Big Brother and the National Reading Curriculum : How Ideology Trumped Evidence

Rating:
Summary: Can you handle the truth?
Review: I believe that one of the reasons that reading professionals are blindly - cattle-like - following the NCLB and other new reading legislation is that the truth might not be something they want to know -- it would just muddy the waters too much. This book clearly walks readers through how we find ourselves in the current mess - botched and sloppy meta research methods by the NRP followed by knee-jerk governmental responses run the risk of us failing to provide exemplary literacy instruction for our nation's children and non-literate adults.

This important book will help you make sense of what is going on around us and maybe, just maybe, be able to articulate to our legislators the need for the TRUTH to be discussed in a constructive way. Let's leave a politically-based reading curriculum behind, not our nation's children and non-literate adults.

Rating:
Summary: Whole language at its worse.
Review: I can't imagine teaching at risk children with this view of the world of real reading research. Texas and California were unmitigated whole language disastors, not that Mr. Allington and his crew will ever own up.

Rating:
Summary: This is not a "Who Shot JFK Conspiracy" book...to many facts
Review: This is not a "Who Shot JFK Conspiracy" book...too many facts! Is it possible that we are being purposefully misled in the area of early reading?
Are publishers so driven by greed?
Are politicians so easily led?
Are so-called researchers so complacent that they quote and depend on research that they haven't verified and validated?
Are educators so shallow, lazy, and insecure that they only read the dummied-down research summaries or worse...just buy the prepackaged, one-size-fits-all programs that will magically teach all children to read?

Apparently most of the answers to these questions are the same...yes.

Educators- don't spend another dime in early reading curriculum or hire another early reading consultant without reading (and considering) Allington's book.