Speeches
Guidelines for Elementary Language Arts Textbook Adoption
Presentation to the FCPS School Board

Thursday, May 14, 1997

By Pam Broome, FCCPTA Education Chair

Good evening. I am speaking tonight on the proposed motion detailing guidelines for elementary language arts textbook adoption.

The Fairfax County Council of PTAs believes a dangerous precedent would be set if you support the motion prescribing specific educational methods and reading materials for use in Fairfax County Public Schools. Although it is tempting to require that things be done a particular way, adoption of this motion would overreach your responsibilities as a School Board. We ask that you continue to support the policies already in place which create a partnership between parents and educators to review and recommend school textbooks. You, as the School Board, now have and will continue to have the final decision-making authority on text-book selection.

Under current policies a textbook selection committee reviews and recommends textbooks for specific subject areas. Parents, community members, and educational professionals all participate. This process provides for community and parent input. The role of staff is to provide professional research on the demonstrated best practices in the subject area, and to assist in interpreting and applying these results to the textbooks being considered.

The motion, as worded, does not reflect the best practices currently documented in the most recent reading research. (I have included as an attachment several citations from this research.) This research indicates that a balanced approach to teaching reading is necessary, and that there is no clear evidence supporting any one approach to phonics instruction. Adoption of this motion would limit the flexibility of the teacher in using a variety of approaches in the classroom. Teachers need to have available to them many different strategies to deal with the many differences in learning styles and skill levels among children in the average classroom.

The key to providing these many different strategies is not enactment of a policy edict by the school board, but the provision of staff development so teachers can make informed decisions about how best to work with individual children. This staff development should include course work on the conceptual foundations of reading acquisition and the sources of reading difficulty. It should also include supervised practice experience, and follow-up mentoring and networking opportunities to enable teachers to continue to learn from their daily experiences and to receive support from other education professionals.

Again, please do not pass this policy. I have given you three very good reasons for voting against it. First, it would undermine the role of parent and community participation in the process of textbook review. Second, it does not reflect the best practices documented in the most recent research on reading acquisition. Third, it limits the strategies available to the teacher in the classroom.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this evening.

Attachments:

Notes on Best Practices in Teaching Reading

1. Phonemic awareness (sound symbol relationships) is absolutely essential for children to learn to read (Lyons).
   
   

2. Most children who have difficulty learning to read benefit greatly from an intensive one-on-one tutoring program, provided by highly experienced teachers who "fill in the gaps" in each child's phonemic and sight word reading skills, rather than teach a systematic curriculum from the beginning. A key to the success of such programs is extensive teacher instruction that focuses on the specific learning experiences children need and how to provide them (Torgesen) - included in packet.
   
   

3. In classrooms where all children learn to read, teachers balance phonics instruction with structured reading lessons, reading literature, listening to stories, and writing, including inventive/temporary spelling (Ciera) - included in packet.
   
   

4. "For the purpose of learning to read, it is important that children learn phonics. Most children have little difficulty doing this. Roughly 80-85% do so successfully by the middle of the 1st grade; many children come to 1^st grade already knowing this" (Allington) – included in packet.
   
   

5. Phonic[s] is being taught and has been taught in our schools. However, "while children do need to acquire effective and efficient strategies for pronouncing unknown words, there is no clear evidence supporting any one approach to phonics instruction." (Allington).
   
   

6. In addition, there is credible evidence supporting the fact that children who begin with letters and sounds in isolation and use decodable text or Synthetic phonics outscore in the first grade children who learn to read some text by sight, analyze words and generate their own rules for reading words; and those in the group who decode by thinking of similar words or word patterns. However, by the fourth grade there were no gains reported by the synthetic phonics group (Schweinhart and Weikart) - included in packet.
   
   

7. There is credible evidence demonstrating that if teachers are to make informed decisions about how to work with individual children, then more emphasis must be placed on levels of in-services and staff develop. These courses must assist K-3 teachers in developing a conceptual foundation regarding reading acquisition and sources of reading difficulty. Their training must include information about how written language represents spoken language, about how language is structured, and about what is required for children to become skilled readers" (Moats) – included in packet.
   
   

8. "Research shows that there is no one way to teach reading. Children need to learn letters and sounds and how to read for meaning. They also need opportunities to practice reading with many types of books ( Lerner) - included in packet.
   
   

9. Dick Allington has done research and reported, "There is no research to support the exclusive use of decodable text" (Cunningham).
   
   

10. An example of decodable text from Primary Phonics (basal textbooks) Mack and Tab: "Tab is a cat." Tab is a bad sad cat." However, providing decodable text resources is essential to assisting special education teachers in reinforcing specific and individualized phonemic awareness lessons being learned by their students.
    
    

11. "Children benefit from reading volumes of rich 'manageable' texts - that is real books that they can read by themselves without too much difficulty" (Allington) -included in packet.
    
    

12. Most of the reading research involves identifying the needs of children who have been identified as either "at-risk" or dyslexic; it is not intended to be generalized or implemented systematically across all ability groups.
    
    

13. None of the current research projects address the effects of visual processing dysfunctions on fluency and comprehension.

Sources:

1. Allington, Richard L., University at Albany, SUNY. "Reducing the Risk: Integrated Language Arts in Restuctured Elementary Schools."www.Albany.edu/cela.
   
   

2. Allington, Richard L., University at Albany, SUNY, " The Schools We Have, The Schools We Need." www.Albany.edu/cela.
   
   

3. CIRCA – "Improving The Reading Achievement of America’s Children" www.ciera.org/about-ciera/principles
   
   

4. Cunningham, Patricia, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Presentation at International Reading Association Conference – Orlando, Florida, May, 1998.
   
   

5. Lerner, Janet, Northeastern Illinois University. "National Research Council Releases New Study on the Teaching of Reading." www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/redaing/nrc_lerner.html
   
   

6. Lyons, Reid G., National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. " Why Reading Is Not a Natural Process." www.ascd.org/pubs/el/mar98/extlyon.htm
   
   

7. Moats, Lousia C., Ed.D. Presentation to Congress, "Teachers: The Key to Helping America Read" www.ldonline. org/ld_indepth/reading/moats.html
   
   

8. Schweinhart, Lawrence J. and Weikart, David, P. "Why Curriculum Matters in Early Childhood Education" Educational Leadership, March, 1998.
   
   

9. Strickland, Dorothy S. "What’s Basic In Beginning Reading" Educational Leadership, vol. 55, No. 6, Match 1998 www.ascd.org/pubs/el/mar98/extstric.htm
   
   

10. Torgesen, Joseph K., Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL. "Research On The Prevention and Remediation of Phonologically Based Reading Disability." Perspectives, Fall, 1997.