National Reading Panel (NRP) - Interim Report

Introduction

Evidence has been accumulating for a number of years that many of America's school children are not mastering essential reading skills. In 1996, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a national test that follows student learning, showed that 36 percent of nine-year-olds failed to reach the level of "partially developed skills and understanding" and seven percent could not accomplish simple reading tasks. Among 17-year-olds, only 29 percent were able to understand complex information and only six percent reached the highest level of understanding.

Two years earlier, the same national test showed that 42 percent of fourth graders read below basic levels. Further, these problems persisted even in upper grades: 31 percent of eighth graders and 30 percent of 12th graders read below the basic levels.

Even more disturbing, the 1994 NAEP results suggested that reading problems affect students in virtually every social, cultural, and ethnic group. According to the results, 29 percent of whites, 69 percent of African-Americans, 64 percent of Hispanics, 22 percent of Asian-Americans and 52 percent of American Indians read below basic levels in the fourth grade. And the same test showed that 32 percent of fourth graders who could not read basic material were sons and daughters of college graduates (Campbell, Jay, et al., NAEP 1994 Reading Report Card for the Nation and the States: Findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress and Trial State Assessment).

Overall, national longitudinal studies show that more than 17.5 percent of the nation's school children — about 10 million children — will encounter reading problems in the crucial first three years of their schooling. (cite pending)

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The Importance of Early Intervention

Unfortunately, for many of the children experiencing reading problems, these issues will persist throughout their schooling. Approximately 75 percent of the students identified with reading problems in the third grade are still reading disabled in the ninth grade (Shaywitz et al. 1992, Journal of Educational Psychology; Francis et al. 1996, Journal of Educational Psychology).

These findings suggest that early intervention is critical for problem readers. Those who fall behind in the first three years of their schooling may never become fluent readers. A strong body of research suggests they will continue to fall behind as they move further into their schooling. Because their frustrations build, they are more likely to drop out of school and less likely to find rewarding employment ("Reading: The First Chapter in Education," U.S. Department of Education’s Learning to Read, Reading to Learn campaign).

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To be sure, reading problems cause incalculable suffering for the individual. But they also have a tremendous impact on society as a whole. According to statistics regularly used by the National Right to Read Foundation:

These dismal statistics are causing a rising tide of concern among educators and the public. Nearly 70 percent of teachers surveyed in 1994 said reading was the most important skill for children to learn, according to a poll by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the American Federation of Teachers and the Chrysler Corporation. Parents also understand the importance of teaching reading to their children. A 1996 survey by the National Association of State Boards of Education and Scholastic Inc. found that 93 percent of parents said reading was critically important to their child's future success.

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How Much Do Children Read?

Pollster Hart showed that students do not place the same value on reading skills as do their parents or teachers. Only 34 percent ranked reading skills as most important. They ranked reading third behind math and computers. Hart’s 1993 poll of students also showed dramatic declines in student reading activity from ages nine to 17.

NAEP's 1994 results similarly showed declining interest in reading among students as they grow older. Twenty-five percent of 13-year-olds and 22 percent of 17-year-olds reported reading five pages or less per day in school and for homework combined. Equally disturbing, the amount they read for fun diminishes, as they grow older. NAEP found that 54 percent of nine-year-olds said they read for fun every day. Among 13-year-olds, only 32 percent said they read for fun. Still fewer 17-year-olds, 23 percent, read for fun every day.

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The Reading Wars

The inability of the nation's schools thus far to improve the reading performance of students has fueled a long debate about the superiority of phonics instruction or whole language reading instruction. In general, phonics instruction emphasizes the process of decoding letter symbols and the relationship between sounds in spoken words and their printed forms. Whole language instruction, on the other hand, puts the greatest emphasis on meaning as determined through letter sounds, grammatical construction, and context and stresses the importance of writing, surrounding children with good literature and generally creating a rich literate environment for students. Proponents of whole language typically encourage students to keep logs, to read along with the teacher, or to write stories about topics of personal interest.

