USA Bob Sweet Jnr: A Time For Action

[debbie]

Robert Sweet Jnr of the National Right to Read Foundation in the USA has written an excellent paper calling for accountability in our teacher-training establishments. He rightly points out that we have had masses of research on reading for a long time and we KNOW how to teach reading.

The issue now is accountability regarding teacher-training and teaching children.


http://www.nrrf.org/wp-content/uploads/ ... Action.pdf

Research About Reading Instruction

A Time For Action.

Robert W. Sweet, Jr

Over the past century, there have been tens of thousands of research studies on how reading should be taught, including the elements of instruction required to produce proficient readers. In 1967 Harvard Professor Jeanne Chall reviewed all of the published studies on reading instruction from the beginning of the 20th Century and concluded that there was NO support for the sight word memory approach. The overwhelming conclusion from research at that point was that explicit, systematic phonics instruction produced proficient readers. Sight word instruction did not. Despite those findings, nothing changed in the education industry. Publishers continued to produce textbooks that ignored the research.

Do read the whole paper, it is not long because Bob says it as it is.