[Header Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash]
[Revised and Updated]
Increasingly since around 2012, the media story around the “science of reading” has resulted in legislation that bans targeted reading instruction and mandates limited reading program options for schools, teachers, and students.
Concurrently, literacy scholars have documented that key aspects of the SOR media story are false, and thus, legislation based on the media SOR story is misguided and likely to be ineffective or harmful.
Scholars have documented that the following elements of the media SOR story are misleading or false:
- The US has a reading crisis because of reading programs not aligned with SOR and based in balanced literacy instead.
- SOR is settled science that is reflected in NRP reports and the simple view of reading (SVR).
- Students have not been afforded systematic phonics instruction that must be implemented for all students before they can comprehend or even “love” to read.
- The reading crisis includes misidentifying and under-serving students with dyslexia, who represent a large percentage of students struggling to read at grade level.
- The evidence of a reading crisis is NAEP data.
While there is a great deal of scholarly research available, such as two targeted issues of highly regarded Reading Research Quarterly, below is a listing of open-access scholarship that refutes the media story around SOR and establishes why reading legislation based on that SOR story should be rejected or revised:
- The Science of Reading and the Media: Is Reporting Biased?, Maren Aukerman
- The Science of Reading and the Media: Does the Media Draw on High-Quality Reading Research?, Maren Aukerman
- The Science of Reading and the Media: How Do Current Reporting Patterns Cause Damage?, Maren Aukerman
- Legislating Phonics: Settled Science or Political Polemics? David Reinking, George G. Hruby, and Victoria J. Risko
- On the latest obsession with phonics, David Reinking, Peter Smagorinsky and David Yaden
- To Cue or Not to Cue: Is That the Question? Jill Kerper Mora
- Megan Chaffin, Holly Sheppard Riesco, Kathryn Hackett-Hill, Vicki Collet, Megan Yates Grizzle & Jacob Warren (2023) “Phonics Monkeys” and “Real Life Reading”: Heteroglossic Views of a State Reading Initiative, Literacy Research and Instruction, DOI: 10.1080/19388071.2023.2271085
- The Broken Logic of “Sold a Story”: A Personal Response to “The Science of Reading,” Tom Newkirk [Click link on title and then choose the “Read the Book” link below the title on the landing page.]
- Fact-checking the Science of Reading, Rob Tierney and P David Pearson
These open-access scholarly examinations of the SOR movement should be used to advocate for an accurate characterization of reading and reading instruction, to address the individual needs of all students, to support the professional autonomy of teachers, and to call for reading legislation that avoids sweeping bans, narrow mandates, and creating yet more profit for the education marketplace.
Recommended
The Balancing Act: An Evidence-Based Approach to Teaching Phonics, Reading and Writing, Dominic Wyse and Charlotte Hacking
Reading wars or reading reconciliation? A critical examination of robust research evidence, curriculum policy and teachers’ practices for teaching phonics and reading, Dominic Wyse and Alice Bradbury
Decoding, reading and writing: the double helix theory of teaching, Dominic Wyse and Charlotte Hacking
Unsettling the Science of Reading: Who Is Being Sold a Story?, Nick Covington
See Also
[4-article series at English Journal]
Thomas, P.L. (2024, March). We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: The long (and tedious) history of reading crisis. English Journal, 113(4), 21-26. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024113421
Thomas, P.L. (2023, November). Everything you know is wrong: The “science of reading” era of reading legislation. Perspectives and Provocations, (11), 1-17. https://drive.google.com/file/d/12fAfLV1pCh7ZXV-UFsTftFd7y_MLSK-O/view
Compton-Lilly, C., Spence, L.K., Thomas, P.L., & Decker, S.L. (2023, November 2). Stories grounded in decades of research: What we truly know about the teaching of reading. The Reading Teacher. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2258
[Update]
Compton-Lilly, C., Spence, L.K., Thomas, P.L. and Decker, S.L. (2024), A Response to our Critics: Agreements, Clarifications, and Children. Read Teach. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2298
Thomas, P.L. (2023, September). NEPC review: Teacher prep review: Strengthening elementary reading instruction. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. https://nepc.colorado.edu/review/teacher-prep
Thomas, P.L. (2023). The Science of Reading Era: Seeking the “Science” in Yet Another Anti-Teacher Movement. Journal of Reading Recovery, 22(5), 5-17. https://readingrecovery.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/JRR_22-2_spring_2023_thomas.pdf
Thomas, P.L. (2023). The “Science of Reading,” Education Faddism, and the Failure to Honor the Intellectual Lives of All Children: On Deficit Lenses and Ignoring Class and Race Stereotyping. Voices in the Middle, 30(3), 17-21. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/vm202332439
Thomas, P.L. (2022). The Science of Reading movement: The never-ending debate and the need for a different approach to reading instruction. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/science-of-reading
A Critical Examination of Grade Retention as Reading Policy (white paper). Prepared for the Ohio Education Association in response to Ohio’s “Third Grade Reading Guarantee,” September 15, 2022.