LETTERS

Reading is fundamental!

Posted 2/9/16

To the Editor:

I congratulate the Warwick Beacon on its recent coverage of proposed changes to the school district (1/21/16). But I doubt that I’m alone in wondering just what these …

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LETTERS

Reading is fundamental!

Posted

To the Editor:

I congratulate the Warwick Beacon on its recent coverage of proposed changes to the school district (1/21/16). But I doubt that I’m alone in wondering just what these proposals will mean to Warwick’s most vulnerable children.  Dr. Philip Thornton, the new superintendent, has off-handedly suggested significant changes that will affect real families. Close attention should be paid here! Am I wrong to wonder whether these proposed changes will affect disproportionately the children most in need of our educational investment – children who are presently well-served by programs that have proved their worth over time? 

Dr. Thornton has proposed the “reduction of five reading interventionists” as a priority in his far-reaching cost-cutting. But Warwick has a Reading Recovery program that is one of its great success stories. In 2010, the United States Department of Education funded national Reading Recovery programs with a $45 million grant because of their innovation, importance and proven track record over three decades. 

But in a new political climate, administrators are shifting to cheaper alternatives provided by for-profit vendors. Nobody knows if Warwick’s children will be better off when we save money by cutting their reading teachers. But educational research has shown again and again that intervention in the earliest grades to help students for whom reading is a challenge is crucial to their later progress. Reading is fundamental to all other academic achievement, even in math, science and technology. Let’s not economize by starting with the system’s most at-risk kids! Leave the reading programs alone.

Why is Dr. Thornton fixing what isn’t broken?  Of the many reforms that are so obviously urgent in Warwick, why start with something that is effective and needed? Must Warwick’s cost-cutting start by depriving the littlest children who have trouble reading of all the help that we can give them?

Joseph H. Pearson, Ph.D.

Warwick

Comments

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  • Justanidiot

    eye ain't never had no reading internventginist and aye terned out ko.

    Wednesday, February 10, 2016 Report this

  • sarena45

    Thank you Dr. Pearson for bringing this to light. Across the country I was schools have overlooked comma intentionally delayed and I see the education system to be broken when it comes to recognizing the signs and symptoms of dyslexia, and other comorbid disabilities. Literacy and math across our nation is sadly below where it should be. Not only are children learning, but there is no educational development for teachers one in college and later on for professional development to learn about the most common learning disability. 1 and 5 are dyslexic and approximately 1 and 20 if not more have dyscalculia my which is a learning challenge in math. I see it as educational malpractice but not only our teachers are not able to identify these children, and our medical providers are also at a loss for labeling dyslexia in Rhode Island. We have many children that have behavioral problems which is systemic often from a Learning Disability. I see this is educational malpractice we don't use the label therefore we can't give the scientific evidence-based remediation. We continue to fail our children further by withholding and eliminating elementary schools to have recess. This Bill has been talked about much at the state house and we continue to fight. We need the Department of Education to take their blindfolds off. It should be noted that there are not more children with a DD now than there were before Kama rather I depriving our children of the necessary tools and taking away the most important right such as recess Kama we see the behaviors exploding. Whose fault is this?

    As a by-product of not being given the tools and made to feel inferior two other students, anxiety, anger, depression, and other self-harming tendencies along with suicide are much higher for dyslexic individuals. And we can look at our jail system, which is full (85%) of functionally illiterate people who cannot fill out job applications. What kind of society are we perpetuating.

    Saturday, March 19, 2016 Report this