Read 180?

Check out: http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/read180/

Scroll down for some reviews. Reported results are impressive, but some students think it is boring.

Well, I mistrust Scholastic since they jumped on the “whole-language” bandwagon and used it to push sales of their books (and their profits).

The Read 180 website is flashy and confusing and not very specific.
The program is described as “balanced literacy” which generally means a lot of fun and games and a very little systematic teaching.
The only mention of phonics I found was included with three or four other topics apparently all to be taught in ten minutes according to the plan.
There is a heavy weight on computer learning, which I mistrust as well.

In general I don’t see any good reason to spend huge amounts of money on a program where the (very expensive) advertising campaign won’t even state what system of teaching is used and which avoids the topic of research-based reading instruction.

After I posted this I talked to one of the people in charge of the Wilson program here (they do use Wilson but it is voluntary). This person said that they rejected the program for one reasons that Victoria stated. They felt the phonics portions were not very explicit. They also felt it was computer heavy (does use a teacher, but a lot of time is on the computer). I saw the price tag, can’t believe a charter school has that sort of money. The charter school I worked with had almost no budget for supplies, perhaps they are going to try to get money from Reading First.

—des

BTW, Arthur I’m less concerned that the kids think it is boring. I’m of the opinion that reading intervention that is really effective is not inherently exciting. It’s hard work. The Barton program isn’t too fun, and only the younger kids really like it, but they do very well with it.

—des

You are aware, des, that my comment about “boring” was merely a quote from the NY Times article.

I suspect that an Olympic athlete finds the long hours of lap swimming boring, but that gold medal somehow makes it all worthwhile. So let it be with acquiring reading skills. It is wonderful to have challenged students who want to learn to read so desperately that they are willing to cooperate with the reasonable demands of competent instruction.

Point well taken, Arthur. That might just be in the program’s favor. :-)
But it sounds like a fancy shamcy thing window dressing for whole languae with some PA stuff thrown in for good measure.

No, I’d imagine Olympics practice is boring too. And a good analogy for older kids.

—des

I think we are on the same page, des.

I wish all teachers who were required to attend seminars and workships when whole language was all the rage could recover those wasted hours.

Arthur

I am not impressed with it either…because I have tested about a handful of middle school students with S/L disorders who can’t read past the 2nd grade and they have taken part of this program since September. Tthis reading 180 ain’t helping..cuz if it was wouldn’t these kids improve in their reading by now after doing it since September?

I think it’s kind of fishy. The “research” looks very good, higher reading scores across multiple areas, but the “buzz” on the net isn’t good. The more I read the worse it sounds. People actually using the program are saying things like it goes too fast, that it doesn’t actually work. Any ideas re: Scholastic cooking the books on the data??

Patti, you added one more quote here. That’s five months on the program.

—des

Further reading of mine here has suggested that the gains in Read 180 reported are real. The thing is they aren’t really compared to anything. So that they aren’t compared to gains made in other approaches, but merely to the gains from doing nothing. Doing nothing gets you nowhere, we already know that. We also know that gains made from attention (whatever may be given) can be high, but not necessarily as high as you would get doing a systematic sequential phonics program. Of course, we don’t really know that as Read 180 hasn’t been compared to OG (or other sound approaches) afaik.

—des

I merely skimmed the website for the Read 180, but if I remember rightly they were mostly bragging about increases in SAT scores. Nothing wrong with raising SAT’s, but that is a very limited skill area. I didn’t see anything that implied there is any real in-depth reading, or that the gains are long-term.

It’s very tied to test scores, that’s one thing I am noticing about it.

And as I said, I don’t see any comparison studies, I tried to google this and tried all different combos of phrases, and no controls either.

—des

Des,

I check programs out all the time on the Florida Center for Reading Research with which Torgesen is affiliated. Here’s the report on Read 180:

http://www.fcrr.org/FCRRReports/PDF/READ180Final.pdf

Janis

Thanks. Who is Torgeson?

—des

Torgeson…is one of the authors of the CTOPP Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. He is a respected researcher of Reading methods.

Of course, to the Reading 180 folks, he is just the competition — he has his products to sell, and they have theirs.

I believe that Reading 180 could have good results — an awful lot of “poor” readers are so poor because they have been lacking any kind of structured practice. THey might be told to Drop Everything And Read — but they know how to point their faces at a book and have a lovely daydream. So adding a bit of structure, especially with high-interest materials, is a good thing.

It’s not going to be enough for the folks we work with though.

I find the same thing here at the college level — lots of “whole-languagey” things actually work, and work well, for older students whose gaps in their skills aren’t that big. THen there’s the rest of the gang.

There is also the nasty little fact that those gaps are wider now than in previous years because those nice whole-languagey things have been being done the lazy way (b/c there *is* a place for them, and a significant one), so those strategies & techniques aren’t as effective for as many as they used to be.

Well I’m not sure where these kids actually are. The guy I talked with seemed to feel there were at 6th grade but that is clearly not the case, if they are having trouble wtih the text on the computer (everything done on computer). So if these kids are sort of reluctant, unpracticed kids, it sounds like Read 180 would be an expensive but appropriate ticket.
The only testing they have had is Terra Nova. So they could concievably not really read the passage and then go looking for matching words and sentences.

