National Reading Panel

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Reading
GENERAL INFORMATION
Literacy • Illiteracy Family literacy • Functional illiteracy Braille
TYPES
Close reading • Proofreading Skimming • Slow reading Speed reading • Subvocalized
LEARNING TO READ
Reading readiness Reading acquisition • Comprehension Dyslexia • Reading disability National Reading Panel • Spelling
READING INSTRUCTION
Reading education • Phonics Alphabetic principle Basal reader • Decodable text Research-based reading instruction Whole language • Methodology debate
LISTS
Assessments • Publications Topics • Treatments

The National Reading Panel (NRP) was a United States government body. Formed in 1997 at the request of Congress, it was a national panel with the stated aim of assessing the effectiveness of different approaches used to teach children to read.

The panel was created by Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institutes of Health, in consultation with the Secretary of Education, and included prominent experts in the fields of reading education, psychology, and higher education. The panel was chaired by Donald Langenberg (University of Maryland), and included the following members: Gloria Correro (Mississippi State U.), Linnea Ehri (City University of New York), Gwenette Ferguson (middle school teacher,Houston, TX), Norma Garza (parent, Brownsville, TX), Michael L. Kamil (Stanford U.), Cora Bagley Marrett (U. Massachusetts-Amherst), S. J. Samuels (U. of Minnesota), Timothy Shahahan (U. of Illinois at Chicago), Sally Shaywitz (Yale U.), Thomas Trabasso (U. of Chicago), Joanna Williams (Columbia U.), Dale Willows (U. Of Toronto), Joanne Yatvin (school district superintendent, Boring, OR).

In April 2000, the panel issued its report, "Teaching Children to Read," and completed its work. The report summarized research in eight areas relating to literacy instruction: phonemic awareness instruction, phonics instruction, fluency instruction, vocabulary instruction, text comprehension instruction, independent reading, computer assisted instruction, and teacher professional development. The final report was endorsed by all of the panel members except one. Joanne Yatvin wrote a minority report criticizing the work of the NRP because it (a) did not include teachers of early reading on the panel or as reviewers of the report and (b) only focused on a subset of important reading skills. Timothy Shanahan, another panel member, later responded that Dr. Yatvin had received permission to investigate areas of reading instruction that the panel could not address within the limited time provided for their work. Shanahan noted that she had not pursued additional areas of interest despite the willingness of the panel to allow her to do so.

In 2001, President George W. Bush announced that the report would be the basis of federal literacy policy and was used prominently to craft Reading First, a $5 billion federal reading initiative that was part of the No Child Left Behind legislation.