Question

Read the argument below and complete the instructions that follow.

(1) American schools should utilize a national curriculum to ensure that all students graduate from the public school system with the same background, knowledge, and skills. (2) Currently, there is a great variation in the content to which students are exposed depending on what school they attend, where they live, and even how much money families have to invest in education. (3) This observation is particularly evident in English classes because there is a lot of variation between the literature read in classrooms across the country. (4) In 1992, the National Council of Teachers of English gathered data from schools in the United States to research the most frequently required titles in grades 9 through 12. (5) The study found that there are substantial differences between the percentage of public schools covering these titles (ranging from 54% to 84%) and the percentage of private schools covering these titles (ranging from 34% to 74%). (6) While it is true that the most frequently required titles are not necessarily the best or most representative of available titles, a national curriculum can ensure that students may start college familiar with a foundation in literature pivotal to American culture and cultures around the world.


Evaluate the argument above, paying special attention the evidence used. For each sentence, identify the type of evidence that is used. If the sentence is an opinion, describe what evidence or what combination of evidence would best support the opinion. If the sentence expresses a fact, describe what further evidence or information is needed to verify its accuracy.

Answer 1

Teaching reading well is far more complicated than it might seem to a casual observer. Reading is a skill that can be developed by some learners regardless of the quality of instruction they receive, and an able and well-prepared child can make the experience of learning to read look fairly effortless. What casual observers may miss is the extent of knowledge and preparation a skillful teacher brings to a classroom that may include students with a range of impediments to learning to read. Successful reading teachers—and we include both teachers of elementary students in the early stages of reading, and teachers of older students who are struggling with reading—understand how students learn to read and how to provide the support they need.

Yet this description hardly captures the complexity of preparing students to flourish in the workplace and in a society that requires high-level uses of text. Teachers of reading are called on to prepare students to interpret complex ideas, critically analyze arguments, synthesize information from multiple sources, and use reading to build their knowledge. When literacy is measured by these criteria, the literacy crisis in the United States is evident.

According to the most recent “reading report card” for the nation (Lee, Grigg, and Donahue, 2007), 67 percent of 4th graders and 74 percent of 8th graders are scoring at minimal levels of reading competency. There has been no significant improvement in reading achievement at grades 8 and 12 since 1992, and the achievement gaps for historically underperforming subgroups have not been reduced (Grigg, Donahue, and Dion, 2007; Lee,

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Suggested Citation:"5 Preparing Reading Teachers." National Research Council. 2010. Preparing Teachers: Building Evidence for Sound Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12882. ×

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Grigg, and Donahue, 2007). Furthermore, 4th- and 8th-grade students who are English-language learners scored 36 and 42 standard-scale points, respectively, below the performance of native speakers of English in 2007 (Lee, Grigg, and Donahue, 2007).

In this chapter we first briefly discuss the general state of research on reading. The next four sections address the four questions presented in Chapter 4 as applied to reading:

What are students expected to know and be able to do to be successful readers?

What instructional opportunities are necessary to support successful students?

What do successful teachers know about reading and how to teach reading?

What instructional opportunities are necessary to prepare successful teachers?

We then turn to what is known about how teachers are currently being prepared to teach reading, and we close with our conclusions.

Answer 2

Answer: For "facts" students must identify the type of evidence provided. For opinions, students must give an answer that shows an understanding of the different types of evidence and the strengths and weaknesses of using each. Here is an example:

1. Opinion: The author should use a combination of empirical and testimonial evidence to support the idea that graduating students with the same background, knowledge, and skills will help them succeed in postsecondary endeavors.

2. Fact: The evidence is sentence two could be statistical, testimonial, or empirical depending on what the author used to support this claim. Ideally, this supporting premise would be backed up with a bit of all three.

3. Fact: The evidence is sentence three could be statistical, testimonial, or empirical depending on what the author used to support this claim. Ideally, this supporting premise would be backed up with a bit of all three.

4. Fact: The author needs to give a citation for the study to support this fact.

5. Statistic: The author needs to provide the context and results of the study to make this statistic a strong supporting premise.

6. Opinion: The author should use a combination of empirical and testimonial evidence to support the idea that graduating students with the same background in literature will help them succeed in college. The author also needs to provide evidence, perhaps testimonial, to support the idea that frequently required titles in schools usually include texts that are "pivotal" to American culture and cultures around the world. The author also needs to explain the definition of "pivotal."

Step-by-step explanation:

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