The following series addressing the “science of reading” movement will appear in English Journal from spring into fall: We Teach English in Times of Perpetual Crisis.
These will be open access and added below when published:
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
[Header Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash]
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
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.
Writing in NCTE’s Elementary English (known as Language Arts since 1975), Lou LaBrant offered a bold proclamation that resonates still today: “This is not the time for the teacher of any language to follow the line of least resistance, to teach without the fullest possible knowledge of the implications of his medium” (1947, p. 94).
LaBrant entered the classroom in 1906, and after experiencing forced retirement in her 60s, she found ways to remain in the field at historically Black colleges, finally retiring fully in 1971 from Dillard University. This impressively long career sits at the center of an impressively long life, living until she was 102 after writing her memoir at 100.
The embodiment of Deweyian Progressivism, LaBrant was equally demanding of herself as she was of others—particularly educators. Her high standards and blunt speaking and writing style make her appealing and often intimidating.
Her piece from 1947 also includes other statements I have repeated in my public and scholarly work:
A brief consideration will indicate reasons for the considerable gap between the research currently available and the utilization of that research in school programs and methods…. (p. 87)
It is not strange, in view of the extensive literature on language, that the teacher tends to fall back upon the textbook as authority, unmindful of the fact that the writer of the text may himself be ignorant of the basis for his study. (pp. 88-89)
LaBrant, L. (1947, January). Research in language. Elementary English, 24(1), 86-94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41383425
Seventy-six years later, LaBrant could just as easily be speaking into the current “science of reading” (SOR) debate that centers research (“science”) and the imbalance of authority often conceded to reading programs.
Some, in fact, may be compelled to assume LaBrant would be an outspoken advocate for SOR. However, LaBrant’s scholarship and practice offer a window into why the SOR movement is misguided and misleading, specifically about the central role of pursuing “scientific” instruction.
To understand that the current SOR is a misuse of the term “scientific” we should reach back a bit farther in LaBrant’s career to 1931:
The cause for my wrath is not new or single. It is of slow growth and has many characteristics. It is known to many as a variation of the project method; to me, as the soap performance. With the project, neatly defined by theorizing educators as “a purposeful activity carried to a successful conclusion,” I know better than to be at war. With what passes for purposeful activity and is unfortunately carried to a conclusion because it will kill time, I have much to complain. To be, for a moment, coherent: I am disturbed by the practice, much more common than our publications would indicate, of using the carving of little toy boats and castles, the dressing of quaint dolls, the pasting of advertising pictures, and the manipulation of clay and soap as the teaching of English literature. (p. 245)
LaBrant, L. (1931, March). Masquerading. The English Journal, 20(3), 244-246. http://www.jstor.org/stable/803664
In the first couple decades of the 1900s, John Dewey practiced and developed a progressive approach to teaching and learning that was grounded in his call for scientific instruction and holistic approaches to education. Many associate Dewey with “learning by doing,” a relatively fair summary but one that is ripe for misapplication.
Similar to what has been repeated in educational practice for at least a century, William Heard Kilpatrick seized onto Dewey’s concept but packaged it as the Project Method, the source of LaBrant’s “wrath” in 1931.
Dewey’s progressive education philosophy has a very odd history that includes progressivism routinely being blamed for educational failure even though public education in the US being historically and currently deeply traditional and conservative (read Kohn on this paradox).
Two dynamics are at play.
First, formal public education in the US has mostly grounded practice in efficiency since the 1920s—packing as many students per teacher into the classroom as possible and structuring curriculum and instruction around commercial programs and standardized testing.
Second, progressive “scientific” is much more complex and nuanced than current and narrow uses of “scientific” in the SOR movement.
Dewey and LaBrant were advocates for teacher autonomy and authority, which rested on the expectation that teachers know the current evidence base (the “science”) of their filed of literacy but in the context of their day-to-day classroom practice. Both, for example, would strongly reject teaching reading through a commercial reading program of any kind.
Dewey’s progressivism, then, is tethered to the real world in front of the teacher—student behaviors and classroom dynamics.
Philosophy and theory (based on evidence, some of which is generated by the scientific process) provide the teacher with a place to start instruction; however, the evidence in front of the teacher during the act of teaching perpetually shapes practice.
