Robert W. Sweet, Jr USA: Text book review reveals startling lack of evidence-informed literature

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Robert W. Sweet, Jr USA: Text book review reveals startling lack of evidence-informed literature

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IFERI committee member, Robert Sweet Jr, describes the shocking state of play with regard to literature in teacher-training colleges in the US:
The National Center for Teacher Quality (NCTQ) in Washington, DC conducted a review of most of the current college textbooks being used in colleges and universities for undergraduate students in the United States. This review is a clear indication that the findings of decades of “reading science” is not being included in most college textbooks. Multiple research studies have been conducted over the past half century, and the conclusion is clear. Systematic, sequential, direct instruction in the alphabetic code and how it works is essential if students are to become proficient readers. Since most undergraduate students have not been taught these skills, it is not surprising that they cannot adequately teach them to their students.

These textbooks reflect an outmoded and disproven method of reading instruction. Children are encouraged to memorize lists of most commonly used words, taught to guess at the meaning of words by their shape or position in a sentence. They are required to repeat words and sentences in “leveled readers’ that they have not been taught to decode accurately. It is no wonder that elementary students do not learn to read and comprehend what they can already talk about and comprehend.

Teachers cannot teach what they do not know. This textbook review explains why.

It is time to challenge the colleges of education to adopt the findings of decades of reading science, and to prepare undergraduate students to enter the classroom with the tools to teach all students to read proficiently.

Robert W. Sweet, Jr.

https://www.nctq.org/dmsView/RdgTextRatings
See here for Robert's bio - his concern for levels of literacy in the US, and decades of effort to effect change, has led him to being a founding committee member of the International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction:

http://www.iferi.org/members/robert-w-sweet-jr/#more-42
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