Greetings List members,
Below is an e-mail I received from Tom Sticht with a different point of
view about the STAR project.  What are your views?  Please read on.
Donna

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February 6, 2007

STAR Struck: The Federal STAR (STudent  Achievement in Reading) Project:
Why Now?

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

Recently the U. S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and
Adult Education (OVAE), Division of Adult Education and Literacy (DAEL)
announced the STAR web site and professional development activity. The
web site provides the following information about STAR:

Quote:"What is STAR?
STAR is a comprehensive toolkit and training package to help Adult Basic
Education (ABE) instructors use evidence-based reading instruction in
the classroom. For more information, see About STAR.
What is the National STAR Training Network?
The National STAR Training Network (NSTN) encompasses national and state
experts in reading instruction, state and federal policymakers, and
practitioners. All are working in partnership with the U.S. Department
of Education to use evidence-based reading instruction and the STAR
model to improve adult reading. For more information see Contact the
Network.
Why STAR?
STAR delivers the tools and techniques teachers need to help adult
learners read and achieve."End Quote

In and of itself, the idea of tools and techniques to help adult
learners read and achieve is not very notable because there are already
numerous tools and techniques , commercial programs, etc. that aim to do
the same thing. But repeatedly the STAR web site says it aims at
assisting adult educators to use "evidence-based" reading instruction.
It describes "evidence-based" and says: Quote:"Evidence-based reading
instruction (EBRI) integrates findings from the best available reading
research with practitioner wisdom to inform instructional decisions.
...With EBRI, teachers use diagnostic assessment procedures to gauge the
strengths and weaknesses of each learner and target reading instruction
accordingly. ...Teachers that use EBRI help learners improve their
skills in each of the four components of reading - alphabetics,
vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension - by explaining new concepts,
modeling strategies, and providing feedback when learners practice."End
Quote

However, the STAR web site provides no evidence that following its
evidence-based approach will improve adult reading instruction over what
is already being done by adult literacy educators. I have searched for
scientific research indicating that a focus on alphabetics (code
emphasis in Jeanne Chall's terms) with adults with low literacy produced
better learning outcomes than some other, perhaps whole language
(meaning emphasis in Jeanne Chall's  terms) approach. But I have found
no  such research. No such research is cited on the STAR web site, and
the report on principles of adult reading instruction that is mentioned
does not include any such research, either.

The evidence that the STAR web site mentions also includes "professional
wisdom," however no citation of professional wisdom is given. I have
looked at historical approaches to teaching adults to read to find
professional wisdom in using either code or meaning emphases. Cora
Wilson Stewart in
1911 and beyond did not like the alphabetics approach and clearly stated
that adults should be taught using the "word' approach. Reports of her
work indicate that more than 180,000 adults learned to read following
her "whole language" approach. But in World War I, J. Duncan Spaeth took
a strong phonics approach to teaching reading to soldiers. Then in World
War II, Paul Witty took a strong "word", "whole language" approach, and
indeed teachers in Special Training Units got demerits if they
emphasized phonics too much. It is reported that over a quarter million
soldiers learned to read using this meaning emphasis approach.

Septima Poinsette Clark favored a whole language approach in teaching
some 10,000 teachers to teach 700,000 adults to read and write to vote
in the early civil rights movement. Frank Laubach strongly favored a
code emphasis while Ruth Colvin, founder of Literacy Volunteers of
America  favored a whole language approach (interestingly, Laubach and
Colvin have merged into one organization, ProLiteracy Worldwide).

This type of variable historical data on professional wisdom, and the
lack of any solid research that I have found on the relative
effectiveness with adults of the code or meaning emphases leaves me
without any good data to help make decisions about the use of these two
approaches. I know that Jeanne Chall favored the code approach in her
clinical work but her reported gains did not seem to be much better, if
at all better, than what other adult literacy programs reported. As I
read the STAR web page, it appears that the STAR approach has been
developed in large part by former students of Jeanne at Harvard.

It seems to me that the evidence base for the effectiveness of the STAR
approach to adult literacy education is lacking, in both professional
wisdom and scientific research. This suggests that the national
dissemination effort funded by the federal government is premature. I
think that before such an expensive (over $31,400 for 45 adult educators
to learn the STAR approach) national dissemination effort is undertaken
there should be research conducted to show that the STAR approach is
more effective than other approaches to teaching reading with adults.

Too often national efforts by the federal government have been
undertaken and millions of dollars have been spent to disseminate the
efforts, only to see them fade away with little apparent long-lasting
improvement to the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) of the
United States. Will STAR go this way, too?

Whatever happened to the Adult Performance Level (APL) project?
Whatever happened to the Equipped for the Future (EFF) project?

Are we about to be STAR struck?

Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
2062 Valey View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: tsticht at aznet.net