Donald H. Parker; Invented Reading Lab System

Donald H. Parker, 88, who invented a system used by generations of children worldwide to learn to read. More than 127 million children in 64 countries have used Parker’s educational system, called SRA Reading Laboratories. The method de-emphasizes grades and encourages students to learn at their own pace. A native of Syracuse, N.Y., Parker created the system while working as a reading teacher in rural Bradford County, Fla., in 1950. He noticed that the slower learners in his class fell further behind their classmates when he taught them all from the same textbook. In his program, students were encouraged to individually master beginning, intermediate and advanced lessons before graduating from one color-coded set of workbooks to another. The color-coding, Parker reasoned, would avoid embarrassing students who were at the beginning levels. After receiving a doctorate in education from Columbia University, Parker took his idea to Science Research Laboratories, which marketed the curriculum to schools. The method was eventually extended to math and science, as well as to teaching foreign languages. The popularity of SRA Reading Laboratories reached its peak in the 1960s and ‘70s, but the system has remained in use in some public schools and is experiencing a resurgence in others as school districts get back to basics in an effort to improve literacy. On June 14 at his home in Carmel.