Accelerating Struggling Readers’ Progress: A Comparative Analysis of “Expert Opinion” and Research Recommendations

In this article, we review the findings of Rona Flippo\u27s (1998) “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 ) and Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children ( Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998 ). 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