Archive for Methodology

To Mary Miller, high school isn’t just a time for study for her daughter, Shakeena Jones. It’s also about learning life lessons, including the complexities of boy-girl relationships. But for too many of the kids in Greensboro, Georgia, says resident David Neal, strutting, preening, and dating have superseded geometry and literature lessons as the real reason to get up for school every morning.

With those viewpoints as bookends, a bold plan to segregate Greene County schools by gender has divided a district long known for abysmal test scores and high dropout rates. The question now confronting school leaders here on the shores of Lake Oconee is one that could face other small, poor, and minority schools both in and beyond the South: Is it advisable, or even legal, to mandate single-sex education, even when research shows that students’ academic performance could improve when taught in such a setting? Read about the situation in The Christian Science Monitor online.

With political change coming soon to the nation’s capital, policymakers and national groups are trying to divine what the shifts might mean for the U.S. Department of Education’s long-running, and sometimes controversial, campaign to transform education into an “evidence based” field.

One sign that changes may be afoot is the proliferation of proposals to revise the way the federal government defines scientifically based research in education. The No Child Left Behind Act definition emphasizes randomized experiments over other kinds of research, prompting some critics to complain that it promotes too narrow a view of education scholarship.

However, an Education Department official who spoke at a recent forum on the topic cautioned against going too far in loosening up federal research standards. He said such a step could leave educators to choose programs and products on the basis of fad and anecdote, rather than solid research. Read the article in Education Week online.

A small-town Spanish mayor concerned about a high dropout rate in local schools has devised a way to keep kids studying—pay them.

Agustin Jimenez, Socialist mayor of the central agricultural town of Noblejas, is recommending the town’s children be given a euro—the equivalent of $1.50—for every hour they spend reading in the local library.

The sweetener is part of a series of measures to be voted on by the Noblejas council in March. Others include funds for apartments in university towns for students from Noblejas, teachers to give private lessons to struggling students, and expert advice to parents on the virtues of keeping their children at school. Read the story on The Associated Press website.

The latest results from a seven-year Scottish study show that children taught how to put sounds together to read words, called synthetic phonics, had significantly better reading skills than their peers taught using analytic phonics, breaking whole words into their constituent sounds.

But Australian literacy researcher Allan Luke, from the Queensland University of Technology, questions the validity of using evidence-based research in assessing teaching methods. Luke, a former director-general of the Queensland Education Department and ministerial adviser on education, has dismissed scientific studies showing the benefit of phonics. Speaking at a curriculum symposium last month, he said the studies provided no evidence that alternate methods had failed. Read about the literacy controversy in The Australian online.

Drawing out shy students to participate in a lesson may be as simple as asking them to raise flash cards instead of hands. This and other tips were shared with a group of Martha B. King Middle School teachers Monday, January 7, 2008, their first day back to school after winter break. Like their peers around Manatee County, Florida, teachers at King Middle in Bradenton started the week with training and workshops.

Teachers at King Middle got a refresher course on how to differentiate their instruction—how they can reach out to both advanced and struggling students during lessons. It’s also part of a districtwide initiative to streamline all the effective teaching methods, said Lynn Gillman, the district’s executive director of academics. Read more about the use of differentiated instruction at Brandenton.com.

Deborah Kasson is a coach whose pep talks take place in the classroom, not the locker room. Instead of giving athletes tips on how to win games, she gives teachers advice on how to teach young children the skill of reading as she works as a reading coach at Charles F. Johnson Jr. Elementary School in the Union-Endicott Central School District in Greater Binghamton, New York.

Kasson is part of Reading First, a $6 billion federal initiative that focuses on improving reading instruction in kindergarten through third grade. Teacher response to the program at first was mixed, said Susan Hendery, Reading First coordinator for Binghamton. While some embraced the initiative, “it was a difficult year,” she said. Some teachers voiced concerns that Reading First reduced their flexibility in the classroom.

At the same time, Reading First has strong support. The professional development has been outstanding, said Jessica Bowerman, a special education teacher in second and third grades at Charles F. Johnson. “Sure, it was extra work and challenging, but everybody’s benefiting,” she said. Read more in The Press & Sun-Bulletin online.

