More Smoke and Mirrors
Arguments and Findings
The National Reading Panel (NRP) reports that there is no clear evidence to suggest that encouraging children to read more improves their reading achievement. In “More Smoke and Mirrors,” Krashen, in her criticism, stresses that the NRP did not include essential studies on the effect of encouraging students to read more and misinterpreted the research it included in the report (Krashen, 2021).
Krashen evaluates National Reading Panel criteria, such as focusing on English reading education or conducting studies only with children. She proves that NRP did not meet these criteria in its report. For example, studies that were longer than one year were excluded, although important information could have been obtained from them.
According to Krashen (2001), “NRP’s report included research that involved junior high school students who were reading two years above grade level” (p. 2). Since the reading achievement level of such students did not improve, NRP made a false conclusion that encouraging children to read more is useless. Moreover, Krashen points out that some studies were not published in refereed journals, and in some studies, students were native speakers of Spanish.
Personal Opinion
I agree with Krashen’s conclusion regarding the use of encouraging children to read more. Training reading and phonetics abilities is essential in the long term. As an example, at a young age, I saw an improvement in my reading ability by reading a large number of pages every day. According to Hart et al., “We observed the 42 children grow more like their parents in stature and activity levels, in vocabulary resources, and in language and interaction styles” (p. 112).
The Early Catastrophe
The information in “The Early Catastrophe” applies well to the United States. The place where children are born plays a vital role in their language development, vocabulary resources, and desire to read. In contrast to the report of NRP, I believe it is customary to encourage children to read in the US. People are convinced that this improves the child’s reading and general literacy.
References
Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (2003). The early catastrophe: the 30 million word gap. American Educator, 27, 4-9. Web.
Krashen, S. (2021). More Smoke and Mirrors: A Critique of the National Reading Panel (NRP). Report on “Fluency”. Phi Delta Kappan, 83(2), 119-123. Web.