[etni] Article on testing and reading comprehension. Worth reading.

A teacher on our team just sent me this article from the Washington Post.  I
thought it may be of interest to others.
Michele

The Knowledge Connection
By E.D. Hirsch Jr.
Saturday, February 16, 2008; A21

Why has the No Child Left Behind law left so many children behind? According

to the latest scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP), the reading achievement of eighth-graders has declined since the law

was passed in 2001, and the large reading gap between advantaged and
disadvantaged children -- "the achievement gap" -- has stayed where it was.
Today's eighth-graders had recorded gains in fourth grade, but these have
not
led to improvements in later grades -- when reading scores actually count
for
a student's future.

Those in Congress in charge of crafting revisions should understand that the

law's disappointing results owe less to defects in the law than to the
methods and ideas schools use in their attempts to fulfill the "adequate
yearly progress" mandate for all groups of students; this causes schools, as

many complain, to teach to reading tests rather than educate children. But
intensive test preparation by schools has resulted in lower reading test
scores in later grades. "Teaching to the test" does not effectively teach to

the test after all.

Studies of reading comprehension show that knowing something of the topic
you're reading about is the most important variable in comprehension. After
a
child learns to sound out words, comprehension is mostly knowledge. Many
technical studies support the assertion that after students can fluently
sound out words, relevant knowledge is the crucial difference between
students who are good or poor readers. In light of the relevant science, an
analysis of the textbooks and methods used to teach reading and language
arts
-- for three hours a day in many places -- indicates some of the reasons for

the disappointing later results. These test-prep materials are constructed
on
the mistaken view that reading comprehension is a skill that can be
perfected
by practice, as typing can be. This how-to conception of reading has caused
schools to spend a lot of unproductive time on trivial content and on drills

such as "finding the main idea" and less time on history, science and the
arts.

That educators hold this view of reading comprehension is not entirely their

fault. They have depended on the authoritative Report of the National
Reading
Panel (NRP), published in 2000, which, for all its good advice on teaching
students how to turn written symbols into the sounds of language, is highly
incomplete on the subject of reading comprehension -- the skill that is
mainly measured in later grades and the ability that our older students
chiefly lack. Important scientific studies of comprehension showing the
paramount importance of relevant knowledge are not to be found in the text
or
bibliographies of the NRP report.

Fatefully, the National Reading Panel did not include enough top specialists

in language comprehension. The panel urgently needs to be reconvened to
repair that omission so a revised report can be issued explaining that if we

want students to score well on reading tests in the eighth grade and not
just
in the fourth grade, we need to teach them the broad knowledge that is taken

for granted in books and lectures. A revised and improved NRP report would
also emphasize that a knowledge-based strategy must be long-range --
starting
as early as kindergarten to focus on substantial content read aloud to
students and discussed.

Language comprehension is a slow-growing plant. Even with a coherent
curriculum, the buildup of knowledge and vocabulary is a gradual, multiyear
process that occurs at an almost imperceptible rate. The results show up
later.

Consider the eighth-grade NAEP results from Massachusetts, which are a
stunning exception to the nationwide pattern of stagnation and decline.
Since
1998, the state has improved significantly in the number of eighth-graders
reading at the "proficient" or "advanced" levels: Massachusetts now has the
largest percentage of students reading at that higher level, and it is No. 1

in average scores for the eighth grade. That is because Massachusetts
decided
in 1997 that students (and teachers) should learn certain explicit,
substantive things about history, science and literature, and that students
should be tested on such knowledge.

The sure road to adequate progress in reading is adequate progress in
knowledge. Congress and the states should note that the best tests to "teach

to" are subject-matter tests based on explicit content standards for each
grade. Massachusetts's results confirm that this is the best way to measure
and to achieve real progress in reading. The revisers of No Child Left
Behind, and all who are connected with our schools, need to be cognizant of
-- and do something about -- the critical knowledge connection.

E.D. Hirsch Jr. is an author, most recently of "The Knowledge Deficit," and
chairman of the Core Knowledge Foundation.

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