CURMUDGUCATION: Does The Nation's Report Card Have A New Reading Problem

CURMUDGUCATION: Does The Nation's Report Card Have A New Reading Problem

Does The Nation's Report Card Have A New Reading Problem

Chester "Checker" Finn has concerns about the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), the folks who bring us the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), aka The Nation's Report Card, aka that Big Standardized Test that periodically fuels massive freak outs about the Youths and their Learnings.

Finn recently expressed concern over a "gag order" placed on the group by the chair, Haley Barbour, former Mississippi governor and RNC chair, which is a legit concern for any such body. This week he's worrying about a shift in the framework for reading assessments, both because it will interrupt the stream of consistent data and because there's some concern handling the issue of background knowledge and the socio-cultural context of reading, and this leads to a host of the usual debates surrounding reading tests.

None of this is new. What is reading exactly? What you believe shapes how and what you test. If you think, as the Common Core years encouraged us to, that reading is some set of discrete skills that somehow exist in your brain separate from knowledge etc, then you want to design tests in which knowledge doesn't matter, so, for example, giving third graders reading passages about ancient Turkish trading history or some other topic on which you can expect all students to be equally ignorant. If you think reading is basically decoding, you design extreme tests like the DIBELS test where students are required to decode nonsense syllables. If we drift to the end of the pool that's all about CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Does The Nation's Report Card Have A New Reading Problem

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 2: Talking to a Parent

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 2: Talking to a Parent

Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 2: Talking to a Parent

In my first post in this series on how teachers and literacy specialists can push back at the Science of Reading (SOR) narrative currently dominating reading instruction conversation and legislation, I leaned on the work of Peter Johnston and Deborah Scanlon in their report An Examination of Dyslexia Research and Instruction to argue that dyslexia is not a useful term, and that the SOR narrative, with its focus on word level instruction, casts literacy learning in too narrow a light. In the second post, I posited that a focus on getting to know the individual child as a learner immediately makes clear that each reader is unique, and that each reader's needs must be viewed from a broader lens than is suggested by SOR. In this post I would like to suggest a way of communicating with a concerned parent, who has read and bought into the SOR narrative, about CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 2: Talking to a Parent

Education Research Report: Reading Skills of Fourth-Graders Performing Below NAEP Basic

Education Research Report: Reading Skills of Fourth-Graders Performing Below NAEP Basic

Reading Skills of Fourth-Graders Performing Below NAEP Basic

Results from the 2018 NAEP Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) study show, for the first time, that fluent reading of text can be a major challenge for many fourth-grade public school students who perform below NAEP Basic on the NAEP reading assessment. This study was administered to a nationally representative sample of over 1,800 fourth-graders from 180 public schools. Students read two types of text out loud: (1) short passages to assess their oral reading fluency (the ability to read text aloud with appropriate speed, accuracy, and expression); and (2) word lists to assess their foundational skills, word recognition, and phonological decoding. Students performing below NAEP Basic were divided into three equal subgroups.

A new NCES report, Highlights of the 2018 NAEP Oral Reading Fluency Study, highlights the key concepts and major findings of the 2018 NAEP ORF study. For additional details, see its companion publication, the 2018 NAEP Oral Reading Fluency Study, which is being released with the Highlights report.

Key Findings

• Across all of the data described in these reports, there is a consistent and positive relationship between NAEP reading assessment performance and oral reading fluency and foundational skills.

• Oral reading fluency and foundational skills declined significantly at each step down the NAEP reading achievement levels, from NAEP Advanced to NAEP Proficient to NAEP Basic.

• To better understand performance below NAEP Basic, we created three new levels confined to the NAEP Basic category-below NAEP Basic High, Medium, and Low. The observed decline in oral reading fluency is also seen amongst these categories- from High to Medium to Low.

• There are noticeable variations in performance among the three below NAEP Basic subgroups for every dimension of oral reading fluency (reading aloud with proper speed, accuracy, and expression) and for each of the two foundational skills (recognizing familiar written words and decoding unfamiliar ones).

• For an estimated 1.27 million public school fourth-graders (36 percent) performing below NAEP Basic in reading in 2018, and in particular for an estimated 420,000 fourth-grade students in the below NAEP Basic Low subgroup, fluent reading of connected text, such as paragraphs, is a major challenge.

