BY ROSALIND ROSSI, EDUCATION REPORTER
Chicago Sun-Times

Over and over, for three hours Wednesday, a panel of experts assembled for the first-ever big-city Reading Roundtable made one point abundantly clear: Teaching reading is not easy.

Experts in Washington, D.C., found it took first- and second-grade teachers a whole semester to really understand phonemes--the sounds that letters make--and how to teach them. Same thing with vocabulary, said Washington researcher Louisa Cook Moats.

Mayor Daley and Chicago Board of Education officials turned into students Wednesday, taking notes as Moats and a panel of 10 other experts from throughout the country discussed the critical skill of reading. Their assignment stemmed from Daley's concern that despite nearly six years of reform under his helm, two-thirds of city students are not reading at grade level.

"We all agree that is unacceptable," Daley said. "None of you would be satisfied if your own children were below grade level."

After the Roundtable, Daley made three proposals: establishing a Reading Advisory Council to follow up on Roundtable ideas; placing a reading program on the city's cable TV channel to help kids and also help parents help their kids, and opening a Reading Roundtable site within the city's Web site--www.cityofchicago.org--to share and garner public input on productive reading ideas.

What makes successful readers is well-known, experts said. It includes phonemic awareness, vocabulary skills, fluency and exposure to a wide variety of print. But the challenge of teaching those skills is underestimated. The one course in teaching reading that is currently demanded just isn't enough, they said.

Reading is "a much more complex process than people thought," said national researcher G. Reid Lyon. Lyon faulted "concretized" colleges of education, and said districts need to offer additional training.

Teachers are crying out for the help, Moats said. In one Washington, D.C., program, she said, teachers told experts, "Please don't give us any more choices. Tell us what to do. Give us validated programs that work."

Perhaps the day's biggest applause went to panelist Sharon Frost, a teacher at Norwood Park Elementary, when she said that only "the best-trained teachers," with master's degrees in reading instruction, should teach kindergarten and first grade. Even elementary school principals should have reading training, she said.

Chicago consultant Jean Osborn cited a teacher from Shanghai, China, who spends three to four times longer preparing her reading lessons than teaching them. U.S. teachers need more preparation time, Osborn said.

"If teachers in China can do this, I don't know why we can't," she said.

Some advocated setting specific targets, such as Edward J. Kame'enui, a University of Oregon professor. He said children should be able to read 60 words correctly per minute in first grade, 90 in second and 110 in third.

Testing also was a hot topic. Dixon Principal Joan Crisler described it as a "necessary evil" but said tests can put "the responsibility on the individual who is least empowered to do anything about it. When the child is not at grade level, we say, `What's wrong with the child?' We need to look at the process of what's taught and how it's taught."

"The tests that gain the most attention are probably the least important assessment," said Kame'enui, referring to year-end, standardized tests. More critical are regular, diagnostic tests that help detect and address weaknesses.

Schools CEO Paul Vallas said the discussion validated his plan to limit the curriculum models that 200 struggling schools can use. But Vallas said "a dollar sign" was associated with many suggestions, including reduced class size and more teacher training and preparation time.

"If there was any recurring theme, it was professional development, and if anyone got beat up, it was the colleges of education," Vallas said. "Clearly they are not delivering. . . . We're going to have to pick up the ball."

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