Dewey advocated for “scientific” teaching as an ongoing experiment, not teaching grounded to a template derived from a narrow body of experimental and quasi-experimental research.
If LaBrant were alive today, she would be writing pieces very similar to her 1931 diatribe about the project method, but targeting the SOR movement and the deeply unscientific legislation and practices that movement has spawned: testing students with nonsense words, grade retention, scripted reading programs, one-size-fits-all systematic phonics, LETRS training, NAEP data, “miracle” claims, and more.
Yes, as LaBrant lamented in 1947, public education has a long history of a “considerable gap” between research (“science”) and classroom practice, but another problem sitting between better instruction and greater learning by students is the never ending pursuit of “scientific” instruction that weaponizes “science” and fails to acknowledge the most powerful messages of Dewey’s progressivism—teaching and learning must be focused on the real students sitting in front of teachers daily.
Those unique and diverse students are best served by teachers who teach as scientists perform science—starting with informed hypotheses, implementing instructional practices, developing temporal and unique theories for each student, and adjusting practice based on that evidence for the benefit of each student.
Progressive ideas of “science” are ways to navigate the world in informed and practical ways; conversely, the SOR movement has once again reduced “scientific” to an ideological and political baseball bat used to batter anyone not conforming to their misinformation.
Although LaBrant left us over three decades ago, I can feel her wrath for the SOR movement growing somewhere in the universe, and regret we do not have her voice still to guide us—but we do have her words: “This is not the time for the teacher of any language to follow the line of least resistance, to teach without the fullest possible knowledge of the implications of his medium” (1947, p. 94).
Below I will keep an updated listing of presentations and other public work for Fall 2023 through Spring 2024.
I am available for webinars, podcasts, presentations, white papers, blog posts, etc., on a number of education and literacy topics (browse my blog posts for topics):
Leadership Workshop: Making Sense of the Science of Reading
August 5, 2023, 12:45 – 1:45
Title: Censorship in the Palmetto State: A Panel Discussion
Date: October 5
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: McEachern Lecture Hall – Furman Hall 214
Description: For years, we have witnessed increased attacks on books centered around LGBTQIA, race, offensive language, and more. While public and school librarians have received much backlash from the complaints, librarians, politicians, and community advocates have partnered in solidarity to help remove access barriers. Join our panel to discuss the harm of banned books, learn how community members can support librarians in their fight for intellectual freedom, and discuss the importance of standing against censorship to promote literacy to everyone who seeks to expand their knowledge. We encourage you to bring any questions you may have.
Title: Libraries are Worthwhile: Why We Need Them and How We Will Keep Them
Date: October 10
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Hartness Pavilion
Description: Emily Drabinski, interim chief librarian at The Graduate Center, City University of New York and the 2023-2024 president of the American Library Association (ALA) will give a talk on the importance of libraries and librarians and how we can protect them in the face of ongoing censorship attempts.
Conexiones 2023
Columbus, OH – November 16-19, 2023
Keep on Reading for a Free World: Reconnecting through Literacy and Literature (Roundtable) – 11/17/2023 12:30 – 1:45; Aminah Robinson Grand Ballroom B [Reading Wars and Censorship: A Long and Shared History click for PDF]
Connecting Teachers with their Professional Autonomy in the “Science of Reading” Era click for PDF (Presentation) – 11/18/2023 – 11:00 – 12:15; A-214/215
Columbus, OH – January 27-30, 2024
Download PP HERE
Over the last decade, states have passed new or revised reading legislation, often grounded in the “science of reading” (SOR) movement. The SOR movement has perpetuated many oversimplified and misleading stories that portray teachers negatively. This featured session will prioritize teacher autonomy by exploring the following topics: reading crisis, NAEP reading data, reading programs, teacher training and LETRS, dyslexia, and the complicated full body of reading research.
Sunday, January 28, 3:15 pm – 4:15 pm
Monday, January 29 4:15 – 5:45 pm
West Beach Conference Center at Kiawah Island Resort, Kiawah, SC from Friday-Saturday, February 2-3, 2024
February 2, 2024, 9:30-10:30
P.L. Thomas, Professor of Education, Furman University
Download PP HERE
The “science of reading” (SOR) movement has shifted from media stories to state legislation and instructional policy. This workshop invites teachers to critically examine media claims about reading, teachers of reading, and teacher educators against the full body of reading science. The topics will include history of reading crises, the simple view of reading, NAEP, the Mississippi “miracle,” balanced literacy and reading programs, dyslexia, three cueing, brain science, and an overview of reading science.