• A closer look at the underlying sources of poor fluency reveals that foundational skills (such as the ability to read and understand common words) are inadequate in the below NAEP Basic subgroups. Research has established these skills as being the main drivers of oral reading fluency and critical prerequisite skills for the subsequent development of reading comprehension

Education Research Report: Reading Skills of Fourth-Graders Performing Below NAEP Basic

2021 Medley #5 – Vouchers, Testing, and Reading | Live Long and Prosper

2021 Medley #5 – Vouchers, Testing, and Reading | Live Long and Prosper

2021 Medley #5 – Vouchers, Testing, and Reading

Vouchers, Testing, and Reading

VOUCHERS

Scholars show how to challenge voucher discrimination

How many ways can we say it? School choice is not about parents choosing the school for their child. It’s about schools choosing which students to allow through their doors. Private schools get to choose their clients.

The law may state that private and religious schools must not discriminate in order to receive state funds, but the actual real-world actions of schools accepting vouchers shows that private schools can, and often do reject certain students based on various characteristics such as religion or sexual preference (or the sexual preference of their parents). Under other circumstances, this discrimination wouldn’t be a problem. Religious schools should be allowed to require their teachers and students to follow certain theological teachings. However, it becomes a problem when public funds are used to further such discrimination.

The simple fact is that private schools, and religious schools in particular should not be allowed to use public funds because they are not required to accept all CONTINUE READING: 2021 Medley #5 – Vouchers, Testing, and Reading | Live Long and Prosper

Russ on Reading: The Reading Helper

Russ on Reading: The Reading Helper

The Reading Helper

I have a teaching certificate that says I am a qualified Teacher of Reading, and Reading Specialist and Supervisor, but from the time I got a certain Valentine's Day card from a student in 1993 I have thought of myself as a Reading Helper. That card was from a second grade vulnerable reader named Danielle who had been my student since that September. The cover of the hand made card was full of many colored hearts and flowers and said, of course, "Happy Valentine's Day." Inside was a message that I will never forget and which has defined my work ever since: "Thank you for hleping me read. Love, Danielle" Yes, exactly, "hleping." CONTINUE READING: 

Russ on Reading: Reading Aloud for Better Human Understanding: Asian-American Picture Books

Russ on Reading: Reading Aloud for Better Human Understanding: Asian-American Picture Books

Reading Aloud for Better Human Understanding: Asian-American Picture Books

Prejudice and hate crimes against Asian-Americans are not new in the United States, unfortunately, but the recent increase in bias related crimes against this segment of the American population reminds us that anti-bias efforts remain critical. The need to address the issues head on is made doubly important when political leaders are among the principal spreaders of this unreasoned hatred. One way to combat prejudice is through knowledge and understanding and one good way to spread knowledge and understanding is through a good book. Here are some great picture books that will help young readers learn about their Asian-American classmates and neighbors.

Long one of my favorite read alouds for children in grades 2-5, Angel Child, Dragon Child, by Michelle Maria Serat, with pictures by Vo-Dinh Mai, tells the story of Ut, recently arrived in the United States from Vietnam. Ut is teased by her new classmates for her different language and different clothes. School is a sad, dispiriting experience and home is a place where she misses her mother who has not made the journey with the family. Ut eventually makes an unlikely friend at school, a boy who was her chief tormentor, and the school community eventually unites around Ut and her family. Wonderful soft pencil and watercolor CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Reading Aloud for Better Human Understanding: Asian-American Picture Books

Understanding the “Science of Reading” Movement and Its Consequences: A Reader – radical eyes for equity

Understanding the “Science of Reading” Movement and Its Consequences: A Reader – radical eyes for equity

Understanding the “Science of Reading” Movement and Its Consequences: A Reader

MacPhee, D., Handsfield, L.J., & Paugh, P. (2021). Conflict or conversation? Media portrayals of the science of reading. Reading Research Quarterly, TBD. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.384

Abstract

In this article, we contend that in media stories on the science or reading, journalists have relied on strategic metaphorical framing to present reading education as a public crisis with a narrow and settled solution. Drawing on data from a critical metaphor analysis of 37 media stories, we demonstrate how frames used in recent media reporting have intensified the reading wars, promoting conflict and hampering conversation among stakeholders and across research paradigms and methodologies. The media have asserted a direct connection between basic research and instructional practice that, without sufficient translational research that attends to a variety of instructional contexts and student populations, may perpetuate inequities. We end with an example of collaboration and a challenge to reframe reading education in ways that center collaboration and conversation rather than conflict.

