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80–344 PDF 2002

S. HRG. 107–517

IMPLEMENTATION OF READING PROGRAMS AND

STRATEGIES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,

LABOR, AND PENSIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ON

EXAMINING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND

ACT (P.L. 107–110), FOCUSING ON THE READING FIRST AND OTHER

LITERACY-RELATED PROGRAMS AND STRATEGIES

JUNE 13, 2002

Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

(
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

TOM HARKIN, Iowa

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland

JAMES M. JEFFORDS (I), Vermont

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico

PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota

PATTY MURRAY, Washington

JACK REED, Rhode Island

JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire

BILL FRIST, Tennessee

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming

TIM HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama

MIKE DeWINE, Ohio

J. MICHAEL MYERS, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

TOWNSEND LANGE MCNITT, Minority Staff Director

(II)
CONTENTS

STATEMENTS

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2002

Page

Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., a U.S. Senator from the State of Massachusetts ... 1

Gregg, Hon. Judd, a U.S. Senator from the State of New Hampshire ................ 2

Collins, Hon. Susan M., a U.S. Senator from the State of Maine ....................... 3

Hickok, Eugene, Under Secretary, U.S. Department of Education ..................... 4

Nathan, Ruth, reading teacher, Alamo, CA; Trisha Rhodes, reading recovery

teacher, Hancock County Consortium, Bar Harbor, ME; and Elizabeth

Primas, reading specialist and teacher, Bowen Elementary School, Washington, DC ............................................................................................................. 12

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.:

Eugene W. Hickok ............................................................................................ 25

Ruth Nathan ..................................................................................................... 26

Trisha Rhodes ................................................................................................... 32

Elizabeth Primas .............................................................................................. 33

Response to questions of Senator Kennedy from Eugene W. Hickok ........... 35

(III)

(1)

IMPLEMENTATION OF READING PROGRAMS

AND STRATEGIES

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2002

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in room

SD–430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Kennedy (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Senators Kennedy, Gregg, and Collins.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR KENNEDY

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. We will come to order. Today, we

hold the second in a series of oversight hearings we plan on the

new bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law in January. We held the first hearing on the overall status of the implementation on April 23rd.

This morning, we have the opportunity to focus on the implementation of the Reading First program and other literacy-related programs.

Reading is the foundation of learning and the golden door to opportunity. Too many children fail to read at an acceptable level.

For the students who do not learn to read well in the early years

of elementary school, it is virtually impossible to keep up in the

later years. We are grateful that the administration, especially the

First Lady, have made reading a priority.

Parents and teachers want reading programs that work—that

help children master the basics, comprehend the material, and

learn to love to read. That is why the new law supports a wide variety of programs that are research-based with proven effectiveness, including small group, classroom-based, and one-on-one tutoring, as well as professional development for teachers and attention

to the lowest achieving children.

The law does not pick and choose among programs, but allows

for home grown strategies that meet the needs of the children in

individual districts. As long as any program or strategy is proven

effective, it can be funded, and it is important that the U.S. Department of Education implement the law in this spirit.

We cannot expect better reading achievement by limiting the options that schools have to address the leading reading needs of children. We should focus on the quality of their strategies and the results achieved.
2

The new law will only be successful if the implementation of each

of its components is successful and if each of the programs are fully

funded.

We made a down payment on school reform last year. We have

a continuing and growing obligation to provide the resources that

teachers and students need and deserve. Even with the last year’s

increases, the funding for the Title I still leaves 6 million needy

children behind. I am deeply concerned that the budget for next

year proposes to cut funding for public school reform and divert resources to private schools.

These cuts are producing a double-whammy on schools. While

the budget underfunds education, the State budget shortfalls and

declining local revenues are resulting in cuts to school districts

across the country, forcing the teacher lay-offs, elimination of summer school programs and other cuts to services for children.

We cannot ask more of students, teachers, and schools, yet provide them less help in meeting the goal of leaving no child behind.

We must work together to ensure that schools and communities receive more resources, not less, so they get the support they need

to succeed. The Nation’s children deserve no less.

We welcome Under Secretary Gene Hickok to our first panel of

the hearing today, and we look forward to learning about the Department of Education’s progress in implementing the Reading

First program and other literacy-related programs.

Senator Gregg?

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GREGG

Senator GREGG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for holding this hearing.

I believe firmly the Reading First program represents one of the

most significant reforms included in the No Child Left Behind Act.

As we all know, reading scores of our students are abysmal. Forty

percent of the fourth graders score below the basic and National

Assessment for Education progress scores, scoring below basic

means. These children are virtually illiterate. These scores are

even more dismal when you break them out by poverty. Sixty percent of school children score below basic.

Furthermore, we know that 90 percent of learning disabilities

are directly related to a child’s reading deficiency. If many of these

children were exposed to good reading programs, we could very

well see a significant reduction in the number of children who

would be classified as learning disabled.

Reading and comprehension provide the foundation for all learning. We cannot move onto history, science or even mathematics if

we do not have a firm foundation in reading. The sad truth is that

there is no reason why these scores should be so low. We have

ample data, scientific data published by the National Research

Council and the National Reading Panel on how to teach children

to read. We now know, through scientific research, that many parents and teachers have known for years that phonics works, kids

must be taught to recognize letters and the words that they make.

The President, in conjunction with the Congress, overhauled an

expanded an existing reading program and the Reading Excellence

Act to make it a more rigorous program, now referred to as the
3

Reading First Act. Last year, we tripled—tripled—the funding for reading, from $286 million during the last year under President

Clinton to $976 million in the year 2002 under President Bush.

The vision behind Reading First is right on target. We must dramatically change our reading, how reading is taught, and that

change must be systemwide in order to yield the results that we

are looking for; that is, that all children, not 30 percent, not 40 percent, not 50 percent, but all children be ready to read, and be reading, at their grade level by the time they exit the third grade.

Since the law was intended to leverage systematic change, the

emphasis is to change reading instruction in the classrooms, rather

than one-by-one. Programs that provide individual supplemental

support are an important component of the successful reading instruction when such support is provided in conjunction with an

overall classroom instruction in reading.

The Reading First program rightly requires States and school

districts to use reading programs and instructional practices that

incorporate the techniques and strategies that scientifically-based

research reading has shown to be elemental to the success of reading programs. This includes phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency and reading comprehension.

Now that we know what works, we can no longer simply support

reading programs that have been used in the past, unless, of

course, they incorporate the key ingredients to successful reading

instructions. If we are to meet our goal that all children should

learn to read by the end of the third grade, we must be both selective and flexible in choosing reading programs that work.

I applaud the administration for focusing on reading. Their commitment to improving reading for all children is evidenced not only

by the historic increase in funding, but by the fact that the Department of Education hit the ground running. Guidance for the Reading First program was the first of the No Child Left Behind programs to be issued. In addition, the Department held workshops

and symposiums on effective reading practices for States and

school districts.

I look forward to hearing from our second panel of witnesses, all

of whom are reading teachers, as to what reading strategies they

use in their classrooms.

This should be an excellent hearing, and I appreciate the chairman holding it.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator Collins?

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS

Senator COLLINS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for

scheduling this hearing on the implementation of the Reading First

initiative contained in the No Child Left Behind Act.

We share a commitment to ensuring the successful implementation of the Reading First program and to ensuring that every child

is able to read, for reading is truly the gateway to future academic

success. We know, from research, that effective reading instruction

and intervention in early childhood are crucial to providing the

proper foundation for future success. If a child’s reading difficulties

are detected early and she or he receives help, that child has a 90-
4

to 95-percent chance of becoming a good reader. On the other hand,

if intervention occurs too late, that is, after third grade, the

chances of that child ever becoming a good reader plummet.

For this reason, investment in early reading programs, and particularly in our teachers, is one of the best ways to ensure that we

leave no child behind. In fact, I have often said that the best way

to ensure that we leave no child behind is to teach every child to

read.

I am very proud of the success that we have had in my home

State of Maine in teaching our children to read. Maine leads the

Nation, year-after-year, on national reading tests, and I think we

can learn a lot from the programs of Maine, and I am very pleased

that the chairman has invited a teacher from Maine to testify on

our second panel.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

We will proceed. I want to just mention one item, Mr. Hickok,

and that is about the important meeting today you are holding

about the implementation of supplemental services. It was brought

to my attention, and I just bring it to yours, that the PTA, the

major parents’ organization, was not invited by the Department,

and you might check that out, if you would.

Mr. HICKOK. I sure will.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Reed and I sent a note to the Secretary

a few weeks ago, and we received a very commendable response

about the importance of the parents in education. It mentions that

you are taking a series of actions to ensure the views of parents

are considered as we implement the law, and it goes on indicating

the Secretary’s strong views and the importance of parent involvement.

But I bring that to your attention for your information that parents were not included in the meeting, and you can pursue it in

whatever way.

Mr. HICKOK. I will definitely.

The CHAIRMAN. We look forward to your testimony.

STATEMENT OF EUGENE HICKOK, UNDER SECRETARY,

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Mr. HICKOK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will certainly follow up

on that information. I appreciate you giving it to me.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you very much

for the chance to be with you today to talk about the reading initiatives under No Child Left Behind. We, as you have all stated, considered these reading initiatives to sort of be the cornerstone of No

Child Left Behind. Because as all of you stated, I think with eloquence, the fact is, if we are going to make that pledge real in this

country, probably the single most important thing for us to do is

make sure the children can read at an early age.

I will submit my testimony for the record. Just a few things from

my testimony.

Reading First focuses on what works, and that is very important

because we know what works in reading. In a lot of areas of education, we are still learning what works, but in reading we know

what works, and it is past time that we focus on what works.
5

We know that the research tells us that there are five interrelated components to sound instruction in reading: They are phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency

and reading comprehension. All of these have to be a part, in varying ways, of a comprehensive approach to reading instruction.

State plans that are funded under Reading First will have to

demonstrate their ability to address these components in a comprehensive and effective manner, but as has also been stated, the

Department has no pre-approved list of programs or providers or

vendors. Our goal is to look at each plan on its own merits, using

the criteria that I just referenced, making sure that each plan reflects the needs of the State, as that State can best address the

need to make sure children can, indeed, read.

While the majority of the Reading First funds will be used to improve reading instruction to the district in the school level. Each

State may reserve up to 20 percent of its total allocation to carry

out effective activities for professional development. We know that

far too many of our good teachers need professional development

on reading instruction, technical assistance, and administration

and reporting.

So our goal here under Reading First is certainly to change the

way reading instruction takes place at the classroom level, but it

really is to also enter in a new age of reading instruction so that

all instructors have a better sense of what needs to be done to

make sure no child is left behind.

As far as implementation, I appreciate Senator Gregg’s comments about how quickly we have attempted to get this out to the

field. The fact is, within weeks of the President’s signing No Child

Left Behind, we held a series of Reading Leadership Academies,

and virtually every State came to one of these academies, a team

of folks, where they received 2 days of intensive instruction on

Reading First, Early Reading First, application information, etc.

They were very successful. We have had lots of positive feedback

on those.

On April 2nd of this year, the Department released the application instructions and nonregulatory guidance, and the application

package also included criteria for the review of State applications.

We have sent out publications. I will just show two: One was done

by the Department, that is ‘‘Put Reading First.’’ It has received a

lot of positive feedback. It is all over the country; and, then, frankly, a very excellent one put out by the American Federation of

Teachers called ‘‘Teaching Reading is Rocket Science,’’ which I

think is not only an interesting title, but probably a pretty accurate

one—excellent publications that have received a lot, a lot of interest at the grassroots level.

On May 13th, just last month, the Department announced the

names of more than 70 national experts and practitioners who will

serve as the review panelists. As you know, the legislation calls for

panelists to be chosen for various organizations and fields, and

they are already busy trying to review the applications we have received in an attempt to make good on the potential of Reading

First.

So I will stop with my comments now, except to point out two

things, if I might. I believe it was Senator Collins, maybe all three
6

of you, mentioned the test scores in the Nation and how the test

scores, NAPE scores, in particular, demonstrate that while we

have, as a country, sent a lot of money into instruction, the fact is

our test scores demonstrate a very flat performance level, a very

disturbing performance level on reading.