Maryland’s attempts to turn around its worst schools in the past several years have largely failed, according to a report by a Washington-based nonprofit education research group. Of the 76 schools labeled failing for at least five years, only 12, or 16% have improved significantly since 2004, the Center on Education Policy found. “Even in an advanced state like Maryland, that has tried to deal with these problems for a decade ... we just don't know what to do,” said Jack Jennings, president of CEP.

The most commonly tried solution—bringing in a turnaround specialist—usually doesn’t work, the report said. And a newer option, replacing the teaching staff, has caused disruption but hasn’t gotten results. Maryland is to be commended, Jennings said, for learning from what doesn’t work. The lesson for other states around the nation, he said, is “that we ought to be humble ... that it is a long, hard slog to bring about change, and it is something we just have to keep working at.” Read the article in The Baltimore Sun.

Several schools in New Britain, Connecticut, including four elementary schools and the high school, are about to go through a major restructuring that school district officials hope will bring dramatic improvements in how students perform on standardized tests mandated by No Child Left Behind. The most sweeping changes will take place at the elementary and middle school levels, where district officials hope to provide more intensive individual instruction for students. To go into effect when the next school year begins in September 2008, the plan is designed to help improve the district’s rankings in standardized test scores, which consistently have been among the lowest in the state. Read the article in The Courant.

Reading coach Jamie Leach passed out a variety of news articles to her 20 pupils in a literacy skills class at South Medford High School, Medford, Oregon, but before they flipped a page, she interrupted them. “Before you read it, list three things you already know about this topic, make a prediction about what it’s about and set your purpose for reading it,” Leach said. The exercise helps students focus on the information they need to obtain from the article, enhancing comprehension, Leach explained. After seeing reading scores climb at its Reading First elementary schools, the Medford district added reading coaches to middle schools three years ago and to high schools two years ago. Reading coaches are becoming a fixture in more and more schools, from kindergarten to 12th grade. Read the article in The Mail Tribune.

A former senior Labor policy adviser has attacked the vision for school education unveiled by Australian state and territory governments as “dangerous drivel” and a “retrograde step that will dumb down school curriculum across Australia.” Ken Wiltshire, professor of public policy at the University of Queensland, told The Australian that the Future of Schooling report showed Labor education policy was still driven by the teachers’ unions. According to the report released this week, “the judgment of teachers is paramount,” with external state exams and national tests supplementing the teachers’ assessment. “External assessment should be what drives the whole national school curriculum. School-based assessment is subsidiary,” he said. Read about the controversy.

Maryland plans to eliminate written–response questions from its high school exit exams to address long–standing complaints about how slowly test results are processed, state education officials said September 12, 2007. Beginning in May 2009, the Maryland school system will phase out “brief constructed responses” and “extended constructed responses”— questions requiring a short or long written answer—from its four tests covering algebra, English, biology and government, said Ronald A. Peiffer, the state's deputy superintendent for academic policy. Eliminating those questions will allow the state to process test results up to four weeks faster than before, Peiffer said. Read the article at washingtonpost.com.

Diego Garcia got butterflies in his stomach whenever he thought about his first day of school in Canada. Last week, the Colombian teenager’s fears were allayed when he walked into Toronto’s Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute and was greeted by his soon–to–be teachers, settlement workers and fellow students—and most importantly, surrounded by other new immigrants like him. The welcome came courtesy of Newcomer Orientation Week, a pilot program created to help newly arrived immigrant youth get a head start in high school. Read about the transitional program at thestar.com.

As teachers head into the classroom for the new school year, there is one more item they can add to their back–to–school list: Thinkfinity.org. It’s free, and it makes life easier for teachers. Thinkfinity.org is for teachers looking for a quick and innovative way to find compelling lesson plans and interactive learning tools to engage students. Thinkfinity.org is the Verizon Foundation’s, comprehensive program and online portal to 55,000 educational resources, including standards–based, grade–specific, K–12 lesson plans and other student interactives provided in partnership with the International Reading Association and many other leading educational and literacy organizations. And, Thinkfinity.org requires no downloadable software.

