Now the pendulum has swung back. The hodgepodge of instruction that resulted from the shift to whole language across the nation is increasingly being replaced by more systematic phonics. It was time to pay attention to what the research says works for children and to follow it in all of our schools. It is not something for them to pick and choose. Changing the way Los Angeles teaches children to read hasn't been cheap.
Teachers get bonuses for attending after-school and weekend training sessions, too.
Individual Los Angeles schools have also spent millions more of their own funds buying enough books for every child, and the district secured help from the Packard Humanities Foundation to help pay for literacy coaches to be stationed in schools as extra assistance for teachers. Los Angeles' efforts are earning praise, particularly from those who had been the loudest critics of California's dismal reading scores during the early 1990s. They had fabulous training for teachers that was really well organized. She looks to January 2002, when the state board is scheduled for its next round of adopting elementary reading textbooks - creating the exclusive list from which California schools are allowed to purchase items with state dollars. While it's too early for the new reading programs to show results in Los Angeles pupils' testing data, district officials point to the successes with phonics programs elsewhere for encouragement that their decision will pay off.