I always like to point out the faces behind the test scores. I do

not want to get too dramatic here, but if I could, just for a second,

take you to a school I visited, before I became Under Secretary of

Education, in Philadelphia, a city I care a great deal about.

In that school, I can take you to a third- or fourth-grade classroom—let’s say a fourth-grade classroom. If you walk in that school

with me today, you will see a group of kids who are excited, as

fourth graders typically are, a group of kids in a bright, colorful

classroom, with drawings on the walls and books everywhere, a

teacher who is dedicated to those kids, and as you look into those

kids’ eyes, you will see the kind of hope, and opportunity, and potential that every child has in this great Nation.

But as you look at those kids, and let’s say, for the sake of illustration, maybe they are 25 or 30 kids, let’s say 30 kids in this

classroom, and as you look in their eyes, remember that in this

classroom perhaps 26 of those 30 kids cannot read at a third- or

fourth-grade level. And yet, at the end of this school year, probably

all 30 will go on to fifth grade, and as they go along, they will be

passed on and on through a system, and gradually far too many of

those 30 will fall by the wayside.

This is not about blaming anybody, but I think we need to remember those faces behind those numbers and make reading the

kind of national priority that the President, the House, and the

Senate say it should be, and that is what Reading First is all

about.

I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hickok may be found in additional material.]

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much. We certainly hope

that that school will, and those children, will have the opportunity

to be covered by the program as well.

Let me ask you, Secretary, if you can tell us about the status of

the State Reading First applications. I would be interested in how

many States have applied for the Reading First grants to date.

Mr. HICKOK. I got the latest update just this morning as I

walked into the hearing. At this point in time, we have 31 applications, from 29 States, American Samoa and the Bureau of Indian

Affairs, at this point in time.

The CHAIRMAN. Have any been accepted or any been rejected?

Mr. HICKOK. None have been accepted yet, in terms of final decision, and none have been rejected.

I would refrain from using the term ‘‘rejected’’ in the sense that

what we will be doing with the States, as we get applications, if

there are problems with the application with regard to how the

peer review process judges the application against the criteria and

the law, then our goal is to go back to the States and work with

them to get their applications where they need to be.

In the end, that will be a process that goes on, and on and on

because our goal here is for every State to participate, and every
7

student, every child to have some success with this. So our hope

is there will be no rejections in the end.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that is certainly our hope. We would like

to work with you to make sure we are going to get funding to the

States for quality programs, as you have outlined, but we want to

work with you to find out the ones that are getting approved right

away. We would like to understand what the quality programs are

doing and how they are going. The other ones that are not making

the grade, we would like to know what the Department’s view is

going to be with regards to them, as you bring them along—what

is the emphasis, what sort of opinions are involved in this, so that

we have a way of understanding that.

We will work out process with you, so we can follow that.

Mr. HICKOK. Certainly.

The CHAIRMAN. On the Early Reading First, could you tell us a

little bit about how the status of that program is moving along.

Mr. HICKOK. Well, guidance is out there. Applications are being

accepted. It is a competitive grant program, and it has really got

two components, if you think about it. It is aimed at getting the

earliest learners prepared to go to school prepared to learn how to

read. So it is more of a preparation program than a reading program, quite literally; and, second, there is also a professional development aspects because these children need instructors and providers that have a good set of skills to be able to accomplish that purpose.

It is very much underway. It is early now to say where we are

going to be in terms of total numbers of awards given.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you had applications? You do not have

a——

Mr. HICKOK. Not yet.

The CHAIRMAN. What is your expectation about applications?

Mr. HICKOK. As far as numbers?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. I mean, when do you expect to get your first

sort of applications, general time to consider them, and when do

you think that they might support——

Mr. HICKOK. We expect to have the process underway soon, and

fully funded, and fully engaged by December—the end of this year.

The CHAIRMAN. Last week I had an opportunity to attend, briefly, the First Lady’s first Conference on School Libraries. School Libraries supporters are an impressive group of people from the Department, national people, individuals, leaders that have thought a

lot about the role of the libraries and are very, very supportive of

it.

On our committee, I think we can all agree, that Senator Reed,

from Rhode Island, has been clearly our strong leader on this issue.

We are reviewing now the hopes for these school libraries, and

the importance that are given that we have the national attention

they deserve, and at the resources they need. The President’s budget includes is a $12.5-billion request for school libraries—level

funding. I know that money is not everything, and I know there

were some differences about whether we ought to have any school

library provisions in No Child Left Behind, but I am interested in

how the Department intends to follow up on the First Lady’s excel-
8

lent conference that she had and how you think that that can be

best achieved with the resources that are going to be available.

Mr. HICKOK. The First Lady’s conference generated, within the

Department, as well as outside, a great deal of conversation about

school libraries, and libraries, generally. In my previous life, as

Secretary of Education in Pennsylvania, in that State I had responsibility for oversight of libraries, too, community libraries.

One thing I think that is relatively common across the Nation is

that, as we look to better usage and better equipment in our libraries, our school libraries, we need to also recognize that the library

community has got several dimensions that sometimes they do not

relate to each other too well. You have got the university or academic libraries, you have got community libraries, and then you

have school libraries. In far too many places, they do not talk to

each other.

So one of our goals would be to find ways, strategies, to sort of

leverage those resources so that you have a far more comprehensive approach that can only end up benefiting school libraries, to

a great extent, and where you have a lot of duplication, get rid of

the duplication so you have better use of existing resources.

So, really, it is a combination of leveraging the funding, but also

leveraging the ideas in those three different, but related, communities.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Gregg?

Senator GREGG. Yes, you said these proposals would be peer reviewed. What is the peer group made up of?

Mr. HICKOK. The legislation, the law says that individuals have

to be chosen from various organizations, and let me get that information for you. The Secretary’s Office, the National Institute for

Literacy, the National Research Council of the National Academy

of Sciences, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and they should be experts in the acquisition of reading

skills, cognitive signs of language and reading processes——

Senator GREGG. Is that group up and running?

Mr. HICKOK. Yes, they are.

Senator GREGG. They have been named, the individuals have

been named?

Mr. HICKOK. They were named. Their names were released sometime in May. They met in May, as a group, to learn about the application process, to get know one another. They are now reviewing

applications, as we receive them, in groups of five.

Senator GREGG. I was interested to read, I think it was a couple

of days ago, in some article, the report on the Annenberg contribution, the billion dollars, and how there was a feeling that its impact

had been marginal because the money had been spread too thinly.

Of course, we are dealing here with a program that is approximately a billion dollars. I am wondering if we are going to have

that same problem with this program, that it will get spread too

thin across all of the States. Is there some way to focus the dollar

so we get more of a product?

Mr. HICKOK. I think a couple of responses.

First of all, one reason that we have this unique combination of

a State formula grant, but a peer-review process, is to make sure
9

that the resources do get spent in a way that we have a lot of confidence will end up in results.

Second, the way the money is then subgranted out to school districts and the accountability provisions that have to be part of any

State plan, the goal there is also to make sure that there is a way

to follow the implementation. In other words, we do not just give

the money to a State, and the States to the districts and then to

hope good things happen. Part of the comprehensive plan is to follow the implementation ongoing and also to have assessments to

make sure we know whether or not success is taking place. It is

very targeted, very targeted to the most needy students and the

most challenged situations.

And then, of course, as I mentioned in my testimony, a lot of

money is reserved for State activity so that you have got professional development, instruction at the local level targeted and

State activity aimed at transforming the way the State understands its obligation with regard to reading for young people.

Senator GREGG. Is this peer-review process going to base its evaluation on phonics?

Mr. HICKOK. It is going to base its evaluation on the five components that I mentioned, and phonics is one of those components.

Senator GREGG. Two of those are basically phonics.

Mr. HICKOK. Well, phonics and phonemic awareness, and you are

probably better to ask the experts that will come after to me on

reading about the difference between those two things. But as I understand it, phonics is the ability to make the sounds that letters

are all about, and phonemic awareness is the ability to relate text

to sounds. Again, that is my very modest understanding of the difference.

But there are five components to reading instruction that need

to be in place. The thing to remember, the experts told me as well,

is that the degree to which those components are in place will differ with regard to the children’s needs. The goal here is that every

child needs all five of these components, but they might need emphasis on various aspects of those.

So it really will have to be a combination of scientific research

and understanding the needs of the individual students as they are

getting the instruction they need.

Senator GREGG. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Collins?

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Secretary, first, let me join my colleagues

in commending the Department for acting quickly to implement

this landmark legislation. I know that represents a great deal of

work and commitment on your part, the Secretary’s part, and all

of the Department, and we thank you.

In your written testimony, you indicated that the administration

will not create any list of approved programs and that you will support a variety of paths, provided that they are based on scientific

research. Reading experts tell us that different techniques work

well with different children, and therefore I think it is imperative

that we give flexibility to the States and to local schools, as long

as they are using reading programs that have proven to be effective.
10

There are concerns, among some States, that the Department

may attempt to limit funding for certain programs, despite their

proven effectiveness. Maine has devoted considerable resources

during the past 8 years to the Reading Recovery program as being

an important part of Maine’s commitment to meeting high standards for literacy for children.

Maine has approximately 350 Reading Recovery teachers who

are providing services to meet the needs of first-grade students,

with intensive one-on-one instruction as part of an overall approach

to reading. As I indicated in my opening comments, we have had

a lot of success.

Is there anything in the guidance that the Department has given

so far that would preclude funding for Reading Recovery programs.

Mr. HICKOK. No, there is not, and I want to make sure that that

is pretty well understood, not just by the committee, but by everybody. I mean, the fact is we will have, if I might say so, we do not

have a dog in this fight. Our only goal is to make sure that whatever is being done at the State and local level results in students

being able to read by Grade 3.

The real sad part of the story is, while we do not have a whole

lot of knowledge about some things in education, we know about

reading, and yet in far too many places, we are not successful. So

the goal here is to transform the culture of education with regard

to reading.

Reading Recovery, as far as I know, can be a part of that transformation. It has to be able to make its case, within a State application, the way everybody else does, in terms of those five components.

The goal here is to transform the classroom and the instruction,

but as I said just a moment ago, it is also to recognize the individual needs of individual students. The goal would be preventative

programs, so the need for intervention and remediation is limited,

but that does not mean that reading recovery or any other successful program that has got the science and can demonstrate it in an

application cannot be a part of this. The goal here is that end to

success.

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. I very much appreciate those reassurances.

In your testimony, you also indicated that Reading First funds

will focus on providing increased levels of professional development. I think that is absolutely critical. Other than involved parents, a well-qualified, well-trained teacher is the most important

prerequisite for a student’s success.

We, in Maine, are now embarking on the challenge of designing

a statewide professional development program for K through 3

teachers, as well as statewide professional development for all K

through 12 special education teachers. Have any models been developed by the Department to give assistance to the States in developing professional training programs for reading teachers and

for special education teachers?

Mr. HICKOK. Well, the Reading Leadership Academies talked

about that issue, both in terms of Reading First, Early Reading

First and professional development, and I can make sure that we

get to you whatever models or examples that would be helpful.
11

I would like to highlight something in professional development,

and that is that in far too many places, we have recognized a real

need in professional development and in teacher preparation to understand better the components of reading instruction.

Just as I took you a few moments ago to the school in Philadelphia where you saw a lot of hollow hope, I can take you to a school

somewhere else where the teachers are very excited and glowing

about the success they have had in the classroom, and yet, when

you look at the test scores on reading, maybe 40 percent of their

kids cannot read. They do not realize, even though the data is

there, that they are not having the kind of success they should

have.

Again, not to blame anybody, they are lacking the background,

the skills, and the knowledge they need to have successful reading

for their kids, and that is evidence that that professional development challenge is a very important one. We are eager to help anybody on that.

Senator COLLINS. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank you very much. We know, the

challenges that we are facing with cutbacks in school budgets all

over the country.

A very touching story was this story about a first grader, Alec

Oswald from California, who wanted to unwrap a Playstation II,

when he celebrated his 7th birthday. But instead of putting a video

game on his wish list, the student asked his guests—his young

friends—to give money they would have spent on gifts to his cashstrapped school. And he arrived at the school with a present for the

principal, Andy Tunnel [ph], and it was a check for $275 so that

they could keep his teachers.