In the past seven years, a new view of reading instruction has taken hold in school districts nationwide. The issue these days isn't whether “phonics” or “whole language” is the better approach for beginning readers, but how to blend those philosophies and other elements in a reading program tailored to the individual child. Cathy H. Roller, director of research and policy for the International Reading Association, said students must have “the right things in the right amounts at the right time. Some kids need direct instruction in phonics. Other kids come to kindergarten reading fluently in a second- and third-grade text.” Read more of this article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

New teachers are being blamed for the decline in reading scores in Connecticut. Elaine Zimmerman, executive director of the state Commission on Children, says new teachers either don’t know or haven’t followed proven techniques for teaching reading. Doris J. Kurtz, New Britain superintendent of schools, decries new teachers’ lack of preparedness in literacy skills as “disgraceful.” A quick glance at third–grade reading scores, however, shows that higher scores come from wealthy towns and lower ones from poor cities. Poverty has long been associated with low scores across academic disciplines. Leaders ignore greater societal ills as they point their fingers at those who lack the protection of tenure. Read more of this opinion piece at courant.com.

Junie B. Jones is the hero of a popular Random House early reading series that has divided parents since it was introduced 15 years ago. With more than 43 million copies in print and a stage show touring the country, the series has its share of die-hard fans and is required summer reading at many elementary schools. But more than a few parents have taken issue with Junie B., as she is called. Their disagreement is a pint-size version of the lingering education battle between advocates of phonics, who believe children should be taught proper spelling and grammar from the outset, and those who favor whole language, a literacy method that accepts misspellings and other errors as long as children are engaged in reading and writing. Read more about the Junie B. debate in this article from The New York Times.

A business that brings yoga to primary schools in England is yielding startling results—quieter lessons, better test scores and more confident children. The new approach is offering schools a more creative alternative and is producing results for all children, ranging from 4-year-olds to 12-year-olds. YogaBugs is a company that has trained more than 1,100 teachers in their dynamic yoga program that teaches children yoga postures, breathing and relaxation techniques through adventure stories that capture a child's imagination. Read how yoga improves children's literacy skills at The Independent online.

A synthetic phonics method of early literacy, which has been used by many private schools in Lagos, a city of 9 million in Nigeria, is soon to be extended to public schools, according to Christopher Jolly, the managing director and publisher of Jolly Phonics, based in the United Kingdom. Briefing journalists during a recent visit to Lagos, Jolly said state governments would be asked to select schools, each of which will receive free supply of phonics books and training for its teachers. The project is expected to begin during the 2008 academic year. Read more about it at allafrica.com.

The “total vacuity” of educational jargon is under attack at a teachers’ conference in Bournemouth, England. Delegates at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers’ conference are to hear a call for the end of “edu-babble.” Incomprehensible jargon is often used as a status symbol within the profession, teachers will argue. They will also call on the union to name and shame the worst examples of such “artificial” language. Read more here.

In a review of Louisa Moats’s essay “Whole Language Hi Jinx: How to Tell When ‘Scientifically-Based Reading Instruction’ Isn’t,” published by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, former International Reading Association president Richard Allington notes,

“[Moats] exaggerates the findings of the National Reading Panel (NRP), especially the effects of systematic phonics on reading achievement. She also ignores research completed since the NRP report was issued seven years ago. Perhaps most disturbingly, she touts primarily commercial curriculum products distributed by her employer — products that have far fewer published studies of effectiveness than the products and methods she disparages.

“These flaws pervade the report’s subsequent discussion of what ‘scientifically based reading instruction’ should look like. In the end, the Fordham report works more effectively as promotional material for products and services offered by Moats and her employer, SoprisWest, than as a reliable guide to effective reading instruction.”.

An article on Moats’s report appears on the Reading Today Daily weblog. Allington’s review is published by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research & Practice. Full text can be found on the IRA website.

At Harmony Elementary School in Kentucky, students through third grade aren’t told that “throw” is spelled “t-h-r-o-w” and “snowball” is “s-n-o-w-b-a-l-l.” The school has thrown away its spelling tests and spelling books, and it’s not the only one. Within the past five years, four of the district’s nine elementary schools have ditched traditional spelling tests. Administrators say it’s a better approach to encourage writing than nagging children about misspelled words and teaching students to memorize words they soon forget. Read more of this article from The Courier-Journal of Louisville.

