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No One Strategy is Best for Teaching Reading |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: 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. Carol M. Connor is an assistant professor in the FSU College of Education and a researcher with the Florida Center for Reading Research. Along with colleagues from FSU and the University of Michigan, she wrote "Algorithm-Guided Individualized Reading Instruction," published in Science's Jan. 26 issue. Connor's paper shows that lots of individualized instruction, combined with the use of diagnostic tools that help teachers match each child with the amounts and types of reading instruction that are most effective for him or her, is vastly preferable to the standard "one size fits all" approach to reading education that is prevalent in many American elementary schools. With this study, we sought to do just that --- to take a systematic approach to what works, what doesn't, and why" when teaching students to read. A2i uses students' vocabulary and reading scores and their desired reading outcome (i.e. their grade level by the end of first grade) to create algorithms that compute the recommended amounts and types of reading instruction for each child in the classroom. For the next two years, the center will focus its efforts primarily on improving the reading skills of K-3 students under President George W. Bush's "Reading First Initiative," which is aimed at helping the country's youngest students improve their reading skills.
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