In the early to mid-1980s, I entered the world of serious recreational cycling. I had been an athlete throughout my childhood and teen years, but found myself sedentary and out of shape in the first few years of my career as a high school English teacher.
Road cycling wasn’t the most inviting of sports, being both an individual and group endeavor. I quickly discovered, in fact, that cycling is deeply tradition-bound and steeped in ritual and conformity.
Ultimately, it is also an orchestra of Social Darwinism; you must be strong enough and skilled enough to ride with a group regardless of anything else (such as the right bicycle or the proper kit).
Early on, I had to focus on fitness—riding more often and longer, but always alone—and finding ways I could afford ever-better bicycles (see Rule 12). Gradually, I began shaving my legs and made the most daunting commitment facing me, using toe clips on my pedals.
Toe clips were a must among serious cyclists, but they involved literally reaching down and tightening a leather or nylon strap around your feet. The monumental learning curve was reaching down to tighten the straps and always reaching down to flick the release when coming to a stop.
At the time, I lived only a couple miles from my bicycle shop so I rode my bicycle there to buy my first toe clips. They installed the clips to my pedals and went over how to tighten and release.
Filled with glee about my next step toward being a real cyclist, I rolled out of the shop parking lot and promptly came to a stop at a red light where I fell over fairly dramatically beside several cars—having completely forgotten to reach down to loosen the straps.
Just as I had to learn how to shift gears (old-school down-tube friction shifting), I learned to tighten and release the toe clips along with dozens of other behaviors necessary to ride in tight packs of cyclists at high intensity and to near exhaustion.
High-paced group cycling is a mix of many precise behaviors in incredibly tense contexts—from being dropped from the group to being in or causing a serious accident.
That was three decades ago, and today (after many changes to pedals and shifting) I function on a bicycle in ways that seem entirely natural, requiring essentially no thought.
Matching kits, clipless pedals.
Cycling for me is automatic behavior; I also have acquired an incredible amount of knowledge about bicycles (I do bicycle maintenance and build bicycles) and the history of the sport.
I often think of this journey in learning of mine, which was again prompted by a few exchanges on Twitter:
Multiple choice questions are not bad.
Direct instruction is not bad.
DOK level 1 questions are not bad.
Rote memorization is not bad.
We often completely write something off instead of recognizing that it is a tool with value, limitations, and the capacity to be misused.
These comments about what we know and how we know it are common, but, I think, trapped in a misunderstanding about, for example, “rote memorization.”
Memorization and automatic behavior are not about “bad” or “good.” In fact, memorization and automatic behavior are inevitable for most humans, even essential.
The trap can be exposed by considering a behavior most of us have in common—assembling something from parts such as a TV stand or entertainment unit, or a children’s toy.
Do you recall opening the box, spreading out the parts, laying out the directions, and then beginning to assemble? Was there a moment (or several) while assembling when you turned from the directions to look on the box at the image of the fully assembled item?
So here is my point: The Twitter exchange above is trapped in viewing learning in a reductive way based on part-to-whole, easier-to-harder, sequential perceptions of learning.
This singular and reductive view is the trap.
Since most of the items we assemble are a one-time event, that assembly is both learning to assemble and assembling at the same time. (I once assembled a TV stand, badly, and then my in-laws wanted the same stand. The second assembly was a near-euphoric experience since I was able to apply what I had learned from doing the whole thing one time before.)
My journey in cycling and my assembly example here reveal that learning resulting in memorization and automatic behavior is extremely complex and is in fact an interplay between part and whole, not a step-by-step journey from part to whole.
“Breaking it down” is not always easier or clearer for some students, in some learning activities.
Many people learning to use toe straps, for example, would go into a grass field, strap in, and (as I did publicly) fall down repeatedly. Learning the real thing required doing the whole and real thing relatively badly until they improved (motivated by real consequences).
There is no debate, then, about the good or bad in memorization or automatic behavior. The real tension is about how and why we come to memorize or behave automatically.
Despite misleading claims that memorization is a foundation, we often come to know something, have it memorized, after (not before) we have rich and complex experiences with the knowledge or behavior.
In my doctoral program, I had to perform from memory in two intense settings—written comps and dissertation defense. I studied for neither because I had engaged with the material for so long and in such intense situations (course work, numerous papers, a full dissertation) that I had much of the material in recall.
Twenty-five-plus years later, much of that dissertation work remains in recall for me.
Like with cycling, my final doctoral work felt natural, as much a part of me as pedaling with my hands off the handlebars while I remove my cycling vest and stuff it into a rear pocket while sitting at the back of a high-paced group.
The quests for silver-bullets and simple step-by-step paths to learning and automatic behavior are at the core of many educational debates, in fact, including the incessant reading debate.
The complexity of cycling reminds me of the complexity in reading—the many interconnected behaviors and knowledge required to do both automatically and well.
Reading, learning to read, and teaching someone to read—like all learning—are not simple and how we come to know is just not settled.
In fact, learning will never be simple or settled because human beings are far too complex.
The paradox, of course, is that how we know is simple to explain: It is some type of interplay between doing the whole thing we want to learn and coming to know the many intricate parts that make up that whole thing.
Published in The High School Journal (May 1951) by Dorothy McCuskey, a review of Lou LaBrant‘s most comprehensive work on teaching English, We Teach English, concluded: “In short, this is no ‘how to teach’ book. Rather, it is a book which will cause the reader to re-examine the bases of his [sic] teaching methods and the content of his [sic] courses.”
LaBrant was a demanding teacher and scholar with a career as a teacher of English from 1906 until 1971. And one of the defining features of that career was her persistent challenges to how teachers taught the field labeled, then, as “English.”
The field traditionally called “English” has evolved over the years, often at the K-12 level being envisioned as English/Language Arts (ELA) or simply Language Arts.
Schools often teaches courses called Language Arts. Yet, little actual art happens in most of these classrooms. Instead, language is often treated as a static set of prescriptivist rules that children are expected to master and mimic back to their teacher. This is not an exploration of the art of language. This is linguistic oppression.
Concurrent with this post from Flores, I argued that students must unlearn to write in order to write well at the college level and shared on Twitter the baggage students bring to college, what they must unlearn:
* "Research paper" is a real thing * Huge paragraphs are good * Big (obscure) words are good * Editing is revision * Don't use "I" is a real thing
Having been a high school English teacher for almost two decades and then a teacher educator focusing on ELA and a first-year composition professor for an additional two decades, I carry on LaBrant’s tradition of mostly swimming against the tide of tradition in terms of what counts as “teaching English.”
