The U.S. Department of Education selected the University to be one of three locations for a national center that employs research-based methods to improve child literacy.
The National Center for Reading First Technical Assistance, an initiative of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, provides free training and support for improving children’s reading abilities. Support is given to states and districts around the country that have received Reading First grants, according to a U.S. Department of Education press release.
“The primary focus of Reading First is to provide schools with support so that kids can make the kind of progress they need to make,” said Ed Kame’enui, director of the Western Regional Center at the University.
The other two centers are located at Florida State University and the University of Texas at Austin. Kame’enui said the University’s center provides service to 22 states.
Kame’enui said the center focuses primarily on children in kindergarten through third grade because research shows these ages are critical for future reading success.
“The idea is to get kids started on the right trajectory early on,” he said, adding that 10 to 15 percent of children nationwide are in schools that require some kind of reading support.
Kame’enui said University faculty involved with the center provide schools with training materials and technical assistance and are involved in assessing teaching methods. They also help schools with limited
resources decide which reading programs to choose from.
“Programs have to be designed differently for different kids,” he said.
Schools generally use one program for the majority of students and another that must meet the various needs of students struggling with reading, Kame’enui said.
“You can’t have 30 different programs,” he said.
Kame’enui said it is important for children to have strong reading abilities by third grade because curricula change in the fourth grade from narrative texts to more expository, informational texts.
“The text that they’re required to read changes very dramatically from third to fourth grade,” he said.
College of Education Dean Marty Kaufman said “reading is a linch-pin to success,” but nearly 40 percent of children nationwide cannot read at a basic level by fourth grade. Kame’enui said if children are poor readers at the age of 6, there is an 80 percent chance they will be poor readers later on. In a high school classroom of 30 students, about 20 percent struggle with reading on average, he added.
He said the University has a strong history of research based in this area, which is one reason it was awarded the “highly competitive” five-year contract. The western center will receive almost $2 million per year in funding.
“The University College of Education has a long tradition of doing this kind of research,” he said. “We’ve been doing work in this area for some time.”
Kaufman said the new center allows student teachers at the University to be on the “cutting edge” of techniques for improving children’s literacy.
“This is a result of several decades of faculty research,” he said.
He said a faculty proposal to the Oregon Department of Education made Oregon one of the first states to receive Reading First funding last year when the state was awarded about $48 million.
The College of Education, which is ranked second in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, has established several research centers over the past few years, including the National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, which serves about 4,000 schools across 35 states, he added.
“In both of these centers you get a sense of the impact we make,” he said.