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Book review of The AcademicAchievement Challenge: WhatReally Works in the Classroom?by Jeanne ChallBarak RosenshinePublished online: 16 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Barak Rosenshine (2001) Book review of The AcademicAchievement Challenge: What Really Works in the Classroom? by Jeanne Chall,Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), 6:3, 309-311, DOI:10.1207/S15327671ESPR0603_13

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BOOK REVIEW

The Academic Achievement Challenge: What Really Works in the Class-room? Jeanne Chall, New York: Guilford Press, 2000, 210 pages, $25.00 (hard-cover).

Reviewed by Barak RosenshineDepartment of Educational Psychology

University of Illinois at Urbana

The Academic Achievement Challenge: What Really Works in the Classroom? wasJeanne Chall’s last book. It was completed shortly before she died in November1999. In this book, Chall identifies instructional procedures in the classroom andthe home that have resulted in improved student academic achievement. Under-lying this review of research, in each chapter, is a major problem that has hauntededucational research and practice throughout the 20th century: the conflict betweenthe empiricists, who base their recommendations on objective data, and the roman-tics, who favor progressive, student-led instruction. At one pole, we have romanticnotions of discovery learning and children joyfully teaching themselves. Theseideas have been expressed in Whole Language, Language Experience, Open Edu-cation, Discovery Learning, Student-Centered Education, Hands-On-Learning,and Constructivism. At the other pole, we have the results of empirical re-search—results that have shown the advantage of instructional support and system-atic instruction. Chall’s book provides research and thoughtful analysis on this un-relenting conflict.

The book begins with a history of trends and shifts in educational policy duringthe 20th century. Chall uses this material to assemble a comprehensive table ex-plaining the differences between romantic and empirical approaches in goals,methods, and the role of the teacher. Chall focuses this chapter on the competingideas of John Dewey and Robert Thorndike: Dewey sought to change societythrough educational reform and Thorndike saw education as a place to implementthe findings of laboratory research. Reluctantly, Chall sees Dewey as the winner in

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS PLACED AT RISK, 6(3), 309–311Copyright © 2001, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Barak Rosenshine, 2013 Cureton Drive, Urbana, IL61801–6225. E-mail: rosenshine@uiuc.edu

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educational practice because she believes that most educators prefer the multipleactivities that occur during student-centered instruction.

Chapter 4 is a scholarly history of the swings between student-centered andteacher-centered instruction in reading, math, science, and social studies. Thechapter summarizes a number of evaluations comparing the romantic and empiri-cal approaches. Chall notes that in the area of beginning reading, the research syn-theses by Chall (1967), Bond and Dykstra (1967), Adams (1990), and Snow,Burns, and Griffin (1998) all reached the same conclusion: The use of systematicphonics in primary grades results in better achievement. Chall asks, “Why do wenot accept the research findings and base our instruction on it?” (p. 65). The an-swer she gives is that most educators have a preference for student-centered in-struction and will not accept results that conflict with their ideology. Chall wrotethat the romantic view of children (and romantic is her term)

is imbued with love and hope. This view holds that a child learns to read as naturally ashe learns to speak, if only we encourage him to use his language and his cognitionwhen he reads interesting books. But sadly, this view has been proven by research,theory, and practice to be less effective than a code-emphasis, particularly for chil-dren who are at risk for learning to read. (pp. 67–68)

Chapter 5 presents a review of the empirical research in instructional proce-dures, particularly the process-outcome research as summarized by Gage and byBrophy and Good.

Chapter 6 summarizes descriptive studies of three progressive schools:Dewey’s laboratory school; Bertrand Russell’s Hill School; and the Gary, IndianaSchools. Chall describes the practices in these schools and notes the academic dif-ficulties the schools encountered in implementing their ideas on progressive edu-cation.

Chall concludes this book with two recommendations for improving the aca-demic achievement of our students: (a) a greater emphasis on a traditional,teacher-centered approach to instruction and curriculum and (b) the need for agreater awareness of scientific results in the education community. One problem,of course, is that in the past, scientific results have been rejected by those who putideology before data.

Thus, we note that after 50 years of extensive, heavily funded research, there isstill no common consensus regarding best teaching practice, no common body ofknowledge about instruction, and no common standards of practice. This problemis not due to a lack of research or of consistent, replicated findings. As Chall noted,“the problem, in beginning reading, is not the research. The results of the researchon beginning reading have been the same since the 1920s. The problem is gettingpeople to accept the results of this research.” And here, no compromise, no recon-ciliation has been possible. The romantics reject all objective test results, claiming

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that the tests are only testing “mere facts” and “rote learning.” Instead, the roman-tics make unsupported claims that their methods will lead to critical thinking skillsand problem-solving abilities. But, as research has shown, expertise in any area ishighly dependent on well-organized, extensive, overlearned, and accessible back-ground knowledge—the very knowledge that is dismissed by romantics.

Chall notes systematic instruction is particularly effective for those who enterschool with limited knowledge, language, experience, and skills, regardless of so-cial class. She writes that, “The traditional teacher-centered education works forchildren with learning difficulties because it provides more structure, more sup-port, and more systematic instruction than does a progressive, child-centered ap-proach” (p. 177). This instructional support includes providing students withprompts, scaffolds, and guided practice. This support includes sequencing mate-rial so that confusion is minimized, teaching small amounts of new material andthen providing for practice, and providing for sufficient practice until mastery isobtained. If there is any “learning style,” it is that students from low-income fami-lies profit when they receive a great deal of instructional support. But it is unfortu-nate that these very supports and scaffolds are rejected by the romantics in theirmisguided efforts to help children. The losers, in this conflict, are children fromless advantaged families.

REFERENCES

Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MITPress.

Bond, G. L., & Dykstra, R. (1967). The cooperative research program in first-grade reading instruction.Reading Research Quarterly, 2, 5–142 (Reprinted in 1997 as a special issue of the Reading ResearchQuarterly).

Chall, J. S. (1967). Learning to read: The great debate. New York: McGraw Hill.Snow, C., Burns, S., & Griffin, P. (Eds.). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children.

Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

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