Students majoring in the humanities, specifically English, has declined significantly—”History is down about 45 percent from its 2007 peak, while the number of English majors has fallen by nearly half since the late 1990s”—prompting many colleges and universities to reconsider and even cut those majors and departments.
We are well past time, I think, the need to reimagine the teaching and fields of English/ELA for K-16.
At one level, English/ELA includes a complex challenge since teachers and professors in that singular field/discipline are often tasked with addressing a wide range of content included in literature and literacy (reading/writing). Bluntly put, teaching English/ELA is a herculean, nearly impossible task.
If we teachers of English/ELA are to be successful in covering literature and literacy K-16, any success found in our students is necessarily cumulative over many, many years. This is no trivial point, and not mere metaphor, but when teaching or learning literature and literacy, there is no finish line.
While I firmly believe we must distinguish between the teaching of literature and literacy, specifically between teaching literature and composition/writing, I also recognize that the myriad aspects of literacy are inherently recursive, symbiotic: learning to read is learning to write; learning to write is learning to read.
For people learning to teach, for example, high school English/ELA (courses that are designed to address both literature and literacy [reading/writing]), majoring in English often proves to be inadequate since English as a discipline at the university level tends to be literature based, often very narrow in course content (an entire semester on William Butler Yeats, for example).
Yes, English majors tends to write a great deal, but writing literary analysis or even so-called creative writing does not prepare a person to teach writing. In higher education, English (literature) and composition are distinct and separate fields.
To emphasize my point, when I was teaching American literature for high school students and as I teach first-year writing at my university, bringing texts into class has completely different purposes; it isn’t that both sets of students aren’t learning reading and writing in the courses, but that we are interrogating texts for significantly distinct purposes.
Literary analysis and reading like a writer are complex but different behaviors for students with different purposes and outcomes.
In fact, literary analysis is a discipline-based type of writing that demands unique moves and conventions than other discipline-based writing, such as in history, psychology, or the sciences.
I spent 18 years teaching high school English and have spent a bit longer now preparing candidates to teach high school English/ELA. I can attest without hesitation that expectations for K-12 English/ELA are excessive, inherently impossible.
While I don’t want to linger on the problems with teaching math, I do want to note that math tends to acknowledge the unique aspects within the field since students take sequences and more clearly delineated courses (geometry, Algebra I, Algebra II, calculus, etc.) that have mathematical principles in common throughout while maintaining the distinct features of each course.
With math (and the sciences), we recognize that a geometry teacher may be ill equipped to teach algebra (or a chemistry teacher, ill equipped to teach biology), but we tend to see English/ELA teachers as a monolithic monstrosity.
Somehow, with only a bachelors degree and at the tender age of 22, I was deemed capable of teaching American and British literature as well as writing to my high school students, but college professors several years older than that and armed with doctoral degrees are hired in English departments to teach Elizabethan drama (and such candidates often wave off requests that they take on first-year composition as well since, well, they aren’t trained to do that).
Sure, professors at the college level teach outside their specialities, but this is seen as a stretch, and not the norm or ideal. And when professors are tasked to work outside their areas of specialization, outcomes are often disappointing (my university decided years ago any professor could teach first-year writing—until it became abundantly clear that that is certainly not true).
Since a significant percentage of my college teaching load is now first-year and upper-level writing, I witness the harm done to students at the K-12 level and the inadequacies at the university level for writing instruction, historically a shunned cousin of the field of English since, I think, composition is viewed as mere teaching (and we all know the status of the field of education in academia).
Students need and deserve in K-16 schooling courses and teachers/professors properly equipped to teach both literature and literacy (specifically writing), but not simultaneously.
English/ELA must be reimagined as a complex field with symbiotic but distinct elements that require time and patience for both teaching and learning—and a much greater respect for the complexity and difficulty involved in teaching any of those different areas.
Writing in 1939 about the experimental program at the Ohio State University High School, LaBrant posed a similar argument:
That not all teachers are, however, equally skilled in assisting with all phases of language experiences, as, for example with personal or creative writing or with leisure reading; and consequently that students need a so-called “English” teacher who will assume certain specialized responsibilities and who will, in addition, study the general language growth of individual students and classes, and see that, as far as possible, adequate and balanced growth takes place. (p. 269)
At OSU, the University School recognized that a team of teachers with unique training and strengths needed to work together in order to address that “language growth and study are to be expected in all phases of school experience”—not simply laid at the feet of the English teacher.
It’s 2021, and “we teach English” needs to mean something more complex than it does currently, something similar to a nearly forgotten experiment in the early twentieth century where LaBrant practiced what she preached.
After emailing me about new reading legislation being proposed in North Carolina—next door to my home state of South Carolina that also has jumped on the “science of reading” bandwagon—Ann Doss Helms of WFAE (NPR, Charlotte, NC) interviewed me by phone.
I have given dozens of interviews about education over the last 15 to 20 years, and they all have a similar pattern; the journalist tosses out predictable questions and then becomes somewhat disoriented by my answers. Typically, the journalist at some point notes they didn’t know or had never heard the information I offered, the context and complications I raised about the topic.
My conversation with Helms was no different as we gradually peeled back the layers of the onion that is the “science of reading” as well as the very harmful reading policies that are being proposed and adopted in its wake.
Over the past couple years, I have blogged almost nonstop and written a book on the “science of reading” media narrative and how it is oversimplified and misleading but very compelling and harmful since state after state is adopting deeply flawed reading legislation (often, as Helms noted, to mimic Mississippi).
As I explained, the “science of reading” movement is grounded in the media and parent advocacy (specifically focusing on dyslexia)—advocates who have no expertise or background in literacy—but is essentially a thinly veiled resurrection of the tired intensive phonics versus holistic approaches to teaching reading.
Part of our conversation also confronted the contradiction in the “science of reading” movement that forefronts the debunked claim of “settled science” around how to teach reading and then supports actions and policies that have no scientific support—notably grade retention and using Mississippi as a justification for polices absent any research behind the claimed NAEP improvements by that state.
Further, the “science of reading” movement and those using the “science of reading” to promote state-level reading policy also rely on discredited (read “bad science”) sources such as NCTQ or misrepresent contested sources such as the National Reading Panel (see here).
The “science of reading” movement is deja vu all over again since the movement looks essentially like many other education reform patterns that have all failed (as many of us said they would) because they misunderstand the problem and grasp for silver-bullet solutions—all wrapped in a media and political frenzy that is almost impossible to stop. The trash heap of failure includes Teach for America, charter schools, accountability driven by standards and high-stakes testing, the NRP and Reading First, value-added methods of teacher evaluation and merit pay, and many others.
