Putting Computerized Instruction to the Test: A Randomized Evaluation of a
“Scientifically Based” Reading Program

By Cecilia Elena Rouse, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of
Public and International Affairs, and NBER; Alan B. Krueger, Princeton
University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and
NBER, with Lisa Markman, Princeton University, Education Research Section.

This PDF is a policy brief from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs.  The paper reporting results of this study will be
published in The Economics for Education Review.  The focus of their
research was the popular instructional computer program “Fast Forward” which
is designed to improve language and reading skills.

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By Rebecca Treiman

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~rtreiman/Selected_Papers/

This entry contains PDF resources for papers published by researcher Rebecca
Treiman.  Professor Treiman’s work is seminal in helping us understand the
relationship between reading and spelling.

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~rtreiman/Selected_Papers/

http://www.cori.umd.edu/overview/

Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) is a program designed by John Guthrie and Allan Wigfield to incorporate reading strategy instruction and inquiry science in interesting and unique ways for students. The goals of CORI are to increase students’ reading comprehension, reading motivation, and science knowledge. The CORI program equips participating teachers with the skills to accomplish these classroom goals through interactive professional development workshops and established CORI guidelines.

By Anthony Alvarado

Click here

what it takes to educate a kid and why we do things the way we do. When the
theory is that the teacher and the child - that dyad - is where the rubber
meets the road, all roads lead to professional development. But in the new
world of standards-based education and helping our students meet them, it is
professional development of a kind that we have not previously experienced.
In the past, it has been a fairly mundane and superficial matter of speakers
and workshops, with here a new technique or procedure for classroom
management and there an inspirational talk about diversity. The new
professional development must be different and much more powerful, and it
will involve solving problems and collaborating at levels that we have never
even contemplated.

Anthony Alvarado is chancellor for instruction in the San Diego (California)
City Schools. This article is adapted from a speech he gave at the AFT/NEA
Teacher Quality Conference in September 1998.

A Journal For Educators, by Educators

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The journal “Educational Leadership”, published by ASCD, features articles
about teaching and schools.  You can read some of them here; others can be
read by subscription.  This link updates by publication.Click here

A SUMMARY REPORT

http://www.cdl.org/resource-library/articles/report_nrp.php

The Panel’s initial screening task involved selection of the set of topics
to be addressed. Recognizing that this selection would require the use of
informed judgment, the Panel chose to begin its work by broadening its
understanding of reading issues through a thorough analysis of the findings
of the NRC report, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Snow,
Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Early in its deliberations the Panel made a
tentative decision to establish subgroups of its members and to assign to
each of them one of the major topic areas designated by the NRC Committee as
central to learning to read—Alphabetics, Fluency, and Comprehension.  Read
the summary of the NRP here.

http://www.tea.state.tx.us/textbooks/materials/decodtxt.htm

The following is a summary of the range and average of decodability in
designated reading selections in the five conforming first grade reading
programs. While “potential for accuracy” is not a requirement for state
adoption, the potential for accuracy is included as it provides useful
information that reflects the non decodable words that have been taught and
the expected ease with which a student might read a passage.  (report from
the Texas Education Agency, 2000)

http://www.indiana.edu/~reading/phonics/faq/decode.html

Decodable text is sentences and stories composed of words that use the
sound-spelling correspondences that children have already learned and a
limited number of sight words. As the children learn more sound-spelling
correspondences, the texts become more sophisticated in meaning, but
initially they are very limited. Decodable text provides children the
opportunity to practice their new knowledge of sound-letter relationships in
the context of connected reading.

by Dr. Patrick Groff
Professor of Education Emeritus
San Diego State University

http://www.nrrf.org/decodable_vs_predictable.htm

The idea of “decodable words” is one of the basic principles of direct,
intensive, systematic, early, and comprehensive (DISEC) instruction of a
prearranged hierarchy of discrete phonics information. Soon after the
alphabetic code (the concept that each speech sound in a language can be
represented by a letter) was conceived, a method of teaching this phonics
information to novice readers was devised.  Professor Groff discusses the
comparison between the meaning of “decodable” and “predictable” as means of
introducing children to reading instruction.