Mother uses YouTube to help convey literacy message
A classic example of PR around reading politics. Watch how the reporter baits with YouTube and switch to promote a piece of legislation.
Woodbury Bulletin | Mother uses YouTube to help convey literacy message
A Woodbury mother has turned to the website YouTube to spread the word about childhood literacy.
Rebecca Schmitt has posted four clips on the video-sharing website to raise the profile of reading education.
The clips were taken from a three-hour work session on early intervention and literacy by the Minnesota Senate’s education committee.
“I think there is a lot of misinformation about learning disabilities, and the video talks about learning to read in general,” said Schmitt, who lives in the Woodbury Crossings neighborhood.
“Unless you have been through a situation like this, it’s really hard for other people to understand the problems that you have to endure and the obstacles you have to overcome.
“I think that this video helps people to understand and walk in the shoes of the people who have gone through it and realize that this is a problem which can be solved.”
Haven’t looked at the videos and am not sure who they are supposed to help — teachers, parents, or kids. But
“We are saying this is not a special education issue,” Schmitt explained. “This is a mainstream classroom issue when kids are learning to read, so that when you get children who might have struggled with the traditional instruction that you have in most classrooms, you are catching them before they have an issue.
“They won’t end up in a special education classroom.”
Both Schmitt and Saltzman point to research showing that just a third of kids pick up reading without any trouble under the traditional methods of teaching.
Another third struggle, but eventually pick it up. And the last third never reach that expected level of reading proficiency.
It turns out the article wasn’t about YouTube, anyway. It’s promoting a bill Saltzman is trying to push through the Senate.
The bill which has been authored by Saltzman, and is expected to go before the Senate this session, focuses on the five strands of reading, which Schmitt and Saltzman say have been ignored in literacy teaching in recent decades.
The five strands are:
• Phonemic awareness
• Phonics
• Fluency
• Vocabulary development
• Reading comprehension
“They need more effective instructional techniques,” said Saltzman. “We believe that too many children are instructional casualties.
“It’s not that they have a reading disability; it’s perhaps that we haven’t provided them with the most effective instructional technique.”
The "5-strands" are described as a mirracle.
“In nine months, [my son] Matthew had made only two month’s consistent gain in reading,” said Schmitt, referring to Matthew’s experience in the classroom.
After he worked with a tutor using the five strands of reading principles for 18 hours, his reading improved by the equivalent of 14 months, she says — and other parents she knew reported similar findings.
…
“We found tutors who were qualified to help our children and we were having great success with that.
“We just thought, if we can have this type of success outside the class system, how come this is not in the school system, where everyone can take advantage?
“Not everyone can afford to take their child to a specially trained instructor.”
The 5 component model is nothing new. It’s what the National Reading Panel promotes, and what Reading First, a critical component of the Federal NCLB reading strategy. A state won’t qualify the Reading First dollars without showing that it’s working to improve all 5. Any legislator should know that.
So why did Saltzman and reporter make the Big-5 sound like big news?
One of the bill’s main demands is that it requires newly-qualified teachers to sit a new, Minnesota reading instruction competence assessment, which would evaluate a teacher’s understanding of the five strands.
Obviously testing does not make teachers better (at what the test tests) — for that you need training and licensing. So is there evidence that teachers who pass this test improve students’ reading? And if these "5 strands" have "long been ignored", why testing new teachers rather than those who are on the job?
What exactly does the bill do? I will try to dig further in the next post. But here we see something that is clearly not news-worthy being reported — a mother posting a YouTube video that doesn’t seem to be original (and possibly violates copyrights?). How did the reporter learn about this? Who is behind this PR maneuver?
Links
• To view the YouTube video, search “readbythirdgrade” on www.youtube.com
• To view the full text of Sen. Saltzman’s bill, search “SF3156” under the current legislation section on www.senate.leg.state.mn.us.
a summary of the bill:
Bill Name: SF3156
1E Relating to teachers; clarifying the definition of comprehensive,
scientifically based reading instruction; defining certain terms; modifying
board of teaching licensure requirements to include the Minnesota reading
instruction competence assessment and specifying certain assessment components;
requiring the commissioner of education to adopt a reading instruction
competence assessment for prekindergarten and elementary instructors; requiring
a report to the legislature by a certain date; specifying certain duties of the
commissioner relating to adopting a reading instruction competence assessment;
specifying certain pretesting requirements for candidates in an approved teacher
preparation program and schools for grant eligibility purposes; providing for a
prior appropriation funding allowance to be allocated for foundations of reading
grant for prekindergarten through grade 2 teachers and teacher candidates, match
requirement; requiring legislative approval for board of teaching proposed rules
in the area of licensure in reading