I don't have any research at the moment, but... If you are going to provide research to demonstrate effectiveness of instructional practice, I suggest you (ahem) kindly request that admin and curriculum specialists demonstrate similar research to demonstrate that the *current* approaches to reading instruction are grounded in research showing them to be effective.
I may be off-base, but sometimes people stick with some approach because "that's how we do it here". The assumption being that it's "right" because we've done it that way for so long or because we own a lot of textbooks. As my geometry teacher would have said: AAFCA (As Any Fool Can See) - It *HAS* to be right! My personal observation (middle school 10+ years) is that nothing improves reading better than: 1. Reading Good Books 2. Talking About Good Books I once wanted to teach US History "backwards" (from present to past). I couldn't find anything to support this approach, but nobody on staff could find any research to show that teaching from past to present was effective either. Result - (sigh) I had to teach out of the 20 year old textbook. Keith Mack Web Administrator for Mosaic List _______________________________________________ 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.
