Here we go again – more wasted money attributed to No Child Left Behind

The $1 billion-a-year Reading First program, authorized under the No Child Left Behind Act, has had no measurable effect on students’ reading comprehension. The long-awaited interim report from the Reading First Impact Study , released last week by the Institute of Education Sciences, says that students in schools receiving grants from the federal program have not fared any better than their counterparts in comparison schools in gaining meaning from print.

Its purpose was to help improve reading instruction in the nation’s struggling schools by focusing students on explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

 

So what were the results?  Well… students’ understanding of reading material did not change significantly whether or not they were in Reading First schools. In fact, researchers determined that without the Reading First funding in 2004-2005 and 2005-2006, children in grades 1 – 3 would not have lost (in 3^rd grade) or gained (1^st and 2^nd) more than 3 percentage points.  (Source: Institute of Education Sciences)

 

Thankfully, congress cut the budget for the program by 60% in October (for the 2008 fiscal year).  These cuts were driven mostly by federal reports that suggested conflicts of interest had occurred among officials and contractors who helped implement the program. Some contractors were tied to commercial reading programs used in participating schools.

 

However, a bigger problem has plagued the program, the problem of a drastically narrowed focus on basic (low level) skills, at the expense of critical thinking and understanding literature and nonfiction.  Reading instruction is a comprehensive task.  You can’t focus all of the child’s time on basic phonemic awareness and decoding skills and expect to have a fluent reader and writer.  If you teach and expect mastery of only basic skills, you will get only basic results.

 

Background knowledge is crucial in building students’ reading skills and their ability to understand subject-area texts. The teaching of content and interesting content has obviously been neglected through this program.  How is the learning relative to the child’s life and interest?  Why would a child want to read if they are subjected to educational boredom through drill and practice style reading activities?

 

Specific skills are important, but you can’t just teach the low level skills and assume the other skills will emerge by themselves.  Too much time has already been wasted with this program’s basic fanfare, that’s time that’s being stolen from recess, math and science class, and the children are getting nothing in return.  We are in a global society.  We need to connect students learning to 21^st century skills.  We need to empower students to reach higher than a basic level of understanding and knowledge.

 

My opinion – shameful!  Early education is the key to future success.  We must teach our children from birth and we must motivate others around us to do the same.  Give your child the world – set expectations high for educational development before he even begins school!

 

The root of literacy… vocabulary!

Ask any teacher or educational researcher what the best predictor of learning to read is and they will tell you - a child’s knowledge of vocabulary.  Your child’s receptive vocabulary is the mental storehouse of words he recognizes when listening to others speak.  His expressive vocabulary is the bank of words he can say, read and write with accuracy. 

 

Expressive and receptive vocabulary growth involves skills in four interrelated areas: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. The greatest opportunity to build strong language and vocabulary skills is in the first five years of life. Your baby’s brain is primed for acquiring language. Early education is the key!  To accelerate your little one’s vocabulary and literacy development:

 

1. Talk with your child
2. As he grows older, engage him in conversations
3. Read aloud to him every day
4. Teach him songs and rhymes
5. Introduce new words through our Words of the day (www.wigglegigglelearn.com) or infant/toddler flashcards

Fortunately, it is not hard to provide rich opportunities your little one needs to acquire language and the building blocks of literacy. It does, however, require being intentional about what you do every day, all day. The building blocks for language and literacy include experiences that will enable him to acquire vocabulary and language, hear the different sounds and rhythms of language, enjoy books and stories, and explore writing. As I always say, the more time and energy you devote to proactive parenting and teaching in the early years… the less reactive measures (tutoring, discipline, etc…) you will face in the later years.

 

 

 

 

Repairing reading skills = expensive and risky business

The National Education Association President Reg Weaver tells us, “We know that attempting to repair reading skills in the fourth grade is far more expensive and risky than guaranteeing pre-reading skills in preschool and good beginning reading skills in kindergarten.”

Spend as much time as possible talking with your child each day. Infants love to hear your voice as they try to figure out the patterns in your speech. The more opportunities you model good speech and vocabulary (not baby talk) the wiser your little one will be.

• Teach your child to listen and reply to others when they talk.
• After age three, begin to teach conversational skills where you try to keep your little one on topic and an active participant in dialogue for at least three minutes.
• Always answer your child’s questions.
• Encourage your child to ask questions and help him find the answers when he gets older.
• Help your child understand and use new words. Label everything you see with its word – begin this at birth.
• Help your child learn new ideas by singing and rhyming together.
• Avoid baby talk and generalized vocabulary as baby grows older– i.e., after the baby learns the word “truck” begin labeling it with its more specific name, “Ford truck”
• Write notes to your child.
• Help your child say what she want in letters or emails to others.

Early education is the key - let’s teach communication skills from birth!