There are a lot of things that we cannot obviously get the States

to change, they are going to make judgments and determination,

of their own, but these children are out there that need our help.

It is on our watch every year, if they are not getting this kind of

treatment and attention. We have a good program to improve education, but we want to make sure that we are going to get it right

and provide the resources for it.

I think Senator Collins pointing out that these comprehensive,

science-based, strategies which in terms of reading are so important is critical. So many different facets are necessary to get children to learn to read well, but it takes investments, and we are all

going to have to try and do our bit on this.

I do not want to unduly raise this with you, Mr. Hickok, but it

is something that I do not want to let an opportunity go by without

mentioning the importance of making sure that we are going to

have the resources to do the good work that we have agreed to all

do together.

We thank you very much for being here.

Mr. HICKOK. Thank you, Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. Our second panel consists of reading teachers

from across the country.

First, Ruth Nathan, a reading specialist and third grade teacher

from the San Ramon Valley Unified School District. She also works

as a language literacy consultant in California. In addition, she

teaches classes on literacy at UC Berkeley. We are pleased to have
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Dr. Nathan today not only to share classroom experiences, but also

to share what she has found to be effective practices through her

research.

I would like to welcome Elizabeth Primas, a reading specialist for

Bowen Elementary School here in Washington, DC. She has been

a teacher for 26 years. Her expertise is working with teachers’ aides to try to ensure that students learn how to read early and

learn how to read well. We are pleased Ms. Primas is here today

to share personal stories what happens in the classroom and what

is needed to ensure that no child is left behind.

And then we have Patricia Rhodes, who I would ask if Senator

Collins would like to introduce.

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is my pleasure to introduce Trisha Rhodes from Bar Harbor,

Maine. Ms. Rhodes is a reading teacher specialist and a teacher

leader for the Reading Recovery Program. She is based at the

Conners Emerson School in Bar Harbor, a school that I happened

to visit just a couple of weeks ago, and had the pleasure of reading

‘‘Blueberries for Sal’’ to a group of first and second graders.

Ms. Rhodes received her bachelor’s degree from the University of

Maine in speech communication, and later went on to receive her

master’s degree in reading and language arts from the university.

She is certified as a literacy specialist, a K through 8 classroom

teacher and a speech and language clinician.

She decided some time ago, after teaching for several years, that

she could have more impact by helping children at an earlier age,

and she became trained in the Reading Recovery Program and has

worked in this capacity for the past 11 years. Over the past 3 years

she has both taught Reading Recovery to children and provided

professional training for other teachers.

So I am very pleased she is here, and I appreciate the chairman

inviting her.

The CHAIRMAN. Very good. Thank you very much.

We will start from Ms. Nathan, and then Ms. Rhodes and Ms.

Primas.

STATEMENTS OF RUTH NATHAN, READING TEACHER, ALAMO,

CA; TRISHA RHODES, READING RECOVERY TEACHER, HANCOCK COUNTY CONSORTIUM, BAR HARBOR, ME; AND ELIZABETH PRIMAS, READING SPECIALIST AND TEACHER, BOWEN

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, WASHINGTON, DC.

Ms. NATHAN. Thank you. Well, first of all, thank you for inviting

me to be here. I am a third grade classroom teacher, and I work

also——

The CHAIRMAN. Could you bring that mike just a little closer?

Thank you.

Ms. NATHAN. So I have my third grade classroom in San Ramon.

And I also work with second-language learners, quite a few of them

in the Napa Valley, as a reading specialist there. And I work with

many teachers in California, through the Berkeley Reading, the

Reading Certificate Program.

And what I would like to say today is I would like to give you

some clear recommendations about this Reading First Initiative. I

honestly believe that all kids can learn to read. No one needs to
13

be left behind, and hopefully, if we do it right, there will not be too

many children that have to recover, that if we can a good job from

the get-go, we are going to have more kids reading. So my remarks,

I want to talk a little bit about how we have got to be kid centered.

Everything we do has to be based on the way children learn, and

more so than how teachers feel. Do you know what I am saying?

We all want to be creative, but we need to take a look at the data,

and so I am going go address that with my three hats that I wear.

I want to ensure that the framework that we use, whatever

frameworks we look at, have to be evidence-based, that they also

must be trustworthy, they must be based on accurate assumptions,

for example, about the way kids learn to read. We need to know

models of how kids learn to read and we need to know models of

how you read, how expert readers read, and which I tried to outline

in the testimony I submitted. That is what you asked for. I do not

support any particular model. I use everything that I can with all

the kids that I teach. But we always go back to the data, and I will

get to that again when I talk about my three jobs. The third thing

is, whatever we do, in terms of these frameworks, they have got to

be cost effective. We cannot be spending thousands and thousands

of dollars on a limited number of kids. So we need to be cost effective so that we do not leave anyone behind.

Let me explain the issue of the kids-centered in framework with

my three hats. With my work in Napa Valley, I will give you a typical scenario. I work in four different schools out there, and one of

the fourth grade classrooms is loaded with kids who are second-language learners, who have been in this country since they were in

kindergarten and cannot read. And in that class you might have

32 children—actually that is what we have—and in that group of

kids that cannot read, many of them are second-language learners,

and I might have 12 of those children. When I first went out there,

those fourth grade teachers—and we are talking about the importance of professional development—did not have a clue as to what

to do. They have been through the universities, and there are very,

very few classes really on how to teach reading and about the five

subprocesses that Secretary Hickok mentioned. The teacher did not

know the difference between phonemic awareness and phonics, and

there is a huge difference. And they did not know how to help these

second-language learners become fluent. And again, I will come

back to those subprocesses.

But also vocabulary development being taught explicitly, comprehension being taught explicitly. We know so much, as the National Reading Panel report clearly shows. We have all of the stuff

out there that we need. We just need to put it to real good use, and

professional development is key.

So what we were doing in Napa was we went back to the alphabetics first. These kids could not negotiate the text. They could not

read the words. And we went back and worked with them with a

program that looked at the beginning as it were scripted which all

teachers do not like. You know, ‘‘Do not give me a scripted program.’’ At least that is what people say. Not these teachers. They

were so happy because they did not know what to do, and so in

Napa they started working with that scripted program, but soon,

the more they worked with it, the freer they could be till we had
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those kids up and running doing Readers Theater. It is all about

the teacher, the tools. See, a framework can be, it is sort of like

haiku or a sonnet. Sometimes a structure can create a situation.

If you have a structure there you can be creative, but these teachers had no framework.

The second hat. In my situation in third grade, I worked in a

middle to upper middle class school. When I first came there, out

of my 20 children—and this is incredible to me—8 of those kids

were struggling as readers, in a situation where most of them

should not have been. So what we did, when I got there, was we

looked at the data. We went back and watched and saw what was

happening to these kids. We talked to the kindergarten teachers,

the first grade teachers, and we changed the program. Now we are

in a situation where we have one particular program that has a

strong framework that looks kind of scripted, but is not, because

the teachers had had a lot of professional development in our district through the Consortium in Reading Excellence in California.

Now, we only have a program—and Senator Kennedy might be interested in this—in K-2, because everybody is reading. By the time

we are done with second grade in my school now, we can and are

free to use literature as much as we want, and even now the second grade teachers, well, all the teachers use literature, but what

I am saying is the framework that we needed was good enough in

our K-1-2 to just get everybody up to par. This year we have no

second grader that is not at grade level. It had never happened.

Second story.

Third story. I do teach, through the extension, through UC

Berkeley, the introductory course to language and literacy. I just

completed a class with 30 teachers. They are all coming to this because some of them say their educations were not enough and they

just did not, again, even have the vaguest idea what to do, and half

of them did know. A lot of them have had a lot of training with

a lot of good programs, including Reading Recovery. So I say to

them, ‘‘Why are you here?’’ Well, Reading Recovery teachers will

tell you they are lifelong learners. They are the best and the

brightest. I love them whenever I get them in my class. But they

did say to me in the class—because we went back and used evidence-based articles. We went back, not only the National Reading

Panel Report, but we went and read the articles that the report is

based on, not all of them, but some articles in each one of the subprocesses. Even my Reading Recovery teachers said they learned

anew.

I think, going back to what I have said, we need to be kid-centered, center on the data, and we need to have a framework that

is evidence based, and absolutely, I agree with you, we absolutely

have to have the best teacher training because—and if I can close

with going back to the Napa story, the teachers that I was working

with there, that I gave a program too, I said, ‘‘Here is the way we

will do it. You go ahead’’—because I had to leave and I was not

going to be back for 2 weeks—‘‘You begin to get your feet wet with

this program and just deliver it as best you can, and I will come

back in 2 weeks, and here is what I will do, I will watch you teach,

and I will take notes. And then I will teach. I will give you feedback, and then I will do a lesson the next week.’’ And that is what
15

I did, and it was amazing. I watched them teach, and the kids, as

I watched and as I took the notes, they were dying on the vine. It

was not box. They got the program. And they could do a little bit

with it, but you could tell what they needed was what I had, the

tools. They needed professional development.

So what I did was, on the next lesson, I took the same program

and I tried to bring it to life using the tools that I have like word

sorts, Phase Q texts, Readers Theater. And they saw where I was

headed. There is no box that is going to teach anybody. There is

no one program. It takes teachers that know what they are doing.

So thanks very much for inviting me.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Nathan may be found in additional material.]

The CHAIRMAN. Very, very helpful. Thank you.

Ms. Rhodes?

Mr. RHODES. Chairman Kennedy and members of the committee,

thank you for this opportunity to speak from both personal and

professional experience to what works for children learning to read.

My career as an educator began as a speech and language teacher. Later I became certified as a classroom teacher and a literacy

specialist. Then I taught 7th and 8th grade literature and language

arts for 3 years. It was these experiences that led me to pursue

training as a Reading Recovery teacher.

Even with my background in language development and my

training as a literacy specialist, I was frustrated with my inability

to reach my struggling readers and bring them up to grade level.

I knew they were being left behind. This led me to search for information about teaching children how to read in the early stages of

learning. When I read about Reading Recovery, I was excited and

impressed because Dr. Clay shared my beliefs that early intervention is crucial to reach children before they fail, and she had created a program of professional development based on scientific research.

I asked my district to train me as a Reading Recovery teacher,

and that training significantly added to my ability to teach emergent readers. My teaching was so successful that the decision was

made to train Reading Recovery teachers in most of the schools in

my district. Due to the high quality of ongoing training in Reading

Recovery, all of the Reading Recovery teachers in my district have

emerged as leaders in their schools. They have formed teams with

classroom teachers and special educators to create more effective

reading programs, and to establish standards and assessments in

their individual schools and for our district as a whole. The result

has been positive systemic change with Reading Recovery working

with a variety of classroom approaches. An image to consider is

that of a tricycle. The largest of the three wheels is classroom instruction, and the two smaller wheels are short-term early intervention, such as Reading Recovery, and long-term continuing support, such as special education. This image is helpful because it

both illustrates the importance of classroom instruction and the importance of support services for low-achieving students in order for

the educational process to work.

I have been teaching for 18 years, and 12 of those years have

been spent teaching the lowest-performing first grade children how
16

to read and write. I teach children every day, and the growth I see,

not only in their ability to read and write, but in feelings of self

esteem, is impressive. I have experienced firsthand the two positive

outcomes of Reading Recovery. These are: the ability for children

who are the lowest achieving at the beginning of first grade to accelerate into the average performance range of their classmates in

just 30 to 50 hours of instruction; and (2) the early identification

of the few children who will need long-term support through special

services to ensure that no child is left behind.

Reading Recovery has served more than one million children

since implementation in the United States in 1984. Reading Recovery meets the standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act. It

includes the essential components of reading instruction, meets the

definition of scientifically-based research, and uses rigorous assessments. It explicitly incorporates the essential components of reading instruction into every lesson including: comprehension, fluency,

vocabulary development, phonemic awareness and phonics, teaching letters, sounds and word parts, and how to use them in figuring

out a word. Reading Recovery is closing the gap for at-risk learners.

