Costs and benefits of commercially produced literacy programs

Many schools are planning for 2010 and I was recently asked for my thoughts about the purchase of a particular commercially produced program.

As far as educational research suggests, many commercially produced programs are not indicative of best teaching practice and are therefore not endorsed by education bodies or organisations.

This is not to suggest however, that programs of this type cannot be used by teachers as a useful supplement to good teaching. Many great teachers use these tools well. They know how to embed the learning within real contexts. Many of these programs focus on teaching skills and knowledge in isolation and not within the contexts of authentic reading and writing. The research is very strong in suggesting that children learn best when skills are taught within the contexts in which they apply. For example … How many children get the spelling words correct on the Friday test, but fail to record them correctly across other writing contexts? LOTS! Many students practise the spelling words out of context and then find it hard to solve these, or like words, when writing independently.

In short, effective teachers don’t need these products. They use data (including ongoing observations) to inform and differentiate instruction. Effective teachers using these products know that the product supports their teaching, and are aware that the product should not “become the instruction”. Commercially designed programs can become a problem for some children when they become the instructional program rather than a support for quality, explicit teaching and learning conducted by the most powerful teaching tool in the classroom, the teacher.

So what are the costs?

• Initial purchase price, ongoing costs and training if applicable
• Inflexible programs may follow a linear approach which rarely caters for all students
• Skills and knowledge may be addressed in isolation
• Programs cannot observe changes in learning across student groups and therefore instruction may not be differentiated as required
  • may not identify students needing further instruction
  • may not identify students requiring additional practice of key learning principles
  • may not identify students for whom the program is not required – they already know and apply the knowledge
• Time allocated to implementation may be better used for explicit teaching of individuals, small and large groups
• Teachers can observe and monitor changes to student knowledge … Does the program do this?
• Does the program assign “busy work”? What are the instructional goals of these tasks? Are there more effective ways to achieve follow up goals than the tasks provided?
• Some children find the method of learning uninteresting.

What are the benefits?

• They save time for busy teachers, i.e.
  • identifying instructional goals
  • planning and sequencing the learning
  • follow up tasks
• Content may be thoroughly outlined and this prevents possible teaching oversights
• Assist in providing routines for teaching and learning
• May be easy to use
• Some children enjoy the method of learning.

I’m not suggesting that these products not be used … only that they should be used thoughtfully, with understandings of their strengths and limitations and always in conjunction with best teaching practices.

What is a ‘research based’ program?

When products or programs claim to be research-based, is important to clarify the source of the research, and whether any bias is likely to exist. Any claim can be made on product labels. It is up to the consumer to be discerning.

To be considered valid, the research should be conducted by an independent body. It should be conducted by, or closely supervised by, independent researchers with credibility within their field. To meet educational research standards, studies should meet the following criteria:

• data is gathered rigorously over a reasonable period
• data is gathered, collated and analysed by independent researchers
• a pool of suitable, voluntary participants is involved (i.e. randomly selected control and experimental groups working in similar conditions, with similarly skilled practitioners working towards the same instructional goals, but using different, clearly defined, tightly controlled methods)
• further studies replicate the findings (i.e. should the study be repeated, the same outcomes would be evident)
• studies are not biased, are conducted ethically and occur with full, informed consent
• researchers are open and honest about the results and the full findings are published in reputable, industry journals or publications.

by Angela Ehmer

This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Literacy general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.