Cornerstone of No Child Left Behind
Legislation Shows Early
Promise
Fran Hurley, Ed.D..
Director of Research Development
Reading First, the cornerstone of No Child Left Behind(NCLB) legislation, has shown solid, early potential. Reading First is aimed at the literacy learning of students in kindergarten through third grade. This program provides students with a rigorous curriculum anchored in scientifically-based reading instructional methods and materials. Reading First also provides classroom teachers with extensive professional development for utilizing these methods and materials. Moreover, students in need of instruction beyond what a classroom teacher is able to offer are given extra attention with specialized levels of support by reading specialists.
The academic research on learning to read is clear and coherent. It has taken the collective will of government collaborating with scholars and others in the teaching community to bring this research and the necessary resources to the children who need it most.
Preliminary data released at the 2006 National Reading First Conference by the U.S. Department of Education indicates that such collaboration is working: Reading Comprehension Proficiency scores in first, second and third grades—excellent indicators of Reading First’sprogression—show a strong positive trend.
While this data is preliminary and follows Reading First students only for three years, this news is extremely exciting. Everything from later success with academic learning to whether an adolescent has trouble with the law can be associated with reading success (or lack thereof) in the earliest years of schooling. Given this, putting resources into early literacy learning, as Reading Firstdoes,seems quite a sensible course of action.
Contact Dr. Fran Hurley or Hezel Associates for more information regarding our work in literacy and Reading First.