JOURNAL OF LITERACY RESEARCH, 38(4), 467474 Copyright 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

BOOK REVIEW

The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research

D. Ray Reutzel
Emma Eccles Jones Center for Early Childhood Education Utah State University

Peggy McCardle and Vinita Chhabra, The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research. Baltimore: Brookes, 2004. 496 pages. $29.95 hardcover.

As I began writing this review, I was reminded of an oft-seen yellow highway sign adorning the steep and winding roadsides of the Rocky Mountains: Watch for Falling Rocks! Within mere months of the publication of The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research, intended by its authors to help educators access and understand the findings of scientific research about reading and reading instruction, the familiar cast of critics had predictably begun rolling the rocks down the mountainside to pummel the books message and contents (See the Phi Delta Kappan, February 2005 issue.) Admittedly, healthy skepticism and critique are important to the advancement of science itself, but The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research covers such a wide range of topics that it is simply not deserving of the same types of criticisms as those leveled at The Report of the National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) with its much narrower research focus on only five areas related to reading instruction. The Voice of Evi-

Correspondence should be addressed to D. Ray Reutzel, Emma Eccles Jones Center for Early Childhood Education, Utah State University, UMC 6705, Logan, UT 843226705. E-mail: ray.reutzel@usu.edu

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dence in Reading Research deserves at least as much careful and reasoned examination as the NRP report, if not more, by any serious scholar or student of reading research. Some critics seem to be so fixated on their unrelenting criticisms of the NRP report that it seems they perceive this book, The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research, as one more iteration of the same. They direct identical criticisms at this book without reasonably examining the entire scope of its contents or the invitation to communicate and dialog associated with its message. These critics remind me of the musician who, when faced with a piano keyboard containing 88 keys, chooses to play only middle C. The musician pounds away at this key because he wants everyone to know the importance of middle C and the fact that it is at the very center of the keyboard while ignoring the rest of the keys. In the process, this myopic musician entirely thwarts the beautiful music that would be possible if the entire keyboard were put to use. On the other hand, I was troubled, as I suspect were many others, by what appeared to be the extreme adulation of Lyons contributions to reading research in the early chapters of this book. In the introduction and first few chapters of The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research, readers are given the erroneous impression that Lyon has single-handedly led the entire reading research effort for the past two decades. Although Lyon surely deserves more than a modicum of credit for his efforts to bring reading problems and research-based answers to these problems to the national political stage, the frequent and overly optimistic commentary in regard to his contributions in the first few chapters of this new book was excessive. Let us not forget that it was also Lyon who alienated a vast number of professionals and researchers in the literacy field with his past strident and reproachful comments toward professors of education in schools of education across the nation. Many of those disparaged by Lyon are the same individuals who have labored long and hard to produce the body of current scientifically based reading research presented as part of this new book! In the preface to The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research, renowned scholar and researcher Catherine Snow pleads for readers to suspend their biases:
The authors of the chapters collected in this volume have demonstrated their commitment to communication, to collaboration, to the importance of cumulativity and convergence in research. An equal commitment to comity, from them and their readers, will maximize the value of their contributions. (p. xxv)

So it is in the spirit of comity that I approach the review of this potentially valuable contribution to the literature on reading research. The opening section of the book is devoted to providing the reader with an in-depth historical overview of the pressure to shift the teaching of reading from craft-based practice to science- or evidence-based practice (Stanovich & Stanovich, 2003). In the opening chapter,

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Chhabra and McCardle discuss the federal governments past and present roles in sponsoring reading research across such diverse agencies as the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Education, National Institute for Literacy, and National Institutes of Health. The authors assert that Researchers and teachers alike know that one size never fits all, and this is certainly true for children learning to read (p. 6), as they argue that many varied, publicly verifiable, peer-reviewed studies converging on a single finding are needed to provide reliable guidance for influencing literacy policy. They also contend that teachers should not be asked to change their classroom instruction based on the findings of a single study nor on good ideas that have not been rigorously tested in ecologically valid contextsthe classroom or clinic. In chapter 2, Sweet outlines in detail three decades of government-funded and private foundation-issued major reading reform efforts and research reports ranging from the Right to Read Foundation, the Reading Excellence Act, the consensus report of the National Research Council, the NRP report, Reading First and Early Reading First, and the National Research Council Report on Scientific Research in Education, to the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002. Sweet continues by describing several recent efforts to bring the findings of scientific research to parents, teachers, administrators, and policymakers, including the What Works Clearing House, the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, the Partnership for Reading, and the National Center for Reading First Technical Assistance. Sweet wraps up the chapter by saying,
This book provides one more body of evidence to reassure the public that we can solve one of the most intransigent educational problems in America, the inability to read. We stand at a crossroads in education. We can either turn a blind eye to the evidence or do an about-face and apply what we know to education practices. (pp. 4041)

