A case study: why a program like READ 180 doesn’t work to improve adolescent literacy.

Do computer-based literacy programs like READ 180 really improved adolescent literacy? In READ 180: Policy Gone Wrong, Suzanne Whitford, Language Arts Journal of Michigan, Volume 26, Issue 2, Literacy Policy, Article 9 (p.30) stated, “READ 180 promises to meet the needs of students who read below grade level. It claims to be: An intensive reading intervention program that helps educators confront the problem of adolescent illiteracy and special needs reading on multiple fronts, using technology, print, and professional development. READ 180 is proven to meet the needs of struggling readers whose reading achievement is below proficient level. The program directly addresses individual needs through differentiated instruction, adaptive and instructional software, high-interest literature, and direct instruction in reading, writing, and vocabulary skills.

Before addressing Read 180 effectiveness, I would like to question how literacy is measured. In 2001, the Michigan State Board of Education defined reading/literacy as “the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction among the reader’s existing knowledge, the information suggested by the written language, and the context of the reading situation (p. 29).” In Impact of READ 180 on Adolescent Struggling Readers, Kathy Jonner Smith, 2012, UNF Thesis and Dissertations, she states that “In line with the NCLB Act, Florida requires students to pass the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) on grade level in order to graduate. Other states have either adopted “Common Core Standards of NCLB or developed their own. So is the standard for being literate in secondary school consistent between states, the federal government and local school district and what is literacy to an adolescent?

In A Search Past Silence, David Kirkland,(2013), Teachers College Press, the author follows the literacy lives of six-fourth graders(Lansing, Michigan — inner city area) through high school. He makes the following summary of what literacy is, “I now understood that the acquisition of literacies is a construct of memory formed of the fibers of the many voices that fill our stories. I understood that it is linked to ideologies, systems of belief that manufacture particular relations to knowledge, truth and desire. I understood that the casting of self (i.e. reading, writing, remembering and believing, etc.) reflects the social myths and illusion of society as much or more so than it does society itself (p148)”.

Shawn, one of the students followed by Dr Kirkland, had the follow assessment of literacy as taught in school, “Shawn did not “trust” “reading and writing as they (were) taught in school” because he saw such practices as tools to maintain the oppression of the opposed to control the mind as opposed to freeing it” ( p.99).

So how do we really measure literacy based on the individual student’s life style and social environment, and do standardized tests really reflect how literate that individual student is?

If a student’s literacy has been tested and found to be under performing, at his or her current grade level, he or she may be mandated into a remedial literacy program like READ 180.

READ 180 promises to meet the needs of students who read below grade level.

It claims to be: An intensive reading intervention program that helps educators confront the problem of adolescent illiteracy and special needs reading on multiple fronts, using technology, print, and professional development. READ 180 is proven to meet the needs of struggling readers whose reading achievement is below proficient level. The program directly addresses individual needs through differentiated instruction, adaptive and instructional software, high-interest literature, and direct instruction in reading, writing, and vocabulary skills. The word “proven” convinced many school administrators and teachers that READ 180 would help us serve our struggling students. Key terms like “differentiated instruction” and “high-interest literature” lured administrators and teachers into believing that the program supports “best practice” (READ 180: Policy Gone Wrong, p.29).

Jeffrey Todd Vogel, in his dissertation (2013), Liberty University, A Case Study of the Impact of the READ 180 Reading Intervention Program on Affective and Cognitive Reading Skills for At-Risk Secondary Level Students concludes from his assessment of struggling ninth grade at-risk students at a Title I high school in Southern California stated that “READ 180 was a beneficial intervention in limited areas for many at-risk high school students, but it did not meet the myriad of affective and cognitive needs required for grade level literacy development”.

Other compelling reasons for READ 180 ineffectiveness include:

1. Reading instruction must be student-focused rather than program focused. Reading instruction needs to be” …responsive to what [the student] does in order to maintain that interest and allow that process to bring about change and not stagnate” (READ 180: Policy Gone Wrong, p.29).

2. Children don’t learn to read from programs…Programs can’t anticipate what a child will want to do or know at a particular time. They can’t provide opportunities for engagement… although some methods of teaching reading are worse than others …the belief that one perfect method might exist to teach all children is contrary to all the evidence about the multiplicity of individual differences that individual differences that every child brings to reading (READ 180: Policy Gone Wrong, p.29).

3. It should be noted that READ 180 seeks to develop [student] background knowledge rather than asking the student to rely on her or his own schema to construct meaning (READ 180: Policy Gone Wrong, p.31).

4. The students find the software rotation very isolating, again because they’re cut off from their peers via the headphones. This further instills in them the idea that reading is a solitary activity you perform as a group (READ 180: Policy Gone Wrong, p.31).

In conclusion, I question the true effectiveness of Read 180. READ 180 as an electronic based reading program with emphasis placed on skills and reflects part-to-whole conceptualization reading instruction. If we think of reading/literacy, “As making sense in the world” (READ 180: Policy Gone Wrong, p.31), we must, as ones who teach literacy, strive for 1) student choices in the classroom i.e. free to choose what they read, 2) Surround students with a reading rich environment that captivates them to make connections to their lives, and 3) As a teacher, to show your students that you are a reader rather than a teacher of reading.

Whitford, Suzanne, (2012). Language Arts Journal of Michigan, Vol 26, Issue 2, Literacy Policy, Article 9, READ 180: Policy Gone Wrong

Vogel, Jeffrey Todd, (March, 2013). Liberty University, Dissertation: A Case Study of the Impact of the READ 180 Reading Intervention Program on Affective and Cognitive Reading Skills for At-Risk Secondary Level Students

Kirkland, David E, (2013). Teaching College Press, A Search Past Silence

Smith, Kathy Jonner, (2012). UNF Thesis and Dissertation: Impact of READ 180 on Adolescent Struggling Readers