The findings of NRP were vague and ambiguous due to the limited range and number of studies included in NRP report, as well as due to unreliable analytical method. Program effectiveness and achievement seemed to be the words, to me, that represent the findings of NRP because the report is only based on intervention studies without considering the results from other types of studies. Heavily relying on NRP report, NCLB and Reading First seem to deal with educational issues with a functionalistic approach focusing on measurement, effectiveness, reform and intervention. Thus, NCLB and Reading First initiative seem to assume that a certain program can improve low level of reading ability among students ignoring students’ different social/cultural backgrounds, individual differences, and other various factors that affect students’ learning. In addition, NCLB and Reading First initiative assume that children at the same age go through the same developmental stage regardless of their biological and psychological differences.
Both Stevens’s (2003) and Gerstl-Pepin and Woodside-Jiron’s articles seemed to show how the assumptions behind NCLB and Reading First initiative define readers and the roles of teachers. As for students, Gerstl-Pepin and Woodsid Jiron indicate that NCLB considers students with low reading scores as problematic ones who need intervention in order to fix the problems. The types of readers that NCLB expect students to be is well defined in the Reading First program, as an exemplary intervention program implemented in Laurel Ridge. According o Stevens, Reading First program prioritize decoding fluency over comprehension. In addition, the program is based on the idea of linear model of reading development according to age which assumes that children’s reading development occur as expected developmental patterns.
As for teachers, Gerstl-Pepin and Woodside-Jiron indicate that NCLB minimize the roles of teachers and their expertise by not including teachers’ roles and by implicitly blaming teachers for school failure. Thus, the roles of teachers implied in Reading First program is to impose knowledge that the program expects students to learn and to follow passively the program directions rather than to use teachers’ professional knowledge and experiences to develop lessons appropriate for their students.
What made me sad is that NCLB and Reading First program position students as passive readers not as ones who actively negotiate meaning, interpret and criticize texts using their own experiences and knowledge. In addition, it positions students as mechanical readers who have automatic decoding fluency while completely ignoring affective aspects of readers – motivation, interests, and emotions that influence students’ choice of books, comprehending the texts, and their continuous engagement in further literacy practices. NCLB and Reading First program also positions teachers as passive follower of direction as ones who fail to solve students’ problems properly and effectively while ignoring teachers’ motivation to support students to become competent, engaged and critical readers like teachers in Laurel Ridge. As Gerstl-Pepin and Woodside-Jiron imply, scientifically-based research may help educators understand children’s weaknesses and strengths in reading skills. However, they also indicate that scientifically-based research limit and minimize important components in reading development (e.g. teachers’ passion and students’ interests and motivation) because scientifically-based research only tries to quantify and measure while avoiding to consider or simply ignoring the components that it can quantify or measure.
Gerstl-Pepin, C. I.,& Woodside-Jiron, H. (2005). Tensions between the “science” of reading and a “love of learning”: One high-poverty school’s struggle with NCLB. Equity & Excellence in Education, 38, 232-241.
Stevens, L. P. (2003). Reading First: A critical policy analysis. The Reading Teacher, 56, 662-668.
I agree with your sadness around the programs idea of readers, and how they should be told what and how to read, without having a say or an ability to express their thoughts on what they are reading. How can we foster good, life-long readers, without allowing the teachers to look at them as people, and not a group to be molded and told how to behave with a book.
When it comes to age, and what a student can and cannot do with reading, oppresses the student into thinking they must be at a certain level, or they are “stupid”. How can a student be able to succeed if they are pushed into a box, and not met at the level where they are flourishing?
We as teachers cannot allow this program to push us into being passive, robots who only teach what is expected, and allow our students to travel through their school days wanting to read a certain text, and being told no. I was made into a good reader because I was allowed to read what I wanted, as much as I wanted, through the help of my parents. Our role as teachers is to guide our students on this path, especially if there is no one at home to do this guiding.
I really like how you brought out this idea of passivity, which may be traced throughout practice, research, and policy. You’re right, Reading First positions students as passive readers, not as readers who “actively negotiate meaning, interpret and criticize texts using their own experiences and knowledge.” Likewise, the program positions teachers in a passive role, not as practitioners who “actively negotiate meaning, interpret and criticize texts using their own experiences and knowledge.” Taking this even further, I would argue that the NRP was passive in it’s research. They didn’t come across as real scientists who “actively negotiate meaning, interpret and criticize texts using their own experiences and knowledge.” Possibly, the same could be said for the politicians who continue to support NCLB, regardless of how unconstitutional it is; are they simply passive readers who fail to negotiate meaning, interpret or criticize texts using their own experiences or knowledge?
I wonder to what extent passivity leads to complacency and if that’s somehow a goal. That is, to ensure that students simply do as they’re told. It’s interesting that there’s a call for teachers to get back up in front of the class and teach those kids what they know to be true yet at the same time programs are being purchased that teacher-proof the curriculum. It seems so obvious that a passive process – well it’s not even a process, right? – leads to disengagement disenfranchisement, and often apathy, disgust, and dropping out of the system altogether. Perhaps if politicians “who continue to support NCLB” received the kind of education that we know promotes lifelong learning, they’d stop pushing such nonsense.