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How Reading Recovery Teaches the Five Essential Elements of Reading Instruction and More Mary Anne Doyle University of Connecticut

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How Reading Recovery Teaches the Five Essential Elements of Reading Instruction and More Mary Anne Doyle University of Connecticut View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Northern Iowa University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Curriculum & Instruction Faculty Publications Department of Curriculum and Instruction Fall 2003 How Reading Recovery Teaches the Five Essential Elements of Reading Instruction and More Mary Anne Doyle University of Connecticut Salli Forbes University of Iowa Copyright ©2003 Mary Anne Doyle and Salli Forbes. The opc yright holder has granted permission for posting. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ci_facpub Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits oy u Recommended Citation Doyle, Mary Anne and Forbes, Salli, "How Reading Recovery Teaches the Five Essential Elements of Reading Instruction and More" (2003). Curriculum & Instruction Faculty Publications. 30. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ci_facpub/30 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at UNI ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Curriculum & Instruction Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UNI ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Teaching How Reading Recovery Teaches the Five Essential Elements of Reading Instruction and More National Reading Panel Recommendations—and Beyond Mary Anne Doyle, University of Connecticut Salli Forbes, The University of Iowa Consequently, the influence of these reports extends to schools and reading programs nationally. The purpose of this article is to review Reading Recovery in light of recom- mendations for early reading instruc- tion detailed in the reports. Understandably, these recommenda- tions are now held by national and state education policy makers as para- mount for instructional programs offered beginning readers. In most instances the Panel’s instructional rec- ommendations must be accounted for in order to secure federal and state Mary Anne Doyle Salli Forbes funds for reading programs. School administrators, classroom teachers, In 1997 Congress called for the direc- pertaining to selected topics of begin- and parents may tor of the National Institute of Child ning reading instruction. Their goal very well query Health and Human Development was to glean implications for begin- Reading (NICHD), in consultation with the ning reading instruction based on sci- Recovery Secretary of Education, to convene a entific evidence. national panel to assess the status of The NRP reported its findings research-based knowledge, including in two documents the effectiveness of various approaches published by the to teaching children to read (NICHD, NICHD (2000a, 2000a, p. 1). The resulting 14- 2000b). These member National Reading Panel reports, the basis for (NRP or Panel) included reading information on read- researchers, representatives of colleges ing instruction cur- of education, educational administra- rently being dissemi- tors, a classroom teacher, a parent, nated by the United and a medical doctor (Yatvin, 2002). States Department of The work completed by the NRP Education, served as the involved identification and meta- theoretical foundation of analyses of the experimental and the No Child Left quasi-experimental research literature Behind Act of 2001. Journal of Reading Recovery Fall 2003 1 Teaching teachers about the inclusion of the have no importance or that The Panel’s screening process recommended elements in the assess- improvement in those areas identified experimental and quasi- ment and instructional practices of would not lead to greater read- experimental studies. For several top- Reading Recovery. This article ing achievement. It was simply ics, the number of studies identified addresses those concerns and details the sheer number of studies was sufficient to allow the Panel to how the essential elements for begin- identified by Panel staff relevant conduct statistical meta-analyses. For ning reading instruction are presented to reading…that precluded an those topics for which there were too in Reading Recovery instruction. exhaustive analysis of the few studies to meet the established research in all areas of potential criteria for a meta-analysis, the NRP Before presenting specific details of interest (NICHD, 2000a, p. 3). conducted more subjective, qualitative Reading Recovery instruction relative analyses of the research (NICHD, to the recommendations of the NRP, One especially important area that 2000a). we will review how the NRP estab- was apparently beyond the scope of lished the topics studied, the five the Panel’s work was the role that In discussions of the findings, the essential elements the panel identified, writing plays in children’s develop- NRP report emphasizes the significant and how the panel selected the ment of literacy (Yatvin, 2002). benefits of instruction in the five research reviewed. We will also present Nevertheless, the Panel chose to exam- essential elements for learners of vary- the definition of reading they adopted ine questions relative to these five top- ing abilities. Therefore, the recom- for their work and detail how recom- ics as “they currently reflect the cen- mendations for classroom programs mendations for classroom programs tral issues in reading instruction and are proposed by the Panel as essential, were identified. reading achievement” (NICHD, not only for regular classroom teach- 2000a, p. 3). ing, but equally for children with reading difficulties. However, the Five Essential Elements The topics and essential elements were Panel did not focus specifically on The NRP investigated research in assigned to subgroups that reviewed early interventions for at-risk learners three areas of reading competence that and analyzed carefully selected and did not seek to identify recom- they identified as essential for reading research in order to identify effective mendations of alternative instruction- instruction: alphabetics, fluency, and instructional approaches for classroom al procedures for students having dif- comprehension. In relation to these applications. Studies that were includ- ficulty learning to read. three areas, the Panel detailed the five ed in the analyses met the Panel’s “rig- essential elements listed below: orous research methodological stan- In contrast to the approach of the A. Alphabetics dards” and “had to measure reading as Panel to generalize from research done 1. Phonemic Awareness an outcome” (NICHD, 2000a, p. 5). with a wide range of learners to the Instruction For the purpose of identifying appro- needs of students having difficulty 2. Phonics Instruction priate studies, the Panel adopted a learning to read, Marie Clay designed B. Fluency definition of reading that included Reading Recovery specifically for 3. Fluency Instruction “several behaviors such as the follow- those children who struggle with ini- C. Comprehension ing: reading real words in isolation or tial literacy instruction. She cautions 4. Vocabulary Instruction in context, reading pseudo-words that that the instructional procedures in 5. Comprehension can be pronounced but have no Reading Recovery: A Guidebook for Instruction meaning, reading text aloud or silent- Teachers in Training (Clay, 1993) are ly, and comprehending text that is not recommended for classroom pro- The NRP explicitly recognized that read silently or orally” (NICHD, grams. Rather, they have been trialled these elements are not an exhaustive 2000a, p. 5). The additional criteria and evaluated empirically with that list of important factors in learning to for selection were that the studies had specific subset of the general first- read: been published in refereed journals grade population identified as at risk The Panel’s silence on other and that the studies focused on chil- of failure in first-grade classroom pro- topics should not be interpreted dren’s reading development in the age grams (Clay, 1993). This article does as indication that other topics and grade range from preschool to not recommend using procedures Grade 12. 2 Journal of Reading Recovery Fall 2003 Teaching designed for Reading Recovery instruction in a classroom setting. Reading Recovery teachers understand that this caution derives from the research base of the Reading Recovery program and that generalizing beyond the population studied is inappropri- ate. Reading Recovery was designed with a clearly articulated definition of suc- cessful reading. Clay writes that read- ing is “a message-getting, problem- solving activity which increases in power and flexibility the more it is practised” (1991, p. 6). Therefore, “within the directional constraints of the printer’s code, language and visual perception responses are purposefully It is in writing that the learner segments language and attends to discrete phonemes directed by the reader in some inte- in the act of recording messages. grated way to the problem of extract- ing meaning from cues in a text, in and taught in the Reading Recovery tions to read or spell words” sequence, so that the reader brings a intervention. In the spring 2004 issue (NICHD, 2000a, p. 7). Conse- maximum of understanding to the of this journal, we will address the ele- quently, the two recommended ele- author’s message” (Clay, 1991, p. 6). ments of comprehension and vocabu- ments are This definition is based on many lary development. In both articles we 1. phonemic awareness instruc- research studies of successful readers will also describe an
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