States adopting truly awful reading policy driven by the “science of reading” slogan will not change reading in the U.S., and in time, very soon, in fact, the media and political leaders will be, once again, lamenting a reading crisis.
While it may be too little, too late since states are racing to pass essentially the same reading legislation across the U.S., many scholars are carefully dismantling the “science of reading” movement in ways that support my claims over the past two years.
Here, then, are three I recommend for anyone needing further proof that the “science of reading” is yet another bandwagon we should avoid:
Currently, there is a well-organized and active contingent of concerned parents and educators (and others) who argue that dyslexia is a frequent cause of reading difficulties, affecting approximately 20 percent of the population, and that there is a widely-accepted treatment for such difficulties: an instructional approach relying almost exclusively on intensive phonics instruction. Proponents argue that it is based on “settled science” which they refer to as “the science of reading” (SOR). The approach is based on a narrow view of science, and a restricted range of research, focused on word learning and, more recently, neurobiology, but paying little attention to aspects of literacy like comprehension and writing, or dimensions of classroom learning and teacher preparation. Because the dyslexia and instructional arguments are inextricably linked, in this report, we explore both while adopting a more comprehensive perspective on relevant theory and research.
Johnston, P., & Scanlon, D. (2021). An Examination of Dyslexia Research and Instruction With Policy Implications. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 70(1), 107–128. https://doi.org/10.1177/23813377211024625
Johnston and Scanlon answer 12 questions and then offer these important policy implications (quoted below):
There is no consistent and widely accepted basis – biological, cognitive, behavioral, or academic – for determining whether an individual experiencing difficulty with developing word reading skill should be classified as dyslexic. (Questions 1 and 10).
Although there are likely heritable and biological dimensions to reading and language difficulties, there is no way to translate them into implications for instructional practice. (Questions 2 and 11).
Good first instruction and early intervention for children with a slow start in the word reading aspect of literacy, reduces the likelihood they will encounter serious difficulty. Thus, early screening with assessments that can inform instruction, is important. Screening for dyslexia, particularly with instructionally irrelevant assessments offers no additional advantage. (Questions 5 and 6).
Research supports instruction that purposely develops children’s ability to analyze speech sounds (phonological/phonemic awareness), and to relate those sounds to patterns of print (phonics and orthographics), in combination with instruction to develop comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, and a strong positive and agentive relationship with literacy. (Questions 7 and 12).
Evidence does not justify the use of a heavy and near-exclusive focus on phonics instruction, either in regular classrooms, or for children experiencing difficulty learning to read (including those classified as dyslexic). (Questions 7, 8 and 12).
Legislation (and district policies) aligned with the SOR perspectives on dyslexia will necessarily require tradeoffs in the allocation of resources for teacher development and among children having literacy learning difficulties. These tradeoffs have the potential to privilege students experiencing some types of literacy learning difficulties while limiting instructional resources for and attention available to students whose literacy difficulties are not due (exclusively) to word reading difficulties. (Question 12).
In this article, we critique the science of reading when it is positioned within the reading wars as settling disagreements about reading and how it should be taught. We frame our argument in terms of troublesome binaries, specifically between nature and nurture. We interpret that binary in relation to Overton’s distinction between split and relational metatheories, with the latter suggesting a more integrative view of nature and nurture. Focusing on the nature side of the binary, which predominates when the science of reading is promoted in the reading wars, we argue that its singular focus limits the range of scientific inquiry, interpretation, and application to practice. Specifically, we address limitations of the science of reading as characterized by a narrow theoretical lens, an abstracted empiricism, and uncritical inductive generalizations derived from brain‐imaging and eye movement data sources. Finally, we call for a relational metatheoretical stance and offer emulative examples of that stance in the field.
Yaden, D.B., Reinking, D., & Smagorinsky, P. (2021). The Trouble With Binaries: A Perspective on the Science of Reading. Read Res Q, 56(S1), S119– S129. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.402
Note the strong conclusion to this piece:
Unfortunately, we believe that in many cases, the cloak of science has been employed to elevate the stature of SOR work and to promote the certainty and force of its advocates’ preferred explanations for what reading is and how it should be taught (e.g., Gentry & Ouellette, 2019; Schwartz & Sparks, 2019). What we suggested in this article is that the SOR, when so used in the reading wars, is not science at all in its fullest sense. It neglects an entire domain that influences and shapes human experience. It does so with an unmitigated confidence that evidence from one side of a binary can establish a final truth and that such a truth creates a single prescription for all instruction. Taking that stance, however, is outside the pale of science and dismisses work that has both merit on its own terms and a critical role in advancing the aims motivating reading research and instruction.
In this historical analysis, we examine the context of debates over the role of phonics in literacy and current debates about the science of reading, with a focus on the work and impact of the late literacy scholar Jeanne Chall. We open by briefly tracing the roots of the enduring debates from the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on beginning reading, decoding, and phonics. Next, we explore insights drawn from the whole language movement as understood by Kenneth Goodman and Yetta Goodman, as well as a synthesis of key ideas from Chall’s critique of the whole language approach. We then analyze the shifts across the three editions of Chall’s Learning to Read: The Great Debate and summarize major ideas from her body of work, such as the stage model of reading development. We suggest that reading instruction should be informed by a broader historical lens in looking at the “science of reading” debates and should draw on a developmental stage model to teaching reading, such as the six‐stage model provided by Chall. We describe implications for educators, textbook publishers, researchers, and policymakers that address the current reading debates and provide considerations of what Chall might say about learning to read in a digital era given the pressures on teacher educators and teachers to align their practice with what is deemed to be the science of reading.
Semingson, P., & Kerns, W. (2021). Where Is the Evidence? Looking Back to Jeanne Chall and Enduring Debates About the Science of Reading. Read Res Q, 56(S1), S157– S169. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.405
UPDATE 1
From the very beginning of the “science of reading” movement, media coverage, parental advocacy, and political policy have been misleading and grounded in misunderstanding. As the examples above show, there continues to be a steady dismantling of all that even as policy has been adopted and is being considered, policy that is fundamentally not “scientific” and will prove to be ineffective and even harmful.
Below are some additional examples of the dismantling that I highly recommend:
When it comes to reading instruction, an “all or nothing” approach is actually unscientific.
