Reading by the Script: What's All the Fuss About?

NEA Today, Feb 2005 by Holcomb, Sabrina

With penalties looming under NCLB, educators are increasingly using 'scripted' reading programs to teach budding readers, but this newest trend in reading instruction has fast become a lightning rod for controversy.

As if sparks had hit midway through their reading lesson, the cheery kindergartners pop up from their seats and strike an attitude. Pretending to hold a mirror with one hand and brush their hair with the other, they sway their hips side to side and with a touch of Southern sass chant, "Look-in' good, look-in' good!"

It's not just comic relief. These students at Baseline Elementary School in Little Rock, Arkansas, are looking-and sounding-good, indeed. Their reading scores have soared in the last few years, and this jazzy cheer is their celebration-one of many they've happily learned, courtesy of the scripted reading program Baseline's teachers credit for the reading turnaround. "For years, we had one of the lowest reading scores in the district," says third-grade teacher Wilfred Dunn. "This year, we showed the greatest gain of any school in the entire state."

For Baseline, scripted reading programs-on the rise across the country-have been a boon, and some teachers can't sing their praises enough. Typified by standardized instruction, formulaic lessons, and an intense focus on phonics-these highly structured programs, say boosters, stand as the best defense against a rising illiteracy and the demands of standardized testing.

A DEBATE RAGES

But not everyone is so enthused. Far from it. In fact, this latest trend in reading instruction has sparked a debate so fierce that some educators question whether kids being taught today will ever become thoughtful, discriminating readers who can actually grasp a book's real meaning-much less subtext.

What's the fuss about? The most fervent detractors say scripted programs cast publishers as producers, reading coaches as directors, and teachers and students as mere actors in someone else's play. Many complain they take away teachers' ability to make informed, creative choices for their students. "They take the professionalism out of the profession," says Dawn Christiana, a reading teacher in Bellingham, Washington. "You don't have to think; you don't have to modify; you just script." Others say the programs are nothing more than quick fixes for school districts on a desperate search for the Holy Grail of reading instruction-programs that raise reading scores in time to avoid penalties under the so-called No Child Left Behind law.

Notably, critics say, scripted programs are the ones that get the heartiest sanction under the rules of NCLB's Reading First legislation, which only grants federal monies to districts that use "scientific researched-based" reading programs. Since Reading First was launched three years ago, the use of scripted programs appears to have risen sharply and educators are taking note.

"NCLB is shaping the way reading is being taught," says John Cromshow, a Los Angeles kindergarten teacher whose district uses a scripted program despised widely by many of its educators. "Districts are feeling the pressure to use scripted programs that have been sanctioned by the current administration," Cromshow continues, noting, "There's lots of money to be made. The district spends millions of dollars on reading coaches, conferences, and program training."

NOT ALL BLACK AND WHITE

But there are areas of gray, and where educators position themselves in the dispute depends a lot on how their school districts have responded to NCLB demands. Although federal reading grants are targeted to schools that can least afford to lose them-those with the lowest performance and/or the largest proportion of neediest students-some districts have shunned the money and adopted more progressive literacy programs or kept the programs they currently use.

But where districts have complied and adopted scripted programs that have a Reading First "good housekeeping seal of approval," the viability of those programs, says Cathy Roller, director of Research and Policy for the International Reading Association, has depended largely on a potpourri of local decisions: which specific program gets chosen, the attitude of reading coaches, the availability of extra support and, most important, the extent to which teachers have a voice in the process.

Baseline Elementary in Little Rock, the teachers there admit, was fortunate to have the right combination of all these factors.

A MEASURE OF SUCCESS

Even though Baseline's reading program, Success for All (SFA), is one of the most highly scripted programs on the market, Baseline's teachers agreed from the start that its structure was an advantage. "This program is the right choice for the kids in our community," explains teacher Wilfred Dunn. "It may not be right for the kids across town, but southwest Little Rock is the 'hood/ A large percentage of our kids are in foster care, so they don't have a stable home environment. Some come to school without any sleep or food. Our kids have no structure in their lives; they need the structure of this program."