The Bad News
"
'The 'Matthew Effect' is a term coined by
Keith Stanovich, a psychologist who has done extensive research on reading
and language disabilities. Because some IQ sub-tests measure information learned
from reading, poor readers will score lower on these sub-tests. Over years,
the "gap" between poor readers and good readers grows. The 'Matthew
Effect' refers to the idea that in reading (as in other areas of life), the
rich get richer and the poor
get poorer (click to see diagrams). When children fail at early
reading and writing, they begin to dislike reading. They read less than their
classmates who are stronger readers. As a consequence, they do not gain vocabulary,
background knowledge, and information about how reading material is structured.
In short, the word-rich get richer, while the word-poor get poorer."
See also "The
Matthew Effects" by Dr. Kerry Hempenstall
"In
reading, the United States ranks 15th among the 31 participating countries....
One might attribute this to the fact that English is a difficult language
to learn - except that the United States was the lowest scoring of all the
English-speaking countries - Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom,
and Ireland all ranked higher." ("Ticket
to Nowhere" )
"About
10 million children have difficulties learning to read. From 10 to 15 percent
eventually drop out of high school; only 2 percent complete a four-year college
program. Surveys of adolescents and young adults with criminal records show
that about half have reading difficulties. Similarly, about half of youths
with a history of substance abuse have reading problems." ("Why
Children Succeed or Fail at Reading")
-
"…students who have difficulty reading represent a virtual cross-section
of American children. They include rich and poor, male and female, rural and
urban, and public and private school children in all sections of the country.
According to the NAEP assessment, for example, nearly one-third (32 percent)
of fourth graders whose parents graduated from college are reading at the
"below basic" level. In
short, the failure of a substantial number of students to learn to read during
the critical first three years of school is a national problem - one that
confronts every community and every school in the country." Learning
to Read and Reading to Learn: Helping Children With Learning Disabilities
To Succeed
"Reading
problems occur with equal frequency in boys and girls; schools identify 4
times as many boys, largely on the basis of behavioral, not learning, characteristics.
("A Scientific Approach
to Reading Instruction")
"Some
40% of the (Pittsburgh) region's school children still read below grade level....
in southwestern Pennsylvania, the Education Policy and Issues Center calculates
that 20%...of 5th graders have reading skills so poor that they have no hope
of succeeding in school.... In our region, 20% equates to 5,000 children.
(Maxwell King, Executive Director, Heinz Edowments, 11/1/00, Pittsburgh Post
Gazette) All
Children Must be Able to Read.
"Of
all children identified as learning disabled, 80% are primarily impaired in
reading; 90% of these children have problems with decoding skills." ("A
Scientific Approach to Reading Instruction")
"In
school lore, second grade is broadly viewed as the children's last chance.
Those who are not on track by third grade have little chance of ever catching
up. Snow, et. al., "Preventing
Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Washington, DC: National Research
Council/Academy Press, 1998), 212.
Of
students identified as dyslexic:
in grades 1 and 2, 82% can be brought up to normal classrrom level;
"NICHD
studies show that 74% of children who are poor readers in 3rd grade remain
poor readers 9th grade. ("A
Scientific Approach to Reading Instruction")
Literacy
- Then and Now. "If schools were educating today's young people the
illiteracy rate would be decreasing as the older generation passed from the
scene. To the contrary, at least one estimate is that the number of illiterate
Americans' is growing as much as 2,500,000 a year". David W. Kirkpatrick
"Nationally, 25% of all adults are functionally illiterate," Louisa
Moats, "When Older Students
Can't Read"