CONFLICT OR CONVERSATION?MEDIA PORTRAYALS OF THE SCIENCE OF READING

Bowers, J. S., & Bowers, P. N. (2021, January 22). The science of reading provides little or no support for the widespread claim that systematic phonics should be part of initial reading instruction: A response to Buckingham. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/f5qyu

Abstract

It is widely claimed that the science of reading supports the conclusion that systematic phonics should be part of initial reading instruction. Bowers (2020) challenged this conclusion after reviewing all the main evidence, and Buckingham (2020a) provided a detailed CONTINUE READING: 

Understanding the “Science of Reading” Movement and Its Consequences: A Reader – radical eyes for equity

NANCY BAILEY: Time for a NEW National Reading Panel to Study Reading Instruction

Time for a NEW National Reading Panel to Study Reading Instruction

Time for a NEW National Reading Panel to Study Reading Instruction

Reading. It’s one of the most important and controversial topics in education. Reading is the foundational skill required of children to learn. With a new President and educators Dr. Miguel Cardona and Cindy Marten, the time is right to convene a new, inclusive National Reading Panel (NRP).

Here’s why this is important, along with some brainstorming as to what it could involve. Please share your ideas.

National Reading Panel

The last NRP convened in 1997, submitting its report to Congress in February 1999, almost 25 years ago. Much has changed.

The NRP is mired in controversy. In his recent book, education scholar P.L. Thomas states:

A central component of No Child Left Behind was the NRP; however, as a key member of the panel has detailed, that report was neither a comprehensive and valid overview of the then-current state of research on teaching reading nor a foundational tool for guiding reading practices or policy. Yet, media coverage routinely references the NRP CONTINUE READING: Time for a NEW National Reading Panel to Study Reading Instruction

Teacher Tom: Leaving Our Children Illiterate in Body and Spirit

Teacher Tom: Leaving Our Children Illiterate in Body and Spirit

Leaving Our Children Illiterate in Body and Spirit

I prioritize reading books. Growing up, our daughter got to know me as a father who read books in the morning and in the afternoon. My wife and daughter are book readers as well. Our homes have always had book-lined walls. I also read a lot as a young boy. I remember keeping a stack of the books I'd completed at the foot of my bed as if they were trophies. I obsessively read every Hardy Boys Mystery, then every one of the books of Oz. Sometimes I would just hold those books in my hands and meditate on the memory of the experience of reading it. I read fiction for pleasure, but among the side effects is a sense that I'm getting to know other human beings from the inside out, rather than the more distant outside in way of getting to know characters in a play or a movie. I read non-fiction to excite my thoughts, but among the side effects is a sense that I'm a part of the great conversation that humans have been having since there have been humans.

It may sound like I'm boasting, at least a little. I mean, reading books is generally held up as one of the few worthy, perhaps even noble, past times. Smart people read books, educated people read books, if only more people would read CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Leaving Our Children Illiterate in Body and Spirit

Russ on Reading: Read Aloud Winners: The Trickster Tales of Gerald McDermott

Russ on Reading: Read Aloud Winners: The Trickster Tales of Gerald McDermott

Read Aloud Winners: The Trickster Tales of Gerald McDermott

Everyday is a good day for a read aloud, of course, but some books make better read alouds than others. Among my favorites are the trickster tales as winningly told and exquisitely illustrated by Gerald McDermott. McDermott was not only a world class artist, his illustrations just literally jump off the page at you, but also an expert in folklore. Trickster tales come to us from many different cultures and McDermott mined these rich resources for these entertaining stories.

Perhaps the most familiar of McDermott's books, this Caldecott Honor Book established McDermott's distinctive style.  Anansi is a  troublemaker whose six sons try to save him from all the problems he causes. A West African Folktale.

In this tale from the American Southwest, the animals of the desert teach the troublesome Coyote a lesson.

