Effective Schools and Accomplished Teachers: Lessons About Primary-Grade Reading Instruction in Low-Income Schools

We all want the best schools possible for our children, schools that help them acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions they will need to pursue whatever dreams and paths they wish. Yet the reality is that many of our children are not reading well enough to keep up with the demands of school (Campbell, Donahue, Reese, & Phillip, 1996; Donahue, Voelkl, Campbell, & Mazzeo, 1999), let alone the demands of our society or their personal dreams. In the recent national report, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, a National Academy of Science Committee concluded that “quality classroom instruction in kindergarten and the primary grades is the single best weapon against reading failure” (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998, p. 343). The committee recommended that our number one priority for funding research should be to improve classroom reading instruction in kindergarten and the primary grades.