In a crowded field of promises and quick fixes,
here's what looks most promising

(From American Teacher, March 1998)

If you compared the amount of time most people spend deciding what car to buy with the amount of time most schools spend selecting a program for teaching students to read, you'd probably find that the car-buying decision was the more thorough and time-consuming. One reason is that car buyers have a huge array of guides, ratings, checklists and other resources available to help them evaluate their options and make an educated choice. Teachers and administrators, by contrast, have little objective material on which to base what is undeniably a vital decision for the future success of our students.

While much of the discussion about reading instruction revolves around the endless and sometimes-nasty debate about the merits of phonics vs. whole language--so passionate, in fact, that they're often referred to as "reading wars"--the debate has done little to tell teachers and other educators what they really need to know: what works. Now an AFT publication, "Seven Promising Reading and English Language Arts Programs," rises above ideology and presents the essential facts on existing programs that are backed up by solid research and have evaluation data showing they can help raise the academic performance of low-achieving students. The publication, while not intended solely for troubled schools, grew out of the work of the AFT task force on low-performing schools. (See page 6 for a special report on a recent AFT institute on low-performing schools.)

The description of promising reading programs, part of a series of "What Works" publications produced by the AFT's educational issues department, provides concrete examples that illustrate a broader policy the AFT is developing on beginning reading instruction. The policy, to be taken up at the union's national convention this summer, was approved by the AFT executive council at its February meeting.

High stakes choices

The goal of ensuring that every American student can read independently by the end of third grade, which President Clinton set forth in his 1996 State of the Union address and remains one of his education priorities, would seem to be a modest one for the richest, most powerful nation on earth. But, says an AFT task force on reading that drafted the reading resolution, "it is one that must be met before any other education goal can be met."

Fortunately, we now know a lot about how to help virtually all students learn to read. The first step, the task force urges, is to apply the consistent findings of hundreds of research studies, conducted over the past several decades in such diverse fields as neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, cognitive science and education, that have helped us understand how children learn to read and what we must do to improve their early reading instruction.

Any approach to reading instruction must include early, explicit instruction in "phonemic awareness"--an understanding that words are made up of small sounds and that the ability to distinguish those sounds in words and blend sounds together to form words is an essential part of the reading process. Similarly, any approach must include explicit instruction in phonics--the ability to link these sounds to the specific letters used to represent them in written language--as well as an early emphasis on listening skills, background knowledge, comprehension, language development, writing, and conceptual and vocabulary development.

"You have to understand what happens to kids who don't learn sound awareness," psychologist Reid Lyon of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, told the union's K-12 program and policy council last fall. "They just don't make it. They don't make it in school and they don't make it in life. It is extremely important and it is not something that you can 'pick up.'"

But reading instruction doesn't stop with phonics and basal readers. It must include storytelling and writing, a deep exploration of the treasure chest of rich and challenging children's literature, and literacy-related activities that can help enhance children's love of books and of learning. In short, good reading instruction includes a solid grounding in basic decoding skills, enhanced by rich literature.

We need to "move beyond teaching reading by whim and fancy," says Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and an AFT vice president who chairs the AFT task force on reading. Adds task force member Donna Chiera, president of the Perth Amboy (N.J.) Federation/AFT, "As a classroom teacher who teaches reading 180 days a year, I can say that this resolution makes a whole lot of sense. It takes the best of both approaches [whole language and phonics]."

To improve reading and language arts instruction in schools, the task force notes, the research base about what works in teaching beginning reading needs to be reflected in everything from preservice teacher training programs to ongoing professional development for teachers and paraprofessionals to textbooks and other classroom materials. Too often, schools adopt instructional approaches and materials for teaching reading that are backed by nothing more than the untested claims of their developers.

"Teachers desperately need training" in reading instruction, AFT president Sandra Feldman says. "We have to fight to get it to them." One good example of training in action is the AFT's Educational Research and Dissemination (ER&D) program, which provides teachers and paraprofessionals with high-quality professional development in reading research and effective practices in reading instruction.

What works?

