Accelerating Struggling Readers' Progress: A Comparative Analysis of Expert Opinion and Current Research Recommendations

In this article, we review the findings of Rona Flippo's (1998) Flippo, R. F. 1998. Points of agreement: A display of professional unity in our field. The Reading Teacher, 52: 30–40. [Google Scholar] “Expert Study” within the comparative context of recently published reading research reports such as the National Reading Panel report ( National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000 2000. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read. Washington, DC [Google Scholar]) and Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children ( Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998 Snow, C. E., Burn, M. S. and Griffin, P. 1998. Preventing reading failure in young children., Washington, DC: National Academy Press.. [Google Scholar]). Does expert opinion square with research recommendations for helping young, struggling readers? Instructional practices that the experts categorized as either “making learning to read difficult” or “facilitating learning to read” are distilled into summary form. Areas of convergence and divergence between “expert opinion” and recent reading research recommendations are identified and discussed. Finally, recommendations of the “Expert Study” and recommendations of recent reading research reports are synthesized into a single set of instructional recommendations for accelerating the progress of struggling readers.