THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 17, 1997 TAG: 9701180055
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: Keith Monroe
LENGTH: 82 lines
All of a sudden, politicians as different as President Bill Clinton and Gov. George F. Allen have discovered reading. They haven't all joined book clubs to discuss Proust, you understand. They've discovered reading as a potent political issue.
For once, they're right. As one program that promotes the practice insists, reading is fundamental. Academic progress stalls for students who don't become fluent readers. The written word is still the key to the kingdom of knowledge.
Without the ability to decipher those symbols on paper, you don't just lose access to the adventures of Dick and Jane but to the accumulated knowledge of the species: chemistry and quantum mechanics, engineering and economics, history and theology. Even much of math becomes a lost world since so much is couched in the form of story problems. If you can't read the story, you can't solve the problem.
That's why it's alarming that a substantial number of children can't read the story. According to data cited by Governor Allen, 17 percent have some degree of reading disability. The causes range from generally disadvantaged circumstances to specific learning disabilities.
And if reading trouble is not caught early and remediated, it becomes harder and harder to do so later. Research at the University of Virginia has shown that 90 percent of students who leave first grade without ``phonemic awareness'' will be remedial readers in fourth grade.
That's not just sad, it's expensive. A National Institutes of Health study suggests that 20 minutes of effective daily intervention in kindergarten or first grade can fix problems that will take four hours a day in fourth grade to overcome. And the fourth-grader will have lost years of reading.
So, what is to be done? Governor Allen should be commended for proposing increased attention to the issue, but there's a mismatch between the size of the problem and the resources he suggests devoting to it. In effect, he has declared war and then fired off a pop gun.
The program he recommends is a diagnostic test for every entering first-grader and early intervention for primary-grade students with diagnosed reading deficits. He'd make available $6.2 million to provide services based on a model of 30 minutes a day of additional reading instruction in a setting with a pupil-teacher ratio of 5-to-1. Each school system would be allowed to design its own programs.
Every little bit helps, but there are some red flags in the proposal.
The diagnostic exam and intervention are already late if administered in first grade. The department of education itself, in support of Allen's proposal, cites a study that shows children in poverty, on average, have 50 hours of reading experience by the time they reach first grade. Middle-class children have 1,300.
So sooner would be better, and in many cases longer will be needed. Children with specific learning disabilities, for instance, often require years of intensive and laborious training and drill to achieve what average readers can do with minimal instruction.
If we accept Allen's premise, that 17 percent of children have reading troubles, then his proposal to spend $6.2 million seems trifling. It's unlikely that level of funding will be able to supply 30 minutes of training a day throughout the primary grades for so many children.
Leaving local school systems to their own devices is also questionable. Teaching reading is a specialized skill. Remediating children of poverty and learning-disabled students requires even more expertise. Yet the program proposed by Allen says ``possible options for program delivery might include the use of special reading teachers, trained aides, volunteer tutors under the supervision of a certified teacher, computer-based reading tutorial programs.
Anything less than teachers specially trained to help such students would be a mistake. Justine Maloney is the public-affairs chairman of the Learning Disabilities Association, and her first question when asked to comment on this proposal was: ``What kind of training are the teachers going to get?''
It's a good question, and the answer seems to be: It will depend on the school system. But that invites inconsistent and even amateurish performance. If the state doesn't want to squander the meager funds it's prepared to spend, it should attach some strings and insist on a certain level of competence in those charged with doing the remediating.
Those caveats expressed, the state has nowhere to go but up, and any improvement is welcome. According to a U.S. Department of Education Special Education Report, Virginia ranks 47th among states in the percentage of children now receiving early intervention services. Only Mississippi, Arizona and Alabama do less. Allen is right. It's time for Virginia to do more. MEMO: Mr. Monroe is editor of the editorial page of The Virginian-Pilot.