In 1997, Congress asked the "Director
of the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development, in consultation with the Secretary
of Education, to convene a national panel to assess
the status of research-based knowledge, including the
effectiveness of various approaches to teaching children
to read." This panel was charged with providing
a report that "should present the panel's conclusions,
an indication of the readiness for application in the
classroom of the results of this research, and, if appropriate,
a strategy for rapidly disseminating this information
to facilitate effective reading instruction in the schools.
If found warranted, the panel should also recommend
a plan for additional research regarding early reading
development and instruction."
In the first panel meeting, members
were charged with the following questions:
-
What is known about the basic process by which
children learn to read?
-
What are the most common instructional approaches
in use in the U.S. to teach children to learn to
read? What are the scientific underpinnings for
each of these methodologic approaches, and what
assessments have been done to validate their underlying
scientific rationale? What conclusions about the
scientific basis for these approaches does the Panel
draw from these assessments?
-
What assessments have been made of the effectiveness
of each of these methodologies in actual use in
helping children develop critical reading skills,
and what conclusions does the Panel draw from these
assessments?
-
Based on answers to the preceding questions, what
does the Panel conclude about the readiness for
implementation in the classroom of these research
results?
-
How are teachers trained to teach children to read,
and what do studies show about the effectiveness
of this training? How can this knowledge be applied
to improve this training?
-
What practical findings from the Panel can be used
immediately by parents, teachers, and other educational
audiences to help children learn how to read, and
how can conclusions of the Panel be disseminated
most effectively?
-
What important gaps remain in our knowledge of
how children learn to read, the effectiveness of
different instructional methods for teaching reading,
and how to improve the preparation of teachers in
reading instruction that could be addressed by additional
research?
