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More false claims from the Dept of Education Email Print

By skrashen
09/25/2007 01:58:29 PM EST

Predictably, the administration is claiming that the 2007 national test results (NAEP) support No Child Left Behind. They don't.  

NCLB became law in 2002.
Since 2002, fourth grade reading scores have gone up 2 points, and eighth grade reading scores have dropped one point.  (The national average for grade 4 in 2007 was 221, with the lowest 10 percent scoring 174, the highest scoring 264. A two point gain is very small.)
The gap between students from high and low income families is also nearly unchanged, reduced by one point in grade 4, and two points in grade 8.
Students in Reading First, the reading component of NCLB, get much more reading instruction, an extra 100 minutes per week, or an extra semester every two years.  What the NAEP scores tell us is that this huge investment is not paying off. Even if Reading First were only mildly effective, we would see noticeable improvement, not just two points after several years at one grade level and a drop of one point in another.

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More false claims from the Dept of Education | 4 comments (4 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Is Reading First working? (none / 0)
It's a bit early to start attributing NAEP score changes to Reading First. The new professional development, reading coaches, and materials didn't begin taking effect until the 2003-2004 school year.  That year's kindergarten students haven't even reached 4th grade to take the NAEP test, much less 8th grade.

The Reading First students who have taken the 4th grade NAEP test have only seen one or two years of the program, and certainly, teacher effectiveness in those first years wouldn't have been a strong as once efforts were fully under way.

Then, there's the question of numbers. I don't know the exact percentage, but I'm guessing that fewer than 10% of students attend Reading First Schools.  A 2 point NAEP gain is about 1%, but if that's attributable to only 10% of the students, then the increase is more like 10%, which is promising so early in the program.

What perspective do I bring to bear on the question? I'm a proud liberal appalled and disgusted by the pervasive un-American philosophy and actions of the current administration across so many dimensions: democracy, economy, health care, environment, we could all go on and on. That said, the Bush administration's approach to reading is one (the one?) area with something positive to be said.

I'm not an educator, but I know a bit about reading and Reading First as a parent, school board member, employee of an educational publisher, and former director of professional development for Reading First in a New England state.

What the research clearly shows about reading is that the bottom 40th percentile or so simply does not respond to what's generally referred to as the whole language approach to reading. On the other hand, a decoding-first (but not decoding-only) approach has been shown to be effective for these students. That doesn't mean that such implementations will necessarily be implemented with the needed fidelity. But at least they have a chance.

The written language is arbitrary (hence the hundreds or thousands in existence). There hasn't been a genetic favoring of the skills required to read in the same way that there has been for vision, for instance. As a result, our ability to read is somewhat random. Some of us are wired for it, others aren't. For those who aren't, immersing them in books makes about as much sense as immersing a non-swimmer in a deep pool. Nothing good is likely to result.

The tenets behind Reading First are simple. Expose children to rich oral language as early as possible, explicitly teach decoding skills and vocabulary, and help develop comprehension skills so that readers may extract meaning from written text.

by deepbrook on 09/26/2007 08:49:49 AM EST

The NAEP test, decoding, whole language (none / 0)
Several points:
1.    Deepbrook is right: The NAEP is given to fourth graders and it is unlikely that many of them would have had much exposure to Reading First.  The Bush administration still maintains that NAEP results support No Child Left Behind. I have looked at third grade scores and also found no effect for NCLB/Reading First, but deepbrook's argument could hold for this group as well. (Krashen, S. 2007, Reading First: `Impressive' Gains? http://www.districtadminist ration.com/pulse/commentpos t.aspx?news=no&postid=1 8974
2.     The issue on decoding and explicitly teaching decoding skills: There is no argument about whether we should teach phonics. We should. The argument is whether we should teach basic phonics, or the version of phonics pushed by the Dept of Education, systematic, intensive phonics, which calls for teaching all the major rules of phonics in a strict order.  Many of these rules are extremely complicated, more suited to linguists than children trying to learn to read. Try to remember this one: "the a-e combination is pronounced with the long vowel and the final e silent (except when the final syllable is unaccented - then the vowel is pronounced with a short-i sound, as in "palace," or the combination is "are," with words such as "have" and "dance" as exceptions)."  According to Prof. Elaine Garan of Fresno State University, intensive systematic phonics produces gains only on tests in which children pronounce lists of words presented in isolation; it has an insignificant impact on tests in which children need to understand what they read.
3.    Nobody ever called for simply "immersing children in books." In whole language classes, teachers provide children with interesting reading material, and help them understand what they read. This happens in several ways, including providing background information, and the use of some phonics.