In the second major section of The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research, the logic, rationale, and methods used in scientific inquiry are carefully explained for the reader. Reyna provides a compelling case for using scientific research to inform educational practice. One question asked in this chapter is likely to produce a maelstrom of responses: If scientific evidence is not used to make educational decisions, then what is the alternative? (p. 48). Reyna argues strongly that educational decision making should be based on scientific findings rather than on philosophy and beliefs. She asserts that a good story and a true story are not the same (p. 49). Although philosophy and beliefs may produce a good or plausible story, educators must concern themselves with identifying the true stories of effectiveness. Reyna goes on to catalog a series of craft-based decisions showing where and

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how conventional wisdom led to erroneous conclusions and practices in education and medicine. Fletcher and Francis offer a carefully crafted description of the tools of scientific inquiry, including empirical investigation, research coupled with theory, a chain of reasoning, importance of research design, data that are systematically analyzed, the need for measurement validity, disclosure of findings to public scrutiny, and peer review. Following this discussion, Keogh describes the need for research that is longitudinal, arguing that too much of past cross-sectional educational research has been of short duration, providing only snapshots of learning processes and neglecting the all-important issues of reading development over time. Cooper and Reach describe the logic and methods associated with conducting and interpreting the results of meta-analyses. They raise an interesting question in the title of their chapter, How do we know we can trust it [meta-analysis]? They point out the superiority of meta-analysis over traditional narrative research reviews because, as they stress, when multiple studies, each restricted in their representation of context, design, and sample, are treated as data in cumulative analysis, they can contribute jointly to confident and general, but properly contextualized, conclusions (p. 124). Next, Morris asserts the need for clinical trials as a model for intervention in educational research studies. Morris takes on the traditional philosophical and epistemological arguments against a science-oriented view of the world generally and education specifically in the early parts of this chapter. Morris makes the case for the high utility of the clinical trials model for determining the effectiveness of various potential intervention selections. Finally, Morris explains how clinical trials have been and can be implemented in educational research. The third major section of The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research is centered on evidence-based practices that teachers are asked to implement in their classrooms. Ehri offers a much published and familiar treatise based on the findings of the NRP related to the effects of teaching young children phonemic awareness and phonics. This chapter was a bit disappointing, as the author could have added the work of Camilli, Vargas, and Yurecko (2003) to support as well as further delimit the conclusions of the NRP meta-analyses on this topic. Stahl, a recently deceased and greatly missed scholar and colleague, provides an updated and comprehensive review of the research on fluency instruction and practice since the publication of the Scientific Studies in Reading issue on this topic in 2001 and his own review published with Kuhn in the Journal of Educational Psychology (Kuhn & Stahl, 2003). Stahl analyzes research related to fluency practice modes, integrated teaching models, text difficulty, the effects of round-robin reading, and of course his own line of research related to the effectiveness of fluency-oriented reading instruction. Stahl also cautiously raises the issue of wide reading as compared with repeated readings in relation to developing fluency among younger readers. He concludes the chapter confidently by stating,

