Although I have made the distinction many times, the “science of reading” (SOR) as a term denotes three distinct meanings simultaneously:

1. SOR as a movement, grounded in a pervasive yet misleading media narrative primarily associated with the journalism of Emily Hanford and then the manifestation of the narrative in political rhetoric and legislation/policy.
2. SOR as marketing and branding, a concurrent flood of reading programs and materials (very similar to the branding of materials during the Common Core era).
3. SOR as a blanket term for the broad and deep research base on reading than spans at least a century.

I have been contesting the most problematic aspects of SOR—the movement and the marketing/branding—because the misinformation has gained a status as “holy text”; more troubling is that nearly every state has now passed legislation and implemented SOR policy and practice.

In no uncertain terms, there is no longer a debate about the credibility of SOR because that credibility is its own odd multiverse—the movement claims are simultaneously false or misleading while existing in the real world as fact and narrow mandates (for example, structured literacy as the newest reading theory is often packaged as scripted curriculum).

The SOR movement has been driven primarily by people with no expertise or historical context for the narrative established in “Hard Words” and then amplified by “Sold a Story.”

Journalists, politicians, parents, and think tanks/advocacy groups have created a nearly unstoppable force because of a series of beliefs that have been perpetuated in the US for decades: public schools are failing, teachers are failing, and students are failing.

The SOR movement is little different than any other education movement in the US since the template is well established in crisis/miracle rhetoric that appeals to cultural and public beliefs.

Also the SOR movement has weaponized a reductive use of the term “science,” which shields the movement from criticism.

Anyone who dares to criticize—even with evidence—the SOR narrative is discounted as being against “science,” particularly effective in the wake of Covid era fraught with public and political debates about masking and vaccinations.

The missionary zeal of the SOR movement combined with market interests has erased all nuance and complexity from discussions of or implementing the broad and deep body of research on reading that is still evolving and better characterized by debate than being “simple and settled” (the earliest mantra driving the SOR movement in the media).

Over the past decades, SOR advocacy has made any criticism or debate come with great costs to the critics because of the zeal and even anger among SOR advocates on social media, a network of stake holders associated with dyslexia, phonics, and mainstream education reform (such as Jeb Bush’s ExcelinEd).

As I just recently posted, a survey of parents demonstrates the effectiveness of the SOR movement to turn false narratives into holy text.

The survey shows both that parents held relatively positive views of their children’s reading achievement and their teachers. But once those parents were exposed to the false narrative of SOR, their opinions were more negative. The misrepresentation of NAEP data and cueing/guessing was presented to parents as facts, and the change in opinions confirmed that the SOR false information is incredibly effective and mostly embraced uncritically:

The most shocking aspect of the developing SOR multiverse is that journalists, the public, and political leaders believe that 2/3 of students are not proficient readers and that same NAEP data show that 2/3 of students are reading at grade level or above—inverse “facts” simultaneously “true.”

Nearly as stunning is the Urban Legend around cueing and guessing that, again, simultaneously is believed by almost everyone while not existing in reality:

Narratives that speak into cultural beliefs are incredibly powerful, and bandwagons are difficult to slow down or reroute.

As a consequence truth and nuance are lost.

In a recent co-authored scholarly piece, colleagues and I confront the imbalance between the SOR movement/marketing and the full body of research on reading.

The responses to that article on social media and even among literacy scholars reflect the same problematic dynamic exposed in the survey of parents; nuance struggles to keep its head above water during a tidal wave.

I am currently at the annual NCTE convention and will present on a panel tomorrow about SOR; however, even at a professional conference, being critical of SOR is an outlier stance.

The SOR misinformation has won—at least for now.

In 5 or 10 years, the next reading crisis will somehow overwrite this one—simultaneously all of the century’s worth of reading crises existing and never having happened.

Just like now.

Now seems impossible, in fact, since “kids today” (no matter when “today” is) have never been proficient readers.

Yet, here we are, inexplicably harder to believe than Bigfoot.