Many of the nation’s children have problems learning to read. If they don’t get the help they need, these children will fall behind in school and struggle with reading throughout their lives.
Although parents, teachers, and school officials work hard to help kids learn to read, there have been many different ideas about what ways of teaching reading worked the best - and some ideas contradicted each other.
Congress asked the NICHD and the U.S. Department of Education to form the National Reading Panel to evaluate existing research about reading and, based on the evidence, determine what methods work best for teaching children to read.