In this tale from India, a hungry, clever Monkey must find a way to get the tasty mangoes from the island in the river with Crocodile's help, without becoming Crocodile's lunch. CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Read Aloud Winners: The Trickster Tales of Gerald McDermott

Story time: Julian Reads for Kids in English and Spanish | Cloaking Inequity

Story time: Julian Reads for Kids in English and Spanish | Cloaking Inequity

STORY TIME: JULIAN READS FOR KIDS IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH

In this virtual schooling world due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it was an honor to be asked to read a book for the Fayette County Public Schools “Virtual Mentors Read Program.” I read Carlos and the Squash Plant by Jan Romero Stevens, a book for elementary students, in English and Spanish. I also read The Broken Bike Boy and the Queen of 33rd Street by Sharon G. Flake, a book for middle school students. Enjoy!

Enjoy!

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

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Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.

Story time: Julian Reads for Kids in English and Spanish | Cloaking Inequity

The “Science of Reading”: A Movement Anchored in the Past – radical eyes for equity

The “Science of Reading”: A Movement Anchored in the Past – radical eyes for equity

The “Science of Reading”: A Movement Anchored in the Past

One of the defining moments of my first-year writing seminar is my reading aloud the first few paragraphs from A Report from Occupied Territory by James Baldwin.

This essay in The Nation from July 11, 1966, offers students dozens of powerful examples of compelling and purposeful writing, Baldwin at his best. But the circumstances of the essay are what first strike my students.

“There was a great commotion in the streets, which, especially since it was a spring day, involved many people, including running, frightened, little boys,” Baldwin writes. “They were running from the police.”

We note that Baldwin uses “police[men]” five times in the first paragraph, which focuses on people in the Harlem “in terror of the police” because “two of the policemen were beating up a kid.”

Students immediately noted that Baldwin was addressing exactly the same racism grounded in policing that has been the source of social unrest in the CONTINUE READING: The “Science of Reading”: A Movement Anchored in the Past – radical eyes for equity

The State (SC): Read to Succeed bill would fail reading again in South Carolina – radical eyes for equity

The State (SC): Read to Succeed bill would fail reading again in South Carolina – radical eyes for equity

The State (SC): Read to Succeed bill would fail reading again in South Carolina

Read to Succeed bill would fail reading again in South Carolina (hyperlink version below and link to The State in title)

Currently, I am in year 37 of teaching in SC, serving as a high school English teacher at Woodruff High for 18 years before moving to teacher education at Furman University for the past 19 years. I entered education in SC in 1984, the first days of the accountability movement in our state.

Despite political leaders changing standards and high-stakes testing multiple times over the past four decades, political and public perception remains convinced that our students are, once again, failing to learn to read.

Bill 3613 is making the same mistake political leaders have been making since the 1980s, tinkering with punitive legislation aimed at our students and teachers while ignoring the overwhelming negative impact of inequity in our students’ homes and communities as well as the harmful negative learning and teaching conditions that persist in our schools.

Read To Succeed, which Bill 3613 seeks to amend, misreads both how students CONTINUE READING: The State (SC): Read to Succeed bill would fail reading again in South Carolina – radical eyes for equity

Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement – radical eyes for equity

Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement – radical eyes for equity

Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement

SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement (link coming; original with hyperlinks below)

South Carolina is poised with Bill 3613 to continue the historical failures of addressing reading in South Carolina through micromanaging legislation that has not resulted in improving home, community, individual equity or learning outcomes for students living in poverty, Black students, Emergent Bilinguals, or students with special needs.

Currently, I am in year 37 of teaching in SC, serving as a high school English teacher at Woodruff High for 18 years before moving to teacher education at Furman University for the past 19 years. I entered education in SC in 1984, the first days of the accountability movement in our state.

Despite political leaders changing standards and high-stakes testing multiple times over the past four decades, political and public perception remains convinced our schools are failing, and that our students are, specifically, failing to learn to read.

Read To Succeed, which Bill 3613 seeks to amend, was a serious mistake at its inception since it misreads both how students learn to read and how best to teach reading. Reading growth is not simple, and test scores are a stronger CONTINUE READING: Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement – radical eyes for equity

Books of 2020 | Teacher in a strange land

Books of 2020 | Teacher in a strange land

Books of 2020

One of my favorite things to do with my largely unstructured pandemic days and nights is read, then talk with people about books. Online. I’m always looking for new titles, recommendations of someone’s old favorite—and also thumbs-down reviews, especially when they’re about books everyone seems to be reading or praising (lookin’ at you, Bridgertons).

