THE NATIONAL READING PANEL REPORT

THE NATIONAL

READING

PANEL REPORT:

Practical Advice for Teachers

Timothy Shanahan

University of Illinois at Chicago

Timothy Shanahan

University of Illinois at Chicago

1120 East Diehl Road, Suite 200

Naperville, IL 60563-1486

800-252-0283 > 630-649-6500



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Contents

The National Reading

Panel Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Oral Reading Fluency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Should We Even Care What the Report Says?

. . . . . . . .1

Does Fluency Instruction Make a Difference? . . . . . . . . .18

Why Research? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

How Do We Teach Fluency? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

How the Panel Worked . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Advice for Teachers on

Teaching Oral Reading Fluency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

What Has Happened Since the

National Reading Panel? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Some Definitions and Distinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Oral Reading Fluency Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

Phonemic Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Vocabulary

Some Definitions and Distinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Some Definitions and Distinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Developmental Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Does Vocabulary Instruction Improve Reading? . . . . . . .24

Does Phonemic Awareness

Instruction Improve Reading?

Advice for Teachers on Teaching Vocabulary . . . . . . . . .25

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

How Much Phonemic Awareness

Instruction Do Children Need? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

What Kinds of Phonemic Awareness

Instruction Are Best? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

More Advice for Teachers on

Teaching Phonemic Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Phonemic Awareness Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Vocabulary Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

Comprehension Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . .28

Some Definitions and Distinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

Can Reading Comprehension

Be Taught Directly? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Advice for Teachers on

Teaching Reading Comprehension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Phonics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Reading Comprehension Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Some Definitions and Distinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Final Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

Does Phonics Instruction Improve Reading? . . . . . . . . .12

Advice for Teachers on Teaching Phonics . . . . . . . . . . . .14

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Phonics Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Appendixes

Appendix A. Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40

Appendix B. Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44

The

National Reading

Panel Report

Context: It is the 1990s and dark shadows

lie across the land of reading education. Time

and other news magazines begin referring

to ¡°reading wars,¡± war being an apt metaphor

for the bitter debates over how to teach

reading that were raging in the nation. On

one side are those who view the hallmark

of sound literacy education as a sufficiently

supportive environment: If classrooms

provided books that were compelling, if

classroom routines were not so routine, if it

could be possible for children to love reading

enough, then reading would happen. On the

other side are those more focused on explicit

teaching: If we could provide all children with

the skills needed, if we could teach reading

well enough, if we could teach reading early

enough, then all children would be able to read.

Response: When this war of words between

whole-language and basic-skills philosophies

became so intense that it disrupted schooling

and threatened to undermine confidence in

public education, something unprecedented

took place. For the first time in history, the

federal government, under President Bill

Clinton and the U.S. Congress, required that

a group of scientists, teachers, administrators,

and teacher educators determine what

research had to say about reading. This panel,

the National Reading Panel, was not to put

1

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forth opinions or even strive for consensus¡ª

but was to understand the actual research

findings so schools could proceed to do

what was best for children.

Since it first appeared, the National Reading

Panel Report (National Institute of Child

Health and Human Development [NICHD],

2000) has been translated into various

summary documents, educational policies,

and designs for curriculum materials. Even

so, the report is still not accessible to many

teachers and principals, and the various

summaries have been criticized for their

inadequacy and inaccuracy (Allington, 2002;

Shanahan, 2003, 2004). The report itself is

more than 500 pages and was written by

a committee of scientists; the multiple

authorship resulted in some inconsistency

of style, voice, and accessibility of the writing.

The purpose of this monograph is to try

to summarize, explain, and provide advice

for teachers about how to use the findings

of the National Reading Panel Report. But,

first, some preliminaries:

Should We Even Care

What the Report Says?

Of course, there are many books on reading

education and thousands of vendors,

consultants, professors, and other experts on

the subject. There are even a large number of

authoritative reports written with the idea of

shaping reading education. There are so many

alternative sources of information, why should

anyone listen to the National Reading Panel?

What gives this report any special legitimacy?

First, the panel was composed of a group of

14 outstanding scholars who had been selected

by NICHD Director Duane Alexander and

Secretary of Education Richard Riley from

a list of 300 nominees offered by educational

organizations and agencies such as the

International Reading Association and

the National Reading Conference.

panel issued extensive plans for how

to identify questions, search the research

literature, select studies, and combine the

studies into findings. These procedures were

made public early in the process. This means

the panel could not begin with predetermined

results; that is, simply selecting studies that

fit a previously chosen set of conclusions.

Second, the panelists were prohibited from

having financial ties to commercial publishers;

they were required to provide financial

disclosure statements and sign affidavits

attesting to their independence from financial

conflicts of interest. Someone who might

have profited from the work may have been

able to do it without bias, but teachers and

parents should not have to worry about the

role of financial influence in such decisions,

and with the National Reading Panel that

is not a concern.

Fifth, the panel drew evidence only from

the types of research that permit a high

degree of certainty in determining what

instructional actions cause higher achievement.

Because the goal was to identify instructional

practices that confer a learning benefit, it was

deemed essential the studies be ones in which

instructional practices were tested by teachers

in classrooms under conditions that allowed

the learning benefits¡ª or lack of benefits¡ª

to be measured. Although other kinds of

research are valuable, they cannot provide

direct answers to the panel¡¯s questions,

and so such research was not used.

Third, the panel proceeded based on input

from five public hearings at which more

than 400 teachers and others gave testimony.

All panel meetings were open to the public

and its deliberations and discussions took

place in plain sight¡ªeach meeting was even

audiotaped and transcribed. No other findings

on reading education have ever been so

publicly determined.

Fourth, the panel did not offer opinions about

research findings, nor were the members

of the panel allowed to arbitrarily select or

omit any studies. Instead, the panel had to

establish research and synthesis procedures

first and then follow them consistently. Prior

to beginning the synthesis of research, the

Sixth, the panel only drew conclusions

when there was a high degree of certainty

the findings were correct. Due to small

sample sizes and design differences, research

studies can produce results that seem to

be in conflict. All major determinations

made by the National Reading Panel were

made based on a synthesis of a large number

of studies. Results that are repeated across

many independent investigations are the

most trustworthy, and the panel limited its

use of research to often-replicated findings.

The National Reading Panel Report: Practical Advice for Teachers

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