Every January, my social media feeds fill with ads, free trials, and coupons from the diet and wellness industry, promising to help me with my (presumed) resolutions to be better, faster, leaner, and healthier. Every diet program claims some type of relationship to science.
The same is true with reading instruction. Most programs or approaches claim to be based on “science.” But consider the many possible meanings of this claim. Some approaches to reading instruction are developed as part of rigorous, peer-reviewed research and are continuously evaluated and refined. Others are designed by practitioners who draw on experience, and whose insights are validated by inquiry after development. Many are based on well-known principles from research or assumptions about learning in general, but haven’t themselves been tested. Some “research-based” instructional tools and practices have been shared, explained, interpreted, misinterpreted, and re-shared so many times that they bear little resemblance to the research on which they were based (Gabriel, 2020). Others rack up positive evidence no matter how many times they’re studied. Then there are practices that have no evidence behind them but are thought to be scientific—because they’ve always been assumed to be true.
The simple view of reading is commonly presented to educators in professional development about the science of reading. The simple view is a useful tool for conveying the undeniable importance—in fact, the necessity—of both decoding and linguistic comprehension for reading. Research in the 35 years since the theory was proposed has revealed additional understandings about reading. In this article, we synthesize research documenting three of these advances: (1) Reading difficulties have a number of causes, not all of which fall under decoding and/or listening comprehension as posited in the simple view; (2) rather than influencing reading solely independently, as conceived in the simple view, decoding and listening comprehension (or in terms more commonly used in reference to the simple view today, word recognition and language comprehension) overlap in important ways; and (3) there are many contributors to reading not named in the simple view, such as active, self-regulatory processes, that play a substantial role in reading. We point to research showing that instruction aligned with these advances can improve students’ reading. We present a theory, which we call the active view of reading, that is an expansion of the simple view and can be used to convey these important advances to current and future educators. We discuss the need to lift up updated theories and models to guide practitioners’ work in supporting students’ reading development in classrooms and interventions.
Duke, N.K., & Cartwright, K.B. (2021). The Science of Reading Progresses: Communicating Advances Beyond the Simple View of Reading. Read Res Q, 56(S1), S25– S44. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.411
NOTE: The short version of the Duke and Cartwright essay should be: The “science of reading” is not so simple and not so settled.
What is happening in this new stage of the reading wars is there for all to see in North Carolina’s and others’ use of the phrase. Instead of spelling out what they mean, “science of reading” advocates wrap themselves in the protective mantel of science, as if invoking science is all that anyone needs to be credible and persuade others to join them. Anyone disagreeing is anti-science, i.e., ignorant.
This is not a great persuasion strategy. Not surprisingly, those from a different vantage point argue that no one has a right to define science in a way that conveniently fits their perspective.
The “Read to Succeed” Act ultimately did not pass during Kentucky’s 2021 legislative session. However, given that state legislators have introduced early literacy bills multiple times in recent years, it is likely that the state may see similar proposals in coming years. Further, given the rapid spread of these policies across states in recent decades, the considerations discussed here will be relevant to policymakers in other states interested in third-grade literacy legislation. Though many states have already enacted early literacy legislation, policymakers need not adhere to a one-size-fits-all approach to improving third-grade literacy achievement. State policymakers can learn from the research, described above, that has been conducted to this point about these policies. I offer three specific recommendations for policymakers to consider as they strive to ensure the efficacy of third-grade literacy policies moving forward:
• Instead of limiting the legislation to the “Big Five” components of reading, include a set of instructional best practices in literacy.
• Ensure initial, ongoing, and targeted professional development in literacy for K-3 teachers.
• Show educators that their expertise is valued by involving them in the development of the policy. This can be done by soliciting feedback through an open online comment period, conducting focus groups with a representative group of K-3 educators, and/or involving educators in the creation of various components of the policy.
Cummings, A.. (2021). Making early literacy policy work in Kentucky: Three considerations for policymakers on the “Read to Succeed” act. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/literacy
In many U.S. states, legislation seeks to define effective instruction for beginning readers, creating an urgent need to turn to scholars who are knowledgeable about ongoing reading research. This mixed-methods study considers the extent to which recognized literacy experts agreed with recommendations about instruction that were included on a state’s reading initiative website. Our purpose was to guide implementation and inform policy-makers. In alignment with the initiative, experts agreed reading aloud, comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, phonological awareness, and phonics all deserve a place in early literacy instruction. Additionally, they agreed some components not included on the website warranted attention, such as motivation, oral language, reading volume, writing, and needs-based instruction. Further, experts cautioned against extremes in describing aspects of early reading instruction. Findings suggest that experts’ knowledge of the vast body of ongoing research about reading can be a helpful guide to policy formation and implementation.
Collet, Vicki S.; Penaflorida, Jennifer; French, Seth; Allred, Jonathan; Greiner, Angelia; and Chen, Jingshu (2021) “Red Flags, Red Herrings, and Common Ground: An Expert Study in Response to State Reading Policy,” Educational Considerations: Vol. 47: No. 1. https://doi.org/10.4148/0146-9282.2241
Marissa J. Filderman, Christy R. Austin, Alexis N. Boucher, Katherine O’Donnell, Elizabeth A. Swanson
Abstract
Informed by theories of reading comprehension and prior reviews of reading comprehension intervention, this meta-analysis uniquely contributes to the literature because it describes the relative effects of various approaches to comprehension intervention for struggling readers in Grades 3 through 12. Findings from 64 studies demonstrate significant positive effects of reading comprehension intervention on comprehension outcomes (g = .59, p < .001, 95% confidence interval [CI] [0.47, 0.74], τ2 = .31). A metaregression model indicated significantly higher effects associated with researcher-developed measures, background knowledge instruction, and strategy instruction, and significantly lower effects associated with instructional enhancements. Grade level, metacognitive approaches, and study quality did not moderate effects. Findings support the use of background knowledge instruction and strategy instruction to support comprehension of struggling readers in upper elementary and beyond.
Theoretical models, such as the simple view of reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986), the direct and inferential mediation (DIME) model (Cromley et al., 2010; Cromley & Azevedo, 2007), and the cognitive model (McKenna & Stahl, 2009) inform the constructs and skills that contribute to reading comprehension. The simple view of reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) describes reading comprehension as the product of decoding and language comprehension. The simple view of reading is often used to underscore the critical importance of decoding on reading comprehension; however, evidence suggests that the relative importance of decoding and language comprehension changes based on students’ level of reading development and text complexity (Lonigan et al., 2018). Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies demonstrate that decoding has the largest influence on reading comprehension for novice readers, whereas language comprehension becomes increasingly important as students’ decoding skills develop and text becomes more complex (e.g., Catts et al., 2005; Gough et al., 1996; Hoover & Gough, 1990; Proctor et al., 2005; Tilstra et al., 2009). However, the simple view of reading does not comprehensively explain all skills that influence reading comprehension, nor does it inform what comprehension instruction requires.
