Today I saw a representative from SRA present her materials on Directed Instruction. It seems it is all scripted and leaves little room for variation. All the success seems to point to following the program as is. I am wondering if any of her are using the program and how you set it up, if you are using it. Homogeneous grouping (reading levels) seems to be an absolute here. I just doubt if we can achieve that one. 

Our special services (special ed.) will be adopting it this fall. In fact, they intend to do the screening shortly. It is mainly concerned with getting nonreaders, reading on a 7th grade level in just a few years. After that, they can read anything! Any thoughts? 

Response:  I hope SRA has changed since the eighties.  I got in trouble with my teacher.  I read all of them by January.  They didn't know what to do with me next. I got to go to the library and check out a book during SRA time once a week but I wasn't allowed to take the book home because I would read it.  Funny, isn't that the point of books.

From what I remember, they were boring and you really didn't need to read the whole thing to get the answers for the test.  I don't know very many people who like them but I also, don't know anyone who has looked at them in the last 5 years.  Have they changed? 

Response:  Our entire district is now supposed to be using SRA Corrective Reading for Reading Mastery (lower level) classes.. We hate it.. One of our best teachers quit over it. The rest of the teachers have pretty much subverted it.. I, on the other hand, have all high level regular Reading classes and so don't have to teach it.. The reason, though, I have all the higher level classes is because I've threw such a fit over this program. As for the kids.. Well, one wrote a letter to the school board rep because he thought he was being treated as if he were stupid. Others have just told their teachers to stop treating them as if they're dumb. They tell us it's boring. It's dumb. And it's not reading. I also have the background on those nice little paragraphs in the Series Guide they give you (on pages 6& 8) which supposedly support their claims as to how good the program is...

Response:  From what I remember, they were boring and you really didn't need to read the whole thing to get the answers for the test.

Response:  I used those cards too, but they are not Direct Instruction. The cards have been around since the 50's. I remember going through to the purple color and then having no more. DI is a TOTALLY different program and you can find out about it by going to edresearch.com. My friend wrote the book on the research on the program. There IS a lot of controversy about the program, but when it is used correctly and teachers believe in it—it really, really works. 

Response:  I don't have any research to back it up and many disagree with me, however, with struggling readers I think you need to figure out how to hook them and make them love reading. SRA seems very punitive to me. It seems like drudgery.

April 2002