NRRF - Article - 2001 Reading Excellence Act Awards to States

NRRF Article - 2001 Reading Excellence Act Awards to States

2001 Reading Excellence Act Awards to States

(Excerpted from the Department of Education Web site)

The Reading Excellence Program has awarded $327,627, 438 million in grants to help improve the reading skills of pre-kindergarten through third-grade children. The grants, under the Reading Excellence Act (REA) program, will help 13 states use scientifically based reading research to improve reading in over 400 schools.

States competed for the three-year grants by creating plans for improving reading in the primary grades. A panel of 21 nationally known experts in reading, research and school reform evaluated the applications. The Education Department (ED), the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute for Literacy, and the National Academy of Sciences nominated the panel members.

The REA program is designed to provide children with the readiness skills and support they need to learn to read when they enter school and to help each child learn to read well and independently by the end of third grade. Schools receiving grants are expected to train teachers to use a comprehensive reading approach based on research; provide early intervention, such as one-on-one tutoring for children who have trouble learning to read; and organize family literacy programs for parents to support their children's learning to read. The REA grant program concentrates support in high-poverty districts. Districts may use the funds for teacher professional development, purchase of resources and reading materials, and tutoring and summer programs.

The 13 states that received REA grants this year are: Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, South Carolina, and Tennessee. For details on these states' proposals and awards, go to: www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/REA/awardees.html.

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:

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

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

means the application of rigorous, systematic, and objective procedures to obtain valid knowledge relevant to reading development, reading instruction, and reading difficulties; and
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 National Right to Read Foundation
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Strasburg, VA 22657

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