National Reading Panel (NRP) - About the NRP - July 24-25, 1998 Panel Meeting

The National Reading Panel met in Bethesda, MD on Friday, July 24 in Conference Room 10 in Building 31C at the National Institutes of Health.

The meeting was called to order by George Gaines, liaison officer for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at 9:05 a.m.

Panelists attending were Donald Langenberg, Gloria Correro, Linnea Ehri, Gwenette Ferguson, Norma Garza, Michael Kamil, Cora Marrett, S.J. Samuels, Sally Shaywitz, Thomas Trabasso, Joanna Williams, and Dale Willows. Joanne Yatvin was conferenced in via telephone from Sweden, and Tim Shanahan was conferenced in via telephone from Jamaica.

Dr. Langenberg welcomed the Panel and announced that due to other commitments, Robert Glaser determined he was unable to continue serving on the Panel. It was determined that at this stage in the process, it was most prudent to continue the Panel’s work with only 14 members.

Langenberg also announced that Mary McCarthy, a school psychologist in Montgomery County, Maryland had joined the Panel staff as a consultant. She will be joined on the staff by Judy Rothenberg, serving as secretary to the executive director, and Jessica McCloud, a summer student providing general office support.

Dr. Langenberg then introduced Dr. Duane Alexander, Director of NICHD.

Dr. Alexander congratulated the Panel on a successful series of regional meetings. He noted that the five regional meetings in Chicago, Portland (OR), Houston, New York, and Jackson (MS) generated a great deal of interest and attendance. He noted that in Mississippi, the one overwhelming and overriding message he heard was that parents, teachers, professors, legislators, public officials, and others are counting very heavily on the Panel for help.

Alexander then directed his remarks to the Panel’s charge. He said that much of what the Panel heard during the regional meetings went well beyond the charge from Congress. Alexander noted that while this is typical for a Panel of this type, Panelists must remember that their responsibility is to "assess the status of research-based knowledge." The only way to do this, said Alexander, is to review the literature in which original research is reported, and focus on the term "knowledge".

Alexander reiterated that it was Congress’ intent that high scientific quality standards be used by this Panel in doing its work. He urged the Panel to "set the bar high" as it goes about its task of evaluating reported research.

The Panel began discussion of its charge. Dr. Alexander explained NICHD determined the seven questions in its charge through conversations with the original legislation’s authors in Congress.

The Panel discussed interpretations of the Congressional charge and the intent of language included in it such as "research gaps," as well as "instructional approaches." They also discussed the intended focus of activities, such as limiting the study as the National Academy of Sciences did. In addressing this, Panel members raised issues associated with examination of the pre-reading experience, comprehension, and the importance of teacher preparation, training and ongoing and professional development.

The Panel recessed from 10:18 a.m. to 10:35 a.m.

F. William Dommel, Jr. executive director of the Panel asked Panel members to confirm availability for future meeting dates. While acknowledging that much of the primary work for the Panel would be conducted by subcommittees, Dommel said it was necessary to identify some meeting times for the full Panel. Dates set were September 10th, October 19th, and November 10th.

Panel members turned their attention to coming up with a definition of reading acquisition that would guide their review of research—addressing issues related to age of the learner and the value or drawbacks of limiting the study to research on children and not adults, measurement methods, and appropriate topics and sources of research. After lengthy discussion, Langenberg encouraged Panel members to keep these ideas "on the table" as subcommittees proceed on their tasks.

Willows, Correro and Kamil raised questions about inclusion of teacher preparation in the Panel’s study. Panel members agreed that it would be appropriate to study the research on professional development and teacher training—determining that the topic merits attention of subgroup inquiry, as opposed to including aspects of teacher preparation in review of research conducted by other subgroups.

Dr. Ehri provided a report from the Alphabetics subgroup. She indicated that the subgroup has conducted a review of the literature and will continue that search. The goal of the alphabetics committee is to examine what research reveals about alphabetic processes in learning to read, and how to help children acquire them. It was noted that Dr. Ehri synthesized the subgroup research for the Panel.

Dr. Kamil provided a report from the Comprehension subgroup. He offered the Panel a model of the components of comprehension, putting together a set of four categories of variable that contribute to comprehension – reader variables, text variables, task variables, and instructional variables.

Dr. Shanahan provided a report from the Fluency subgroup. He explained that the Fluency subgroup was working on a search similar to that undertaken by the Alphabetics subgroup. He said the subgroup is going to try to identify the component processes of fluency, determine what the relationship of fluency is with word recognition and comprehension, and describe the developmental progression of fluency, learning and development. He also expects they will explore the relationship between oral and silent reading, and will look at the effectiveness of various instructional approaches and procedures for teaching fluency.

Dr. Kamil and Dr. Willows provided a report from the Second Language subgroup. The Second Language subgroup is looking at second language reading reviews that have already been completed, such as from the Handbook of Reading Research by Elizabeth Bernhardt. The subgroup has identified eight separate areas of research that are emphasized in the reviews and current literature: affective factors, text structure, syntactic features, word knowledge, instruction, reading/writing relationships, testing or assessment, and cross-lingual processing.

Dr. Kamil provided a report from the Technology subgroup. He noted that he had done a literature review on the subject before the Panel was created and was working from that research. The subgroup is looking at several issues, including: comparisons of new technologies with old technologies, studies of the effects of new technology without older counterparts, human/computer interactions, the motivational effects of technology on literacy development, and teaching and instruction issues.

The Panel heard a presentation from Linda Bennett of the Information Resource Management Branch of NICHD. She discussed the possibility of enhancing the Panel’s current means of communicating via list serve and establishing an electronic chat room for members to share communications.

Dr. Langenberg led a discussion of the structure of the Panel’s subgroups, focusing on Panelist concerns that the subgroups appear to have greatly different workloads and subject areas to cover.