I’ve never been good about choosing my 10 favorite anything as the year turns over. But I did do a lot of intentional reading in 2020 (meaning I had to order library books online and wait three months for them to become available for curbside pickup—or purchase them). While some of these are new titles, some are recommendations from friends that I finally got around to.

It was a good year for fiction. I have been trying to read books around the issue of racism (an earlier review of several of those books here), and found the fiction just as instructive as the non-fiction. Salvage the Bones (Jesmyn Ward). The Night Watchman (Louise Erdrich). The Nickel Boys (Colson Whitehead). All powerful reading. More about fiction, later.

Non-fiction fell into three categories—that big bucket of reading about bias and prejudice, “school stuff” and (unfortunately) books about Donald Trump. The only CONTINUE READING: Books of 2020 | Teacher in a strange land

On Reading and Comic Books: A Journey from 1975 to 2021 (and Beyond) – radical eyes for equity

On Reading and Comic Books: A Journey from 1975 to 2021 (and Beyond) – radical eyes for equity

On Reading and Comic Books: A Journey from 1975 to 2021 (and Beyond)

She was born in November 1963/The day Aldous Huxley died/And her mama believed/That everyone could be free

“RUN, BABY, RUN,” SHERYL CROW

The summer of 1975, I was diagnosed with scoliosis and fitted with a form-fitting plastic body brace anchored with aluminum rods and spanning from my pelvic bone to my chin. This was a hell of a way to start my ninth grade at Woodruff Junior High.

I would wear that brace 23 hours a day, gradually weaning myself off the support as my vertebrae both (mostly) repaired their disfigurement and eventually stopped growing; this meant I wore the brace for much of my high school experience as well.

My childhood and teen years were a contradiction of Southern racism, ignorance, and bigotry warmly wrapped in the blanket of my loving and doting working-class parents. My scoliosis was a significant financial burden on my parents (who never flinched at the medical care it required), but it also in some ways broke their hearts.

I was a skinny and very anxious human, deeply self-conscious and introverted CONTINUE READING: On Reading and Comic Books: A Journey from 1975 to 2021 (and Beyond) – radical eyes for equity

NAEP 12th Grade Scores: Unchanged Since 2005 | Diane Ravitch's blog

NAEP 12th Grade Scores: Unchanged Since 2005 | Diane Ravitch's blog

NAEP 12th Grade Scores: Unchanged Since 2005

Those of you who have followed this blog for many years know that I don’t put much stock in twelfth grade NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores. Having served for seven years on the NAEP governing board (the National Assessment Governing Board), I know that twelfth graders are a perennial problem. Unlike students in fourth and eighth grades, the seniors know the test doesn’t count. They are not motivated.

Bearing that in mind, it is nonetheless surprising that the recently released NAEP 12th grade reading and math scores have barely budged since 2005.

Even if kids aren’t trying hard, their scores should have gone up if they were actually better educated.

I argued in Slaying Goliath that NAEP scores for fourth and eighth grade have been flat for the past decade. And these kids are doing their best.

NAEP scores show the abject failure of “education reform” inflicted on students and educators since passage of No Child Left Behind. NCLB, Race to the Top, VAM, charter schools, vouchers, merit pay, Common Core: a massive failure.

It’s time to throw out the status quo. It’s time for a new CONTINUE READING: NAEP 12th Grade Scores: Unchanged Since 2005 | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Reading Wars Are Over! Lucy Calkins Endorses Phonics | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Reading Wars Are Over! Lucy Calkins Endorses Phonics | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Reading Wars Are Over! Lucy Calkins Endorses Phonics

Lucy Calkins is one of the most influential reading researchers In the nation. She created the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, whose teaching materials have been widely adopted and is a proponent of “balanced literacy.” BL prominently opposed the “phonics first” approach.

In my book Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform,” I described in detail the long-standing debates about teaching reading, which dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. The phonetic approach was the conventional method until the advent of the very popular “Dick and Jane” reading books in the late 1920s. Those readers relied on the “whole word” method, in which children learned to recognize short words (“Run, Dick, run.” “See Sally run.”) and to use them in context rather than sound them out phonetically. In the 1950s, the debate came to a raging boil after publication of Rudolf Flesch’s “Why Johnny Can’t Read,” which attacked the CONTINUE READING: The Reading Wars Are Over! Lucy Calkins Endorses Phonics | Diane Ravitch's blog