Using ineffective reading assessments that have a high percentage of misdiagnosis is only one small part of the current reading crisis.
Properly identifying at-risk students is essential. We have the tools to quickly and accurately identify students that will have reading difficulties in kindergarten but they are not being used.
Even when schools do identify struggling readers these students are not given appropriate early interventions. Parents are not usually notified that there is even a problem. There is a “wait and see” approach. We hope that kids are just “late bloomers” and that they will “catch up”. At most, parents are encouraged to “just read with them more at home."
School boards buy and promote big-box programs and mandate that schools use the products; investing in new evidence-based programs would be costly. Just as Fountas and Pinnell assessments are ineffective, so are their reading intervention products being used daily in our schools. F&P products include levelled readers that schools use promote memorization and encourage guessing. F&P products are just one of many ineffective programs in the schools.
We have decades of research on how to best teach literacy skills so that 95% of kids will be at grade level – but that research doesn’t get into the hands of teachers and students are not benefiting from it.
Newer teachers are leaving university programs ill-prepared to properly teach literacy; most programs still teach outdated balanced literacy. When new teachers do have instruction on the science of reading they are denied easy access to research once away from the institution and then enter into school buildings that are full of balanced literacy products and professional development.
Veteran teachers are reluctant to change what they’ve been doing for ages; there is a lot of pride at stake. It’s heartbreaking to think that you might have been failing students; it’s easier to dig in your heels and insist that teaching methods and products are not the issue.
No teacher is intentionally providing poor instruction. Teachers give 110 per cent every day and truly want the best for every student. But they’re ill-equipped to do that when their university education, school board and building administration, and government have all failed them in their ongoing education, support, funding, and classroom materials.
Nothing is more important than full literacy for every student. All students deserve a high-quality education with teachers who are trained in the science of reading. It is achievable. Change is long overdue and there is no more time to waste.
Tabitha Caron, BEd, Literacy Tutor
Airdrie, AB
