OPPapers.com

Nrp Report Assessment

NRP Report Assessment:
Teaching Children to Read

Cheryl Glover
National Reading Panel's (NRP) report, "Teaching Children to Read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction," only help to strengthen the fight for a return to phonics in the classroom. The NRP report scrutinizes phonics and somehow determines that in the seventy years of its existence, there is not enough data to determine the effectiveness of whole language literacy training amongst learning disabled students and minorities. The report says:
". . . Systematic phonics instruction produces significant benefits for students in kindergarten through 6th grade and for children having difficulty learning to read. The ability to read and spell words was enhanced in kindergartners who received systematic beginning phonics instruction. First graders who were taught phonics systematically were better able to decode and spell, and they showed significant improvement in their ability to comprehend text. Older children receiving phonics instruction were better able to decode and spell words and to read text orally, but their comprehension of text was not significantly improved. (p.9)

When it came to whole language, the NRP report is extremely vague. Although after reading the report one can easily find the underlying message; the whole language method of literacy training does not work amongst minorities and those with learning disabilities. Dr. James J. Campbell argued in his April 2000 article, The National Reading Panel: Missing the Point, "The discouraging aspect of the report is the lack of courage displayed by its authors. For the primary impetus of the report was the well-known failure of the public schools to teach reading effectively to children."
Dr. Campbell argues in a 1996 article written for the National Right to Read Foundation (NRRF,) Local Physician Speaks Out; medical professionals can't cure what...