Tag Archives: literacy

[Header Photo by Jansen Yang on Unsplash]

I am currently reading two engaging and often challenging novels—Roberto Bolano’s huge 2666 and Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Bagdad.

As an avid reader, writer, and teacher of literacy for over 42 years, I am deeply moved by stories, and both of these novels are engaging because they weave stories together while also forcing the reader to critically engage with the act of story telling itself (especially in Saadawi’s monstrous recreation of the Frankenstein myth).

As a writing teacher I seek to foster in my students not only an awareness of the power of story—the importance of vivid details and the narrative mode—but also the ethical implications of the stories we choose to tell as well as the stories we choose to ignore.

In public discourse, however, we are at the mercy of how traditional and social media portray complex and important topics.

Media creators who are successful are vividly aware of the power of story, and my fields of education and literacy, regretfully, suffer the brunt of compelling but misleading stories across all types of media. For media creators, compelling stories often trump accurate and credible stories.

Ironically, at the foundation of the current reading crisis labeled the “science of reading” (SOR) is a podcast, Sold a Story, that research is gradually exposing for being the mechanism for selling a story that is not credible and is in turn causing more harm than good (except for those profiting off the story).

Here are three relatively recent open-access publications that highlight SOR failing equity, teacher autonomy, and social media discourse:

Dimensions of Equity in the Science of Reading Research: A Systematic Review of Actual, Artificial, and Absent Up-Takes of Equity

JaNiece Elzy-Palmer, Alexandra Babino, Tee Hubbard

Abstract

The Science of Reading (SoR) movement is positioned as a pathway to equity in literacy development, yet little is known about how equity is defined and enacted within SoR scholarship. This systematic review examined 36 peer-reviewed studies published between 2014 and 2024 that addressed both SoR and equity. Using a framework of nine equity dimensions, we analyzed how equity was conceptualized and operationalized across this body of research. Findings reveal that only 17% of screened articles (36/211) engaged with equity dimensions in substantive ways. Analysis showed that equity was primarily conceptualized through access (n = 69) and opportunity (n = 83), with most studies giving limited attention to race, power structures, and the systems that uphold inequities. SoR research primarily focused on three student groups: emergent bilinguals, “struggling” readers without disabilities, and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, while largely employing race-evasive language such as “diverse” or “struggling students.” By contrast, actual uptakes of equity, though limited, were most often found in international contexts where inclusion and representation were embedded through culturally and linguistically responsive adaptations. These findings highlight a persistent disconnect between SoR’s equity claims and its research base, underscoring the need to integrate transformative justice approaches so that equity efforts move beyond access and opportunity toward systemic change in literacy development.

Teacher Autonomy in Text Choices for Elementary Reading Instruction

Allison Ward Parsons, Kristin Conradi Smith, Margaret Vaughn, Holly Klee, Leslie La Croix, Jane Core Yatzeck

Abstract

Reading in elementary school is central to supporting student reading development. However, a gap exists in current research regarding the types of texts that teachers select for reading instruction and the instructional contexts in which that reading occurs. Teachers’ autonomy to select texts and activities for reading instruction is complex and not well understood. In this exploratory study, we surveyed a stratified sample of elementary teachers (n = 1250) in the United States to understand their perceptions of autonomy surrounding text use. Chi-squared analysis results raise questions of autonomy, access, and equity, particularly regarding digital text usage in younger grades and schools with fewer economic resources. Discussion highlights the differences in teacher autonomy regarding text use across school demographics and instructional contexts. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

The Science of Reading on Social Media: TikTok Content Creators’ Discourse Patterns and Bodies of Knowledge

Lindsey W. Rowe, Sarah Jerasa, Heather Dunham, C. C. Bates, Tobi Pirolla, Meghan J. Malloy

Abstract

The Science of Reading (SOR) has become a public discourse with educational stakeholders, impacting legislative policy, reading content, curricula, and pedagogy across schools. Public engagement in this movement has transpired on social media, including TikTok, where viral content often promotes narrow or binary viewpoints through an authoritative discourse. Using a digital ethnography and walkthrough method, we collected and examined 156 TikTok videos on #ScienceofReading to address the following research questions: (1) What categories of SOR content are present on TikTok? (2) What are the common narrative trends and bodies of knowledge used to promote the SOR conversation on TikTok? Analyses found that SOR-related TikToks fell into four categories: (1) professional content knowledge, (2) direct demonstration, (3) resources and materials, and (4) identity formation. Furthermore, close analysis of all videos related to professional content knowledge gave insight into the narrative trends used by content creators to convey claims (plain speak, stop/start, brain research, rhetorical question, I used to… now I…), as well as the bodies of knowledge content creators drew on to make these claims (research, SOR, theory or scholar, deep personal experience, no source). Finally, implications are discussed for how this public discourse can shape policies that will ultimately impact schools, classrooms, and literacy instruction.