Susan Barton suggested that I suggest giving them Dibels (only available to the sixth grade). And if they are “at high risk” they would not be reading at the sixth grade and would no doubt need more intevention, and if do fine then Read 180 would be appropriate (or that was my feeling). I actually think something like the Woodcock woudl be more appropriate but she gave me a website where you can download Dibels free. So there is a free test. I’m also not a tester. Though I did have to give tests in grad school so I don’t know that it would be that different. I’m not a great tester.

What do you all think of the above?
It would give me an idea if they are our sort of kids or not.

—des

Yea, I think it’s a good idea — it’s free & straightforward. Tho’ if you could do the WJ that would be a bit better.

When I dove in & did reading with 9th graders, they tested mostly in 4-5th grade level. Most of them were absolutely SURE they read better than that. I’d bet most of their teachers thought so too. And indeed, because they bring more experience to the table, they can do more with their reading skills than a fourth grader could.

However, it helped a lot to have a 1:1 interview — I didn’t think of taking the “grade” part out of the “level” like I would now, but I *did* stress that the whole “grade level” thing had nothing to do with what grade they belonged in, just what specific words they could correctly read. (Yes, I know it’s not that simple — but it made the point that this was a skill they could acquire.) They *could* learn to figure out what more complex words and phrases meant; we were going to learn together.

The 1:1 honesty **and** knowing they were going to get to do a posttest helped a lot with the motivation… and after a semester of Corrective REading they *had* gained a grade or so each, some more. (This was Woodcock Johnson)

So especially if they don’t do fine, a 1:1 “interview” with individual expectations and goals can go a long way.

Corrective Reading looks like Reading 180 without all the glitz. There is the literature element in Reading 180, but it seems like you could supplement that nicely— maybe Don Johnston’s Start to Finish books (they arent’ cheap either but they aren’t $30,000!) (BTW, there are some newer Start to finish for very poor readers grades 1-2 level. I think if they are that bad they shouldn’t be doing that activity. I’m thinking more of ones on 4-6 grade level.)

I think your approach sounds good.
I agree that a 4th grade reading level is not quite the same in an older student. They do come with lots of experiences, of course they come with lots of failure as well.

We’ll see how open the guy is. I mean I think that some public schools wouldn’t worry as long as the kids meet the criteria for their AYPs!
Sad sad.

—des

Corrective Reading is full-bore full-scripted Direct Instruction — I don’t think 180 goes there.

Well, if you can get a full-bore proven effective program for a tenth of the price of a random unfocused high-tech glitzy program, I say go for the proven effective.

You have to be willing to figure it out — and deal with the “script” issues. Students have a certain resistance to it (especially to starting the line over every time theymake a mistake). It helped **a lot** that I had a musical background — it was extremely similar to conducting a choir down to the hand signals and expectation of perfection.
It took being unflappable imperturbable and dogged to keep plugging at it until they figured out “oh, duh, we’re going to have to do it anyway so we might as well just shut up and go back to the beginning of the line, since that takes 10 seconds and the argument takes a minute, and if we go back right away we’ll remember and get it right.” (Usually two people figured it out and told the holdouts.)

Of course these are high risk kids and have to buy into whatever you are doing. I found high risk high school students I worked with a couple years ago were ready to buy into what was a precusor to Open Court (gosh this was a very old program— long vowels were first!!). But not all of them were. There wasn’t anything exciting about it, except it was effective with some of the kids (but not the severe dyslexic kids).

I am gathering Read 180 is effective though (or maybe effective) but not for really dyslexic kids, more for kids who need more practice reading. If you can separate out those kids— I think that would be the thing.
It does have quite a price tag. (BTW, Read 180 is scripted as well.)
Also Barton is scripted— but I am so familar with it that I don’t look at it. It does assign certain activities that I am feeling freer and freer to forget about. But you have to know the program and know the kids. Scripted programs reduce planning time but the carry with them the tendency of getting very rote.

The kids were only tested on the Terra Nova, so it is an unknown.
I think the suggestion to try and get them to test the kids was a good idea. That depends on whether they really care if the kids are reading.
Sadly I think that there is so much emphasis on test scores, that a lot of schools are really too bogged down to care for much else.

—des

I got one of the fancy little progress reports today on one of my bilingual 14 year old boys I tested. The Reading 180 teacher said that he has done really well making a years growth in 5 months I thought this sounds impressive until I realized he was still reading at the 1st grade level. :-C
He is only 7 grade levels behind the eight ball now… :oops:

… and I wonder what the pretest score was — gee, did they have negative levels? If not, just how creative is this arithmetic; no wonder they record such good results.
(Though I only wonder; I *have* taught students like this. One thing I do know is that these “small” gains as far as grade levels & percentiles are much bigger for the student.)

Well I have also worked with students like this— the two kids I had in LiPs. It takes months to finish (well maybe more for me), but still it takes quite a while. Even after LiPS, they aren’t quite where the typical kid is.

OTOH, I think that with such kids, Read 180 would be useless. I don’t think it was ever created to deal wtih such severe disorders. It doesn’t really say on the website though.

Of course, I think patti would be in a good position to tell if it was a kid like that.

And I also wonder re the achievement level if the math is creative enough. You could create different tiny levels, have them master these teensy levels and then claim that they had gained so many months (as you could somehow tie these to these).

BTW, the charter school didn’t buy what Read 180 was selling. However, I’m not sure i’m hired either.

—des