The DIME model of reading (Cromley et al., 2011; Cromley & Azevedo, 2007) and cognitive model (McKenna & Stahl, 2009) build upon the simple view of reading as component-based models. The relationship between five variables—background knowledge, inference, strategies, vocabulary, and word reading—are hypothesized to result in reading comprehension according to the DIME model. Word reading, vocabulary, and background knowledge each have direct effects on reading comprehension. However, the effect of word reading, vocabulary, and background knowledge on reading comprehension is also mediated by other variables. Indirectly, background knowledge and vocabulary are needed to use comprehension strategies or to draw inferences (Ahmed et al., 2016). The cognitive model (McKenna & Stahl, 2009) also breaks reading comprehension into its component parts. According to the cognitive model, reading comprehension is made possible by automatic word recognition, language comprehension, and strategic knowledge. The model further delineates specific skills contributing to each of these components of reading comprehension. For successful language comprehension to occur, vocabulary, background knowledge, and knowledge of text structures are needed. General purposes for reading, specific purposes for reading, and knowledge of strategies contribute to strategic knowledge. In summary, both the DIME model and the cognitive model provide greater insight into specific constructs and skills required for reading comprehension that can be targeted instructionally in comprehension intervention.
Filderman, M. J., Austin, C. R., Boucher, A. N., O’Donnell, K., & Swanson, E. A. (2022). A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Reading Comprehension Interventions on the Reading Comprehension Outcomes of Struggling Readers in Third Through 12th Grades. Exceptional Children, 88(2), 163–184. https://doi.org/10.1177/00144029211050860
Teaching children to read is one of the most fundamental goals of early years and primary education worldwide, and as such has attracted a large amount of research from a range of academic disciplines. The aims of this paper are: (a) to provide a new critical examination of research evidence relevant to effective teaching of phonics and reading in the con-text of national curricula internationally; (b) to report new empirical findings relating to phonics teaching in England; and (c) examine some implications for policy and practice. The paper reports new empirical findings from two sources: (1) a systematic qualitative meta-synthesis of 55 experimental trials that included longitudinal designs; (2) a survey of 2205 teachers. The paper concludes that phonics and reading teach-ing in primary schools in England has changed significantly for the first time in modern history, and that compared to other English dominant regions England represents an outlier. The most robust research evidence, from randomised control trials with longitudinal designs, shows that the approach to phonics and reading teaching in England is not sufficiently under-pinned by research evidence. It is recommended that national curriculum policy is changed and that the locus of political control over curriculum, pedagogy and assessment should be re-evaluated.
Wyse, D., & Bradbury, A. (2022). Reading wars or reading reconciliation? A critical examination of robust research evidence, curriculum policy and teachers’ practices for teaching phonics and reading. Review of Education, 10, e3314. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3314
Key points:
The key question that we address in this paper is whether robust research evidence sup-ports this historically significant change in reading pedagogy. Our findings from analysis of tertiary reviews, systematic reviews and from the SQMS do not support a synthetic phonics orientation to the teaching of reading: they suggest that a balanced instruction approach is most likely to be successful. They also suggest the need for a new more careful consideration of the strengths and weaknesses of whole language as an orientation to teaching reading. The reading wars have often resulted in some very dismissive attitudes to whole language, a position that is not underpinned by the research. Although there remains no doubt that phonics teaching in general is one important component in the teaching of reading, the research certainly does not suggest the complete exclusion of whole language teaching….
In addition to the importance of contextualised reading teaching as an evidence-based orientation to the teaching of reading we hypothesise the following pedagogical features that are likely to be effective. Phonics teaching is most likely to be effective for children aged five to six. Phonics teaching with children younger than this is not likely to be effective. A focus on whole texts and reading for meaning, to contextualise the teaching of other skills and knowledge, should drive pedagogy. Classroom teachers using their professional judgement to ensure coherence of the approach to teaching phonics and reading with other relevant teaching in their classroom is most likely to be effective. Insistence on particular schemes/basals, scripted lessons, and other inflexible approaches is unlikely to be optimal. Well-trained classroom assistants, working in collaboration with their class teachers, could be a very important contribution to children’s reading development. Although the most relevant studies in the SQMS showed approaches that were effective usually from between 9.1 h and 60 h of teaching time, we hypothesise that effective teaching of the alphabetic code could be delivered in 30 h or less of instruction time. If so, this would mean that greater emphasis on aspects such as reading comprehension could begin much earlier in England’s national curriculum programmes of study than in the current national curriculum of 2014.
While it is increasingly popular across the US to pass third-grade retention laws as part of larger reading policies, often under the guise of the “science of reading,” there are decades of research showing that grade retention is extremely harmful to children, especially minoritized students and students living in poverty.
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the largest organization of English teachers in the US, “oppose[s] legislation mandating that children, in any grade level, who do not meet criteria in reading be retained” and “oppose[s] the use of high-stakes test performance in reading as the criterion for student retention.”
As well, the National Education Policy Center (Boulder, CO) has issued a policy brief warning that states “[s]hould not adopt ‘ends justify the means’ policies aimed at raising reading test scores in the short term that have longer-term harms (for example, third-grade retention policies).” Further, states “[s]hould not prescribe a narrow definition of ‘scientific’ or ‘evidence-based’ that elevates one part of the research base while ignoring contradictory high-quality research.”
Tennessee must not fall prey to trendy political gimmicks that harm children and do not address the needs of those children learning to read.
My granddaughter is six, in the first grade, and currently in the throes of learning to read—as commanded by formal schooling. Recently, she has shown some of those typical bursts of improvement I have witnessed in learning by young children; those moments give meaning to the word “marvelous.”
In an effort to inject some joy into my granddaughter’s reading journey, I have given her some comic books (a medium that was central to my own journey to being a voracious reader and writer). I was concerned that the text and format of a comic book would be beyond her, but she loves to make her own books, which are heavily picture-oriented to tell stories, so I thought even if she couldn’t read comic books, they would be very appealing to her own hobby.
But what surprised me was when she picked up a graphic novel of Marvel’s Spider-Gwen, she immediately began reading quite well—until she hit very commonly used wording and words that aren’t served well by structured phonics; she stumbled over “gonna” and “wanna,” but was really thrown by “MJ” as the way characters refer to Mary Jane Watson.