Educator Horace Mann raged against phonics instruction in the 19th century, calling the letters of the alphabet "bloodless, ghostly apparitions." In the late 1930s, Scott Foresman introduced its popular "Dick and Jane" readers that taught children to read by memorizing the look of certain words, rather than the sounds of letters.

In 1955 Rudolf Flesch, author of Why Johnny Can't Read, attacked Scott Foresman's so-called look-say instruction, arguing that it threw 3,500 years of civilization "out the window." The pendulum took a decisive swing back to phonics instruction in 1995 when California passed its "ABC" laws requiring instruction to include explicit phonics and spelling skills. Having used the whole language approach since 1987, California made the switch back to phonics after it dropped into a tie for the lowest fourth-grade student reading scores in the 1994 NAEP test. Two other states, Ohio and North Carolina, quickly followed California's example, passing laws encouraging phonics-based instruction.

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Reading Research

The reading wars have at once eroded the public's confidence in the education system, while forcing educators to forge paths of their own. Some educators have dug in, clinging to the dogma of one camp or another, while others have tried to blend the strengths of both approaches.

Nevertheless, advances in research are beginning to provide hope that educators may soon be guided by scientifically sound information. A growing number of works, for example, are now suggesting that students need to master phonics skills in order to read well. Among them are Learning to Read by Jeanne Chall and Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print by Marilyn Adams. As Adams, a senior scientist at Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., writes, "(It) has been proven beyond any shade of doubt that skillful readers process virtually each and every word and letter of text as they read. This is extremely counter-intuitive. For sure, skillful readers neither look nor feel as if that’s what they do. But that’s because they do it so quickly and effortlessly."

More recently, the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council's (NRC) Committee on Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children concluded that students learn best through a combination of whole language and phonics. The 1998 report concluded that there is no one way to teach reading. It said children need to learn letters and sounds and how to read for meaning. At the same time, children also need the opportunity to surround themselves with many types of books.

The NRC Report outlined critical components necessary to a child's education from birth through third grade to achieve reading fluency. The NRC Report noted, for example, that children should arrive in first grade motivated to learn how to read and equipped with a strong foundation in language and cognitive skills and first-grade students should be taught how to identify words using their letter-sound relationships. Second-grade students should be encouraged to sound out and identify unfamiliar words. And throughout early schooling, students should read for comprehension, develop a rich vocabulary, and receive instruction in comprehension skills.

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The task now before the nation is to carefully sift through the research and discover a way to make the research findings useful and relevant to teachers and parents. Teachers should have easy access to these findings as we encourage to let them in teacher practices. In addition, parents need to understand their role in delivering children to the school door equipped to learn about reading.

At the direction of Congress, the National Reading Panel has been established by the director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, in consultation with the Department of Education, to fulfill this mission. Over the last year, it has sought out and listened to the concerns and needs of critical stakeholders, including researchers, educators, parents, community members, and civic and business leaders. In regional meetings, the Panel has learned what these stakeholders know and believe about reading and reading research. The open dialogue of the Panel’s regional meetings was designed to give stakeholders — the ones who ultimately will benefit from the Panel's conclusions — a role in guiding the Panel's outcomes. This was a critical step in understanding the needs, concerns, and challenges faced by these audiences. The hearings also helped the Panel determine the readiness of schools to apply the results of research.

Now the Panel is poised to embark on the critical task of determining what information is relevant and useful in the research and how to disseminate it to stakeholders in order to influence the quality and form of reading instruction in our nation’s classrooms. Vigorous participation of these stakeholders at the regional meetings, coupled with the detailed methodology criteria developed by the Panel, made it clear that this endeavor should not be rushed. As a result, the Director of the National Institute on Child Health and Research Development has agreed to extend the Panel’s efforts, giving it until the beginning of 2000 to fully address the questions set forth in the congressional Charge to the Panel.