For an hour each morning, the eighth-grade students in the Language Immersion program at the Education Laboratory — a charter school in Hawaii — follow along in their books to the sound of their teacher’s voice, rising suddenly to sharp bursts of Harry Potter dialogue and then back to a weaseling voice for sly Professor Snape as he reads out loud from the popular series. At the same time, they are subconsciously recognizing verbs and nouns and predicates and clauses — absorbing language and literature in a way designed to make them accomplished readers and fluid, fluent writers. Read more about this approach to instruction in this article from The Honolulu Advertiser.

For decades, a debate has simmered in the educational community over the best way to teach children how to read. Proponents of phonics, the “whole language and meaning” approach and other teaching methods long have battled for dominance, each insisting that theirs is the superior strategy. Now, a Florida State University researcher has entered the fray with a paper in the prestigious journal Science that says there is no one “best” method for teaching children to read. Read more of this article from physorg.com, a science news website. Read the paper in Science.

Delaware plans to launch a literacy plan pilot program in one of its school districts this spring, paid for with a one-year, $50,000 Reading to Achieve grant. Delaware was one of eight U.S. states chosen to receive one of the grants, sponsored by the National Governors Association, to help students’ reading and writing skills. The program was developed to address literacy in all grades, from preschool through 12th grade, and in all subjects. Read more at delawareonline.com, The News Journal's website.

Students and teachers at three North Carolina high schools and the Durham public library will receive CDs and books aimed at building vocabulary through rap. The materials are created by Flocabulary, a New York-based company aiming to teach vocabulary and U.S. history through the music popular with youths. Read the article from The News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina) website.

A study of spelling test scores among South Australian students shows a decline of about 14 percentage points over a 26-year period beginning in 1978. An article in The Australian links that reported decline to a reliance on whole-language teaching methods and the absence of explicit, phonics-based spelling instruction in Australian schools.

A study that tracked Australian students' spelling scores over 26 years shows that those scores dropped while whole language dominated the educational landscape, with the study's authors saying the most plausible explanation for the drop was a corresponding lack of emphasis on the direct teaching and testing of spelling skills.

Writing tests conducted by the University of New South Wales reveal that about nine times more students in Singapore — where about half of children speak English as a second language — can spell less-common English words or those with unusual spelling patterns. The stark difference is attributed to the more traditional drill approach adopted by Singapore schools to teach spelling, with the syllabus even listing words that students are expected to be able to spell. Learn more at The Australian.

Spelling bees are in the news, and spelling in general is getting another look as some educators find benefits from spelling instruction beyond simply spelling the words correctly.

The Alabama Reading Initiative has drawn praise from local educators for helping the state's students develop their fluency, comprehension, and other literacy skills.

According to the BBC, the national curriculum in England is to be revised so children are taught to read primarily using the method known as synthetic phonics.

In response to urgent appeals to address poor literacy levels, nearly 2,500 specialist secondary schools and academies in England have signed on to use an American commercial reading program that promises to raise pupils’ reading scores by two grade levels within 12 months. Find details in The Times (UK).

Rote memorization and test-based grading systems may soon be a thing of the past in Egypt as the nation begins a major reform of its pedagogy. Starting this school year, exams will make up only half of the youngest primary students’ yearly grades. Teachers in the upper grades will encourage debate and problem-solving in their classrooms, a new approach that will require extensive retraining and professional development for teachers. Read about the new reforms in The Christian Science Monitor.

Kids sing, dance, chant, wave their arms around in the course of learning phonics with a strategy called Phonics Dance, the creation of an Ohio teacher who saw 10 years ago that some of her students needed help with phonics and wanted to teach it in a fun, lively way.

Well, doesn't it figure?

Government-funded research conducted by York and Sheffield universities has found that systematic phonics instruction resulted in improved reading accuracy among children of all abilities. The researchers have recommended that all reading education programs in England include explicit phonics instruction; however, they stopped short of endorsing any one method over the others. Get details in the Yorkshire Post (UK).