Thomas, P.L. (2025, Spring). Crisis as distraction and erasure: How SOR fails diversity and urban students. Journal of Literacy and Urban Schools (1), 6-23. https://theliteracyandurbanschoolsjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/issue-1-journal-of-literacy-and-urban-schools.pdf

Thomas, P.L. (2025). Breaking free of the “war,” “crisis,” and “miracle” cycles of reading policy and practice. In T.A. Price & M. McNulty (eds.), Public spaces, politics, and policy: historical entanglements with irrational momentism (pp. 93-112). Bloomsbury.

Thomas, P.L. (2025, July 28). There is no literacy crisis in the U.S. Here’s what’s really happening. The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/474j758

Thomas, P.L. (2025). Navigating (another) reading crisis as an administrator: Rethinking the “science of reading” movement. Journal of School Administration, Research and Development, 10(1), 38-48. https://ojed.org/JSARD/article/view/6706

Thomas, P.L. (2024, November). We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: For all ELA teachers, “the time is always now.” English Journal, 114(2), 21-26. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024114221

Thomas, P.L. (2024, September). We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: The media continue to misread teaching reading and literacy. English Journal, 114(1), 14-19. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024114114

Thomas, P.L. (2024, May). Teaching English in the “science of reading” era: We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: Selling a story of reading. English Journal, 113(5), 16-22. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024113516

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). Stories grounded in decades of research: What we truly know about the teaching of reading. Reading Teacher, 77(3), 392-400. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2258

Education, education reform, Educational Research, reading, Science of Reading

Fact Checking “The reading wars are ending. Phonics won.” (Washington Post Editorial Board)

October 14, 2025 plthomasedd

[Header Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash]

The Editorial Board at The Washington Post published a bold claim: The reading wars are ending. Phonics won:

The “reading wars” that raged in American schools for decades finally seem to be ending. The victor is clear: Phonics is the best way to teach kids how to read.

California is the latest state to re-embrace the tried-and-true teaching method, in which kids learn the sounds that each letter makes and then use them as building blocks for words and sentences. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Thursday signed reforms into law that will encourage schools to turn away from other unsupported teaching methods, despite resistance from teacher unions….

Momentum for re-embracing phonics started in Mississippi, which long had a reputation for sitting at the bottom of national education rankings. In 2013, state officials decided to enforce adoption of the old-school instruction method that is often referred to as the “science of reading.” The state explicitly discouraged methods such as cueing and started aggressively holding back third-graders who didn’t meet reading standards, angering many parents.

There are a few problems, however.

First, and most damning, California did not just pass Science of Reading legislation modeled on Mississippi, as detailed by Martha Hernandez:

The bill has been described in the media as California’s new “science of reading” bill, but this shorthand fails to accurately reflect the legislation’s comprehensive scope and intention.

Let’s be clear, AB 1454 is not about narrowing literacy instruction to one approach. Rather, it’s about realizing California’s long-standing, comprehensive vision for literacy that meets the needs of all students — including our state’s 1.1 million English learners.

Phonics and foundational skills are essential for teaching students to read, and they always have been. But effective literacy instruction is not just about sounding out words. Children also need strong oral language, vocabulary, background knowledge, writing and comprehension skills to thrive as readers.

AB 1454 accounts for this reality. At its core, it aligns with California’s English Language Arts/English Language Development (ELA/ELD) Framework, adopted in 2014. This framework is nationally recognized for weaving together multiple strands of research — including phonics and decoding — alongside research on how children learn a second language, how their home language knowledge supports English learning, and how their cultures and life experiences shape how they use and understand language.

For a comprehensive overview of how California’s new reading legislation does not conform to the Mississippi model, please see this excellent overview by Jill Kerper Mora, Edgar Lampkin, Barbara Flores, and Anita Flemington: Pushing back against Science of Reading mandates: The California story.

Next, the Editorial Board perpetuates the whole language Urban Legend about failure in California, a state that saw literacy test scores drop after a decrease in funding and an influx of multilingual learners in the late 1980s into the 1990s (in fact, Linda Darling Hammond found a positive correlation between whole language and higher NAEP scores in the 1990s).

For a debunking of the Urban Legend, see Whole Language and the Great Plummet of 1987-92: An Urban Legend from California by Stephen Krashen.

And finally, but not surprisingly, the Editorial Board falls for the Mississippi “miracle” narrative.

There currently is no research showing SOR instruction has succeeded in MS; in fact, research shows only grade retention is associated with some short-term test score increases. MS grade 8 scores remain in the bottom 25% of score in the US, the state continues to retain about 9000 K-3 students each year, and the race/poverty gap is the same as 1998.