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Fluency can and should be taught as part of an effective reading program (p. 208). I was somewhat disappointed with the rehashing and failure to at least offer some cosmetic updating of the NRP findings related to vocabulary and comprehension instruction. This chapter begins with a brief review of the work of the NRP and the RAND Reading Study Group (Snow, 2001) as background for a discussion of vocabulary and comprehension instruction. On the other hand, the chapter author, Kamil, does nicely summarize and translate for practicing educators the many intricate and complex findings found in the voluminous report of the NRP subgroups related to vocabulary and comprehension instruction. One very challenging fact for practicing educators is the strong set of findings supporting the use of multiple-strategies comprehension instruction when even single-strategies comprehension instruction has, to date, failed to gain a strong toehold in most classrooms, especially in the primary grades. Perhaps the most controversial chapter in The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research is the response by Timothy Shanahan to critiques of the NRP report. Anyone following the vitriolic exchanges between critics and supporters of the NRP will not find much new to whet their appetites in this chapter. This chapter has familiar overtones from Shanahans response to NRP critics previously published in The Reading Teacher. Shanahan responds to five criticisms of the NRP report in this chapter using the following subheadings: (a) Some important topics have been neglected; (b) the panel was too narrow in its research paradigm; (c) the panel should not have opposed encouraging children to read; (d) this wasnt a very good panel, it did all the wrong things, and other people are going to mess things up; and (e) the NRP report is a fools errand. One is hard pressed, however, at the conclusion of Shanahans response, to imagine effective reading instruction in classrooms without the five elements analyzed by the NRP, despite any alleged shortcomings of the NRP report! The fourth major section of The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research focuses on classroom evidence gathered from teachers and students. Moats tackles the oft poorly understood topic of professional development of reading teachers. After conducting a 4-year study of reading instruction in low-performing urban schools, Moats concludes that there exists a modest but statistically significant relationship among the variables of teacher knowledge, teacher effectiveness, and student achievement. This chapter raises many questions about the process of preparing reading teachers, not the least of which are how to effectively measure teacher knowledge in reading and writing instruction and how such assessments might be used to inform and modify teacher preparation, licensing, and future teacher professional development in schools and districts across the nation. How teachers allocate time during literacy instruction in primary-grade English language learner classrooms is discussed in a study conducted by Foorman, Goldenberg, Carlson, Saunders, and Pollard-Durodola. In this chapter, these au-

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thors tackle the somewhat elusive and politically sensitive issues of language of instruction and the English instruction of English-language-learning children, primarily Spanish-speaking children. They review the research on bilingual and biliteracy development and discuss in detail how to measure the language and content of literacy instruction using a reliable observation system called the Bilingual Timed Observation system developed by this team of researchers. Three models of English language learning were examined in Texas and California: (a) primary language instruction in Spanish (Model 1); (b) two-way or dual-language instructionEnglish and Spanish (Model 2); and (c) English immersion (Model 3). The amount and mix of languages used in English language instruction varied by the model and by the location of instruction. California tended toward more oral language development, whereas Texas tended toward more development of reading and writing skills. The remainder of this chapter reports other findings of how teachers and children spend their time in literacy instruction using differing models of literacy instruction for English language learners. Guthrie and Humenick provide a succinct and accessible summary of the research about motivating children to read. Familiar constructs such as content goals, choice, interesting texts, and social collaboration round out the general content and recommendations of this well-written chapter. One appealing feature in this chapter is the case study of Myra Buskirks fourth-grade classroom, which shows how to make operational these constructs of motivation. I was struck by the absence of any mention of concept-oriented reading instruction by name in this chapter, but make no mistake, it is there! Torgeson reviews research on effective interventions for struggling readers. Intervention studies contrasting remedial versus preventative interventions are discussed in this very meaty chapter. Torgeson contends that word-level difficulties can be prevented in almost all children in first and second grades, but the means to permanently increase later primary- and intermediate-aged childrens relative verbal abilities remain somewhat elusive. With respect to remedial programs in reading, Torgeson contends that accuracy and comprehension gaps can be substantially closed, but that currently available interventions do not seem sufficient to produce the necessary effects to close gaps in fluency. He asserts that struggling readers need greater amounts of time spent on reading practice to catch up with their grade-level peers in third and fourth grades. In conclusion, Torgeson argues strongly for the use of early prevention over remediation using the same strategies, but more explicitly and more intensively taught. Additionally, he argues for remedial reading programs for those in the upper grades and beyond who are still struggling that are appropriately focused and of sufficient intensity (p. 376) to accelerate reading growth. Papnicolaou, Pugh, Simos, and Mencl provide the novice in their chapter with an introduction to concepts and applications in functional brain imaging. The reader of this chapter quickly becomes familiar with two brain imaging methods:

