The Media’s Take on the Reading First Report

Originally published here on May 12, 2008.

Nancy Zucherbrod, writing for the Associated Press, questions whether Reading First has any value. In a story headlined Reading First Nothing Special? Study Calls Value Into Question, Zucherbrod concludes with this:

So, while elementary school students appear to improve in reading across the board, there's no difference in gains being made by students participating in Reading First and those who are not, according to the study.

You can read her whole article here. The problem Zucherbrod points out is simple: Reading First schools have seen improvements in reading, but so have most other schools. Does that mean that Reading First has no impact, or does it mean that Reading First has had such an impact that even schools not directly participating in Reading First funding have been impacted?

The NY Times did a piece on the report on May 2nd. They used the word "ineffective" to describe the report's conclusions about Reading First. But Greg Toppo at USA Today had beaten them to that by about 24 hours. The Times was astute enough to at least acknowledge that there was a follow-up report yet to come.

The Washington Post did a slightly more detailed article on the report. The Post's story makes it clear that the news value of the report has to do with politics, not education.

Among the better stories on the report in my opinion was Gerald Bracey's write up at the Huffington Post. Here's some of what he said:

Reading First students didn't do any better than students in similar schools without the program. How come?

My guess is a mismatch between the program and the outcome measure. RF was supposed to include five "essential elements" in reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. From what I have heard, though, and from what a number of reading experts said in articles about the study, the program concentrated on the first three. Well, if you emphasize decoding and fluency and then test for comprehension, well, duh, why would you expect improvement?

There are other possibilities. Some of the non-Reading First schools used the same curricula and Reading First schools. We don't know how well the program was implemented. In the lore of education, many a fine program has failed because of implementation problems.

Bracey raises some questions about the report that I intend to examine - next time I blog...