For an overview of why Mississippi reading reform is not a “miracle,” please see Misunderstanding Mississippi’s Reading Reform: The Need to Resist Copycat Education Reform.

In short, the Editorial Board gets everything wrong, and once again, mainstream media falls for the phonics gambit.

Education, education reform, Educational Research, reading, Science of Reading

The Phonics Gambit: The Zombie Reading Policy that Fails but Won’t Die

October 7, 2025 plthomasedd

[Header Photo by Sasha San on Unsplash]

I am teaching for the second time a new course in my department, an introduction to educational philosophy.

At about midterm, we have covered the primary educational philosophies to prepare them for a major project over the second half of the course. When we covered Essentialism, I noted that this philosophy drives reading and education reform in several English-speaking countries, notably in the “Science of Reading” (SOR) and “Science of Learning” (SOL) movements.

Essentialism is summarized in this online, open-access text on educational philosophies (see 3.2):

Essentialism adheres to a belief that a core set of essential skills must be taught to all students. Essentialists tend to privilege traditional academic disciplines that will develop prescribed skills and objectives in different content areas as well as develop a common culture. Typically, Essentialism argues for a back-to-basics approach on teaching intellectual and moral standards. Schools should prepare all students to be productive members of society. The Essentialist curriculum focuses on reading, writing, computing clearly and logically about objective facts concerning the real world. Schools should be sites of rigor where students learn to work hard and respect authority. Because of this stance, Essentialism tends to subscribe to tenets of Realism. Essentialist classrooms tend to be teacher-centered in instructional delivery with an emphasis on lecture and teacher demonstrations.

Key beliefs of Essentialism advocate for basic skills instruction in core courses (notably reading and math), teacher-centered direct instruction, and conservative cultural norms.

Often Essentialist movements are popularly labeled “back-to-basics” movements, raising some problems for these arguments since calls for back-to-basics have existed in cycles reaching well back into the early decades of the twentieth century in the US. [1]

A cautionary tale about returning to Essentialism to form reading policy exists in the UK where phonics-centered reading reform has been implemented since 2006. [2]

Research has revealed that reform in the UK, in fact, has been implemented (including annual phonics assessments for all early literacy students), but that those reforms have not achieved the essential goal of improving student reading comprehension; and thus, researchers called for a more balanced approach to reading instruction.

A key lesson from the UK is that skills-based assessments (phonics checks) produce student achievement strongly correlated with birth month, suggesting that child development may be a significant factor in this data (see HERE for all the data from the 2024 UK phonics check):

Another cautionary tale exists right here in the US, notably in the misunderstood and misrepresented National Reading Panel (NRP) report and the subsequent reading reform that occurred after No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandates in 2001. Two lessons must be emphasized:

First, the NRP report found that systematic phonics instruction for the early grades tended to increase student acquisition of phonics but did not increase comprehension. Further, when compared to students who received more holistic reading instruction, students receiving systematic phonics early were not significantly ahead of those students in later grades in terms of comprehension achievement.
NCLB mandated in 2001 all instruction had to be “scientifically based,” including adopted reading programs. [2] Yet, by 2012 and then accelerated in 2018, the US had once again declared a reading crisis and set in motion another round of back-to-basic reforms that center systematic phonics instruction for all students and another round of mandating SOR reading programs (often called “structured literacy”).

And the disturbing irony about the newest phonics gambit is that claims of a reading crisis directly caused by balanced literacy, popular reading programs, and a lack of phonics instruction are not grounded in evidence.

Literacy scholar Elena Aydarova explains:

Now moving to the reading instruction, there’s a narrative that has been sold to the American public and policymakers. There’s a literacy crisis because teachers do not teach the science of reading because they were not taught the science of reading in colleges of education. I have tried to identify the evidence that was used to construct this claim, and I actually have not found this evidence yet.

And Reinking, Hruby, and Risko directly assert:

A perceived crisis demands attention and creates an impetus for urgently needed solutions. The Course takes that tack, arguing that there is a national crisis in reading and then promoting phonics as the cause (there is not enough of it) and the solution (more of it is needed). As we argue here, there is no indisputable evidence of a national crisis in reading, and even if there were a crisis, there is no evidence that the amount of phonics in classrooms is necessarily the cause or the solution.

None the less, copy-cat SOR reading legislation has continued to gain momentum across the US, and some states such as Florida and Mississippi have produced over a decade of data on these reforms.

Further, just as the phonics gambit claims of a reading crisis are not supported by scientific research, the outcomes of SOR reform have not produced as promised (similar to the UK).

Notably, despite MS being touted as the gold-standard of reading reform, no research exists showing why MS continues to retain about 9000 K-3 students each years, why MS grade 8 reading scores drop back into the bottom 25% of states, and why the race/class achievement gap remains the same in MS as 1998.