Therefore we must invest our time, energy and resources early in life to insure fundamental language skills are created in every child. When children speak and listen, they are taking their first steps towards reading and writing. As children hear you talk and talk with others, they learn about people, places, and things that they will later read and write about. We know what young children understand about the world through their oral vocabulary. Your child will be able to communicate well if you invest early in the following types of activities:

Reading for understanding

Continued from the last post…Begin to use the four types of reading comprehension skills which include:• Initial understanding (e.g., identifying the main point of a passage, understanding words in the context of simple passages) Parents do this naturally while reading and after reading stories to their children. This would look like you asking him what the story was about and who was a part of the story. You would be pointing out specific words in the story to discuss what each word means and what it tells us in the story.• Interpretation (e.g., linking information across parts of the text as well as focusing on specific information) You would be showing your little one how the end of the book links to the middle or beginning or vice versa. You want to make sure to focus on specific actions, characters, setting description, etc… during this comprehension style. He will learn to be more observant and listen to the small details better.

• Personal reflection and response (e.g., connecting knowledge from the text with children’s own personal background knowledge) During this type of comprehension make sure to link the book to your child’s own experience with the topic, scenario, setting, characters, etc… This type of comprehension moves new knowledge to the long-term memory part of the brain because it connects what is read with actual experience. Imagine if your child has had no experiences in life outside of his own home, neighborhood or town – at what level could he make connections and understand what he is reading? Experience is invaluable!

• Demonstration of a critical stance (considering text objectively—e.g., what events in a passage of text are possible). Have discussions about real vs. make-believe. This type of comprehension will be most supportive of writing development in the future. Children love to write stories about things that could never happen in life. It makes writing more enjoyable. Your child should be hearing non-fiction books and fiction books over time.

Of course, you would not work on each one of these comprehension styles in every story you read. Sometimes you simply read books for the pleasure of reading with no comprehension questions attached. Remember, when developing comprehension abilities in your little one, make sure to balance the kinds of questions you ask to expose him to each type of comprehension over time.

Kindergarteners will be assessed on children’s listening comprehension and their reading comprehension at a lower level than a first grader. However, it is expected that by the end of first grade, students have a strong grasp on the different types of comprehension skills. Beginning in second grade, students are expected to read more fluently and independently while also reading at a higher level. If reading for different purposes doesn’t begin until a child enters kindergarten, will they truly be fluent in these areas after only 360 days (180 days per year – kindergarten and first grade) of instruction? Don’t forget, teachers also must teach and assess math, science, social studies, social skills, arts, music and physical education during this 360 day period. And, your child is only one student in a class of 15 or more with only one teacher.

Early education is the key to independence and a love for learning. There is no better gift you can give to your little one than a head start in school and life. Become educated on what you can be doing to promote future success by visiting websites like Wiggle Giggle Learn , Great Schools , National Center for Education Statistics , and First Teacher .

Nurturing a developing reader and writer

If I am my child’s first teacher, what should I know to begin fulfilling this role?

During the first five years of life you have the awesome responsibility of nurturing a developing reader and writer ready to begin school with a love for learning. Your child’s teachers have the tools and strategies to develop specific skills in a logical progression for optimal development over time. However, if the prerequisites for learning those new skills in a timely fashion aren’t in place, the teacher’s task will be monumental to help your child “catch up.” Remember, the statistics… your child is in school for 35 hours per week (25 of those hours being instructional time where your child isn’t the only one in the class). Your child is in the home environment 133 hours per week (or a daycare setting if you have after school care). I have listed some language skills that need to be introduced and practiced in the home environment before entering school and while in the early grades (kindergarten & first).

Understand basic skills:
• recognize the printed word in the environment
• have knowledge of the alphabet
• have knowledge of the relationship of letters to sounds at the beginning and ending of words

It is not enough for children to simply be able to “sing” the alphabet when entering school today. They need to have had some experience with seeing, feeling and saying letters in isolation to begin to grasp other literacy concepts relative to learning to read and write fluently. It is important that he is able to use the letters to write his name. He may not be able to name all 26 letters but he should have experience with both the uppercase and lowercase letters through magnets, alphabet soup/cereal, etc…

Use a broad vocabulary which includes:
• knowing the meaning of single words that represent objects and groups of objects, actions, and qualities of space and time; example, he would know that an apple – has seeds, has a stem, is a fruit, grows on a tree and can be green, yellow or red.

Most young children when asked what an apple is would say, “you eat it.” This response is just not enough to be considered “ready” to read and comprehend when entering school. Teachers would consider this response below basic for a kindergartener. If you don’t understand what a word means when you are reading the word, how will you be able to comprehend it while in context of a story? Vocabulary is one of the weakest abilities of young children in our society today. Choose a word or more a day and share facts about that word. Talk about how that word relates to your child’s life to force the new knowledge into the long-term memory department of the brain.

To be continued tomorrow…