6:30 – 8:00 EST
Buyer Beware: Avoiding the Unintended (But Predictable) Consequences of SOR Legislation [access PDF here]
March 14-15, 2024 – Springfield, Illinois
[Access PDF HERE]
Friday March 15 8:30-9:30
The “science of reading” movement has perpetuated several compelling and highly influential stories about reading; however, much of those claims are misleading or even completely false. This session will examine some of those stories and claims in the context of the full body of evidence. Topics include NAEP reading data, grade retention, the Mississippi “miracle,” phonics research, dyslexia, teacher education (NCTQ), multiple cueing, and reading programs and theories (balanced literacy).
[Access PDF HERE]
Friday March 15 9:45-10:45; 2:15-3:15
Increasingly since 2013, states have adopted reading legislation identified as the “science of reading.” Since curriculum and instruction should be driven by classroom teachers, not media narratives, parental advocacy, or political mandate, this session examines key reading topics framed with current research to support teacher authority and autonomy.
Banned in the USA: Lighting a Fire for Reading and Not to Books
Roundtable Sessions
12:30 PM PST – 1:45 PM PST
264-BC
Across the U.S. in 2021, Republicans introduced and passed legislation restricting curriculum/instruction and censoring books and texts (over 850 identified in Texas), often under the rhetorical umbrella of “banning Critical Race Theory.” The consequences of these actions have resulted in a teacher being fired in Tennessee for teaching an essay by Ta-Nehisi Coates, school board members calling for book burnings in Virginia, and Texas passing a second, more restrictive bill.
Ariana Garcia reports on Texas:
“What’s happening is a broader interpretation and confusion about how we talk about race and really important conversations are being silenced,” [Dr. Chloe Latham-]Sikes said. “In practice, because they [the laws] are so vague, they are interpreted as applying to any conversation about race, racism, social justice, sex, sexism and discrimination. That’s where that chilling effect and silencing is happening and it’s really concerning.”
A new, more restrictive ‘critical race theory’ law now in effect for Texas schools
For educators in public K-16 settings, we must acknowledge that this legislative agenda directly contradicts The Students’ Right to Read (NCTE):
One of the foundations of a democratic society is the individual’s right to read, and also the individual’s right to freely choose what they would like to read. This right is based on an assumption that the educated possess judgment and understanding and can be trusted with the determination of their own actions. In effect, the reader is freed from the bonds of chance. The reader is not limited by birth, geographic location, or time, since reading allows meeting people, debating philosophies, and experiencing events far beyond the narrow confines of an individual’s own existence.
Roundtable leaders from K-16 address the following:
Following roundtable discussions, a brainstorming session explores strategies for honoring those commitments in the classroom.
Christian Z. Goering
George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue
Banned in the U.S.A. Redux 2021: “[T]o behave as educated persons would”
Republicans Misreading “Banned Books Week” across Upstate South Carolina
During my first 18 years as an educator, I was a high school English teacher in rural South Carolina, my hometown in fact. I never imagined doing anything else, but I did attain my doctorate in 1998, still planning to be Dr. Thomas, high school teacher, for my entire career.
It is 2022, and I just completed 20 years in higher education, where I am a full professor in education and (fortunately) also teach first-year and upper-level writing. This fall I am taking my first ever sabbatical.
However, if anything, my scholarly schedule is more packed than at any time in my career. If you are interested in my work, I invite you to join me at the following presentations/keynotes and/or look for my upcoming publications.
