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Teaching first

Posted on July 31, 2008 by Staff

Margot Carmichael Lester & Steve Peha

Something big happened in the world of reading recently: A major study found that kids who participated in the multi-billion-dollar Reading First program faired no better at reading than kids who didn’t participate. To most people, whether they’ve been directly involved in Reading First or not, this comes as quite a shock.

Reading First is a big deal. It concentrates more money and more research-based practice in a single curriculum area than any other educational program in our nation’s history. But it doesn’t appear to have generated much in the way of positive results.

As the home page of the Reading First website states: “This program focuses on putting proven methods of early reading instruction in classrooms. Through Reading First, states and districts receive support to apply scientifically based reading research — and the proven instructional and assessment tools consistent with this research — to ensure that all children learn to read well by the end of third grade.”

Proven methods. Scientifically based reading research. Instructional and assessment tools consistent with research. Who wouldn’t want a program like this? And yet the kids who got it don’t read any better than the kids who didn’t. For six years, we’ve been pouring extraordinary amounts of money into a program that allegedly applies proven techniques and we don’t seem to have gotten much for the effort. Why?

Is the scientific research base in reading seriously flawed? That’s an obvious place to look. Reading First advocates reading programs that rely on systematic phonics and scripted instruction. This means teachers are told very strictly what they can do and how they can do it. Often they rely — literally — on a script to teach their lessons. This is sometimes referred to as a “teacher-proof” curriculum because it discourages teachers from introducing individual differences in teaching style and lesson delivery that might take their instruction off the prescribed program.

Another area to look into is how schools implement publisher programs. Just because a school adopts something doesn’t mean they actually use it in the way it was intended. Getting everyone in a school to follow an adopted program can be difficult. For one thing, there just aren’t enough supervisory personnel to assist teachers who may be struggling.

While the study didn’t take this issue on in great detail, it did note that teachers in Reading First schools showed measurable differences in the amount of time they devoted to systematic phonics instruction. From this and other factors, the study concluded that teacher behavior in Reading First schools was changed in ways that matched the goals of the program.

Whether the research base is wrong or the way schools implement programs is wrong, something is very wrong about Reading First, not just as another failed educational program but as a metaphor for our entire approach to education reform.

The problem as we see it is that Reading First, like most other reform-minded initiatives, ignores a simple truth about education: Good teaching comes from good teachers. Maybe individual teachers make the difference, not scripted publisher programs. Maybe some teachers are just a lot better than others at helping little kids learn to read. Maybe if we spent a little time and money finding out who those teachers are and what those teachers do, we could define a new research base in reading — one based on proven classroom practice rather than on publisher or government self-interest.

As education reform marches on, we continue to ignore our marching orders. Multi-year, multi-billion-dollar programs that produce no results are unconscionable. And yet we persist in ignoring a fundamental truth: Teachers make the difference in how kids learn. Until we commit to investing directly in the capacity of our national teaching corps, we can expect little in the way of progress, and more in the way of disappointments like Reading First. Reform efforts that focus on programs, curriculum, alternative school structures, even incentive pay systems, will never be as effective as actually training teachers to be better at what they do.

Until we put teaching first, programs like Reading First will continue to produce disappointing results. And so will our efforts with testing, charter schools, alternative certification, voucher programs and so many other popular approaches to education reform. The secret to improving student learning is improving teacher teaching. And we can only accomplish this if improving teaching is our top priority.

Steve Peha and Margot Carmichael Lester own Teaching That Makes Sense Inc., an education reform, advocacy and consulting company based in Carrboro.

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