In losing, I want to thank you for everything you have done and

will continue to do for children who need the most help learning

to read and write. More eloquent, however, are the thanks of parents and children whose lives were changed by Reading Recovery,

and I will close with their words because they say it all.

From a parent, quote: ‘‘I just wanted to say thank you. Jason has

just finished first grade, and I am happy to say that he is reading

on grade level. He got on the school’s honor roll during the second

9 weeks. Then he went on to the principal’s high honor roll during

the third 9 weeks. He just got his end-of-year report and was reading on a level 18. He still reads every night, and reminds me if we

forget. His love for reading is unbelievable. Reading Recovery

builds more than just the ability to read. It builds the child’s belief

in themselves. I have become a huge advocate in my community.

I am doing everything I can to spotlight this program so that all

parents are aware that it is out there.’’ End quote.

And this from a 15-year-old former Reading Recovery student,

quote: ‘‘I still remember how I felt in first grade when many of my

friends were reading and I just could not figure it out. I began to

feel embarrassed and discouraged about school. I was then fortunate enough to be identified for Reading Recovery help. Right away

I began to feel successful and feel like a reader. I cannot imagine

what school might have been like without this invaluable support.’’

End quote. And I will be happy to answer any questions. Thank

you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Rhodes may be found in additional material.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Ms. Primas?

Mr. PRIMAS. Thank you, Senator Kennedy and members of the

U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee.

I am Elizabeth Primas, a reading teacher and change facilitator

for the District of Columbia Public Schools, and a member of the

International Reading Association’s Urban Diversity Initiative
17

Commission. I am currently assigned to Anthony Bowen Elementary School in Southwest Washington, DC. I am a product of the

DC. Public School system and continued my education at DC.

Teachers’ College, Trinity College and George Washington University. I have been employed by the DC. Public Schools for approximately 26 years and have worked as a change facilitator for the

past 5 years. In that capacity I work with teachers, aides and children to attempt to provide a quality education to all students.

My job has required me to assist teachers in implementing the

reading program, Success for All. To facilitate that, I have provided

professional development and administered assessments every 8

weeks to determine if students were making continuous growth

and progress. In the last 5 years we have gone from 16 percent of

children on or above grade level to more than 22 percent of students school wide. And almost 53.1 percent of first graders and

48.7 percent of second graders are on or above grade level, an increase of 23.9 percent of first graders since we started and 5.3 percent of second graders in that same year of 1999 is where we were.

It is my responsibility to select reading materials that match

groups’ reading abilities and to identify students who show signs

of having difficulties in acquiring reading skills and strategies,

such as phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding, vocabulary development, fluency and comprehension. Once students are identified as needing additional assistance, it has been my role to assign

a tutor that will be able to work with the teacher and student to

provide additional time on task to either help the child catch up

or keep up with the reading group. While in theory this is just

what a student may need, in reality, this is a very difficult task

to accomplish. First, tutors, normally educational aides or paraprofessionals, have not had sufficient training to conduct a reading

lesson with those children, who actually need the best and brightest teachers to guarantee their success. In addition to not having

the best trained individuals working with those most in need, far

too often these aides are not available to tutor since they are holding classes because there are no funds available for substitutes, or

funds are available for substitutes, there are no substitutes available. And finally, when the child is pulled out to receive the prescribed 20 minutes of one-on-one tutoring, the child is actually

missing some other aspect of the teacher’s direct instructions, perhaps in math or another critical subject area.

At Bowen Elementary School we recognized the problem and

have tried to make adjustments and adaptations to bridge the gaps

for those students who experience difficulties. We have recruited

and trained individuals from organizations to provide volunteer tutoring and mentoring services for students in grades one through

six. Bowen has been able to attract approximately 350 volunteers

from all walks of life to donate an hour during the school day, often

during their lunch hour, to develop a relationship with a student

and stick with that child all year.

While in general progress is slow, with the exception of 1 year,

it has been consistent. However, progress has not been sufficient

for many of the students to reach desired grade level goals. Two

students come to mind, and they are both at the very extremes of

the educational spectrum.
18

One sixth grade student that has been at Bowen for her entire

elementary school experience has tested at the eleventh grade

reading level in combined reading vocabulary and comprehension,

while another sixth grade student only at the third grade level. The

difference may be apparent. The first child, FG, attended Bowen

from prekindergarten through sixth grade, and has done well in

school consistently. Her mother and grandmother have been very

supportive and she enjoys reading, math and science. Student AC,

the second child, attended Bowen for a few years and then went

to live with his father, who put him in a different school. After several years, and actually just a few months ago, he returned to Anthony Bowen to live with his mother and a new stepfather. With

his latest move he acquired not only a new stepfather but a new

brother and two cousins had to come live with him because their

mother was unable to care for them.

I bring these two students up because sometimes it is not enough

to have a research based program because no program meets every

child’s needs. It is not enough to have your school overrun with volunteers who, while well intentioned, are still using time that

should be instructional time with the teacher, tutors that should be

in addition to the teacher, not instead of the teacher. Tutorial programs should be offered in noninstructional time slots, before

school, after school or during the lunch hour. It is not enough to

test every student every 8 weeks because testing does not, in and

of itself, provide sufficient motivation for students to do better, and

standardized tests do not usually provide sufficient diagnostic information to determine what deficits need to be remediated to advance the student.

As a result of all of the assessments, the volunteers and interaction with teachers, children and parents, I have made some generalizations that I believe are true across all classrooms when it

comes to the teaching of children.

The solution is not the number of volunteers who provide random

services, however well intentioned they may be. It is not the packaged programs, research based or not, one size does not fit all.

When you look at students who consistently make the grades, they

are those who have a support systems, and the key supports are

stability of home, caring and involved parents, and most importantly, extensive classroom libraries and highly qualified teachers.

Thank you again for this opportunity to testify. I look forward to

answering any questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Primas may be found in additional material.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, a very, very helpful panel covering

a number of different aspects of the challenge.

I will start. Ms. Nathan, in your testimony you say, ‘‘I want to

say that all teaching must occur in classrooms and schools that are

safe and where children are well-fed, that they are rich in love, respect for children, they have school, classroom libraries filled with

recent books for all types of readers, at many grade levels, and

they cover many knowledge domains.’’

Is it your sense that we need to do more in terms of school libraries and upgrading these school libraries?
19

Ms. NATHAN. Yes, absolutely. I read online a good deal of the text

of Mrs. Bush’s meeting, and I thought it was very important, absolutely. We need current books. We need especially a lot of nonfiction. Actually, many libraries have a lot of current fiction. It is the

nonfiction, biographies that inspire kids. But I will tell you, it is

not just the libraries because you can have a huge classroom library, and you can have a huge school library given to you, but

what if the teacher does not read the books? I read every night, actually every morning, 5 o’clock, a child’s book, every day of the

year. That means that I can hook my kids, so during that dear

time, which is am very worried about, sustained silent reading, and

I went on and on in my testimony about it, I do not care what anyone says, I am not giving it up. But the reason that it works in

my classroom is that I read the books, I can hook kids with the

books that they really care about, I can find out what their interests are, and make sure that we order those books.

Do you understand what I am saying? It is not just the library,

it is teachers that read the books. And also the kids, as I said in

my testimony, help each other because they have time to share the

books they love in school. But, yes, we need more books.

The CHAIRMAN. Good, good, good.

Ms. Rhodes, I understand that some researchers have written a

letter that Reading Recovery is not evidence based, and I understand 102 researchers have written a letter saying it is evidence

based. What is your comment?

Mr. RHODES. I would say that it has a strong research base. The

structure and design of it are consistent with a large body of substantial research on reading and writing behaviors, and it uses systematic empirical methods to collect data annually on all children,

and it is reported in numerous peer-reviewed research articles or

research reviews that offer support.

Reading Recovery is different from a lot of programs in that it

is highly accountable. Each child’s progress is measured using

standard, valid and reliable tests of letters, words, sounds and

reading books.

I think the hardest thing for a Reading Recovery teacher to realize is that she is also a researcher, and watching them transform

to not only being a teacher but to being a researcher is really quite

exciting.

And the continued progress of children after Reading Recovery

has been externally validated in countries all over the Nation. In

Maine we just recently completed a longitudinal study on fourth

graders, using our Maine State assessment, and what we found

was that 84 percent of Reading Recovery children, who successfully

completed their series of lessons, met the State standards in reading in fourth grade. What to me was even more amazing was the

74 percent of the children who did not successfully discontinue, but

who needed more kinds of long-term support, also successfully met

the State standard.

So I think that it is very accountable, it has the research to back

it.

The CHAIRMAN. Very, very helpful comments.

Ms. Primas, when you look at your school, I am thinking again

about funding, could we do more with the professional development
20

for the teachers? We have heard a great deal about the importance

of professional development, more in terms of books in the library,

after-school programs that give focus to children who have fallen

behind in terms of reading?

Mr. PRIMAS. Absolutely. That is the key to us making progress.

The progress that we have made in the last 5 years, all teachers

were required to take additional workshops. That makes a smattering of improvement. But this year, because of the Reading Excellence Act, all of our pre-K through third-grade teachers took two

full graduate credit reading courses, and we jumped. So just with

the same reading program, but just additional training to the

teachers, we made those big increases.

Last year we actually dipped, and I said in my testimony that,

with the exception of 1 year, we had continuous progress, but slow.

This year, as we finished our testing, 68 percent of our first graders are now on grade level, as opposed to 20 percent our first year,

but the really great increase was this year, with those teachers getting additional training. It is not enough for us to just train the

pre-K through third grade teachers. Our fourth-, fifth- and sixthgrade teachers are getting those kids who still cannot read. They

need the training, also, and every teacher needs the training, regardless of their competent area.

The CHAIRMAN. That is powerful, powerful testimony.

And you all talk about this comprehensiveness that we are looking for, and professional training is such a key, libraries are such

a key, different ways or approaches for children, different children

learning at different speeds and making this responsive to children

in this comprehensive way is just so important. It is going to take

investment too. We just cannot do this on the cheap, and I think

you have been very helpful in spelling out some of these very important needs.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. I am going to have to depart, but Senator Collins

has been very gracious, as she always is, and is willing to chair the

remainder of the hearing, which I am very appreciative of.

Thanks, Senator Collins.

Senator COLLINS. [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You

know I have always wanted to be the chairman of this committee.

[Laughter.] So, even if it is just temporary, I am honored to conclude the hearing, and I thank you for holding it.

First, let me thank all of you for your testimony. It is so important for us, as policymakers, to hear from you who are actually out

there day in and day out teaching children to read, helping other

teachers to be effective. Oftentimes, we hear from people who are

not on the front lines, and it is great to have your testimony.

I also want to point out there are many reading experts in the

audience today, but one of them is from my home State of Maine,

and since I am now chairman, I get to acknowledge that she is

here. So I want to welcome Dr. Paula Moore from the University

of Maine, who is an education expert, and who has accompanied

Ms. Rhodes here today.

Ms. Nathan, I was very interested in hearing your discussion of

the classroom with a great number of children for whom English

was not the first language. The face of Maine has changed in the
21

past 5 years so that several of our communities, particularly Portland and Lewiston, have seen an influx of immigrants and refugees

who do not speak English.

Do you think, since that phenomenon is really happening in communities all across the United States, that our colleges of education

need to do more to train teachers to deal effectively in teaching

reading and other subjects, as well, to children for whom English

is not the first language?

Ms. NATHAN. Yes, of course. I mean, I agree with that. We have

a whole system in California the CLAD System, that trains every

teacher, no matter what subject, on specific strategies for secondlanguage learners. It ends up that the strategies for second-language learners are actually good for everybody, but you need to

make it real, and you need to connect with their lives, and with

their culture. Yes, so I would agree with that.

Senator COLLINS. That has been a real challenge for some communities because the teachers, while excellent teachers, just have

not had the experience of dealing with——

Ms. NATHAN. If I can go just a little further, one of the things

I would like to add is that we are having a lot of success with helping children understand, you know, that whole issue of phonemic

awareness—actually, I love the term alphabetics. I do not know

why. Phonemic awareness in phonics is just such a mouthful, but

the alphabetics of a language, the sounds, for example, in Spanish

maybe there are—well, let’s take Korean.