Publications
How to End the Reading War and Serve the Literacy Needs of All Students (2nd Ed)(2nd Edition) – IAP – [first edition]
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. Retrieved [date] from http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/science-of-reading
A Critical Examination of Grade Retention as Reading Policy (white paper)
P.L. Thomas, Education, Furman University (Greenville, SC)
Prepared for the Ohio Education Association in response to Ohio’s “Third Grade Reading Guarantee”
September 15, 2022
[Download as PDF and supporting PP]
UPDATE (Supplement for Presentations below)
Update: Science of Reading Movement (PP) 2 February 2023
Great Lakes Center for Education Research & Practice
September 28, 2022
Webinar
Science of Reading Policy Brief (NEPC)
Pioneer Valley Books
October 20, 2022 – 4:00 – 5:00 pm
Webinar (view online)
PowerPoint HERE
Unpacking Reading Science to Inform a Different Path to Literacy
The “Science of Reading” movement that began in 2018 has gained momentum and has had outsized influence on state reading policy and classroom practice. However, the SoR movement presents two negative impacts on long-term literacy education—a commitment to the “simple view” of reading (SVR) and mandates for phonics-first instruction for all beginning readers. In this webinar, Paul Thomas, Ed.D. (Professor of Education, Furman University, and author of How to End the Reading War and Serve the Literacy Needs of All Students) places the SoR movement in the context of the robust but complex current state of reading science. Come join us on October 20, 2022, at 4 p.m. as we explore what’s next in literacy education.
Ohio Education Association
Education Matters podcast; grade retention
November 10, 2022
University of Arkansas
October 24 at 6:30
The Jones Center for Families
Serving the Literacy Needs of All Students: While Resisting Another Reading War
30th annual Reading Recovery Council of Michigan Institute, Thursday, November 17, 2022, Somerset Inn, Troy, Michigan
Keynote
The “Science of Reading” Multiverse (click for PP)
Before anyone can, or should, answer “Do you support/reject the ‘science of reading’?” we must first clarify exactly what the term means. I detail the three ways the phrase currently exists since it entered mainstream media during 2018. “Science of reading” as discourse, as marketing, and as a research base.
Break-out Session
How to Navigate Social Media (and RL) Debates about the “Science of Reading” (click for PP)
Let me start with a caveat: Don’t debate “science of reading” advocates on social media. However, if you enter into a social media or real-life debate, you must keep your focus on informing others who may read or hear that debate, and be prepared with credible and compelling evidence.
NCTE 2022, November 17 – 20, 2022, Anaheim, CA
Friday November 18, 2022
Event Title: Banned in the USA: Lighting a Fire for Reading and Not to Books (click for PP)
Cowards, Censorship, and Collateral Damage: The Other Reading War (click for PP)
Type: Roundtable Sessions
Time: 12:30 PM PST – 1:45 PM PST
Location: 264-BC
Consulting: Charleston County School District
Reading programs, “science of reading,” and potential PD for faculty and administrators
November 21, 2022
Schoolutions podcast
December 20, 2022
2023 Comprehensive Literacy and Reading Recovery Conference, Chicago, IL, January 18-20, 2023
Keynote – 8:00 – 9:00 CT January 20, 2023
Teaching Literacy in a Time of Science of Reading and Censorship
The key elements of the science of reading (SOR) movement as well as the current move the ban books and censor curriculum are outlined against historical and research-based contexts. The unique challenges facing literacy educators iden/fied with considera/on of how literacy teachers can maintain professional autonomy in the classroom and prac/ce ac/vism in pursuit of a more nuanced understanding of “science” and research as well as in support of academic freedom.
90-minute breakout sessions
Academic Freedom Isn’t Free: Teachers as Activists – 9:15 – 10:45 CT January 20, 2023
The US is experiencing one of the most significant waves of book bans and educational gag orders impacting academic freedom, access to diverse voices and history, and the safety of teachers and students. Teachers are historically required to be apolitical and avoid advocacy in and out of the classroom. This session examines the politics of calling for no politics among educators, and explore with participants both the need to advocate for their professional autonomy and academic freedom as well as for academic freedom.
Unpacking the “Science” in the Science of Reading for a Different Approach to Policy and Practice – 11:30 – 1:00 CT January 20, 2023
The science of reading (SOR) movement and the use of the “science of reading” in marketing literacy programs have had a significant impact on reading policy and practice across the US since 2018. Policy and practice related to dyslexia, adopting reading programs, teaching reading (and the role of phonics instruction), however, have too often been guided by a misleading and overly simplistic version of SOR portrayed in the media and advocated by parents and politicians. This session examines the contradictions between claims made by SOR advocates and the current research base.
LitCon 2023, January 28 – 31, Columbus, OH
Rethinking Reading Policy in the Science of Reading Era
Sunday, January 29, 2023, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm ET
Monday, January 30, 2023, 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm ET
Since 2018, states have been revising or adopting new reading legislation prompted by the science of reading movement. Placed in the context of several reading crises over the last 100 years, however, this movement is deja vu all over again, destined to fail and be replaced by another reading crisis in the near future. This session explains why and offers a new approach to reading policy at the state, district, and school levels.
