Resisting Reading Mandates: How to Triumph with the Truth

by Elaine M. Garan

Book Overview

Teachers today are in a stranglehold as a glut of mandates and standards restrict our ability to make decisions in our own classrooms. In many schools, scripted, regimented commercial programs further erode our power to view our students as individuals with unique talents and needs. Even the words we use to "teach" are no longer our own as we read our way through the tightly scripted manuals. How demeaning it is to be told that the curriculum is...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0325004463
• ISBN13: 9780325004464
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.3" x 9.0"
• Grade Range: Kindergarten to Grade 5

Customer Reviews

Great for practitioners

As a teacher of reading in a Central California high school, I am constantly bombarded with the mandates and "bad science" of the National Reading Panel. Dr. Garan's book empowered me to understand what is going on in the realm of state and federal reading mandates and how to combat the many distortions with the truth. The question/answer format makes the book very readable. I devour professional books on reading, and this is one of the very best. Get this book and you will be able to "triumph with the truth."

Strong arguments against heavy phonics

Prof. Garan stunned the academic world recently with her brilliant critique of the National Reading Panel's report, which appeared in several prestigious journals, including the Phi Delta Kappan. The National Reading Panel summary claimed that intensive phonics was the true path for all readers from kindergarten to grade 6. Garan showed that this conclusion was not even consistent with the report's own data. Heavy phonics only really helps when children read regularly spelled words in isolation. It has very little effect when children read real texts. President Bush's reading plan is based on the National Reading Panel report; Garan's critique reveals important flaws in the report. Unlike the National Reading Panel report, Garan's book is very readable, very understandable. Those interested in more on this topic might also want to read recent books by Gerald Coles, such as Misreading Reading and Reading Lessons, Frank Smith's still classic book, Reading without Nonsense, and Ken Goodman's What's Whole about Whole Language.

Essential Reading

Elaine Garan has performed a great public service. Very readable and riveting, this short book reveals what happens when politicians put the fox in charge of the henhouse. In clear, cogent fashion Garan uses her formidable research skills to distinguish between fact and fabrication in the political mandate to muzzle teachers and force them to deliver reading instruction in a lockstep, fastfood format. Every parent and grandparent who wants their children to love books must read this book.Every teacher who wants to take back her classroom must read this book.