May 2003 — Special Feature
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Challenging Districts to 'Put Reading First'
Rust also says that vendors are learning their way around the requirements of SBRR and the timing of Reading First decision-making. In this way, vendors can be useful allies. "The first thing a district should do is become intimate with the ways that its state is using the [local educational agency] application process, and we can help with that," he says. "Districts should know that almost no states have approved lists of resources. They don't have to be concerned about what is on 'the list' because those lists, for the most part, don't exist. What they should request from vendors is to show how any given element is fitting into a cohesive plan for reading improvement. Districts should make us consult with them on how it all coheres. Cohesiveness is one of the main criteria that the state and federal evaluators will consider."
What to Do About SBRR
In this first year of Reading First funding, districts have had to make do with the existing research about what works, which, in some cases, is constraining their choices. But the policy is meant to encourage the flowering of SBRR nationwide. So, if your district wants to pursue innovative new directions - or wants to build the case for staying the course with some of its existing efforts - this would be the time to make alliances with local universities, research groups and even preferred vendors that are scrambling to provide SBRR in support of their products. Initiatives involving technological innovations may be a particularly fruitful area for these local SBRR projects, because Reading First offices at the federal and state levels know that many of the newer technologies are too new to have a research base behind them.
However, Paris cautions that the connections between the research and its policy implications may not be straightforward: "Policy people look at research as a proven state of affairs, but reading research is much more of a living laboratory. ... There's a variety of research that people can use in different ways to support different points about reading education. What policymakers need is not exactly what reading researchers do."
This dialogue between practitioners, researchers and policymakers is valuable in its own right. Paris sees this as one of the lasting legacies of Reading First: "The biggest influence of the federal legislation is that teachers from the classroom right up through the district leadership are becoming more informed than ever about reading research."
Larry Berger and Greg Gunn are co-founders of Wireless Generation Inc. (www.wirelessgeneration.com), a company that provides mobile assessment tools for reading teachers and assessment data management systems for states and districts.
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