The Reading Crisis - Essay Example

This decline in the mastery of reading skills is especially prevalent in boys. The Department of Education has reported that, for the past 30 years, boys have been scoring lower and lower on reading tests and consistently score lower than girls in this area ("Pearson Toolkit"). The impact of poor reading skills is far reaching and long lasting. According to an article entitled “Early Literacy Development,” students with poor reading skills were linked to “poverty, crime, and unemployment” (National Dropout Prevention Center/Network).

Additionally, in a study conducted by the American Educational Research Association, it was found that “a student who can’t read on grade level by 3rd grade is four times less likely to graduate by age 19 than a child who does read proficiently by that time” (Sparks). Those with strong proficiency in reading tend to experience greater financial and employment success. There are several different possibilities as to what is causing students to struggle with mastering reading skills. The biggest reason has to do with teaching strategies.

According to the article entitled “Boys and Reading,” boys need a larger amount of instruction when it comes to reading as literacy skills tend to develop at a slower rate for boys than for girls ("Pearson Toolkit"). . ching reading skills in an effective manner, according to the article entitled “Early Literacy Development.” Some of these tactics include “phonics instruction, teacher read-alouds, a book-rich literate environment, a variety of reading and writing activities, shared reading, and student’s reading aloud to others” (National Dropout Prevention Center/Network).

In a study entitled “Increasing Reading Skills in Rural Areas: An Analysis of Three School Districts,” it was determined that teachers need better training and support in order to efficiently teach reading curriculum and skills to their students. The research concluded that achieving mastery of reading skills results in “exposure to much greater volume of material, and thus also produces a strikingly greater accumulation of vocabulary, language skills, and general knowledge” (Stockard).

The study also concluded that the most effective type of instructions when it came to reading was “systematic and explicit instruction.”(Stockard). This type of instruction basically creates an environment where teachers do not leave room for confusion as to what the lesson or goal of the lesson is. Such a curriculum includes “clear instructional targets, modeling, guided and independent practice with corrections, and assessments embedded within the instruction”(Stockard). In order to implement this type of change, it is imperative that teachers receive training and support.

In this particular study, the support was given to the teacher by way of the National Institute for Direct Instruction. An “Implementation Manager” visited the school and actively observed the teacher’s current method of reading instruction(Stockard). After noting the problem areas, the Implementation Manager spent time coaching