ABSTRACT
In the year 2000, the National Reading Panel, operating under the auspices of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, a member institute of the National Institutes of Health, itself funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, issued its report on evidence-based instructional methods in reading. This report, or at least the summary version of it, is frequently cited as the scientific justification for the current administration’s No Child Left Behind Act, which takes the Clinton-Gore Reading Excellence Act one step further, in not only legislating direct phonics instruction in U.S. classrooms, but in proposing punitive measures against students, teachers, and schools who do not comply with the mandates.