I was working with Korean teachers the other day. Maybe there

are about 24 sounds, 26 letters. It is real important for those kids

to know which sounds in their language are the same as ours,

which sounds are different and where there is no transfer. So it is

important for teachers to know that.

Also, the way those sounds are spelled, in Korean, there is a lot

of one-on-one correspondence, as there is in Spanish, as well, in

their home languages, but in our language, because of the history

of English, and the many languages that comprise it, especially

with the vowel system, there are several ways to spell a sound.

That is the big ah-ha that a lot of our second-language learners

need, and that is where phonetic awareness, helping a child hear

the sounds in our language and then very clearly showing the children how those sounds are spelled is what is really making a difference in California.

Senator COLLINS. Thank you.

Ms. Rhodes, before the hearing, we talked a little bit about the

effectiveness of early reading programs and early intervention in

helping to identify children who have reading difficulties before

they become part of the special education program, because we

know that with early intervention, that in many cases we can help

a child become a good reader and avoid the need for special education. But it is my understanding that if a child becomes involved

in the special education program, the chances of that child leaving

are less than 5 percent.

Could you comment on the relationship between early reading

programs and avoiding the classification of a student as needing

special education and the resulting costs of that classification?
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Mr. RHODES. Certainly. First of all, I would like to say that there

will always be some children who need something different than

what the classroom has to offer because they learn in a different

way.

What we have found about Reading Recovery, when we look at

it in terms of cost effectiveness, is that it has greatly reduced the

amount of children who are qualified for LD in reading and who

end up being retained in first grade specifically because of reading.

Last year, we had 86,000 children who successfully completed

Reading Recovery in the United States, and only 137 of those

86,000 children were placed in special education for reading or

writing at the end of first grade, and also only 194 of these 86,000

children were retained in first grade because of reading difficulties.

So I think there is a high correlation between early intervention

and lowering the numbers in special education. I think the latest

brain research shows us, again, the significance of intervening very

early with children. So, yes, I think there is a high correlation.

Senator COLLINS. Teachers also tell me that there is a window

of literacy that is open particularly before third grade and that if

you teach a child to read before third grade, the chances of that

child becoming a good reader are extremely high, but that if the

intervention occurs after third grade, it is much more difficult to

help the child become a fluent reader, that that window of literacy

slams shut.

Could you comment on that? Is my understanding correct?

Mr. RHODES. Yes, and again I would refer to the brain research.

I mean, I think it is amazing that Dr. Clay did her work way before all of the newest information that we have now on the brain

imaging and things like that, but what we know is that those

neuro pathways are created very early, and whether the language,

reading or many kinds of learning and thinking, the brain is expanding so rapidly very young that that is the time to intervene,

and by third grade those neuro pathways have been set, and it is

very difficult at that time to change them.

Senator COLLINS. Thank you.

Ms. Primas, I was very interested in your comments because

they reminded us of the importance of a stable home life for students, as far as creating an environment that is conducive for reading.

Another important element is access to books at home. In Maine,

the Maine Humanities Council has teamed up with some of our

hospitals so that every new mother goes home with a little tote bag

containing two books, so that we know that that child will have at

least two books in the home.

Furthermore, some pediatricians have followed that up with each

well-child visit, another book is given to that child. I think that is

just such a wonderful program.

I do not know whether that is just in Maine or whether other

States and the District of Columbia have similar programs, but

could you comment on the need to get books into the home, not just

into the school library.

Mr. PRIMAS. That is one of the key things I have spoken about

in the past. There are some pediatricians nationwide who every

time your child comes in, the child gets a little book. There are
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some OB-GYNs who give a book every time you come for a prenatal

visit so the parent is beginning a library. So that is critical.

We also have other clubs like RIF, Reading Is Fundamental, that

gives children books two or three times a year every year that they

are in school so that they do have books. This year, our school participated with the Pick and Roll, with the Wizards, and so they

were given the motivations to read. So we have got kids going to

the library, and they have got t-shirts signed by the Wizards, and

they have got basketball cards.

So there are a lot of programs around the country that encourage

kids to read and actually put books into their hands and into their

homes. If a child is read to even in vitro we know they will tend

to come out more calm and more prepared to hear the language

that they are going to be hearing in books because the language

we usually speak is a little different from book language. Many

kids may have a vocabulary that they come to school from that is

not in the books. That is a nice way of putting it.

So we need kids to hear book words and book language, and it

really helps them, so that when they see those words in print, they

have a point of reference and can understand what it means.

Senator COLLINS. It is my understanding that children who are

read to at home or much more likely to become early readers; is

that correct?

Mr. PRIMAS. The research says that is correct. In fact, what we

have done, and many schools have done it, and the research-based

programs have already indicated that in order for a child to become

a good learner, they need to hear reading modeled, so that most

programs have the teacher, if there is no one else, read to them

every day. So 15/20 minutes every day before they start their reading lesson, teachers model good reading by reading to the children.

Also, many of our volunteers, we do not want them to teach

skills. We want them to read to the children, read with the children and let the children see that I am reading for fun. I am not

reading because I have a book report. I am not reading because it

is my homework. I am reading because it is fun, and so that is

really what we want the kids to learn.

Senator COLLINS. I was going to ask you that very question because I assume that is what you have your volunteers do is to read

to the children.

Mr. PRIMAS. They read as a partnership. At the beginning of the

year, a volunteer may be doing most of the reading. They are kind

of start light. So they give all of the support to the kids to begin

with, and then as the child feels more comfortable and says, I want

to read this page, okay, you read that page, and if you need help

I will just tell you the word. I am not going to just sound it out,

but I will just give you the word so it is not a struggle.

And then toward the end of the year, we find the volunteers are

just listening. They are not reading. They may be selecting books

that their kids read at home and bringing them in and introducing

them to kids or the kids may be going, This book is real good. I

am going to read this one to you.

So we really want them to start off doing more support, and at

the end of the year, let the kids take the ball and run with it.

Senator COLLINS. Thank you.
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I want to thank all of you for your testimony today. It has been

very helpful to us, as we commit the resources to making sure that

every child does have the opportunity and, indeed, does learn to

read.

I have visited almost 100 schools in Maine, and my favorite thing

is reading to children in the elementary schools. There is nothing

I like better. I hope that, although I would have no idea how to

teach them how to read, that by telling them how much I enjoy

reading, by reading to them, that I can help inspire a love of reading.

So thank you for all of the work that you are doing. You have

contributed enormously to our hearing today.

The committee record will be held open for 5 days for members

to submit written statements and any questions for the record.

There may be additional questions for the record that we will submit to you in writing, but I thank you very much for being here,

and this hearing is now adjourned.

[Additional material follows.]
25

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

PREPARED STATEMENT OF EUGENE W. HICKOK

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the Department’s implementation of the Reading

First program, authorized under Title I, Part B, Subpart 1 of the Elementary and

Secondary Education Act as reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Reading First is the largest—and yet most focused—early reading initiative this

country has ever undertaken, and is an academic cornerstone of the No Child Left

Behind legislation. I am pleased to share with you the Department’s efforts to ensure the successful implementation of Reading First and to ensure that all students

learn to read well by the end of third grade.

Reading First provides an opportunity for every State to apply scientifically based

research—and the proven instructional and assessment tools consistent with this research—to teach all children to read. Reading First will provide the necessary assistance to States and their districts to establish instructional programs based on

scientifically based reading research for students in kindergarten through third

grade. Reading First funds will also focus on providing increased levels of professional development, to ensure that all teachers, including special education teachers,

have the skills they need to teach reading effectively, and to screen, identify and

overcome reading barriers facing their students.

Reading First focuses on what works and will support proven methods of early

reading instruction in classrooms. Scientifically based reading research has identified five essential components of reading instruction. This research demonstrates

that children need explicit and systematic instruction in and mastery of these five

interrelated areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading

fluency and reading comprehension strategies in order to become proficient, successful readers. Reading First focuses instructional methods and materials, assessments

and professional development on these areas. Programs funded under Reading First

will have to demonstrate their ability to address these components in a comprehensive and effective manner. However, as the Department has stated openly and repeatedly, there is no list of programs or materials that are ‘‘pre-approved’’ for use

under Reading First. Indeed, while only proven, scientifically based programs and

strategies may be funded and while we must keep the quality bar very high, a variety of paths may lead to making the goals of Reading First a reality.

One of the most powerful aspects of the Reading First program is the opportunity

States will have to reserve a meaningful portion of their award to build and maintain the requisite statewide capacity to teach all children to read by the end of third

grade. While the majority of Reading First funds will be used to improve reading

instruction at the district and school levels, each State may reserve up to twenty

percent of its total allocation to carry out activities related to professional development, technical assistance, and administration and reporting. This funding will

allow States to build a true internal capacity related to scientifically based reading

instruction. This significant level of funding will provide States with the resources

to extend this reading initiative and to improve instruction beyond the specific districts and schools that receive Reading First subgrants. Within each State, the expanded K-3 reading infrastructure made possible by Reading First funds can and

will be leveraged statewide. While Reading First subgrants are appropriately targeted to each State’s lowest-performing and most disadvantaged students, teachers

throughout each State will develop the skills and receive the support they need to

teach all children to read well. Over the course of the six-year grant period, millions

of dollars will be dedicated to this purpose, and all children will benefit from what

is known about effective early reading instruction.

As helping States and local school districts ensure that all children are reading

at grade level or above by the end of third grade is one of President Bush’s highest

priorities, the Department has developed and maintained a meticulous timeline for

the implementation of the Reading First program. Within weeks of the President’s

signing of the No Child Left Behind Act, the Secretary held a series of Reading

Leadership Academies. These Academies, attended by teams from nearly every

State and territory, provided an in-depth, multi-day opportunity for States to learn

more about the specifics of the Reading First program, as well as to hear from some

of the Nation’s leading experts on scientifically based reading instruction.

On April 2, 2002, the Department released application instructions and non-regulatory guidance for the Reading First program. The application package also included the criteria for review of State applications. Reflecting both the critical need

to improve reading instruction for this country’s lowest-performing students and the

complexity of the Reading First legislation, the review process for Reading First
26

State grants is designed to hold all State plans to a consistent, rigorous standard.

The Department anticipates that all States will participate in the program; however, State plans must satisfactorily address all program requirements before funds

are awarded. To this end, the Department held Reading First grant writers’ workshops on April 15 and April 22, 2002 to provide States with additional information

on the application and review process. Using national activities funds, the Department supported the attendance of State representatives at these workshops. The

Department also awarded a contract to provide technical assistance to States

throughout the application process. States are already taking advantage of this individualized assistance available to them as they develop their Reading First plans.

Support will also be available through this contract for States that need additional

assistance in meeting the approval criteria.

We have established an application submission and review schedule that meets

the needs of both the States aiming to receive Reading First awards when the funds

become available on July 1 and of those States in need of more time to develop highquality plans. The Department began receiving applications from States on May 1,

and has scheduled four rounds of review that will allow States with approved applications to receive funding on July 1. State applications received after these four

rounds will be reviewed on a rolling basis as they are received.

On May 13th, the Department announced the names of the more than seventy

national experts and practitioners who will serve as review panelists. The Secretary,

the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL), the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human

Development (NICHD) selected these expert panelists, as required by the Reading

First legislation. The panelists include people with expertise in the acquisition of

reading skills; the cognitive science of language and reading processes; prevention

of reading failure; scientifically based reading research; professional development;

school leadership; classroom teaching; curriculum development; early intervention;

psychology; assessment, measurement and evaluation; reading and learning disabilities; special education; and management and accountability. The panelists received

focused training on the specific program requirements and review process and criteria in May.

In conclusion, I would like to say that the rapid and successful implementation

of the Reading First program is a primary focus of the Department. We have worked

vigorously and enthusiastically to provide States with the guidance, resources and

support they need to develop high quality plans to improve K-3 reading instruction

for all of our country’s children. As we have met with States at our Secretary’s

Reading Leadership Academies, Reading First grant writers’ workshops, and other

events across the country, we have been consistently impressed and gratified at

their energetic commitment to developing thoughtful Reading First plans that can

be successfully implemented and will result in improved student achievement.

