A study about improving rural students鈥� reading skills published earlier this year has prompted a series of four responses both criticizing and supporting its findings.
Three of the four responses already have been published in the , and the fourth is expected early 2012.
in June about the study creating all this debate, by Jean Stockard, the director of research at the and Professor Emerita at the University of Oregon.
The debate revolves mostly around Direct Instruction, a 鈥渕odel for teaching that emphasizes well-developed and carefully planned lessons designed around small learning increments and clearly defined and prescribed teaching tasks. It is based on the theory that clear instruction eliminating misinterpretations can greatly improve and accelerate learning,鈥� according to the National Institute for Direct Instruction鈥檚 Web site.
This the Direct Instruction model has been criticized since its development in the 1960s. One study found it not to be as effective as traditional methods that allow teachers more flexibility, but that study wasn鈥檛 consistent with at least 20 others that have showed it to be effective, according to Wikipedia.
Stockard鈥檚 initial study involved districts implementing Reading Mastery, a highly structured and explicit reading curriculum using Direct Instruction. Those districts received intensive support and guidance from the National Institute for Direct Instruction. She compared the test scores of students in those districts who had the curriculum since kindergarten to students who began it in later years, as well as to samples of students statewide and nationally. The students who had the lessons since kindergarten outscored the other groups through the early elementary years.
The first article in the journal鈥檚 response series is by Karen Eppley, of Pennsylvania State University-Altoona. Eppley criticizes Stockard鈥檚 work, primarily as it relates to Direct Instruction. Eppley contends Direct Instruction 鈥渄eskills teachers鈥� and cites other studies that have said 鈥淒irect Instruction teachers are not to function as transformative intellectuals who educate students to be thoughtful and active citizens but instead are specialized technicians whose job is to manage and implement curriculum.鈥�
Eppley鈥檚 article says Reading Mastery, by requiring teachers to follow a script of instruction, forces teachers to ignore any possible links to their students鈥� lives and assume their children bring no relevant knowledge to the classroom. The article also says it鈥檚 a flawed methodology to compare students who had some intervention with those who had nothing and then fail to describe what the 鈥渘othing鈥� involved.
Finally, Eppley draws the conclusion that Stockard believes the answer to improving rural schools鈥� reading is to standardize and decontextualize the teaching of reading so that it eliminates any rural context.
Stockard responds to Eppley鈥檚 work in the second article of the series, She sums up her position in her second sentence: "[Eppley鈥檚] paper contains numerous statements that misrepresent both the content of my original paper and the social science literature as well as a number of provocative philosophical comments.鈥�
Stockard encourages readers to read her actual paper rather than Eppley鈥檚 summation because 鈥渉er characterizations bear almost no resemblance to the actual content of the paper.鈥� Stockard says Eppley鈥檚 claim that her paper suggests teachers intentionally avoid making connections to children 鈥渁ppear to be fabrications and included only to help support her polemics and cast aspersions.鈥� Stockard also says she doesn鈥檛 explicitly recommend Reading Mastery curriculum as the answer to rural students鈥� reading problems.
She contends Eppley鈥檚 critique of her methodological error is 鈥減atent nonsense,鈥� and in reference to the rigid structure of Direct Instruction and its alleged erasing or ignoring cultural identity, Stockard says that鈥檚 an 鈥渙btuse discussion鈥� unsupported by research.
The third paper in the series comes from a colleague of Stockard鈥檚 and one of the creators of the Direct Instruction model, Siegfried Engelmann. The article, says Eppley鈥檚 arguments and conclusions are not 鈥渕erely unsupported by facts; they generate conclusions that are the opposite of what the facts show.鈥�
If Eppley were correct, teachers easily would be able to ignore students鈥� backgrounds and follow a script to achieve great reform with at-risk students. But that is not so. The article continues its defense of Direct Instruction, saying Eppley 鈥渨ants to believe that direct instruction teachers are inferior, without a shred of data, and she wants to believe that the teachers do not treat individual children as individuals, regardless of what the data show.鈥�
Stay tuned early next year for the final paper in this series.