Teachers’ leaders reacted with anger yesterday to a government U-turn on the way young children are taught to read, after being told that all primary schools will have to prepare for the introduction of a prescriptive new literacy strategy from next September. Find details in The Guardian (UK).

Phonics is an accepted part of the British government’s recommended approach to teaching literacy and few now argue over whether or not it should be used. Instead the debate is about which type of phonics works best: analytic or synthetic. And what’s the difference between them? Read more at BBC News (UK).

The way children are taught to read in primary schools in England will be shaken up, Education Secretary Ruth Kelly has confirmed. The government has accepted a review which backs the greater use of a method called synthetic phonics. Find details at BBC News (UK).

As battles rage in Australia and the U.K. over the best way to teach children to read, university professor Morag Fraser gives voice to the weariness that many educators feel:

“So much education policy, here as in Britain, is driven by expediency, ideology or professional enthusiasm without empirical warrant. I don't want to see any more accommodation of vested interest or political power games in research into teaching reading. But I do, desperately, want to know what works.”

Read more of her essay in The Age (Australia).

Educator Malkin Dare isn’t buying many of the commonly offered explanations for the difficulties many children face in learning to read. She writes, “Fifty years ago, . . . the general level of prosperity was lower than it is today and there were fewer books around. It was a rare school that had a library, nor did many parents have the time or inclination to read to their children. Yet, virtually all students who attended school in those days apparently learned to read. That it is still possible to teach all children to read is demonstrated by a few special schools that in 2005 are succeeding with every single student.” Read more of her essay in the Toronto Star.

In the seven years since the words “synthetic phonics” were first heard in the staffrooms and classrooms of Clackmannanshire, Scotland, many news stories have reported on the authority’s success in improving pupils’ reading skills. The most recent report strengthens that view: results at the P7 stage indicate that pupils’ reading and spelling ages are, respectively, 42 months and 21 months ahead of chronological age. An unexpected result of the same study shows that from P4 onwards, boys outperformed girls. Find out more in The Scotsman (U.K.).

Britain’s most able pupils lead the world in reading skills. But the nation’s least able readers are in the relegation zone: below their equivalents in Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech republic, Russia, and Hong Kong. So what is going wrong with the UK’s least able readers? And how can their needs be addressed without compromising the education of their more highly skilled classmates?

Education correspondent Mike Baker adds his voice to the debate over synthetic phonics and reading reform in a BBC News article.

MPs demand review of reading lessons

BBC News reports Parliament’s concern over the high number of 11-year-olds in England who fail reading tests. Some members are calling for an immediate review of teaching methods, including synthetic phonics.

Spelling out success in reading

A companion piece in BBC News examines synthetic phonics in relation to current instructional theory and practice in England.

A teaching method called synthetic phonics has had huge success with children’s literacy in Scotland: so much so that supporters believe they have found the holy grail of reading. So what explains the caution south of the border? Find out in an article from The Guardian (U.K.).

Student progress monitoring is a practice that helps teachers use student performance data to continually evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching and make more informed instructional decisions. Authors Nancy Safer and Steve Fleischman describe the approach and examine its effectiveness in the February 2005 edition of Educational Leadership.

Reading Today Daily recently posted an article about a method of reading instruction called “synthetic phonics,” which some insist can dramatically improve the reading performance of struggling middle-school readers. A more detailed description of the approach appears in The Scotsman.

A seven-year study of Scottish children has shown that 11-year-olds who have been taught to read and write by learning to recognise the sounds of words are up to three years ahead of other pupils in reading and spelling achievement. Read about the study in The Guardian (UK).

A seven-year study of Scottish children has shown that 11-year-olds who have been taught to read and write by learning to recognise the sounds of words are up to three years ahead of other pupils in reading and spelling achievement. Read about the study in The Guardian (UK).

A principal and parents like direct instruction, and test results back them up, but the district's instructional chief orders changes, and controversy ensues. An education reporter with three years of teaching experience in her background unravels the complexities playing out in one Illinois town in this Rockford Register Star article. The controversy is also addressed in a shorter New York Times article.