Publications
and Materials
1999 NRP
Progress Report
Section 3: Accomplishments to
Date
1999 NRP Progress Report
Table of Contents
Panel
Meetings
Thirteen members of the National Reading
Panel (NRP) assembled for their inaugural meeting in
Bethesda, Md. on April 24, 1998 at the National Institute
of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). At the
meeting, Panel members discussed how they would organize
themselves, task assignments, and schedule future meetings.
Members also heard a presentation on
the report of the National Academy of Sciences’
National Research Council (NRC) Committee on the Prevention
of Reading Difficulties in Young Children. Dr. Alexandra
Wigdor, director of the NRC Division on Education, Labor,
and Human Performance and Dr. Susan Burns, study director
for the Committee on Prevention of Reading Difficulties
in Young Children, made the presentations.
Panel members reviewed the literature
search engines, databases, and Internet links that are
available to help them in their researching tasks. They
also reviewed models of methodological approaches for
analyzing research, including models recently employed
by the Department of Education, models employed by the
Cochran Collaboration, the medical model, and a model
for evaluation of educational instruction research.
Members of the public were invited to present information
to the Panel on these and related topics.
The Panel held four more two-day meetings
after the inaugural session. The first was on July 24-25
in Bethesda. At this meeting, the Panel agreed that
it would be appropriate to study the research on professional
development and teacher training. They determined that
the topic merits subgroup status, as opposed to including
aspects of teacher preparation in review of research
being conducted by the other subgroups. (For a description
of the subgroups, see pg. 22)
At the September 9-10 Panel meeting
in Washington, Panelists presented reports of the subgroups,
detailing how the subgroups were defining their tasks
and the progress they were making.
At the November 19-20 Panel meeting
in Washington, Panelists began sorting through the primary
areas and assertions about reading instruction that
the Panel should investigate. Members then agreed to
take the complete list of priorities and select the
10 items that they believed to be most important.
Panel members noted that a substantial
amount of work already had been conducted in the areas
of phonemic awareness, oral/repeated reading, and strategies/procedures.
After a quick tabulation, Panel members determined that
the top 13 areas for exploration should be: assessment
instruments, oral language, home/preschool/school age
influences, writing instruction, materials/texts in
instruction, vocabulary, print awareness, phonemic awareness/letters,
phonics instruction, oral reading/repeated reading,
reading practice effects in fluency, etc., knowledge
base for reading standards in teacher education, and
strategies/procedures.
At the January 21-22 Panel meeting
in Washington, the Panel adopted the methodology the
Panel would follow in conducting its analysis of research
pertinent to reading instruction. The methodology is
described in depth in Section 5.
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Regional
Meetings
Despite their diverse professional
expertise, interests, and approaches to teaching children
how to read, Panel members determined they could not
effectively carry out their congressional mandate of
assessing the readiness of research-based knowledge
for application in homes or schools without gaining
valuable perspectives and insights from practitioners
and other stakeholders engaged in the teaching and learning
of reading across America.
By unanimous decision, Panel members
felt it was of paramount importance to supplement their
review and scrutiny of research findings by listening
to and learning from the many voices of parents, educators,
students, community members, and civic and business
leaders whose own practical experiences and knowledge
of the craft would balance and inform the Panel’s
inquiry. To accomplish this objective, Panel members
decided to organize a series of regional meetings in
Chicago, IL (May 29, 1998), Portland, OR (June 5, 1998),
Houston, TX (June 8, 1998), New York, NY (June 23, 1998),
and Jackson, MS (July 9, 1998).
Through news releases and articles,
public service announcements, notifications and letters
of invitations, the NRP blanketed the nation and host
communities with information on its mandate and approach
— encouraging concerned individuals, reading experts,
parents, teachers, researchers, and representatives
of national, state, and local organizations to attend
one or more of the regional meetings, request presentation
opportunities in advance, or sign-up on-site to provide
public comment that would contribute to the Panel’s
work.
In total, close to 400 people attended
regional meetings. Panelists heard from 44 invited presenters
and 73 members of the public who addressed their concerns
about reading. The regional meetings helped Panel members
better understand how reading is currently taught, what
the challenges and opportunities are in changing reading
instruction, and how to translate the Panel’s findings
to meet the information needs of various audiences.
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Subgroups
From the start, the Panel recognized
that the task ahead was so broad that it would be necessary
to separate into subgroups. Initially, the Panel used
as guideposts the main themes outlined in the report
of the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research
Council's Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young
Children. Accordingly, subgroups were appointed
to review the following areas: alphabetics, fluency,
comprehension, and technology.
In September, after reviewing the comments
presented at the regional meetings, the Panel supplemented
the original themes with a fifth subgroup. Because many
of the comments were about teacher education and preparation,
the Panel added a fifth subgroup to assess research-based
activity on teaching standards and practices. In January
1999, the scope of the Technology Subgroup was expanded
to include the task of identifying eligible and useful
topics that are not now being addressed by the other
subject matters.
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1999 NRP Progress Report
Table of Contents
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