MRIn in the news
Slip In Reading Spurs Action
Specialists Working To Train Teachers
By ROBERT A. FRAHM, Courant Staff Writer
Reprinted from the Hartford Courant, May 1 , 2006
Much of the research on reading, including brain-imaging studies at Yale University, suggests that the fundamental difficulty for most poor readers is the inability to distinguish the individual sounds that make up words. The word "cat," for example, is made up of three sounds: kuh-aah-tuh. Some children have difficulty hearing these bits of sound, known as phonemes, and making the connection with printed language.
In schools with Haskins mentors, the early results are encouraging. In Hartford, three schools took part in the Haskins mentoring project, and all three reported substantial gains in reading proficiency.
In Hamden, Church Street Principal Joyce Kossman said she is so pleased with the results of Russo's work with first-grade teachers that the school plans to hire her to work with second-grade teachers next year.
Not everyone, however, agrees with the intense, skill-oriented focus of programs such as the Haskins project or the federal Reading First program.
"They represent one school of thought," said Richard Schwab, dean of the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. "We have, I would say, a broader perspective on reading."
In part, the difference of opinion is a remnant of the intense, decades-old debate over reading instruction, pitting educators against one another in one of two camps: phonics vs. the literature-based approach known as whole language. Many now shun those labels and, like Schwab, endorse elements of each approach.
"I believe some kids need phonemic awareness, but all kids don't," he said, adding that some are capable of reading "Harry Potter" books by second grade. "To have them go through phonemic drills as second-graders is crazy."
Gillis, the Haskins project director, said it is unfair to characterize the project as a narrow, drill-oriented, phonics-only method.
Under the Haskins mentors, teachers read stories with children and work regularly on skills such as fluency, vocabulary and text comprehension, she said.
"Of course, literature is important, but if a kid can't read it, who cares?" she said. "We're taking literature and using it to teach kids comprehension."
Although Connecticut schoolchildren generally compare favorably to children in other states on reading tests, education officials were discouraged when the state's fourth-graders lost ground between 2003 and 2005 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress - reflecting a similar downward trend on the Connecticut Mastery Test.
Of particular concern were the lagging scores for minority and low-income children, who fall far behind white and middle-class students, with Connecticut having some of the largest achievement gaps in the nation.
The state Department of Education, looking for solutions, studied 10 schools that have produced steady long-term gains in reading, countering the recent trend. One common element at those schools, the study found, was the use of reading coaches, similar to the mentors in the Haskins project.
In Hamden, teachers such as Gina Green at Church Street School are convinced that mentors such as Russo have made a difference.
Before undergoing the training, "I spent a lot of time spoon-feeding [children] the words, not really knowing what the strategies were," Green said. "Now I can say to them, `That's a closed vowel' or `That's a magic "e" word.' They can apply those skills and figure out the words on their own."