Having been taught formally how to read in an environment grounded in correctness, my granddaughter stumbles over the far more prevalent language usage in the real world.
This tension is represented well by the fate of the pronoun “they” (and its forms); “they” for centuries has served in the real-world of speaking English as a gender-neutral singular pronoun even as so-called standard English has persisted in tossing that usage into the “incorrect” bin (although this nonsense is finally losing momentum in formal formats).
For more than a century, the field of English/ELA has resisted real-world language usage and awareness and preferred training children in language acquisition through systems of correctness (phonics rules and grammar rules). Teaching that is grounded in rules and correctness appears to be easier because that approach contributes to control and simplistic forms of assessment and grading, but approaching language through correctness is a dis-service to children and language.
Even though there are increasingly important calls for de-emphasizing correctness in English/ELA, such as the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC)’s call for Black linguistic justice, those of us who teach reading, literature, or writing face an incredibly complex paradox—the challenge of fostering in students a healthy and valid view of language while also raising their awareness of the politics of language (that dialects such as so-called standard English, for example, do carry political weight in the real world even though it shouldn’t).
Boland and Queen address the tyranny of correctness in the real world in their Why grammar mistakes in a short email could make some people judge you. Here they investigate why “readers judged strangers harshly simply because of writing errors”—themselves using language of “correctness” (“errors”).
Every semester when I once again address issues surround formatting (citation styles, submitting assignments), I must confront the tyranny of correctness in terms of not wanting to perpetuate the unhealthy culture of correctness while also wanting my students to be aware of the power of correctness so that they have power over their language use instead of being victims of the “error hunt.”
Here, then, are some of the ever-evolving ways I am trying to navigate the tensions in teaching language against the tyranny of correctness:
De-grade correctness and formatting related to language. Removing grades and punishment allows a teacher still to address language use and shifts the focus to editing and away from correcting.
Change the language we use about language. I avoid “correct/incorrect,” “right/wrong,” and any reference to “fixing” or “correcting” when I mean “revising” or “editing.”
Use minimum expectations that move issues of correctness and formatting outside the more substantive elements of language usage. I often have students submit early drafts to address formatting (such as the working references list for a cited essay) well before submitting the essay for my feedback.
Examine all dialects and forms of language as powerful and complex language while also interrogating the politics of dialects, including that “standard English” exists and why it exists. Student awareness about the growing debate to de-center standard English is the least we can do in English/ELA on the path to actually de-centering it.
Foster a culture of purposefulness instead of a culture of rules. When we examine, for example, the arcane formatting guidelines involved in formal citation, I try to emphasize not that this or that format is “right,” but that formal writing needs to exhibit purposefulness by the writer as part of their credibility and authority. A submitted essay with two or three fonts and font sizes appears careless, for example, and diminishes the reader’s trust in the purposefulness of the writer.
Shift all explorations of language to discovery instead of complying with correctness. This, as I noted about my ploy with my granddaughter, is about the joy and wonder of language usage. Once we set aside corrupted and debasing beliefs about “good” or “bad” language (especially that one dialect is more or less rich than another), we allow students to engage with all language in healthy and complex ways.
I became a reader and writer vey heavily influenced by collecting and reading comic books, where the text is not simply formatted on the page and where artwork provides a substantial percentage of the textual meaning. My granddaughter has been zipping through reading aloud from children’s books or her homework worksheets (often designed to match the culture of correctness). But comic books and even signage have proven that correctness falters in the real world.
For far too long English/ELA classes and teachers have been associated with a hostility toward language (and students) because of a culture of correctness; our fields have also been too often disengaged with the real world, where WandaVision is more compelling than Shakespeare.
If we love language and our students, we must correct course on correctness in English/ELA.
MacPhee, D., Handsfield, L.J., & Paugh, P. (2021). Conflict or conversation? Media portrayals of the science of reading. Reading Research Quarterly, TBD. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.384
Abstract
In this article, we contend that in media stories on the science or reading, journalists have relied on strategic metaphorical framing to present reading education as a public crisis with a narrow and settled solution. Drawing on data from a critical metaphor analysis of 37 media stories, we demonstrate how frames used in recent media reporting have intensified the reading wars, promoting conflict and hampering conversation among stakeholders and across research paradigms and methodologies. The media have asserted a direct connection between basic research and instructional practice that, without sufficient translational research that attends to a variety of instructional contexts and student populations, may perpetuate inequities. We end with an example of collaboration and a challenge to reframe reading education in ways that center collaboration and conversation rather than conflict.
Bowers, J. S., & Bowers, P. N. (2021, January 22). The science of reading provides little or no support for the widespread claim that systematic phonics should be part of initial reading instruction: A response to Buckingham. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/f5qyu
Abstract
It is widely claimed that the science of reading supports the conclusion that systematic phonics should be part of initial reading instruction. Bowers (2020) challenged this conclusion after reviewing all the main evidence, and Buckingham (2020a) provided a detailed response where she argues that the evidence does indeed support systematic phonics and criticizes an alternative form of instruction called “Structured Word Inquiry” or (SWI). Here we show that every substantive criticism Buckingham makes is factually incorrect or reflects a fundamental mischaracterization. There is nothing in her article that challenges the conclusions that Bowers (2020) draws regarding systematic phonics, and nothing that challenges the claims we have made in the past regarding SWI. This should not be used to support whole language or balanced literacy, but it should motivate researchers to consider alternative methods that are well motivated on theoretical grounds, such as SWI.
After a relatively quiet phase, the “reading wars” reignited in 2018 in the wake of a flurry of news media coverage sparked by a public radio documentary that argued that students across America were receiving inadequate phonics instruction. More than a dozen states—including Florida, Texas and North Carolina—rushed to react, passing laws requiring pre-service and current teachers to place a greater emphasis on phonics.
Now researchers who study Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) students are raising questions about the potential impact of these efforts on such students, including emerging bilinguals. …
One of the defining moments of my first-year writing seminar is my reading aloud the first few paragraphs from A Report from Occupied Territory by James Baldwin.
This essay in The Nation from July 11, 1966, offers students dozens of powerful examples of compelling and purposeful writing, Baldwin at his best. But the circumstances of the essay are what first strike my students.
“There was a great commotion in the streets, which, especially since it was a spring day, involved many people, including running, frightened, little boys,” Baldwin writes. “They were running from the police.”
