StickWithANose

Well, it looks like the education lobby is about to achieve another legislative victory. Despite there being no evidence that structured literacy programs, such as Reading First, have a “statistically significant impact on student reading comprehension test scores”, it is fait accompli that another structured literacy program is about to become codified in law.

As described in the Senate Bill, the LEARN Act is
Reading First expanded to all levels. It is Reading First on steroids.

The methods required by LEARN are nearly identical to those promoted by NCLB and Reading First: “… systematic, and explicit instruction in phonological awareness, phonic decoding, vocabulary, reading fluency, and reading comprehension.”

The Senate bill lists the same areas of instruction that were in the report of the National Reading Panel, which was heavily criticized by some of the most respected scholars in the field. These principles were used by Reading First, which failed every empirical test. LEARN assumes that direct instruction is the only way children become literate, that “The intellectual and linguistic skills necessary for writing and reading must be developed through explicit, intentional, and systematic language activities …” and assumes that there is no contrary view.

The irony here is rich. The primary justification for our current push on education reform is centered around the idea of producing future workers for the “knowledge economy,” but the structured curricula being codified into federal legislation is built on rote memorization… a model more appropriate to the 16th century.