He noted that the Panel has essentially called for the creation of a Teacher Education and Professional Development subgroup, and suggested that the work of one or more of the existing subgroups could be subsumed by another subgroup.

Dr. Alexander stressed how second-language learning has been identified as a priority in the pending congressional appropriations bills.

It was recommended that second language and technology draft reports on their issues for inclusion in the Panel’s findings.

Dr. Marrett was designated chair of the Teacher Education and Professional Development subgroup. Yatvin, Williams, Correro, Garza, Kamil, Shanahan, Ferguson, and Langenberg indicated their interest in serving on the subgroup.

Panel members also discussed the importance of conducting a general literature search to capture any data relevant to the charge that does not fall within the subgroups’ jurisdiction.

The Panel recessed for a one-hour lunch break.

Dr. Shaywitz offered a report from the Selection and Assessment Criteria subgroup. She highlighted orders of evidence, quality of the evidence, and the decision procedures related to research. Shaywitz said that the committee recommends sytematic search rules to govern the process and avoid biasing the outcome. She noted that not all types of evidence are most appropriate for different questions, that not all research designs are equal, and set forth a set of criteria for consideration:

The study must be published in a peer-reviewed journal; the study participaants should be carefully described in terms of age, socio-demographic factors, cognitive factors, academic and behavior characteristics. The intervention must be described insufficient detail to allow replicability, and the methods should allow judgments about how instructional fidelity was ensured. A full description of the outcome measure must be included.

Dr. Kamil asked the Panel not to place a complete reliance on electronic searches and control groups. He also asked that the appropriate analysis of data be included in the criteria.

Panel members also discussed the value of ethnographic case studies, observations, control groups, and other types of research methodologies that could yield important findings for Panel consideration

Dr. Shanahan noted that the point of this kind of a strategy is to come up with clearly defined, replicable descriptions of what you are doing, so other people can trace the trail, and check the quality of evidence. It also allows for the representation of the data in an unbiased or a less biased way.

The Panel took a break from discussion of selection and assessment criteria to entertain public comment at the previously appointed time.

Two people were present to offer public comment to the Panel.

First, was Hazeline Harris, a representative of Reading is Fundamental and Title I reading program supervisor for Arlington, VA public schools. She said a significant problem in reading is parents not always being involved in children’s learning. The volunteer-based RIF works hard to involve parents in the process.

The Panel next heard from Andrew Hartman, director of the National Institute for Literacy. He detailed that his organization is an interagency group that works with the U.S. Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services, focusing on literacy and literacy development. He said the research indicates that learning disabilities and reading difficulties aren't something that are "cured," making age limitations of the Panel’s study difficult. He urged the Panel not stray from its original charge; to weigh the value of various research and determine a gold or bronze standard of research; to validate the need for additional research on adolescents and adults, or the actual implications of the available research in this arena. Lastly, he underscored the importance of the Panel’s work in sending messages about the absence of knowledge pertaining to adolescent and adult reading that would create—for Congress, the general public and the press—a definition of reading that recognizes people can and could improve their reading skills beyond fourth grade.

The Panel then heard from Vinita Chhabra, a Panel staff member. She reviewed the methodological approaches discussed during the inaugural meeting.

She discussed using a research request tool that would help focus the searches of existing research requests through the use of meta-analyses. The Panel decided the tool was not the most effective means for its research and agreed to continue development of core research criteria and guidelines.

The Panel agreed to finalize the Selection and Assessment Criteria by including suggestions offered earlier in the day. The Panel also discussed guidelines for eliminating items that result from research searches and agreed to take up its discussion of Selection and Assessment Criteria when they return in the morning.

Dr. Langenberg noted that the regional meetings highlighted the public’s eagerness to receive the Panel’s finding. He highlighted possible dissemination tools such as creating: a National Reading Panel final report, National Reading Panel summary report, a series of target-audience publications including Panel findings, website design and promotion, focus groups, hosting a National "What Works" Forum on Reading, policy maker and industry briefings, news conference and a national media campaign, forging public/private sector partnerships, producing a National Reading Panel video and workshop discussion guide, conducting a public service informational campaign, and using interactive kiosks, conference presentations, displays, speaking opportunities, professional development efforts, local cable access, and toll-free phone number.

Panelists also discussed many upcoming reading-focused conferences that would be interested in the Panel’s findings.

The National Reading Panel concluded its Friday meeting at 4:35 p.m., agreeing to meet again the next morning.

The Panel began its morning session by discussing a proposal offered by Dr. Trabasso on the procedures and criteria to be used to answer the Panel’s charge. The proposal would put many decisions in the hands of the Panel’s subgroups and relies on individual Panel members to make qualitative decisions about the research being studied.

Dr. Langenberg discussed how the Panel needs to think in terms of how its findings can reach key stakeholders – such as teachers – and how those stakeholders will take the findings and act upon them.

Dr. Yatvin discussed her ideas for how to bring the number of articles in the literature search down to a manageable level, and then how could to evaluate this manageable number in a systematic way.

Dr. Langenberg suggested that the Panel seek a way to blend Trabasso’s and Yatvin’s plans. He also noted that plans were being discussed to provide Panel members with funding for help from research assistants.

The Panel then re-opened its discussion on the assessment standards offered the day before by Shaywitz and Shanahan. After much discussion, the Panel determined that each subgroup should attempt to draft assessment standards for its area of study.

It was agreed that each subgroup would work on a prototypic problem, using all the procedures offered to the Panel (Shaywitz/Shanahan, Trabasso, Yatvin).

The Panel agreed that each subgroup would try to meet before the next Panel meeting, scheduled for September 10. September 9 would also be made available for subgroup meetings in Washington.