We note that Baldwin uses “police[men]” five times in the first paragraph, which focuses on people in the Harlem “in terror of the police” because “two of the policemen were beating up a kid.”
Students immediately noted that Baldwin was addressing exactly the same racism grounded in policing that has been the source of social unrest in the U.S. throughout 2020.
In other words, racism in policing in the U.S. is not a recent crisis, but a historically systemic fact of policing.
The more things change, we noted, the more they stay the same.
The history of education in the U.S. is often fascinating and surprising, but it also is like being Phil (Bill Murray) in Groundhog Day—especially when it comes to bandwagons and political and public cries of “crisis.”
Fews aspects of education represent this pattern more than reading, suffering the “science of reading” (SoR) movement since early 2018.
The SoR movement is nothing new, a movement anchored in the past.
But as David Reinking, Victoria J. Risko and George G. Hruby note at The Answer Sheet (The Washington Post), “More worrisome, a majority of states have enacted, or are considering, new laws mandating how reading must be taught and setting narrow criteria for labeling students as reading disabled.”
As my students came to recognize about racism and policing in the U.S., anyone who examines the history and current bandwagon of reading will see that schools, teachers, and students have, like Phil, lived the same day over and over—reading is in crisis and here is the silver-bullet for all students to read.
One must wonder why we never pause to confront that this formula has never resulted in anything other than the same crisis.
And one must acknowledge that something cannot be a movement if it is anchored in doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.
Both the website and the League represent the very worst of missionary zeal and good intentions; and they both fail the fact check necessary for claims about a reading crisis and the bandwagon of SoR.
First, The Reading League grounds their concerns in a misguided and false red flag about whole language, as reported on Syracuse.com: “Murray is referring to the large base of research and knowledge that proves scientifically-grounded methodology in teaching reading is more effective than the ‘whole language’ approach most curriculum takes.”
This argument has two significant flaws. First, whole language has been replaced by balanced literacy for decades. And second, the 1990s revealed a discredited assault on whole language and an ignored analysis of by Darling-Hammond that showed a positive correlation between higher NAEP scores and students being in whole language classrooms.
The website, The Science of Reading: A Defining Movement, is complicated to fact check because there seems to be a purposeful effort to appear to be different than the SoR bandwagon by rejecting the term as a “buzzword” and demanding “We must preserve the integrity of reading science.”
Further, in the Preamble to their The Science of Reading: A Defining Guide, one sentence stands out: “We know that our children can be taught to read properly the first time.”
“The first time”?
Literacy and reading are lifelong learning experiences, and this claim raises a genuine red flag about this movement.
But the biggest reveal about the so-called SoR movement is in the definition, where there is a narrow parameter set for “scientifically-based”: experimental/quasi-experimental study design, replication or refinement of findings, and peer-reviewed journal publication.
The SoR movement is a bandwagon with its wheels mired in the same muddle arguments that have never been true and silver-bullet solutions that have never worked.
Like Phil, we find ourselves waking up to the same day in reading.
This is no crisis, but it certainly is a tired, old story that needs to be left behind through some other vehicle than a bandwagon.
Currently, I am in year 37 of teaching in SC, serving as a high school English teacher at Woodruff High for 18 years before moving to teacher education at Furman University for the past 19 years. I entered education in SC in 1984, the first days of the accountability movement in our state.
Despite political leaders changing standards and high-stakes testing multiple times over the past four decades, political and public perception remains convinced that our students are, once again, failing to learn to read.
Bill 3613 is making the same mistake political leaders have been making since the 1980s, tinkering with punitive legislation aimed at our students and teachers while ignoring the overwhelming negative impact of inequity in our students’ homes and communities as well as the harmful negative learning and teaching conditions that persist in our schools.
Read To Succeed, which Bill 3613 seeks to amend, misreads both how students learn to read and how best to teach reading. Reading growth is not simple, and test scores are a stronger measure of poverty and social inequities than the state of student learning or the quality of teaching.
This proposed legislation is yet another example of SC jumping on a flawed educational bandwagon (this time copying Mississippi), the “science of reading” movement that has resulted in harmful educational policy such as increased grade retention, over-screening for dyslexia, and prescribing “one-size-fits all” instruction for students.
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the largest professional organization for English teachers in the U.S., has issued a strong policy statement rejecting third-grade retention supported by decades of research showing grade retention remains harmful for students. Dorothy C. Suskink also recently posted at NCTE that the “science of reading” movement is deeply misleading in its use of the term “science,” misrepresentation of the National Reading Panel, dependence on discredited reports from the National Council on Teacher Quality, and claims of crisis from NAEP scores.
Prominent literacy scholars David Reinking, Victoria J. Risko and George G. Hruby have also challenged the many flaws in the “science of reading” movement that are now included in Bill 3613. “When the teaching of reading is framed as a war, nuance and common areas of agreement are casualties,” they conclude, adding: “But worse, our children can become innocent victims caught in a no man’s land between those more interested in winning a conflict than in meeting individual needs.”
As has been proven by Read to Succeed so far, the most vulnerable students in our state will be harmed by the policies in this bill the most while political leaders in the state continue to lack the political will and courage to address the root causes of educational challenges across SC—poverty and racial inequity.
I urge political leaders in SC to think differently about our students, our teachers, and our schools; notably, I strongly recommend that we seek ways to create homes, communities, and schools that allow our students to grow and excel in the literacy development.
Continuing to tinker with prescriptive and punitive reading legislation is a dereliction of political and ethical duty; we can and must do better, by doing differently.
In the opening weeks of my first-year writing seminar, I introduce students to reading like writers (here and here), emphasizing that we are not reading to write literary analysis (as many of them have done for Advanced Placement Literature) but reading to explore and acquire moves and approaches for effective writing.
Since the first essay assignment is a personal narrative, I provide them with several essay examples and highlight “Peculiar Benefits” by Roxane Gay as a powerful model of what we are trying to accomplish—engaging the reader with personal narrative in order to ask the reader to consider or reconsider some larger idea or argument.
Today I read aloud, as I typically do, the first three paragraphs of the essay from the original online version of Gay’s essay at The Rumpus (many students read Gay’s Bad Feminist, which includes a slightly revised version). We had a robust discussion, and many students were interested in the essay and excited by the writing strategies we highlighted, centered around purposeful writing instead of templates or rules.
Once we ended that discussion, I noted that the three paragraphs included two places that were copyedited for the published essay in Bad Feminist. I asked if any students noticed those examples of what many English teachers and editors would mark as “non-standard” or “errors.”
