Following is a July 2000 press release issued by the U.S. Department of Education announcing the awarding of Reading Excellence Grants for 2000.

Press Release-2000 Grantees
Report of the National Reading Panel:
Teaching Children to Read
State Awardees

On July 26, 2000, the Department of Education awarded 10 additional states Reading Excellence grants. The state applications were reviewed by a non-federal expert panel. The expert review panel was selected by the U.S. Department of Education, National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, National Institute for Literacy, and National Academy of Sciences. The panel included experts in reading, family literacy, transforming research into practice, state and local education reform, and research/evaluation methodology.

The Reading Excellence Program, a $260 million Federal grant program, competitively awards grants to States to improve reading. The program is designed to provide children with the readiness skills and support they need to learn to read once they enter school; teach every child to read by the end of the third grade; and use research-based methods to improve the instructional practices of teachers and other instructional staff.

The primary activities are:

Professional Development
Tutoring
Family Literacy
Transition programs for Kindergarten students

Grants are competitively awarded to states. States that are awarded run two grant competitions: (1) Local Reading Improvement Grants and (2) Tutorial Assistance Grants.

Eligible applicants for the local reading improvement grants include: (1) local districts that have at least one school in Title I school improvement status; (2) districts with the highest or second highest percentages of poverty in the State; and (3) districts with the highest or second highest number of poor children in the State. Eligible applicants for the tutorial assistance grants include the above named districts as well as districts that are located in an empowerment zone or enterprise community.

NRRF Note:
In 1999 when the first awards were announced, Education Secretary Richard Riley stated that, "the Reading Excellence Act is the most significant law on child literacy passed by Congress in more than 30 years." The grants will enable states to create programs that are grounded in scientific research.

Of particular note to providers of teacher training and instructional materials should be the definitions of "reading" and "scientific research" included in the Reading Excellence Act. They are as follows:

READING - The term "reading" means a complex system of deriving meaning from print that requires all of the following:

1. The skills and knowledge to understand how phonemes, or speech sounds, are connected to print.
2. The ability to decode unfamiliar words.
3. The ability to read fluently.
4. Sufficient background information and vocabulary to foster reading comprehension.
5. The development of appropriate active strategies to construct meaning from print.
6. The development and maintenance of a motivation to read.

SCIENTIFICALLY BASED READING RESEARCH - The term "scientifically based reading research" -

1. means the application of rigorous, systematic, and objective procedures to obtain valid knowledge relevant to reading development, reading instruction, and reading difficulties; and
2. shall include research that -
   1. employs systematic, empirical methods that draw on observation or experiment;
   2. involves rigorous data analyses that are adequate to test the stated hypotheses and justify the general conclusions drawn;
   3. relies on measurements or observational methods that provide valid data across evaluators and observers and across multiple measurements and observations; and
   4. has been accepted by a peer-reviewed journal or approved by a panel of independent experts through a comparably rigorous, objective, and scientific review.

The feedback from the U.S. Department of Education is that even states which don't receive awards are still working toward complying with Reading Excellence standards, so there is an increasing momentum in the direction of scientific research based reading instruction across the nation. Obviously there is much more work left to be done, and persistence and vigilance are still very much in order as we continue to insist that every student must receive reading instruction based upon the findings of scientific research.

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