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magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). One learns about baseline activation measurements, recording of magnetic flux, and the averaging procedure. Next the reader is introduced to recorded versions of black-and-white images of brain activation. One learns that these two measurements, MEG and fMRI, are needed because MEG cannot measure the hemodynamic response function or the blood oxygen-level-dependent responses in the brain. Various analyses of the imaging procedures are briefly discussed from across-participants and within-participant brain-behavior analyses, functional connectivity analysis, and the familiar cast of statistical analyses including general linear modeling and multivariate analysis. Next, the reader is treated to a typical neurological study. This requires some serious concentration for educators unfamiliar with these types of studies. In fact while reading this study, I had a sense of dj vu I had not felt since graduate school! Finally, the authors set up an excellent segue to the next chapter by introducing the reader to the results of neuroimaging studies of reading and reading disability. Shaywitz and Shaywitz, both of the Yale Medical School, take the reader on a tour of the biological underpinnings of reading disability from the perspectives of epidemiology, etiology, and cognitive and phonological influences. To begin, the Shaywitz team takes the reader through functional brain imaging research conducted on dyslexic readers (both adults and children) and compares the results to those of readers without reading impairments. For most educators, the outcome is anticipated; brain activation and blood flow patterns in the posterior and anterior brain regions are markedly different for dyslexic readers as compared with readers without reading impairments. All of this leads to the positing of a neurological model for reading coupled with the traditional behavioral models of the reading process familiar to educators. Next, the Shaywitz team takes educators where they have never been before. They are transported into the world of measuring the effects of explicit instruction on brain development and functioning using brain neuroimaging. What have these researchers found? They have found that the effects of instruction can be measured using MEG and fMRI tools. At this point I was picturing futuristic MEG and fMRI measurement salons in schools to augment the familiar paper-and-pencil reading achievement and diagnostic tests. The conclusion is that educators had better get ready for the introduction and use of more sophisticated medical measurement of reading instructional effectiveness in the future! In the fifth and final section of The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research, Song, Coggshall, and Miskel ask the question, Where does policy usually come from and why should we care? These authors give the political novice an insiders view of policymaking in action. The reader learns about how a political and policy agenda is framed, from recognizing a problem, to expertly navigating the political environment and knowing whos who in policy communities, to wielding political influence tactics. To vividly illustrate this complex of ideas at work, these authors

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offer a nicely written case study of Reading Policy Entrepreneurship at worka report of the labors of Lyon, which have been admired by some and maligned by others. The chapter concludes with a discussion of why we should care about how policy is framed and advises, Fortunately, no matter who its mouthpiece is, the voice of evidence is likely to be listened to most closely. So far, in reading policy, the voice of evidence has spoken (p. 459). The book concludes, full circle, with McCardle and Chhabras final chapter, which covers the accumulation of evidence. In this chapter, a litany of continuing research and evidence-gathering efforts currently underway and coming in the near future are described, including the National Literacy Panel, the National Literacy Panel Report on Language Minority Children and Youth, and the National Early Literacy Panel, among others. McCardle and Chhabra conclude the book by noting,
Research empowers us allteachers, parents, administrators, and researchersto reach the ultimate goal of ensuring that our children, teenagers, and adults have the most accurate, scientifically based information on effective instruction in reading and writing. This volume is meant for them. (p. 476)

The Voice of Evidence in Reading Research is an appropriate and perhaps even an indispensable book for any graduate-level course in reading research. It provides the student of reading research with an introduction to the basics of significant reading research methods and findings, as well as many evidence-based implications for classroom literacy instruction and literacy policy. Whether you agree or disagree with the contents of this book and its ideological positionthat the scientific method holds the answers to the problems associated with the issues of reading failure in todays classroomsone thing is for sure: You will not be disappointed by this book. Either you will find more to disparage as a critic or more to disseminate as a scientist.

REFERENCES
Camilli, G., Vargas, S., & Yurecko, M. (2003). Teaching children to read: The fragile link between science and federal education policy. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 11(5), 152. Kuhn, M. R., & Stahl, S. A. (2003). Fluency: A review of developmental and remedial practices. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 321. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read. Washington, DC: Author. Snow, C. (2001). RAND Reading Study GroupReading for understanding: Towards and R & D program in reading comprehension. Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement and U.S. Department of Education. Stanovich, P. J., & Stanovich, K. E. (2003). Using research and reason in education: How teachers can use scientifically based research to make curricular and instructional decisions. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research.