Reading First, a program under the No Child Left Behind Act, is intended to bring research-based reading instruction to struggling schools through the awarding of grants. In an audit of New York's Reading First plan, investigators concluded that the state erred in awarding grants to eight districts and a charter school that did not meet the…

This article reports that educators and experts across the country who work with English-language learners (ELLs) are moving toward a consensus that the federal Reading First program needs to be refined to become more effective for children acquiring English. Administrators in several big-city districts with large numbers of such students are…