Dear Colleague: The Office of Educational Research and Improvement's (OERI) Office of Research is inviting applications to establish a National Reading Research Center to conduct research and associated activities in reading and related areas. Enclosed please find a copy of "Application for A Grant Under the Educational Research and Development Center Program" (OMB No. 1850-0602). This document contains (a) Application Instructions, (b) Center Mission, (c) Guidance for Preparing An Application, (d) Required Forms, and (e) Code of Federal Regulations 34 CFR Parts 706 and 708. Other regulations applicable to this program are contained in the Education Department General Administrative Regulations, 34 CFR Parts 74, 75, 77, 81, 82, 85, and 86. Please note that the Secretary gives an absolute preference to applications that meet the following priority: English Literacy, including reading, writing, and language skills (34 CFR 706.3(b)(19)). Estimated funding levels for this cooperative agreement over a five year project period are listed in the Federal Register Notice Inviting Applications. Applications for an institutional award must be postmarked by October 18, 1991. The enclosed information has been prepared to assist you with the preparation of your grant application. If you need additional assistance, please write to Dr. Anne P. Sweet at the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 555 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20208-5648 or contact her by telephone at (202) 219-2021. We look forward to receiving and reviewing your application. Sincerely, Milton Goldberg Director Office of Research FEDERAL REGISTER NOTICE 4000-01 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION (CFDA No.: 84.117A) Educational Research and Development Centers Program Notice inviting applications for a new award for fiscal year (FY) 1992. PURPOSE OF PROGRAM: To support a national research and development center to conduct research and related activities in the area of reading. ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS: The following parties are eligible to apply for an award for a Research and Development Center: institutions of higher education, institutions of higher education in consort with public agencies or private nonprofit organizations, and interstate agencies established by compact that operate subsidiary bodies established to conduct postsecondary educational research and development. DEADLINE FOR TRANSMITTAL OF APPLICATIONS: October 18, 1991. APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE: July 17, 1991 AVAILABLE FUNDS: This Center will be awarded as a cooperative agreement. Funding for the first year of the National Reading Research Center will be up to $1.2 million. The following table indicates the estimated funding levels over the five-year project period. The funding levels for years 2 through 5 are estimates depending upon the availability of funds and needs as reflected in the approved application. First Year Funding $1.2 Million (up to) Second Year Funding $1.5 Million Third Year Funding $1.6 Million Fourth Year Funding $1.7 Million Fifth Year Funding $1.8 Million Five Year Total $7.8 Million. ESTIMATED NUMBER OF AWARDS: 1. PROJECT PERIOD: Up to 60 months. APPLICABLE REGULATIONS: (a) The Education Department General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR) in 34 CFR Parts 74, 75, 77, 81, 82, 85, and 86; and (b) The regulations for this program in 34 CFR Parts 706 and 708. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On April 30, 1991, the Secretary published a notice in the FEDERAL REGISTER soliciting written comments on a research agenda for reading, content, and related areas. The Secretary has decided to fund a National Reading Research Center to address many of the issues raised by commenters in response to the notice. The mission statement describing the areas of research the Secretary is particularly interested in supporting under the National Reading Research Center will be found in the application package. These areas of research include: instructional strategies for at-risk students; evaluation of instructional approaches; alternative assessments of student learning; teacher education and instructional interventions; reading and learning from school textbooks and other content materials; reading acquisition and cognition; and the sociocultural contexts within which reading takes place. PRIORITY: Under 34 CFR 75.105(c)(3) and 34 CFR 706.3(b), the Secretary gives an absolute preference to applications that meet the following priority. The Secretary funds under this competition only an application that meets this absolute priority. Research on Reading and Literacy. (English Literacy, including reading, writing, and language skills (34 CFR 706.3(b)(19)). SELECTION CRITERIA: In evaluating applications for grants under this program competition, the Secretary uses the selection criteria in 34 CFR 708.11. The program regulations in 34 CFR 706.20(b) and (d) provide that the Secretary may award up to 100 points for the selection criteria, including a reserved 10 points. For this competition, the 10 points are added to plan of operation (34 CFR 708.11(c)), for a possible total of 25 points. FOR APPLICATIONS OR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Anne P. Sweet, U.S. Department of Education, OERI, Office of Research, Room 606D, 555 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20208-5648. Telephone: (202) 219-2021. Deaf and hearing impaired individuals may call the Federal Dual Party Relay Service at 1-800-877-8339 (in the Washington, D.C. 202 area code, telephone 708-9300) between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., Eastern time. PROGRAM AUTHORITY 20 U.S.C. 1221e. Dated: July 8, 1991 Bruno V. Manno Acting Assistant Secretary for Educational Research and Improvement National Reading Research Center Mission Statement Initial Year Funding: $1.2 Million Duration of Award: 5 Years Type of Award: Cooperative Agreement I. Introduction Reading is a foundation for learning across the school curriculum. The ability to read enables people to function independently in the everyday world and to engage in lifelong learning. How do our students measure up in terms of their reading proficiency for acquiring content knowledge in school and for independent living and learning after they graduate from high school? Trend data (1971-88) showing the results of NAEP reading assessments of 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students show that overall, for students across the three ages, reading performance was as good as, if not slightly better than it was two decades