This column originally appeared on RealClearEducation.com on July 10, 2014.

When I talk to educators about research, their most common complaint (by a long shot) is that they are asked to implement new interventions (a curriculum, a pedagogical technique, a software product, whatever), and are offered no reason to do so other than a breezy “all the research supports it.” The phrase is used as a blunt instrument to silence questions. As a scientist I find this infuriating because it abuses what ought to be a serious claim—research backs this—and in so doing devalues research. It’s an ongoing problem (see Jessica & Tim Lahey’s treatment here) that’s long concerened me.

In fact, the phrase “research supports it” invites questions. It implies that we can, in a small way, predict the future. It claims “if we do X, Y will happen.” If I take this medication, my ear infection will go away. If we adopt this new curriculum, kids will be more successful in learning math. Saying “research supports it” implies that you know not only what the intervention is, but you have at least a rough idea of what outcome you expect, the likelihood that it will happen, and when it will happen.

I offer the following list of rights for educators who are asked to change what they are doing in the name of research, whether it’s a mandate handed down from administrator to teacher or from lawmaker to administrator.

1.       The right to know what is supposed to improve. What problem is being solved? For example, when I’ve been to schools or districts implementing a one-to-one tablet/laptop policy, I’ve always asked what it’s meant to do. The modal response is a blank look followed by the phrase “we don’t want our kids left behind.” Behind in what? In what way are kids elsewhere with devices zooming ahead?

2.       The right to know the means by which improvement will be measured. How will we know things are getting better? If you’re trying to improve students’ understanding of math, for example, are you confident that you have a metric that captures that construct? Are you sure scores on that metric will be comparable in the future to those you’re looking at now? How big an increase will be deemed a success?

3.       The right to know the approximate time by which this improvement is expected. A commitment to an intervention shouldn’t be open-ended. At some point we must evaluate how it’s going.

4.       The right to know what will be done if the goal is or is not met. Naturally, conditions may change, but let’s have a plan. If we don’t meet our target, will we quit? Keep trying for a while? Tweak it?

5.       The right to know what evidence exists that the intervention will work as expected. Is the evidence from actual classrooms or is it laboratory science (plus some guesswork)? If classrooms, were they like ours? In how many classrooms was it tried?

6.       The right to have your experience and expertise acknowledged. If the intervention sounds to you and your colleagues like it cannot work, this issue should be addressed in detail, not waved away with the phrase “all the research supports it.” The fact that it sounds fishy to experienced people doesn’t mean it can’t work, but whoever is pitching it should have a deep enough understanding of the mechanisms behind the intervention to be able to say why it sounds fishy, and why that’s not a problem.

This list is not meant to dictate criteria that must be met before an intervention should be tried, but rather what information ought to be on the table. In other words, the information provided in each category need not unequivocally support the intervention for it to be legitimate. For example, I can imagine an administrator admitting that the research support for an intervention is absent, yet mounting a case for why it should be tried anyway.

This list should also be considered a work in progress. I invite your additions or emendations.

This article first appeared at RealClearEducation.com on June 26, 2014

According to an article in the New York Times, the American Academy of Pediatrics will soon recommend that children be read to from birth. The Academy also wants pediatricians to make this recommendation every time a baby visits the doctor. It’s a good idea, but it could use some fine-tuning.

As most readers of RealClearEducation know, reading aloud to children is associated with a variety of good academic outcomes, including improved vocabulary, better understanding of more complex syntax, improved phonemic awareness, , and the beginnings of letter knowledge and knowledge of the alphabetic principle (e.g., Lonigan & Shanahan, 2008).

It’s worth noting that most of these studies are correlational, and so a host of genetic and environmental factors could be what are actually prompting differences in outcomes among kids. (Naturally, researchers do their best to statistically remove out these factors when they analyze the data).  The problem in doing a true experiment (in which we randomly assign people to read to their kids or not) is that it’s hard to get people to sign on to read daily (or to refrain from it) for months or years—and we might expect that it would take that long to see results. Shorter-term experiments have been conducted and reading aloud actually shows little or no benefit unless a particular reading aloud strategy--dialogic reading—is used (Justice & Pullen, 2003; Mol et al., 2008).

Even though the evidence is not as iron-clad as we’d like, I don’t think the American Academy of Pediatrics is going out on a limb rashly. I think reading aloud to children is good advice. Still, there are a couple of ways I’d tweak the suggestion.

First, “from birth” is too early. It’s too early because parents of newborns really do have other, more pressing things to think about such as sleeping, and figuring out how family routines change with the new family member. It’s also too early because a newborn probably is not getting that much out of being read to. Newborn can’t really see much of a book—their vision is 20/500, and they don’t see blues very well until around age 3 months. And babies are much more social at a few months of age. My fear is that parents of newborns will either ignore the advice given their other concerns, or try to follow it, find it unrewarding, and drop it. The American Academy of Pediatrics might do better to direct members to recommend read-alouds beginning when children are to get the set of immunizations delivered at 4 months of age.

Second, telling parents might help, but this advice is more likely to take hold if you not only tell them, but also make it easy for them to carry it out. One way would be for pediatricians to have age-appropriate books that parents could take home for read-alouds. This would not be terribly costly, and if the publicity is not enough to entice a publisher like Scholastic to take it on, I would think that a foundation could be persuaded to help.

Pediatricians can also increase the chances that their advice will be heeded if they tell parents the basics of a good read-aloud. Jim Trelease has written an entire book on the subject (and it’s excellent) but some important principles could be summarized on a bookmark. Here are a few, taken from my own book on reading, which will be published this winter:

·         Read aloud at the same time each day, to help make it a habit.

·         Read a little slower than you think you need to. Even simple stories are challenging for children.

·         Don’t demand perfect behavior from your child.

·         Use a dramatic voice. Ham it up. Your child is not judging your acting ability.

It’s nice to see that the American Academy of Pediatrics is using its position to try to improve early child education. It would be a shame if minor, readily-correctable details prevented the program from having the impact it might.

References:

Justice, L. M. & Pullen, P. C. (2003). Promising interventions for promoting emergent literacy skills: Three evidence-based approaches. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 23, 99-113.

Lonigan, C. J., & Shanahan, T. (2008). Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. A Scientific Synthesis of Early Literacy Development and Implications for Intervention. National Institute for Literacy. Downloaded from http://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/NELPReport09.pdf

 Mol, S. E., Bus, A. G., Jong, M. T. de, & Smeets, D. J. H. (2008). Added value of dialogic parent-child book readings: A meta-analysis. Early Education and Development, 19,  7-26.