Report Calls for Multifaceted Reading Strategy

Seeking to shed light on the most effective methods for teaching children to read, a national panel of experts has recommended that schools use a combination of phonics, literature and other strategies.

The conclusions of the congressionally created National Reading Panel reflect a growing consensus among educators that children must be taught how to manipulate the sounds and letters in words, while also having ample opportunity to practice those skills by reading books.

“What we’re concluding here is that explicit phonics instruction does help, but it’s not the only thing that works,” said Michael Kamil, a Stanford education professor and a member of the reading group. “There are lots of other things that need to be in a reading program.”

The 14-member panel was directed by Congress to examine empirical research on reading instruction and report back on the most promising practices.

The panel--which included education and psychology professors, a parent, two administrators and others--spent two years reviewing hundreds of studies and delivered its report to Congress earlier this month. It found convincing evidence to support the use of several teaching techniques, rather than relying on any single approach.

Effective reading instruction, the report says, should provide students with an awareness of the sounds in words and an ability to blend those sounds together. But reading programs also should help develop fluency through “oral guided reading,” in which students read aloud as a teacher or someone else corrects mistakes. Students also must be taught strategies for comprehension.

The combination of methods documented in the report mirrors ideas now advocated in California. State educators praised the report for its emphasis on explicit phonics.

The report did not find enough existing credible research backing up the contention that silent reading in school increases skills. But that doesn’t mean that the approach is not worthwhile, it said.

The authors wrote: “Even though encouraging students to read more is intuitively appealing, there is still not sufficient research evidence obtained from studies of high methodological quality to support the idea that such efforts . . . result in improved reading skills.”

“I think they are right on the mark,” said Marion Joseph, a member of the State Board of Education and a leading advocate of phonics instruction.

But Stephen Krashen, a professor of education at USC, disagreed with that conclusion, saying it was “very narrow” and ignored numerous studies showing that students benefited from sustained silent reading.

The report can be found at https://www.nationalreadingpanel.org.