Unproved Early-Reading Program Likely to Prevail
Literacy Bill Includes Pieces of Federal Program
Early Reading First never attracted the same attention as its cousin, Reading First, and proof of its effectiveness is elusive, but advocates of early-childhood education hope the federal government will continue to build on what participants in the grant program have learned.
When Congress zeroed out funding for Reading First—the program authorized by the No Child Left Behind Act for K-3 pupils primarily in disadvantaged schools—it increased spending for Early Reading First, which targets 3- and 4-year-olds from low-income families. Reading First received $1 billion per year at its peak, but it was plagued by conflict-of-interest charges, and Congress eliminated funding for it in fiscal 2009. That same year, Early Reading First received $112 million. The Obama administration requested $162.5 million, an increase of $50 million, for the 2010 budget for the early-childhood program.
Many components of Early Reading First are included in a comprehensive literacy bill introduced in the Senate last month and also in a similar version in the House of Representatives. The proposed legislation could become a blueprint for reauthorization of reading programs—Early Reading First, Reading First, and Striving Readers, which targets adolescents—in the Elementary...
This article is available to subscribers only.
To keep reading this article and more, subscribe now or start a 2-week FREE trial.
Subscribe to Education Week
You Save 20% or More!
Access selected articles, e-newsletters and more!
Viewed
Emailed
Recommended
Commented
Sponsored Whitepapers
• Best Practices in Information Management, Reporting and Analytics for Education
• Smart infrastructure report to get your district ready for future IT needs.
• Integrating Social and Emotional RTI to Improve Student Performance
• Taming the wild west: How America’s third largest school district manages PCs, Macs, and iPads
• Overcoming the Odds: Getting Every Student to College YES Prep Shares Its Success Story
- Charter School Director (Head of School)
- International Preparatory Academy, Detroit, MI
- Principal
- Chattahoochee Hills Charter School, Multiple Locations
- Principal
- Amargosa Valley Elementary School, Amargosa Valley, NV
- Principal
- Roaring Fork School District, Carbondale, CO
- Superintendent
- Round Rock ISD, Round Rock, TX


