers and schools and university teacher prep programs, -- went into the private sector and set up his own schools of education. This is a wonderful list-serve with so many wonderful people on it and I hate to sully the energetic and sincere discussions here with this negative reality. But it is that negative reality of financial interests combined with a lot of arrogance and disrespect for real teachers that is drives what's "in" and what's "out" Phonics can be old. Fluency can be sold. Asssessments and scripted programs can be sold with the collateral bonus that they can control teachers and kids’ thinking-- But ssr is not profitable. And yes, as John notes-- watch out when Reading First and DIBELs hit the middle and high school. It's coming! Again, I'm sorry if this is outside the intent of the listserve. To me, it's hard to isolate comprehension from research, from mandates and mandates from politics and politics from profit for some researchers. It's all connected, It's part of the mosaic. _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