In identifying promising programs that school staff may want to consider in designing approaches to help raise students' academic achievement, the AFT chose only to highlight programs that meet four criteria:

• High standards. The program helps all students acquire the skills and/or knowledge they need to successfully perform at high academic standards.
• Effectiveness. The program has proven to be effective in raising the academic achievement levels of "at-risk" students in low-performing schools, based on independent evaluations.
• Replicability. The program has been effectively implemented at multiple sites beyond the original pilot school(s).
• Support structures. Professional development, materials and ongoing implementation support are available for the program, either through the program's developer, independent contractors or dissemination networks established by schools already in the program.

In other words, these are well-designed programs backed by solid evidence that, when fully and faithfully implemented, they can help even struggling schools succeed. Other reading programs out there might sound promising, but until they can provide additional data to indicate that they also meet these criteria, they should be viewed with a healthy dose of caution.

For each program, the publication describes its main features, evaluation results, case studies, considerations, and additional publications and resources. The featured programs:

Cooperative Integrated Reading and Comprehension (CIRC). CIRC is not a beginning reading program. Rather, it is an approach for grades 2-6 that emphasizes cooperative partner and group activities among students. It includes teacher-directed instruction in reading comprehension, story-related activities for pairs and teams of students (such as reading aloud, practicing difficult words and retelling stories from basal readers), and integrated language arts/writing where students do lots of planning, revising and editing. Students are also required to read a book of their choice each evening for 20 minutes and complete a book report every two weeks on their independent reading. CIRC is also available in a bilingual version.

Direct Instruction (DI). DI is a highly structured instructional approach designed primarily for elementary schools. The program features scripted lesson plans, fast-paced instruction with rhythmic group and individual responses, and a sequence of skills based on extensive research and field-testing about the most efficient ways to lead students to master essential skills. The intent is to accelerate the learning of at-risk students as much as possible. DI students are assessed frequently to make sure they're mastering the essential skills and are provided extra help, if needed.

Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction (ECRI). This program, which can be used in grades 1-12, is intended to strengthen and supplement, but not replace, existing curricula. Teachers receive intensive training for instruction in areas such as word recognition, vocabulary, spelling, comprehension and writing. ECRI teachers are also trained to use mastery learning techniques during a classroom reading period that may last up to two hours. The teacher first models and demonstrates new skills, then uses rapid prompts to check students' understanding. During a practice period, teachers hold individual conferences, check students' mastery and re-teach skills as necessary to small groups.

Junior Great Books (JGB). Designed for grades K-12, JGB is a supplementary literature program that exposes all students to rich, challenging literature and helps them develop their critical reading and thinking skills. It has no beginning reading component. A central instructional technique is "shared inquiry" discussions of selected texts--which include a diverse mix of age-appropriate classic and modern literature--in which teachers encourage students to search for answers to fundamental questions posed by the texts. Students learn to support their views with evidence from the text and express those views in variety of writing assignments.

Multicultural Reading and Thinking (McRat). McRat is a supplementary program for grades 3-8 that teaches students to read reflectively, supply evidence for their opinions and communicate ideas effectively in writing. Teachers conduct a minimum of one McRat lesson per week in which they employ multicultural themes and content to provide instruction in the critical-reasoning skills of analysis, comparison, inference/interpretation and evaluation. Each lesson involves inquiry, sustained discussion and writing to help develop students' reasoning. The program aims to help students read for context and subtext as well as literal understanding.

Open Court Collections for Young Scholars (OC). OC is a commercially published elementary school reading and writing program for grades K-6 that uses a balanced approach to reading instruction, including direct instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics, grade-appropriate decodable text, and a variety of classic and contemporary children's literature. The beginning reading portion includes explicit instruction to teach phonemic and alphabetic awareness, but award-winning literature is also introduced early on, and trade books play an important role once students are reading independently. OC is one of the only commercial reading and language arts programs with independent field tests demonstrating its effectiveness.

Success for All (SFA). SFA is a schoolwide elementary restructuring program, typically supported by Title I funds, that features a research-based reading curriculum. The program includes instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics as well as children's literature, cooperative learning activities, extended reading groups with homogenous grouping, frequent assessment to identify students in need of help and one-on-one tutoring for students with reading problems. The program also includes a family-support component to deal with behavior problems and other issues that might be getting in the way of students' academic progress.

Copies of "Seven Promising Reading and English Language Arts Programs" are available online at www.aft.org/pubs-reports/downloads/teachers/seven.pdf or through the AFT order department. Singles copies are free.