Richard L. Allington
2002
A recent Gadfly editorial suggesting there may be too much heavy-handed education legislation on the books [see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=34#482] led to a note from Richard L. Allington, the "author/editor" of this new book. Allington is a professor of education at the University of Florida, a member of the "Reading Hall of Fame," and a very unhappy camper when it comes to the National Reading Panel (NRP) and other efforts to describe the "scientific consensus" about how children learn (and should be taught) to read. His new book ends with a stern warning against a "national reading methodology." Most of it consists of authors disputing the NRP's findings and the federal legislation and policies that rest upon those findings - notably NCLB's "Reading First" program. Along the way, the authors go after phonics, testing, accountability, privatization and other demons. Good try, Professor Allington, but I'm unpersuaded. There are many parts of K-12 education where I'm all for flexibility and variety and experimentation, but early reading is one of the few places in education that boasts solid science, and we should honor it. Congress did NOT say everyone must teach phonics. It merely said that federal (reading) dollars will henceforth hinge on it. Nobody needs to take those dollars - and many private schools and home schoolers can't or won't. But just as I wouldn't want Medicaid dollars to pay for leeches and mustard plasters, or NASA dollars to pay for rubber-band-powered planes, I don't believe Education Department monies meant to advance the teaching of reading should support non-scientific approaches. Judging from the number of states that are having to rewrite their Reading First applications - the first round having been rejected for insufficient attention to the scientific consensus-this is proving to be a bitter pill for many educators and bureaucracies. Let them eschew the money, then. But the numerous authors gathered into this 300-page volume fail to disprove that consensus, which in fact did not start with the NRP but at least 35 years ago when the late Jeanne Chall first published Learning to Read: the Great Debate. If you'd like to have a look at this effort to rebut it, the ISBN is 0325005133. The publisher is Heinemann. And you can get further information (provided that someone once taught you to read!) by surfing to http://www.heinemann.com/shared/products/E00513.asp.
