On June 13, during the second in a series of hearings on the implementation of the Leave No Child Behind Act (P.L. 107-110) enacted last year, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee focused its attention on the Reading First program and other literacy programs. The first hearing was held on April 23 (see The Source, 4/26/02).
The Reading First program was incorporated into the No Child Left Behind Act and provides grants to states and local communities to establish scientifically-based reading programs for children in kindergarten through grade three. The program allows funds to be used for professional development for teachers and to ensure that teachers are able to identify children who are at risk of reading failure. The Reading First initiative is funded at $900 million in FY2002. The President’s budget requests $1 billion for the program in FY2003.
Opening the hearing, Committee Chair Edward Kennedy (D-MA) noted, “Reading is the foundation of learning and the golden door to opportunity.” He added, “For students who don’t learn to read well in the early years of elementary school, it is virtually impossible to keep up in the later years,” he added.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), sponsor of the Reading First initiative, agreed. “The best way to ensure that no child is left behind is to ensure that every child can read,” she said, and added, “When children acquire reading skills at an early age, they are more likely to achieve academic success.”
Undersecretary of Education Eugene Hickok, the sole witness on the first panel, called the Reading First program “the largest, and yet the most focused early reading initiative this country has ever undertaken, and the academic cornerstone of the No Child Left Behind legislation.”
He told the committee that scientific research has cited five “essential components of reading instruction,” and that “children need explicit and systematic instruction in and mastery of these five interrelated areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency, and reading comprehension in order to become proficient, successful readers.” He explained that states are in the process of applying for grants under the Reading First program and that state applications must address these five essential components.
According to Mr. Hickok, the Department of Education released application instructions and guidance for the program in April of this year, and in May, the Department named “more than seventy national experts and practitioners who will serve as review panelists.” So far, he said, his agency has received 31 applications.
The second panel included educators who have focused their efforts on teaching reading to at risk children. Trisha Rhodes of the Conners-Emerson Elementary School in Hancock, Maine described the Reading Recovery program, a state initiative designed to assist children at risk of failing reading in the first grade. The program provides intensive one-on-one daily instruction for 30 minutes that supplements a child’s classroom learning. Teachers in the program must complete a year-long training course and on-going training for every year of teaching in the Reading Recovery program.
Ms. Rhodes asked the committee to imagine the Reading Recovery program as a tricycle. “The largest of the three wheels is classroom instruction and the two smaller wheels are short-term early intervention and long-term continuing support such as special education,” she said.
Ruth Nathan of the Rancho Romero Elementary School in Alamo, California outlined several of the research-based teaching practices that she uses in her classroom. Similar to Mr. Hickok’s testimony, Ms. Nathan identified “five basic sub-processes of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.” She explained, “Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice and think about and work with the individual sounds spoken in words.” She continued, “Children might know that a cat is a warm, furry animal that they might pick up, but early on they need to come to the understanding that the word ‘cat’ has three sounds, /c/ /a/ /t/,” and added, “Knowing this will be essential to their reading.”
Additionally, Ms. Nathan had some recommendations for the committee. “If you were to ask me what I’d look for such that no child would be left behind in reading, I’d say that the federal government should only invest in comprehensive, effective reading programs.” She provided several guidelines, such as providing sufficient funds for teacher preparation that provides instruction on research-based strategies. She also recommended that grants should include methods for teaching second-language learners, promote whole-school approaches, and involve parents.
Elizabeth Primus of the Anthony Bowen Elementary School in the District of Columbia told the committee that her job “has required me to assist teachers in implementing the reading program, Success For All.” She said that she provides professional development for teachers and administers assessments every two months to determine if students are making sufficient progress. “I select reading materials that match groups’ reading ability, and I identify students who show signs of having difficulties in acquiring reading skills and strategies, such as phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding, vocabulary development, fluency, and comprehension,” she explained.
Ms. Primus testified that she has recruited volunteer tutoring and mentoring services for the children at her elementary school, and that more than 350 volunteers “from all walks of life” donate an hour during the school day. She added that it is not the number of volunteers or the packaged programs that have made a difference. “When you look at students who consistently make the grade, they are those who have a support system, and the key components are stability of the home, caring and involved parents, and, most importantly, extensive classroom libraries and highly qualified teachers,” she added.