Scientifically based reading research has shown us what works in teaching young

children to read. Through the Reading First program, and with your continued support, States, districts and schools can dramatically improve student achievement.

I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RUTH NATHAN

It’s both a pleasure and honor to be here today a pleasure because I am deeply

committed to the idea that all children can learn to read, and an honor because I

am fully aware that other highly qualified teachers might be testifying rather than

myself. Thank you for inviting me.

My name is Ruth Nathan and I teach third grade at Rancho Romero Elementary

in Alamo, California. Alamo is a small, middle to upper-middle class town in Northern California. I’ve also taught migrant children in Florida, children of farmers in

Iowa, professors’ children in Wisconsin, and in Michigan I’ve taught in neighborhoods that have mixtures of children from. around the world. You might find it interesting to know that I also teach Introduction to Language and Literacy for UC

Berkeley’s Reading Certificate Program, offered through their extension; and that

I’ve earned a doctorate in the teaching of reading from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.

Given your charge, the implementation of the Reading First Program included in

the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the best thing I can do is to outline

several of the research-based teaching practices that I use in my own classroom, as

you’ve asked, as well as practices I model for colleagues and graduate students. I’ll

do this in the light of what we know about the reading process as it occurs in real

time. By ‘‘real time,’’ I mean what goes on as we actually read. After briefly discussing reading models that account for what we think happens while we’re reading, per
27

your request (Part I), I’ll outline best teaching practices (Part II), and conclude with

what, in my opinion, a reading program the federal government might sponsor

needs in order to be effective.

PART I—READING MODELS: WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE READING IN REAL TIME

Assuming that you are all competent readers, research from many different paradigms has shown us that as you read you look at all the words and recognize most

of them automatically. While this might seem obvious, thirty tears ago folks weren’t

so sure. It was hypothesized that you used context to such a great extent that you

only needed to sample words on the page. Now we know this isn’t so: You look at

all the words on the page and for the most part recognize them instantly and without much effort. Your automatic word recognition power leaves you with plenty of

attention to focus on comprehension, which is sometimes easy and sometimes very

difficult, as well as analyze, synthesize, and evaluate your understanding.

The reading process that I’ve described is interactive. For example, the words you

read interact with each other at the phrase and sentence level so you know what

they mean, and at the paragraph and text level, too, so you understand the bigger

picture. At the word and phrase level, for example, if you read ‘‘off the record,’’ you

know the word ‘‘record,’’ proceeded by ‘‘off the’’ means ‘‘not for public consumption,’’ as opposed to ‘‘record,’’ something that spins around and let’s you hear songs. The

reading process is compensatory as well as interactive. This means that readers

must compensate when one area of the system is weak. For example, when you’re

reading an article from another agency or a summary of legislation and come across

a word you don’t know the meaning of, you may examine the context and see if you

can figure it out, or you could think hard about what you know on the topic and

guess what the word means. My third graders do this, too, not only to figure out

a word’s meaning, but my weaker readers who have trouble decoding a word use

the context to guess what a word says. Of course, there’s a cost for compensation

at the word recognition level: it takes attention away from comprehension. With attention allocated to figuring out how to say a word, there’s often a loss to understanding. If this compensatory practice is a too-frequent strategy, my less-skilled

readers have trouble comprehending. This, in turn, can, and does, affect their desire

to read, which will ultimately affect their vocabulary growth, concept development,

self-esteem in our digital society, and motivation to learn through reading. Some

call this the Matthew Effect, which translates to ‘‘The rich get richer and the poor

get poorer.’’ It’s my job to see to it that my kids all get ‘‘rich’’ insuring that their

word recognition is automatic—fast and accurate. It is also my job to make sure all

my students feel that can turn to books anytime they want: to learn, for personal

enjoyment, or to read to a brother, sister, cousin, or younger friend.

PART II—BEST TEACHING PRACTICES

The reading models I’ve outlined that have helped us teachers—administrators,

policy makers, and parents—understand reading as an interactive-compensatory

process have lead teachers and other educators to propose many hypotheses about

best teaching practices. Of late, many teachers look for research-based practices

whenever possible. To base practices on guesses about what works is to leave children at risk. We need to test our hypotheses, and we need to find out for whom

they work best and for whom they don’t work at all.

A few years ago a report emerged, the Report of the National Reading Panel:

Teaching Children to Read, which was an evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction.

Many teachers, myself included, use the report as a resource for selecting classroom

practices we use to teach reading. It’s amazing how many programs come to us, and

how many inserves are delivered, that have little, if any, research base. Often the

data offered is just correlational (this program is good because kids who use it score

very high in their reading achievement), as opposed to causal (this program is very

good because we’ve tested it, and we find that compared to other programs, or no

program, kids do significantly better in reading achievement using our program).

I’m testifying here today because I’ve been successful in teaching children to read

and helping even my less-skilled readers want to read. Below, I’d like to 1) define

the areas of reading those of us who teach reading to classrooms full of kids attempt

to cover, 2) why each area is important, and 3), and name the characteristics of

strategies that work, sharing a few along the way.

Before beginning, however, I want to say that all teaching must occur in classrooms and schools that are safe and where children are well-fed; that are rich in

love and respect for children; that have school and classroom libraries filled with

recent books for all types of readers at many grade levels, and that cover many
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knowledge domains. This last point is important. Knowledge is power, and much of

this power comes from being read to, being talked to a whole lot, having many experiences so that comprehension in easier, and eventually becoming well-read oneself.

In addition, it’s important to remember that good, on-going assessment helps us define what our students need to learn, and that information from assessments needs

to be used as we—teachers—plan instruction.

WHAT TEACHERS NEED TO COVER, WHY, AND CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE PRACTICE

WITH EXAMPLES

There are basically five sub-processes of reading: phonemic awareness, and

phonics (the alphabetics of reading instruction), fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. After explaining what each process is, I’ll explain why it’s important,

give you a few characteristics of effective instruction, and share an example or two

of typical classroom practice. On a few occasions, I’ll explain why a particular reading strategy for a subprocess might be one I’d avoid, and why.

Phonemic awareness (PA) is the ability to notice and think about and work with

the individual sounds in spoken words. Children might know that a cat is a warm,

furry animal that they might pick up, but early on they need to come to the understanding that the word ‘‘cat’’ has three sounds, /c/ /a/ /t/. Knowing this will be essential to their reading development. We know that most children don’t become

phonemically aware on their own, they need to be taught, and there’s a huge body

of research on practices that work. These practices are explicit and move up a phonemic awareness continuum.

In the classroom, phonemic awareness work is noisy and explicitly taught! A

quiet, pre-k or kindergarten classroom where kids are supposedly doing pa work

isn’t a classroom that’s involved in pa work. In successful classrooms, you’ll see explicit instruction: kids are matching pictures that begin with, or end with, the same

sounds; or they’re moving chips into little sound boxes—a box at a time—as the

teacher says, for example, the three sounds in cat, ‘‘/c/ /a/ /t/.’’ Children will be saying these sounds, too, and moving a chips—or sometimes even moving letters—into

little boxes from left to right as sounds in words are said. Another common practice,

in addition to explicit instruction (not instead of), is to encourage children to write

notes to people they know, even little stories. Writing helps young children think

about the sounds in words they say. English Language Learners benefit from phonemic awareness work, too, because pa is based on concepts, not on any certain set

of specific sounds.

Work can begin in their home language and quickly transfer to English. The bottom line, what you need to know and understand, is that phonemic awareness has

to be explicitly taught to children who need this instruction, which is most; and then

practiced in real situations, like when it’s used by young children to write as best

they can, and when teachers or caregivers teach youngsters to say tongue twisters

(Peter Piper picked . . . ) and nursery rhymes for fun. Tongue-twisters and rhymes

attune the ear to the sounds in words.

Even my third graders need to be phonemically aware, not just young children,

and this point is very important. For example, if my third graders are learning how

to spell ‘‘receive’’ they’ve got to know how many sounds there are in that word. This

will help them understand my explanation of why the word ‘‘receive’’ has seven letter, but only five sounds. Even older children need to be phonemically aware to use

a dictionary to pronounce unknown words. Dictionaries show students word sounds

in code first, and only after they see how many sounds there are, can they use the

code at the bottom of the page to pronounce the word!

While phonemic awareness does not insure success in reading, or spelling, it is

at the core of both processes. Pa is not an endpoint, but as you’ve seen, knowing

that words are made of sounds helps students understand phonics instruction, can

help them learn to spell, and can even help them learn to use the dictionary. Students who don’t get explicit and systematic phonemic awareness instruction are at

risk for learning to read, especially children who must learn to read in school.

Phonics

As I’ve said earlier, phonics is the systematic relationship between letter sounds

and the way sounds are spelled. There are about 43 sounds in English, and about

100 different frequent spelling of those sounds. Phonics needs to be taught explicitly

and systematically. Phonics is a tool that allows children to become proficient readers who recognize words effortlessly and rapidly, and who don’t need to use context

to guess at words very often. Beginning readers use phonics skills to pronounce

words that are not readily recognized. As students progress in their reading development, they draw on other word attack skills, such as the recognition of sight words,

the recognition of word parts (such as syllables; roots, prefixes, and suffixes; and
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common letter groupings called phonograms [ook, aid]), and the use of context to

confirm pronunciations and resolve ambiguity. Children need to learn these sound/

symbol relationships and how to use them very well in order to read (decode) and

to write (encode).

Guessing what a word might say using picture cues is not reading. Guessing at

words we don’t recognize by using context takes attention, thus reduces available

attention to understand. While context use is a strategy for recognizing words as

wholes or by a first letter, whole word reading doesn’t work for long: there are thousands upon thousands of words in our language. Phonics, like phonemic awareness,

is not an endpoint. Knowing sound/symbol relationships frees kids from needing to

use context to guess what words say and allows most of their effort to go toward

comprehension. Research has shown us that systematic instruction in phonics is

better than any sort of random or nonsystematic instruction or no instruction at all.

In the classroom, phonics instruction should be context based. Kids need to use

what they’ve learn about sound/symbol correspondences right away, in books and in

short rhymes or texts, that use the sounds just learned.

[I]f we’re working on ‘‘B’’s and ‘‘A’’s and ‘‘T’’s, we don’t ask kids to read the word:

can. We work on words like ‘‘bat’’ and ‘‘at.’’ And we give them practice using the

tools that they are learning, so that they see the efficacy of those tools and they

begin to see and discover the routineness and some of the patterns in our language.

Phonics instruction is most effective when it’s begun in kindergarten or first grade.

The above quotation in no ways suggests, that kindergarten and first graders only

need to be exposed to little books with the sound/symbol correspondences they’ve

learned; it only means that a good portion of the reading material available to them

needs to be based on what’s been taught. We know full well that a few children

learn to read on their own—that they gallop ahead of any given teacher’s program,

but this is really quite rare. Also, children delight in pattern books they can memorize (e.g, Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see?), which are full of words they

couldn’t recognize if they hadn’t memorized the text; and in hearing great children’s

literature, so that they’ll want to learn on their own and be able to talk about books

with their friends.

Phonics instruction in the classroom is sometimes all class, but often small group,

and individually designed, as needed. You’d know phonics instruction was going on

if you saw a teacher explicitly using those sound boxes I mentioned in the phonemic

awareness section of this short review, but in the sound boxes you’d always see the

letters used to spell each sound. Children will probably be reading little books that

give them practice in using the sound/symbol correspondences they’ve learned, often

called decodables. Sound/Spelling cards will probably be visible (cards with letter

sounds accompanied by a picture and typical sound/spellings); word walls with word

families would be up (cat, bat, sat, pat; boil, soil, toil), sight word walls would also

be seen, walls with words not spelled phonetically—words children just need to

know, like ‘‘should’’ and ‘‘of.’’ English Language Learners would have the benefit of

teachers who speak their language and/or who know strategies that will work for

them. Teachers of ELL students need to know which sounds from a home language

transfer to English, which sounds, don’t, and where there’s no transfer at all.