earlier. Nonetheless, the levels of reading proficiency show that the greatest gains have occurred in lower-level skills, while the greatest decline has occurred in higher level applications. In other words, although most students appear to have developed the ability to read at a literal level of understanding as they progress through school, it seems that they have not overcome difficulties in analyzing and synthesizing what they read. By age 17, fewer than half of the students tested in the 1988 NAEP assessment were able to consistently understand, summarize, and explain relatively complex information. President Bush and the Nation's governors met at a historic education summit in Charlottesville where it was declared that "the time has come, for the first time in United States history, to establish clear national performance goals, goals that will make us internationally competitive." Six national goals emerged as a first step in carrying out this imperative. Becoming a competent reader underlies these goals. On April 18, 1991, President Bush unveiled his Education Strategy. AMERICA 2000 is a long-range plan to move every community in America toward achieving the national education goals adopted by the President and the Governors last year. Students' ability to read and American schools' ability to teach our children to read permeate AMERICA 2000's four related themes: (1) Creating better and more accountable schools for today's students; (2) Creating a New Generation of American Schools for tomorrow's students; (3) Transforming America into a Nation of students; and (4) Making our communities places where learning will happen. The current generation must become literate enough to meet the demands of the future, as we enter the twenty- first century. The admonition set forth by the National Academy of Education's Commission on Reading in its landmark report, Becoming a Nation of Readers (1985), rings true as urgently today as it did when these words were first written. "The world is moving into a technological- information age in which full participation in education, science, business, industry, and the professions requires increasing levels of literacy. What was a satisfactory level of literacy in 1950 probably will be marginal by the year 2000." It is clear that the pace toward reaching substantially higher levels of reading proficiency must be accelerated dramatically if we are to achieve the national education goals within the time-lines specified. All of those involved with improving education count on education research to guide them in their judgements. Education research contributes to the improvement of teaching and learning in schools, and research on reading has provided the basis for some of the most significant contributions. These contributions interface with the cognitive revolution that has unfolded during the previous two decades. An explosion of knowledge has accrued about how people learn, remember, and reason. We have learned much about the knowledge and abilities that distinguish experts from novices. We have learned much about how people learn in school as compared to the real world. We have learned much about self-regulation and how it is a key aspect of skilled reading. There remains much more to be learned about these and related understandings, and the unique role each one plays in More <[Y],N,C,A,J>? { students' acquisition of reading proficiency. II,@MzUˋW.HP,]Zities The National Reading Research Center will engage in research aimed at improving reading proficiency for all students, and thereby improving the Nation's level of literacy. The Center will strive to develop a broad, comprehensive model of reading acquisition that integrates the various cognitive, social, motivational, cultural, and instructional elements that play a role in the reading process and learning to read. Within this framework, the Center's primary objective will be to understand more fully how students learn to read, the strategies they use as they become better readers, their use of acquired reading skills in learning content knowledge, and the myriad of factors that influence the acquisition and development of reading proficiency, including the context in which reading takes place. A second objective will be to understand more fully the nature of the reading process particularly as it pertains to students at-risk for reading failure, the relevance of reading to learning content subjects, and the relationship between reading and writing, and other literacy skills. A third objective will be to understand more fully the phenomenon of current instructional trends and interventions, including issues related to the education of teachers he implementation of new teaching models and instructional strategies, and the evaluation of instruction and student progress. The National Reading Research Center will engage in (1) systematic, longer term research aimed at broadening our understanding of the many aspects of reading and expanding the theories upon which future research may be based; and (2) shorter term research aimed at improving the teaching and learning of reading in American schools. The student populations to be studied include students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds at all grade levels, pre-kindergarten through high school. III. Illustrative Center Activities Through a thorough and extended planning process, OERI identified the specific research activities listed below as particularly important and appropriate to the National Reading Research Center's mission. In order to meet the Nation's most pressing educational needs, OERI is encouraging applicants to be responsive to these activities, especially those marked with an asterisk (*). This list, however, is neither exhaustive nor exclusive. Applicants may choose not to incorporate all the topics in their proposals, just as they may propose alternative topics consistent with the Center's mission. Applicants should be sure to include a detailed rationale for how the studies incorporated in their proposals form a coherent research agenda for this Center. Applicants should also list and describe in detail each study proposed. Learning The ability to read is key to enabling students to achieve success in and outside of the school setting. An important prerequisite for improving the literacy level of all learners is to understand the ways in which students acquire and develop proficiency in reading. Areas of inquiry critical to improving students' ability to read and related literacy skills include: * o the ways in which knowledge is acquired in school subjects through reading content texts * o early