No student had noticed so I read aloud the two sentences, prompting them to look closely again:
For my brothers and I it was an adventure, sometimes, a chore, and always a necessary education on privilege and the grace of an American passport….
It was hard for a child who grew up on cul-de-sacs, to begin to grasp the contrast between such inescapable poverty alongside almost repulsive luxury and then, the United States, a mere eight hundred miles away, with it’s gleaming cities rising out of the landscape, and the well-maintained interstates stretching across the country, the running water and the electricity.
One student noticed that “for my brothers and I” would be edited to “for my brothers and me”; I discussed with the class the common problem of case switching when there are two people versus one. Most people would always choose “for me” and not “for I,” but will choose “for my brothers and I” based on a weird urge to overcorrect likely grounded in being chastised as children for “Me and him went to the store.”
It took a bit more nudging, but eventually they saw the “it’s” that would be edited to “its.” Here I noted that people have an urge to insert the apostrophe with “its” although it is the same form as “his” (which never has an apostrophe added) and “hers”/”theirs” (which occasionally gets the added apostrophe).
The apostrophe works in both possession and contraction, causing people problems in written text never present in spoken language. People never confuse the constructions of “Bob’s car” and “there are two Bobs in our family” when heard aloud—even without the aid of the apostrophe.
My point here was to help students begin to move away from the paralyzing effect of being perfect (avoiding surface “errors”) and to recognize what people are doing when they read.
I shared with them a recent story about my granddaughter, Skylar, who is six and eagerly reads aloud throughout her day whenever she sees text.
A couple weeks ago, I had picked up my granddaughter and grandson (Brees, who is four). While we were driving to my apartment, stopped at a red light, Skylar asked, “Papa, what is L E O S?”
I turned back toward her and noticed a business sign directly out her window. “It’s ‘Leo’s,'” I said. “A name.”
She immediately announced, “Leo’s TV.”
First, I think it is interesting that she seems to have paid no attention to the apostrophe (and there is ample evidence that almost all modern readers of English find little to no value in the apostrophe; hence, it is likely dying as a marker for possession and contractions).
But with the recent phonics-mania and revived advocacy for the “simple view” of reading, it is also a valuable cautionary tale, this experience with a sign.
Of the six letters Skylar was reading, four of them are just saying the letter; if she had tried to decode those two words in any simple way, she would have mangled them greatly.
And imagine if the owner were “Zoe” or “Joe.”
Both the moment with my granddaughter and my first-year writing students demonstrates the holistic nature of literacy—of reading. And frankly, there is nothing simple about it.
For a six-year-old, there is a maze of fonts as well as the use of capitol or lower case lettering all mixed in with dozens of arcane phonics “rules” and exceptions; but for more advanced readers such as my students, even when they have been prompted to use close reading in their literary analysis, they simply do not see many microlevel, isolated elements of text.
Certainly phonemic awareness and patterns are valuable aspects of creating meaning from text. But Skylar often uses a much better technique; ask what you don’t know and blend it with what you do.
So-called standard spelling, punctuation, and grammar have some value for sharing meaning among users of a language, but my students have become nearly immobile as writers because they try to be perfect even as they are discovering and creating meaning with text.
And I have watched Skylar laboriously try to sound out a word, grinding all meaning to a halt. But when I say the word aloud for her, she recognizes it and flies ahead. She often already knows it by sight the next time we come across it.
In the span between being a beginning reader to an independent and expert reader, there is much any person needs to acquire—and little we can predict that “all students” must do along the way. Let’s not fall for the allure of “simple” and certainly let’s not continue leading our students down a path toward paralysis, where meaning goes to die.
Like “Leo,” another three-letter word needs to be always at the forefront of anyone growing as a reader, “joy.”
South Carolina is poised with Bill 3613 to continue the historical failures of addressing reading in South Carolina through micromanaging legislation that has not resulted in improving home, community, individual equity or learning outcomes for students living in poverty, Black students, Emergent Bilinguals, or students with special needs.
Currently, I am in year 37 of teaching in SC, serving as a high school English teacher at Woodruff High for 18 years before moving to teacher education at Furman University for the past 19 years. I entered education in SC in 1984, the first days of the accountability movement in our state.
Despite political leaders changing standards and high-stakes testing multiple times over the past four decades, political and public perception remains convinced our schools are failing, and that our students are, specifically, failing to learn to read.
Read To Succeed, which Bill 3613 seeks to amend, was a serious mistake at its inception since it misreads both how students learn to read and how best to teach reading. Reading growth is not simple, and test scores are a stronger measure of poverty and social inequities than the state of student learning or the quality of teaching.
Bill 3613 is making the same mistake political leaders have been making since the 1980s, tinkering with prescriptive legislation aimed at our students and teachers while ignoring the overwhelming negative impact of inequity in our students’ homes and communities as well as the harmful negative learning and teaching conditions that persist in our schools.
This proposed legislation is yet another example of SC jumping on a flawed educational bandwagon (this time copying Mississippi), the “science of reading” movement that has resulted in harmful educational policy such as increased grade retention, over-screening for dyslexia, and prescribing “one-size-fits all” instruction for students.
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the largest professional organization for English teachers in the U.S., has issued a strong policy statement rejecting third-grade retention supported by decades of research showing grade retention remains harmful for students. Dorothy C. Suskink also recently posted at NCTE that the “science of reading” movement is deeply misleading in its use of the term “science,” misrepresentation of the National Reading Panel, dependence on discredited reports from the National Council on Teacher Quality, and claims of crisis from NAEP scores.
Prominent literacy scholars David Reinking, Victoria J. Risko and George G. Hruby have also challenged the many flaws in the “science of reading” movement that are now included in Bill 3613. “When the teaching of reading is framed as a war, nuance and common areas of agreement are casualties,” they conclude, adding: “But worse, our children can become innocent victims caught in a no man’s land between those more interested in winning a conflict than in meeting individual needs.”
As has been proven by Read to Succeed so far, the most vulnerable students in our state will be harmed by the policies in this bill the most while political leaders in the state continue to lack the political will and courage to address the root causes of educational challenges across SC—poverty and racial inequity.
I urge political leaders in SC to think differently about our students, our teachers, and our schools; notably, I strongly recommend that we seek ways to create homes, communities, and schools that allow our students to grow and excel in the literacy development. Continuing to tinker with prescriptive and punitive reading legislation is a dereliction of political and ethical duty; we can and must do better, by doing differently.
educator, public scholar, poet&writer – academic freedom isn't free
dr. p.l. (paul) thomas 