Fluency

A student is fluent if he or she reads quickly and with expression. ‘‘Like music,

it consists not only of rate, accuracy, and automaticity, but also of phrasing, smoothness, and expressiveness. Some say it’s the most neglected sub-process of reading.

Fluency is important to comprehension because we comprehend using chunks of information, and when students read word-by-word, it’s harder to hear and understand the connections between words, and then, of course, between phrases and

whole paragraphs.

Research shows that repeated monitored oral reading practice can improve students’ fluency. Fluency, as phonemic awareness and phonics, needs to be taught explicitly. One way to do this is to begin my providing kids with a fluid model of what

a given text sounds like, and these stories or articles need to be at the student’s

independent reading level (about 95% accuracy). In my classroom, I provide a taped

version of stories and I add slashes between phrases. My students who are not

fluent/ practice reading/ to the phrase marker/ fluidly.// Later/ they read/ the same

text/ without the markers.// In addition to many fluency programs that are available, teachers often use readers’ theater to do what’s been suggested above. I certainly do. I model what the script sounds like, and students practice over and over

again until they can perform their readers’ theater play. ELL learners benefit, especially, from fluency work that uses drama because they get involved with the problems and solutions of characters in stories and feel more light-hearted and more

willing to learn the target language.
30

In addition, students need plenty of time to practice reading in order to build fluency. Unfortunately, a lot more research needs to be done on the best way to conduct sustained silent reading a practice where kids just read. One reason we need

more research is that teachers will tell you sometimes their lowest kids just flip

through picture books, or content picture encyclopedias, and so on during ‘‘just reading’’ time. Fortunately there are many good books that show teachers how to turn

their sustained silent reading time into worthwhile time for all children. The bottom

line is that teachers have to read a lot of books in order to know which books to

suggest to whom. Also, my students share summaries of books they love. We all

need to figure out a way to research best practices for ‘‘just reading,’’ because most

of us, myself included, allot from 20-45 minutes a day for the practice. That’s a huge

amount of time, and we need to make sure all kids are using it to full advantage.

While I’ve made inroads, I’m sure I could learn more.

Vocabulary

Your vocabulary consists of words you need to know to communicate. We have an

oral vocabulary, words we use when we talk; and a reading vocabulary, words we

know if we encounter them in print. Students who have a large oral vocabulary benefit when they read because they can better understand the text’s message. When

students have a large oral vocabulary, they benefit when they read because they can

match up an unknown word with something they’ve heard before. For example, because my third graders do a lot of hands-on science, when they come to scientific

words in their textbook, they can get close enough to saying these words, using word

analysis and phonics, to recognize the word they’d used orally in their scienceproject discussions.

In the classroom, we want to see vocabulary taught directly and indirectly. Kids

have to learn about three to five thousand words a year, too many to learn in direct

lessons. In direct instruction, teachers usually introduce the words they think need

teaching (highly useful words in a story or article that the context doesn’t support).

This is followed by discussing the word, reading it in the context its used, and often

using a graphic organizer that illustrates the word’s category, its characteristics, examples of ways to use the word, and what the word is like or not like. You’ll also

see many strategies that help students understand a word’s root and all the words

related to it. Roots are very generative; take ‘‘mem,’’ for example, which means

‘‘mindful of ‘‘ In about two minutes you could probably name at least forty words

related to this root (e.g, memorize, remember, memo, etc.). You’ll also notice that

many ELLs are very adept when it comes to using roots, more so than most English

speakers, so teachers need to take advantage of this. Teachers also spend a good

deal of time getting students in the habit of examining context to understand a

words meaning.

Though students can learn words through direct instruction, we must remember

that students learn most words indirectly, though reading and hearing new words

spoken by their parents, teachers, and friends. This is even more reason for teachers

across the country to design research that shows the value of reading a lot in school.

These days kids are often busy after school with sports and lessons, or they’re in

daycare centers that often don’t support literacy activities, such as reading and writing. Also, we want to pay attention to programs and teacher practices that get kids

reading outside of school, looking always for the research base that would support

the practice, whatever it might be.

Comprehension

All else that I’ve discussed leads us to the end point, text comprehension. We

know that good readers are purposeful and active when they read. They read for

a purpose and they’re always thinking and working through the text. Their brains

are very active while they are reading. The National Reading Panel Report identified seven strategies that research shows work well, and I use them all explicitly!:

1) teaching kids to monitor their comprehension (know when they’re understanding

what they’re reading and know when comprehension is breaking down, and what

to do about it); 2) cooperative learning (letting students instruct or interact over the

use of reading strategies); 3) teaching them to use graphic and semantic organizers,

which are small maps that show the structure of the text they’re reading; 4) teaching them how to answer questions they ask themselves as they read and where to

look for answers they ask themselves or that are asked of them); 5) being able to

generate questions about what they’ve read; 6) teaching children to recognize story

structure (Is it a narrative? Is this exposition compare/contrast? chronologically ordered? etc.); and 7) summarizing (identifying the main idea, knowing when a detail

is not a main idea, excluding redundant information, etc.). In addition, many of

these strategies have also been effectively used in another category, ‘‘multiple strat-
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egy instruction,’’ where students and teachers flexibly use several strategies at once.

This has been very hard to do, but I’ve found that if I give students pictures of the

strategies we’ve learned (a summarizing logo—for example, a table with legs—at the

same time as they see a visualizing logo (two eyes with a think-bubble), they know

to summarize and than visualize their summary—or they can visualize the passage

first, and then summarize.

If you walked into a classroom, you’d be able to pick out a teacher who uses comprehension strategies that are research-based rather quickly. First, during reading

time you might see small, guided reading groups, where students use literature or

anthologies, or sometimes poems, to teach or practice a new strategy. If ELL learners are in the room, or even if you’re in area where there is diversity of any kind,

you might notice many books written by authors who come from other countries

other than our own and used in guided reading sessions. Additionally, you might

see charts with strategy instruction tool belts; you might see collections of graphic

organizers; you’d probably see evidence of reading-across-the-curriculum, because

there’s not enough time in the day to get in all the comprehension strategy instruction that needs teaching. You’d also hear a lot of talk using comprehension strategies all throughout the day, especially as the kids try to understand what they read

on the Internet, as well as during their literature study circle time. During read

alouds, you’d notice that 1, and most teachers, stop sometimes as we read and to

talk about how we’re comprehending the story if there’s a confusing part, or how

we’re feeling about characters, or what we’re learning that’s new in a nonfiction

book.

Someplace in the room, you might see a Question-the-Author charts, too, if the

teacher has to use textbooks, which most of us do. Question-the-Author charts are

lists of queries the children and I ask as we try to figure out what the textbook is

saying. I used to write all the queries myself (e.g, Why do you think the author put

this graph right here?), before the kids read; but now, while I still write queries

prior to teaching, I find we all benefit from writing queries together as we stumble

over difficult textbook writing.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, if you were to ask me what I’d look for such that no child would

be left behind in reading, Id say that the federal government should only invest in

comprehensive, effective reading programs: Here are questions I’d ask and /or guidelines I’d consider.

1. Is there money set aside for teacher preparation and/or inservice that teaches

research-based strategies? It’s been my experience as I work with classroom teachers through my university work, at my school, and in schools for whom I consult

(four this year, in the Napa Valley), that many are under-prepared to teach reading.

It doesn’t seem to matter how these teachers have been prepared—there, are holes

they need filed that are basic, not subtle. By basic, I mean understanding the difference between phonemic awareness and phonics. By basic, I mean knowing the

linguistics of English and how English is alike and different from the languages

their students speak. By basic, I mean how to choose vocabulary words to teach,

given an article or textbook, and explicit strategies that work. By basic, I mean

knowing children’s literature such that they can hook specific kids with specific

books. By basic, I mean how to use a teacher’s manual to teach comprehension

strategies, and how to use children’s literature to teach strategies. This work is

very, very hard! I would demand that any grant, if it includes a teacher preparation

segment, address these issues, and that teachers understand how much they have

to do in explicit ways. (See #3, below.)

2. If grants that come to you include a program, ask to see the research that supports the program and that the program shows teachers how to teach all the subprocesses both explicitly and implicitly. If the program has no research base, don’t

consider it. If a program acknowledges that it’s evidenced-based, check it out. Also,

all programs should include a professional development strand that works. Not all

day, one day, affairs! We’ve got a lot of research on how to conduct professional development that works. Good professional development requires extended time for

initial training, includes discussions of research how children learn to read as well

as instructional strategies, coaching, and regular meetings.

3. Make sure that any grant includes many methods for teaching second language

learners, while at the same time deeply honoring student’s home traditions and beliefs. Students need to have the advantage of having teachers who use effective ELL

strategies, and these strategies should be research based.

4. Promote whole school approaches. While a whole school may not choose the

same programs, everyone in the school needs to be talking the same language and
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everyone needs to have the same focus. For example, our school is focusing on comprehension strategy instruction. Everyone is reading books during the summer related to comprehension instruction, and during the summer we’re going to build our

plan.

5. Any grant should involve parents, who are then encouraged to participate in

their children’s education. Teachers should make special efforts to open communication with parents by encouraging them to take an active interest in their children’s learning and in their school work. Regarding learning, parents can read to their

children, and programs can show parents how to do that. Parents can be encouraged

to take their children places, so their background knowledge expands. Parents can

monitor their children’s homework, request reading for homework, and take their

children to the library. If parents don’t speak English, any program written into a

grant should include letters to parents in the language the parent’s speak; activities

for parents to do at school with teachers and students, and activities to do at home

should be outlined; and there should be opportunities for parents to volunteer. Parent involvement correlates with reading achievement, and until further research has

been done, logic would have us act upon this correlation.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve you and the children of this country.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TRISHA RHODES

Chairman Kennedy and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity

to speak from both personal and professional experience to what works for children

learning to read. My career as an educator began as a speech and language teacher.

Later I became certified as a classroom teacher and a literacy specialist. Then I

taught 7th-8th grade literature and language arts for three years. It was these experiences that led me to pursue training as a Reading Recovery teacher. Even with

my background in language development and my training as a literacy specialist,

I was frustrated with my inability to reach my struggling readers and bring them

up to grade level. I knew they were being left behind. This led me to search for information about teaching children how to read in the early stages of learning. When

I read about Reading Recovery I was excited and impressed because Dr. Clay shared

my beliefs that early intervention is crucial to reach children before they fail, and

she had created a program of professional development based on scientific research.

I asked my district to train me as a Reading Recovery teacher, and that training

significantly added to my ability to teach emergent readers. My teaching was so successful that the decision was made to train Reading Recovery teachers in most of

the schools in my district. Due to the high quality of ongoing training in Reading

Recovery, all of the Reading Recovery teachers in my district have emerged as leaders in their schools. They have formed teams with classroom teachers and special

educators to create more effective reading programs and to establish standards and

assessments in their individual schools and for our district as a whole. The result

has been positive systemic change with Reading Recovery working with a variety

of classroom approaches. An image to consider is that of a tricycle. The largest of

the three wheels is classroom instruction and the two smaller wheels are short-term

early intervention such as Reading Recovery and long-term continuing support such

as special education. This image is helpful because it both illustrates the importance

of classroom instruction and the importance of support services for low-achieving

students in order for the educational process to work.

I have been teaching for 18 years and 12 of those years have been spent teaching

the lowest performing first grade children how to read and write. I teach children

every day, and the growth I see, not only in their ability to read and write, but in

feelings of self esteem, is impressive. I have experienced first hand the two positive

outcomes of Reading Recovery. These are: 1) the ability for children who are the

lowest-achieving at the beginning of first grade to accelerate into the average performance range of their classmates, and 2) the early identification of the few children who will need long term support through special services to ensure that no

child is left behind.

About Reading Recovery: Reading Recovery has served more than one million children since implementation in the United States in 1984. Reading Recovery is:

A short-term (12 to 20 weeks) early intervention that helps lowest-achieving first

grade children develop effective strategies for reading and writing at grade level.

Intensive, daily one-to-one instruction for thirty (30) minutes that supplements

the child’s classroom learning.

An integral component of a comprehensive literacy program that is compatible

with all classroom teaching approaches.