Book signing: How to End the Reading War and Serve the Literacy Needs of All Students (2nd Ed)
Monday, January 30, from 8:00 – 8:30 am
WSRA 2023 Conference, Milwaukee, WI, February 9-11, 2023
Thursday, February 9, 11:15-12:30 B01
Creating Worlds of Possibility: Closing Our Opportunity Gaps Through Recognizing the Sciences of Literacy and Learning
Expert Panel Discussion with Dr. Annalee Good, Dr. Lara Handsfield, Dr. Carol Lee, Dr. Paul Thomas, Dr. Don Vu
Thursday, February 9, 2:00-3:15 C08
Banning Books Is Un-American
The U.S. is experiencing a wave of book censorship and educational gag orders. This session examines the historical context of censorship as it impacts the teaching of literacy and literature by focusing on writer Kurt Vonnegut’s response to censors. The session will include powerful policy and position statements supporting the rights of teachers to teach and students to learn, including The Students’ Right to Read (NCTE), Freedom to Teach: Statement against Banning Books (NCTE), and Educators’ Right and Responsibilities to Engage in Antiracist Teaching (NCTE). Participants will have an opportunity to discuss and explore how and why educators must and can seek ways to defend academic freedom and thew right to teach and learn.
Friday, February 10, 9:45-11:00 A10
The “Science of Reading” Multiverse
Since early 2018, the phrase “science of reading” has entered and often dominated media, public/parental, and political discourse around the teaching and learning of reading in the U.S. Before anyone can, or should, answer “Do you support/reject the ‘science of reading’?” we must first clarify exactly what the term means; therefore, in this session, then, I want to detail the three ways the phrase currently exists since it entered mainstream use in the media during 2018. The session will cover the research base around the SoR movement for context. Participants will be invited to discuss their experiences with these three versions as well.
PSLA Conference 2023, February 23-25, 2023
Marriott Hilton Head Resort and Spa, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Friday, February 24, 2023, 8:00 – 9:00
Invited Speaker: Rethinking Reading Science: Beyond the Simple View of Reading, Paul Thomas
Focusing on reading science published since 2018 addressing reading, dyslexia, and phonics, this session details a complex but robust state of reading science. Media and think-tank messaging parents, political leaders, and the public are receiving about the “science of reading” are oversimplified, cherry-picked, and contradictory to that current state of reading science. Classroom teachers deserve the autonomy to interrogate reading science, understand the individual needs of all their students, and then the teaching and learning conditions to serve those students with evidence-based practice.
Saturday, February 25, 2023, 10:15 -11:15
Panel: Carving a Path Forward: Equity, Neuroscience, Policy Mandates and Literacy Education
The Politics of Teaching Reading, Paul Thomas
Published in 1947 in The Elementary English Review, a flagship journal of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) that later became Language Arts, “Research in Language” is one of the most cited pieces by Lou LaBrant in my scholarship and public writing about education and literacy.
LaBrant served as president of NCTE in the 1950s, and along with being an active and influential literacy scholar, LaBrant was a practitioner over a staggering 65 years of teaching.
LaBrant made two incisive claims in this article:
A brief consideration will indicate reasons for the considerable gap between the research currently available and the utilization of that research in school programs and methods. (p. 87)
It is not strange, in view of the extensive literature on language, that the teacher tends to fall back upon the textbook as authority, unmindful of the fact that the writer of the text may himself be ignorant of the basis for his study. (pp. 88-89)
LaBrant, L. (1947, January). Research in language. Elementary English, 24(1), 86-94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41383425
Having written an educational biography of LaBrant for my doctoral dissertation, I am vividly aware that LaBrant taught and wrote as a complex progressive who used the term “research” in broad Deweyan terms that included everything from gold-standard experimental research to the daily observations made by classroom teachers.
I cite her because as a practitioner and scholar I also embrace a very complicated understanding of “research,” “evidence,” and the word of the moment, “science.” I am also deeply skeptical of textbooks and programs.
Since early 2018, the phrase “science of reading” has entered and often dominated media, public/parental, and political discourse around the teaching and learning of reading in the U.S.
