Netting a wide audience
The Get Ready to Read campaign,
mounted by the National Center for Learning Disabilities aims to build the early literacy skills of
preschool children throughout the US. Its web site includes a research
driven screening
tool for four year olds, and literacy-related resources for
families, teachers, researchers and health professionals.
The publication Put Reading First
is also designed to net a wide audience, including educators,
parents and policy-makers. The site represents the
outcome of a collaborative effort between the National Institute for
Literacy, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and the
U.S. Department of Education. It provides
an evidence based, in-depth
account of instruction of K to 3s in the areas of phonemic awareness,
phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary and text comprehension.
Rocket science
These two sites are complemented by the National Reading Panel
(NRP)
publications page
on the NICHD site, where there is a rich collection of reading
research resources
such as the wonderfully titled booklet
Teaching reading IS rocket science. The NRP 2000 report
confirmed that phonics instruction is not the complete answer to
reading instruction (nothing new in that) and that language activities
and other critical learning experiences are also important (still
nothing new).
An article
in Education Week (it takes
moments to set up a free online subscription) critical of the
panel's methodology and its practical application in schools, points
out that the nub of the problem is not really to do with the panel's
findings per se, but how they have been interpreted
and implemented. An example, it seems, of policymakers opting
for the narrow view in
the quest for simplistic solutions to complex issues. Rocket science
indeed!
Reading rockets
The Reading
Rockets site is one of many resource sites on the web geared to the
needs of reading teachers and other interested parties.
Among the gems are BBCi
Learning, comprehension worksheets,
Guys Read - a literacy
initiative for boys, a collection of phonemic awareness songs,
the Scholastic site, Starfall,
and Webbing
into Literacy.
Readable research
One of the pleasures of leafing and browsing through the
research on literacy is finding so many well-written, interesting,
thought provoking, and often witty,
articles. And what better place to find them than the ASHA Leader,
where Gail Gillon discusses phonological awareness intervention
for children, Alan Kamhi writes about the role of the SLP in
improving reading
fluency, Mary Spratcher highlights key
roles for SLPs in reading and writing instruction, and Denise Yess
talks about literacy in public
schools.
Participants in discussion groups devoted to literacy also tend
to maintain a high standard of clear written expression when they
post. Examples include the Read by Grade 3 list
(and Web Site) and the Reading
Reform Foundation message board.
Whether or not you agree with the views expressed, you have to admire
the way they are expressed.
No end
There is no end to the information about reading, writing
and spelling on the web. Products and schemes are pushed,
home-schoolers and teachers
exchange favoured methods, theorists expound their ideas, consumers
have their say, researchers
put their case, and lists
of resources
grow and grow. In comparison, the auditory
processing disorders Web content looks like a very neat little package!
