Myth #10 -- If it is in the
curriculum, then the children will learn it, and a balanced reading curriculum
is ideal
This is only a half-myth.
Clearly, if something is not a part of the curriculum, then children are
very unlikely to learn it, but just because a concept or skill is taught,
there is no guarantee that every child will learn it. Standards are
starting to shift from an emphasis on what is taught to an emphasis on
what is learned, and curricula are starting to make the same shift.
However, it is still quite common to divide a curriculum into instructional
minutes and to focus more on what is taught than on what is learned.
A curriculum is too often confused with a recipe -- creating proficient
readers is not as simple as mixing ingredients in correct proportions.
Teaching a complicated skill such as reading to a diverse group of students
requires a great deal of flexibility and creativity on the part of the
teacher.
As to whether or not a curriculum
should reflect a balanced reading approach, the answer is again, "yes and
no." Unfortunately, the term "balanced reading" is not very clearly
defined. Most teachers currently claim to employ a balanced approach
to their reading instruction (according to the NAEP), but what a "balanced
approach" means to one teacher may be very different from what a "balanced
approach" means to another. Some have started substituting the term
"eclectic" for "balanced" to more aptly describe their instructional strategies.
The approach most commonly used is to provide instruction traditionally
associated with both the Phonics and the Whole Language philosophies, and
to add things like phoneme awareness that were never traditionally associated
with either philosophy. Sometimes a balanced reading approach involves
using phonics activities first, and then adding whole language activities
later. Sometimes a balanced reading approach involves supplementing
authentic
text with phonics worksheets or decodable text. But rarely does it
mean the same thing for different teachers.
According to data collected for
the NAEP in Reading, the prevalent instructional philosophy shifted in
1996 from Whole Language to Balanced Literacy, but NAEP scores have been
unaffected by this shift. This should be no surprise -- when the
prevalent philosophy shifted in the late '80s and early '90s from Phonics
to Whole Language (with a period of balanced literacy in between), NAEP
scores did not change then either. It would seem that the philosophies
that drive the curricula simply do not in themselves have an impact on
student performance.
What does have an impact on student
performance has been a recurring theme throughout this essay -- the quality,
strength, knowledge and sophistication of the teacher is what really matters
for helping children to become proficient readers. A strong teacher
can make all of the difference for an at-risk student, and unfortunately,
a weak teacher can make all the difference for a student who is not at-risk.
The importance of providing good professional development to engender a
population of highly qualified, diagnostic reading teachers is paramount,
and every child will benefit. It's not easy, but anybody who tells
you there is an easier solution to the mounting problem of illiteracy is
selling a myth.
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