A year-long training course and on-going training for every year that the teacher

teaches children Reading Recovery.
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Accountable with program evaluation that counts every child, monitors results,

and makes changes based on results.

Available in Spanish, French, and under development in other languages around

the world.

Reading Recovery and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB): Reading Recovery

meets the standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act. Reading Recovery includes the essential components of reading instruction, meets the definition of scientifically-based research, and uses rigorous assessments. Reading Recovery is closing the gap for at-risk readers. It explicitly incorporates the essential components

of reading instruction into every lesson, including comprehension, fluency, vocabulary development, phonemic awareness, and phonics (teaching letters, sounds, and

word parts and how to use them in figuring out a word).

Reading Recovery has a strong scientific research base. The structure and design

of Reading Recovery are consistent with a large body of substantial research on

reading and writing behaviors that began in the 1960s and continues today. Research on Reading Recovery uses systematic, empirical methods to collect data annually on all children receiving service. Reading Recovery is reported in numerous

peer-reviewed research articles or research reviews that offer support for various aspects of Reading Recovery.

Accountability: Reading Recovery is highly accountable. Every child’s progress is

measured using standard, valid, and reliable tests of letters, words, sounds, and

reading books. The continued progress of children after Reading Recovery has been

externally validated in many states, school districts, and schools around the nation.

In Maine, for example, a recent longitudinal study at the University of Maine found

that 84% of Reading Recovery children who successfully completed their series of

lessons met the state standards in reading in fourth grade. These results for the

lowest achieving children who received 30 to 50 hours of one-to-one instruction in

the first grade are very impressive.

Cost Effectiveness: The immediate impact of Reading Recovery can be felt in the

school system in the form of reduced grade retentions and referrals to special education or other long-term academic support services. Of the 86,000 children who successfully completed Reading Recovery in the United States in 2000-2001, only 137

were placed in special education for reading or writing instruction at the end of

grade one. In addition, only 194 of these 86,000 children were retained in first grade

because of reading difficulties.

Resources: Two-thirds of schools with Reading Recovery report using federal funds

to assist with the cost of implementation. Reading First funds are important, but

they are not the only answer to every child’s reading difficulties. All parts of the

NCLB Act must receive adequate funding for every eligible child to be served, and

states and local educational agencies must be able to choose programs like Reading

Recovery to meet their students’ learning needs.

In closing, I want to thank you for everything you have done and will continue

to do for children who need the most help learning to read and write. More eloquent,

however, are the thanks of parents and children whose lives were changed by Reading Recovery. I will close with their words, because they say it all:

Parent: I just wanted to say thank you. Jason has just finished 1st grade and I

am happy to say that he is reading on grade level. He got on the school’s honor roll

during the third nine weeks. Then he went onto the principal’s high honor role during the third nine weeks. He just got his end of year report and was reading on

a level 18. He still reads every night and reminds me if we forget. His love for reading is unbelievable. Reading Recovery builds more than just the ability to read. It

builds the child’s belief in themselves. I have become a huge advocate in my community. I am doing everything I can to spot light this program so that all parents are

aware that it is out there.

From a 15-year old former Reading Recovery Student: I still remember how I felt

in first grade when many of my friends were reading and I just couldn’t figure it

out. I began to feel embarrassed and discouraged about school. I was then fortunate

enough to be identified for Reading Recovery help... Right away I began to feel

success and feel like a reader . . . I can’t imagine what school might have been like

without this invaluable support.

I would be happy to answer any questions.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH V. PRIMAS

Thank you, Senator Kennedy, and members of the U.S. Senate Health, Education,

Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. I am Elizabeth Primas, a reading teacher

and change facilitator for the District of Columbia Public Schools and a member of

the International Reading Association’s Urban Diversity Initiatives Commission. I
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am currently assigned to Anthony Bowen Elementary School in Southwest Washington, DC. I am a product of the DC Public School System, and continued my education at DC Teachers’ College, Trinity College and George Washington University.

I have been employed by the DC Public Schools for approximately 26 years, and

have worked as a change facilitator for the past 5 years. In that capacity, I work

with teachers, aides and children to attempt to provide a quality education to all

students.

My job has required me to assist teachers in implementing the reading program,

Success For All. To facilitate that, I have provided professional development, and

administered assessments every 8 weeks to determine if students were making continuous growth and progress. In the last five years we have gone from 16 percent

of children on or above grade level, to more than 22 percent of students school wide.

Almost 53.1 percent of first graders and 48.7 percent of second graders are on or

above grade level, an increase from 23.9 percent of first graders in 1999 and 5.3

percent of second graders that same year.

I select reading materials that match groups’ reading ability, and I identify students who show signs of having difficulties in acquiring reading skills and strategies

such as phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding, vocabulary development, fluency, and comprehension. Once students are identified as needing additional assistance, it has been my role to assign a tutor who can work with the teacher and student to provide additional time on task to either help the child catch up or keep

up with the reading group. While in theory this is just what a student may need,

in reality this is a very difficult task to accomplish. First, tutors, normally educational aides or paraprofessionals, have not had sufficient training to conduct a

reading

The Testimony of Elizabeth V. Primas of the District of Columbia Public Schools

lesson with those children who actually need the best and brightest teachers to

guarantee their success. In addition to not having the, best trained individuals

working with those most in need, far too often these aides are not available to tutor

since they are holding classes because funds are not available to hire substitutes,

or substitutes are not available even if finds are available. And finally, when the

child is pulled out to receive the prescribed 20 minutes of one-on-one tutoring, the

child is actually missing some other aspect of the teacher’s direct instruction, perhaps in math or another critical subject area.

At Bowen Elementary School, we recognized the problem and have tried to make

adjustments and adaptations to bridge the gaps for those students who experience

difficulties. We have recruited and trained individuals from organizations to provide

volunteer tutoring and mentoring services for students in grades one through six.

Bowen has been able to attract approximately 350 volunteers from all walks of life

to donate an hour during the school day, often during their lunch hour, to develop

a relationship with a student and stick with that child all year.

While in general progress is slow, with the exception of one year, it has been consistent. However, progress has not been sufficient for many of the students to reach

desired grade level goals. Two students come to mind, and they are both at the very

extremes of the educational spectrum.

One sixth grade student who has been at Bowen for her entire elementary school

experience has tested at the eleventh grade reading level in combined reading vocabulary and comprehension, while another sixth grade student tested only at a

third grade level. The difference may be apparent, student FG attended Bowen from

prekindergarten through sixth grade, and has done well in school consistently. Her

mother and grandmother have been very supportive and she enjoys reading, math

and science. Student AC attended Bowen for a few years and then went to live with

his father who put him in a different school. After several years, a few months ago

he came back to live with his mother and stepfather. With his latest move he also

acquired a new brother, and two cousins who came to live with his mother because

their mother was not responsible enough to take care of them.

I mention these two students because sometimes it is not enough to have a research based program, because no program meets every child’s needs. It is not

enough to have your school full of volunteers -who, while well intentioned, are still

using time that should be instructional time with the teacher., and should be in addition to the teacher not instead of the teacher. (Tutorial programs should be offered

in non-instructional time slots—before school, after school or during the lunch hour).

It is not enough to test the students every eight weeks, because testing does not

in and of itself provide sufficient motivation for students to do better, and standardized tests don’t usually provide sufficient diagnostic information to determine what

deficits need to be remediated to advance the students.
35

As a result of all of the assessments, the volunteers and interaction with teachers,, children and parents, I have made some generalizations that I believe are true

across all classrooms when it comes to the teaching of children.

The solution is not the number of volunteers who provide random services, however well intentioned they may be. It is not the packaged programs, research based

or not, because one size does not fit all. When you look at students who consistently

make the grade, they are those who have a support system, and the key components

are stability of home, caring and involved parents and, most importantly, extensive

classroom libraries and highly qualified teachers.

Thank you again for this opportunity to testify. I look forward to answering your

questions.

RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS OF SENATOR KENNEDY FROM EUGENE W. HICKOK

Question. The President’s budget provides $100 million more for Reading First,

and I support that. But, overall, it cuts programs in the No Child Left Behind Act.

Specifically, it cuts funding for literacy and teacher professional development programs such as level-funding Early Reading First, cutting Even Start by $50 million,

level-funding the School Library program, and level-funding Title II of ESEA which

supports teacher quality and class size reduction.

In addition to these budget cuts, communities are facing increasing numbers of

children in poverty and drastic state budget cuts to education. How can we expect

more from teachers, schools and students without more resources? Shouldn’t we do

more—not less—to help them achieve?

Answer. It is possible to argue about funding for specific programs-we made some

tough decisions following September 11 but a look at the big picture shows that we

are continuing to provide strong support for education. The $1.4 billion increase requested for the Department for 2003 will cap an extraordinary and unprecedented

$15 billion or 41 percent increase just since fiscal year 2000.

Similarly, our $1 billion increase for Title I will result in a $3.4 billion or 43 percent increase since 2000, while our $1 billion increase for Special Education Grants

to States caps a $3.5 billion or 71 percent increase over the same period. Particularly since a lot of this new money has yet to hit our schools the massive increase

for 2002 is for the school year beginning next fall I think its pretty hard to make

the case that the Federal government isn’t doing its share when it comes to dollars

for education.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) was not just, or even most importantly,

about the size of the Federal investment in education, but rather about increasing

our return on that investment. Frankly, we don’t have a lot to show for the $190

billion that we have invested in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act since

1965, and dramatic growth in State and local funding for education over the past

decade also has failed to either raise overall student achievement or to close the

achievement gap for poor and minority students.

We believe the combination of the very substantial new funding provided over the

past three years and the reforms in the NCLBA will make a real difference in improving the performance of our schools and the achievement of all students.

For teacher quality programs, the 2003 budget will provide resources under a

number of programs that States and school districts can use to improve teacher

quality in various subject areas. Some of these are major formula grant programs,

such as Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies and Improving Teacher Quality State Grants, that give States and local educational agencies (LEAs) flexibility

to use the strategies that will best help them to improve teacher quality and thereby

raise student academic achievement. In return for this flexibility, LEAs are required

to demonstrate annual progress in ensuring that all teachers teaching in core academic subjects within the State are highly qualified.

The Administration’s fiscal year 2003 request provides a 25 percent increase over

2001 funding for programs that are focused solely on improving teacher quality. In

addition, the 2003 request includes $1 billion increases for Title I Grants to Local

Educational Agencies and IDEA State Grants, which will enable States and LEAs

to raise their investments in teacher professional development. For example, with

the ESEA requirement that LEAs spend between 5 and 10 percent of their Title I

allocation on professional development, the 2003 request would ensure that well

over $500 million is targeted to this purpose.

One of the main tenets of the President’s plan for reforming elementary and secondary education is to ensure that all children read well by the end of the third

grade. While Even Start’s family-centered approach to school readiness supports the

Administration’s goal to improve children’s reading skills, the budget request targets increases to the Reading First State Grants program, which finances direct in-
36

struction for students in kindergarten through third grade that is based on scientifically based reading research in order to improve their academic skills. The mixed

evaluation results for Even Start support the lower request level.

The two previous evaluations of the Even Start program focused on evaluating the

components and outcomes of the Even Start model, which integrates early childhood

education, adult education, and parenting education. On measures of literacy used

in both of these evaluations, participating families consistently made gains each

year. However, results from an experimental study during the first evaluation

showed no difference in achievement between those who participated in Even Start

and those who did not.

The Department anticipates that we will award approximately 175 Early Reading

First grants with fiscal year 2002 funds. The fiscal year 2003 request, along with

strong dissemination efforts, will maintain the momentum for early literacy efforts

that are based on scientific reading research. This program also complements the

Reading First State Grants program, for which the Administration is seeking $1 billion in fiscal year 2003, an increase of $100 million. Combined with funds from

other Federal early childhood education programs, including Title I preschool programs, Even Start, Special Education Preschool Grants, Special Education Grants

for Infants and Families, and Early Childhood Educator Professional Development,

the Administration believes that the fiscal year 2003 request for provides a significant investment in pre-kindergarten programs.

[Whereupon, at 11:20 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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