Almost for as long—I discovered the movement a few months after it began—I have been waving a red flag, advocating for skepticism and extreme caution about that discourse, the media, public/parental, and political rhetoric. For that reason, I persist in placing the phrase in quote marks since I am specifically criticizing the discourse.
If anything, my criticism is having far too little impact on the consequences of the “science of reading” discourse that is driving many states to adopt new reading legislation. And on social media, I am routinely attacked, often quite aggressively, as a science denier and someone intent on hurting children (although I have been a life-long educator across five decades as both a K-12 classroom teacher and a college professor).
I am also often discredited and told that journalists, parents, and politicians understand my own field better than I do.
Part of the problem with debating the “science of reading” movement is the term itself, one that has at least three different meanings, a multiverse if you will (although absent, darn it, Doctor Strange or Wanda).
Before anyone can, or should, answer “Do you support/reject the ‘science of reading’?” we must first clarify exactly what the term means; therefore, here, then, I want to detail the three ways the phrase currently exists since it entered mainstream use in the media during 2018.
“Science of Reading” as Media, Public/Parental, and Political Discourse. Beginning with Emily Hanford and then perpetuated by mainstream media (Education Week and the New York Times, notably), the “science of reading” is a narrative that claims teachers are not teaching students to read using the “science of reading” because teacher educators have failed to teach the “science of reading” in teacher prep programs. Concurrently, this discourse also blames low student reading achievement on the dominance of balanced literacy reading programs (often erroneously) since, as advocates claim, balance literacy is not grounded in the “science of reading.” This version of the “science of reading” maintains that primarily (or even only) cognitive science research is the “science” that counts and that the “simple view” of reading is the one valid theory of reading supported by the “science of reading.” [Note: This is the version of the “science of reading” that most of my scholarly and public writing challenges as misguided and harmful; see here, here, and here.]
“Science of Reading” as Marketing and Branding. Since the “science of reading” advocacy identified above has been extremely effective, states are adopting new reading legislation, some of which directly bans popular reading programs and then narrowly mandates the use of materials and programs that meet the narrow characterization above. This means education companies, especially ones focusing on literacy, have begun to brand and rebrand their materials as programs with the “science of reading.” For example:
As a market response to legislation, as well, some popular reading programs have responded to this version of the phrase. This marketing dynamic is very common in education. Many years ago, I attended a state-level literacy conference where Smokey Daniels spoke. Daniels is one of the top literacy scholars associated with the term “best practice”; however, he warned then that the term had been quickly co-opted by textbook publishers and that there was no mechanism for insuring that something labeled “best practice” was, in fact, demonstrating those concepts (the same problem exists for “whole language” and “balanced literacy”).
“Science of Reading” as Shorthand for the Research Base for Teaching Reading. This is what LaBrant referred to as the “research currently available” in 1947. The irony in this use of the phrase is that many people have been using some form of this phrase for a century—”research,” “science,” “evidence.” And of course, scholars and practitioners are often aware of and practicing many aspects of that “science”—even though science, research, and evidence are all necessarily in a state of flux (and thus, LaBrant’s nod to “currently available”). To be blunt, no reasonable or informed person would reject this use of the “science of reading.” However, I must note that this use is almost entirely absent in public discourse; it remains used almost exclusively among researchers and some practitioners. Another irony, in fact, is that the first use of the phrase above is itself a gross mischaracterization of this complex and broad use.
Because of these different and often conflicting uses of the “science of reading,” we are experiencing incredibly jumbled and even nonsensical outcomes such as teachers being required to attend training in programs that are not supported by research (LETRS) and states adopting reading legislation that implement practices that are not supported by research (grade retention).
So, if you return to LaBrant’s claims above, you may notice an eerie similarity between her valid assertions and the current “science of reading” discourse that is not credible even as it is highly effective.
The problem is that teaching, learning, and literacy are extremely complex human behaviors that resist simple labels or explanations—and also defy efforts to prescribe templates that will magically fulfill the urge for “all students must.”
Alas, in this multiverse there is no magic.
Dr. Paul Thomas on the Multiverse that is the Science of Teaching Reading
Paul Thomas How to End the Reading War and Serve the Literacy Needs of All Students
dr. p.l. (paul) thomas 