Stop the Pendulum

Stop the Pendulum provides a history of reading instruction and school reform in the US since 1955. As K-12 teacher educators and university researchers, the authors share an accessible description of history and policy. Bursuck and Peck demonstrate their passion for their subject as they describe policies and reform trends and offer suggestions based on their experience to guide future efforts to improve educational reform. Through their research and vignettes, they attempt to motivate educators and policy makers to reach a consensus about how to best deliver reading instruction that meets a range of student needs in a way that teaches both decoding and comprehension skills. The authors take into account the research-based positions on all sides of the reading war. The connection they offer between history and personal experience allows readers to more deeply consider the impact of the history of reading instruction on students. Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.

The authors of Stop the Pendulum! have combined history and personal experience to create a highly informative and readable narrative of the last 50 years of the Reading Wars. Knowing the past and desiring that all children gain the gift of competent reading, educators should join the authors in choosing the "Radical Middle" where both decoding and comprehension are not just "balanced" but both are taught using the highest level of systematic, explicit instruction.

This book offers an excellent, comprehensive view of the history of reading politics and pedagogy. I wish it was going to be ready for my first cohort of urban reading specialists this summer.