literacy learning and the influence brought to bear by home, school and community environments o the role of composing and writing in the acquisition of reading proficiency o reading processes and the dynamics that unfold during the acquisition of reading proficiency o the ways in which alternate forms of reading, writing, and communicating through technological means bear upon the development of reading proficiency o the ways in which motivational and environmental factors affect the acquisition and development of students' reading proficiency o the ways in which neuroscience can contribute to our understanding of the reading process and how students learn to read and read to learn Instruction Effective reading instruction involves teaching students higher-order cognitive learning and reasoning, whereby students develop the ability to acquire new knowledge in other school subjects. An important prerequisite for raising the reading proficiency level of all students is to understand how best to engage them in learning to read and reading to learn. Areas of inquiry critical to promoting the effective teaching of reading include: * o the ways in which new instructional approaches (i.e., whole language, phonemic awareness training) affect beginning readers, particularly at-risk learners * o instructional strategies that facilitate learning from text and textbooks in content area school subjects * o models that connect effective teaching practices and the education of teachers, both preservice and inservice o the ways in which new models of teaching and instructional organization (e.g., cognitive apprenticeship, cooperative learning, conversational discussion) impact students' reading proficiency o instructional interventions and strategies aimed at the prevention of reading failure that take into account the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students o instructional strategies that use technological advances to teach reading to students at all grade levels o instructional strategies that take into account the contexts in which reading takes place and related factors that influence the development of reading proficiency Assessment The assessment of students' ability to read will continue to play a dominant role in society's need to gauge the effectiveness of reading instruction in American schools, students' aptitude for academic learning up through post- secondary education, and students' readiness to enter the work force. Given the variety of decisions that are made about students, schools, and schooling, based upon reading test scores, it is critical that assessments of reading proficiency reflect our current understanding about what reading is. Areas of inquiry critical to promoting the development of authentic reading proficiency measures include: * o the effectiveness of current and new measures of reading proficiency * o measures of reading proficiency that align instruction with assessment in ecologically valid ways and take into account multiple purposes and audiences o outcome measures for new forms of reading instruction (e.g., Reading Recovery; whole language) o measures of reading proficiency that distinguish reading competence from background and content knowledge and that take into account factors such as motivation and interest o authentic assessments that measure students' growth in reading proficiency within prescribed instructional programs o alternative assessments of reading proficiency that take into account culturally and linguistically diverse students o assessments of teaching strategies that take into account the dynamics of classroom "cultures" IV. Anticipated Benefits The National Reading Research Center will disseminate the results of its research to a wide audience--education practitioners, parents, researchers, policymakers, textbook publishers, and other members of the business community--with an end toward heightening students' literacy level. The anticipated benefits of the Center's work are two-fold: o Broadening the foundation for future research. Expanding current theories on reading and building new ones will add significantly to our knowledge-base about reading and literacy learning. The insights that we gain from sustained research efforts will ultimately lead to improvements and refinements in the way we teach reading in our Nation's schools. The net result will undoubtedly be made apparent by marked rises in students' level of reading proficiency. o Improving classroom practice. We have accrued a rich knowledge-base that is ripe with practicable research findings, and there are some specific strategies that teachers can use to enable their students to acquire reading proficiency more readily. Although the Center's longer term aim is to affect broad improvements in classroom practice, the Center's shorter term objective should be directed at initiating immediate changes and easing transitions in the ways that reading is taught in American classrooms. V. Special Instructions The National Reading Research Center (NRRC) is expected to embrace the belief that theory must be grounded in practice. Moreover, researchers and practitioners may assume alternating roles--that is, researchers and practitioners are equally teacher and learner, leader and follower. Collaborations among teacher-researcher colleagues will increase the likelihood that the fruits of the Center's research will be assimilated readily into everyday practice in classrooms. The Center is also expected to exhibit a commitment to nurturing a program of research that is multidimensional and interdisciplinary. The Center will integrate divergent views and study the development of reading proficiency from multiple perspectives--cognitive, linguistic, sociocultural, and contextual. Moreover, the Center is expected to coordinate its research efforts with the Writing and Literacy Center and other OERI R&D Centers whose programs of research include studies on aspects of reading and literacy. In addition, the National Reading Research Center is expected to work cooperatively with OERI's Regional Laboratories, the ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills, and the National Diffusion Network to disseminate research findings and other products. Finally, the Center is encouraged to maintain an appropriate professional affiliation with such organizations as the International Reading Association, the National Reading Conference, the National Council of Teachers of English, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, and the American Educational Research Association. Read what bulletin(s), L)ist, S)ince, N)ews ([ENTER] = none)? 39 min left MAIN command ?