by skrashen on 09/27/2007 04:53:59 AM EST

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The proper emphasis on decoding (none / 0)
Regarding 2, does the DOE suggest a specific strict order or any specific sequence that research shows to be effective? My understanding is the latter. If that's not DOE's take, it should be.

Regarding 3, it's a fair point to say that "whole language" doesn't ignore phonics. It's equally fair to say, in my opinion, that it hasn't given enough attention to phonics.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but the low NAEP scores from an era characterized by whole language that show too many students reading below proficient strike me as clear evidence that the pendulum was too far away from the decoding end of the spectrum. I'd love to know if anyone is aware of reading data that extends back to when phonics instruction was in vogue (although I'm not sure when that was--the '50s? the '30s?).

by deepbrook on 09/27/2007 11:46:03 AM EST

[ Parent ]
How much phonics? NAEP scores and whole language. (none / 0)
Deepbrook wrote: "Regarding 3, it's a fair point to say that "whole language" doesn't ignore phonics. It's equally fair to say, in my opinion, that it hasn't given enough attention to phonics."

SK: This brings up an important issue: How much phonics do children need to know? How much is optimal? This question has, to my knowledge, never been explicitly addressed in the research.

Deepbrook wrote: "Perhaps I'm mistaken, but the low NAEP scores from an era characterized by whole language that show too many students reading below proficient strike me as clear evidence that the pendulum was too far away from the decoding end of the spectrum."

SK:  Long term analysis of NAEP scores have been done. There hasn't been much movement over the years in reading. High school and grade 8 scores are very steady from 1971 to the present. In grade 4, there was an increase of a few points between 1971 and 1980, and again around 2000, but not much.
Deepbrook is perhaps referring to California's low NAEP scores in 1992, when they ranked at the bottom of the nation. Whole language was blamed for this, and was purged from California's schools, replaced by intensive systematic phonics.  Whole language, according to (urban) legend, was introduced by the 1987 Framework committee, which I was a member of.

But: (1) 1992 was the first time NAEP scores were analyzed by state. There was no "pretest," no evidence that things had been better in the past. McQuillan's analysis of other test scores in California revealed that scores were low well before the 1987 Framework committee met.
(2) California still ranks at the bottom of the US. NAEP scores released a few days ago show that California is still in the basement, in a virtual tie for last place with Mississippi and Louisiana.
(3) California has the worst school and public libraries in the US. Study after study has shown that reading scores and library quality are related, including studies related NAEP scores and library quality.
(4) The 1987 Framework committee never mentioned whole language. We recommended that language arts be literature-based, hardly a revolutionary idea. Phonics was never forbidden. Also, as deepbrook has pointed out, the NAEP is given to 4th graders. It is unlikely that many 4th graders in 1992 had experienced much of the new approach, which was introduced several years after the committee met.

Some references:

Krashen, S. 2002. Whole language and the great plummet of 1987-92: An urban legend from California. Phi Delta Kappan 83 (10): 748-753.
McQuillan, J. 1998. The Literacy Crisis: False Claims and Real Solutions. Heinemann.

by skrashen on 09/27/2007 02:11:08 PM EST

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More false claims from the Dept of Education | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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