And comprehensive research from 2023 on SOR reading reform has shown that only states including grade retention see some short-term test score increases that disappear in later grades (similar to FL and MS).

Yet, driven by Essentialist beliefs about reading and teaching, reformers have continued to double down on the MS model.

The mainstream media has played a significant role in this phonics gambit, even anticipating in 2023 both the lack of success from SOR reform and calling for advocates of SOR not to waver in the context of that evidence of failure:

And right on cue, two years after Hanford’s plea, we have this from North Carolina [3]:

Third graders experienced a two-point drop in reading proficiency — decreasing from 49% to 47% — though third graders who achieved an alternative pathway saw a two-point increase (from 31% to 33%).

First- and second-graders’ scores are based on their performance on the DIBELS 8 assessment. Third graders can pass the beginning-of-grade test, end-of-grade test, or the retest for proficiency. However, these students can also achieve proficiency through an “alternative pathway,” which include DIBELS 8, STAR Reading — the state-approved alternative assessment — or the Read to Achieve test, according to Dan Tetreault, DPI’s assistant director of Early Learning.

“We really need to freeze something around comprehension in grade three, and spend a lot of time in that area with our students so that we begin to see growth — some change in their achievement. And I think it’s buried somewhere in comprehension,” said Board member Dr. Olivia Holmes Oxendine….

The results reflect the first drop in reading proficiency results for third-graders since science of reading implementation officially began during the 2022-23 school year. Reading proficiency among third graders at the end of that school year was 47%, rose to 49% by 2023-2024, and has now dropped back to 2020-2021 levels.

During the back-to-basics movements under the Reagan administration (which gave us the flawed A Nation at Risk report spawning endless education reform), Lou LaBrant wrote her memoir, completed in 1987 as she approached 100. LaBrant taught from 1906 to 1971, and in her memoir, she lamented having taught through and rejected multiple back-to-basics movements throughout her career and life.

And here we are again, facing another phonics gambit that isn’t working, that will never work because we always start with the wrong problems and cannot resist reform typically given the veneer of “science” while being mostly driven by ideology and beliefs about teaching and learning.

Like the Queen’s gambit in chess, the phonics gambit is old, misleading, and only works on those who don’t really understand the context of the game being played.

The major difference, of course, is that the losers in this gambit, again, are our students, especially the most vulnerable students who deserve something other than a game and a mostly petty contest of “my beliefs can beat up your beliefs.”

[1] See the following:

[2] See another cautionary tale currently in the UK: Disadvantaged pupils see drop in phonics results:

The proportion of disadvantaged pupils meeting the government’s “expected standard” in their year 1 phonics screening test has fallen this year, as overall progress since the pandemic has plateaued.

Government data published today shows 67 per cent of disadvantaged pupils taking the test for the first time met the standard this year, compared with 68 per cent last year.

Overall, 80 per cent of pupils passed the test in year 1, the same figure reported last year.

Achievement rates remain below pre-pandemic levels….

Summer-born pupils remain less likely to meet the government’s benchmark. Seventy-three per cent of pupils born in August met the standard this year, compared to 86 per cent of those born in September.

[3] See Closing the Books on Open Court Reading, Jeff McQuillan

[4] Note NAEP reading data for NC:

Education

Court Rejects Reading Lawsuit, Media Accountability Must Follow

May 23, 2025 plthomasedd

[Header Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash]

While many fear the irrevocable decline of the US from Presidential executive orders, there appears to be some hope that courts may save us—and recently specifically save public education.

The Supreme Court allowed the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s rejecting religious charter schools to stand, and a federal judge “blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order to dismantle the Education Department and ordered the agency to reinstate employees who were fired in mass layoffs.”

Although likely not as prominent on the national radar, more good news:

While parents, the media, and political leaders have uncritically supported false claims about reading for about a decade now, this ruling supports what scholars have noted about the “science of reading” (SOR) movement.

For example, Elena Aydarova explains:

Now moving to the reading instruction, there’s a narrative that has been sold to the American public and policymakers. There’s a literacy crisis because teachers do not teach the science of reading because they were not taught the science of reading in colleges of education. I have tried to identify the evidence that was used to construct this claim, and I actually have not found this evidence yet.

And Reinking, Hruby, and Risko directly assert:

A perceived crisis demands attention and creates an impetus for urgently needed solutions. The Course takes that tack, arguing that there is a national crisis in reading and then promoting phonics as the cause (there is not enough of it) and the solution (more of it is needed). As we argue here, there is no indisputable evidence of a national crisis in reading, and even if there were a crisis, there is no evidence that the amount of phonics in classrooms is necessarily the cause or the solution.

To be blunt, the mainstream argument that the US has a reading crisis caused by a few balanced-literacy based reading programs lacks scientific research—a disturbing fact considering that claim is the basis for the SOR movement.

This court decision also comes on the heals of Snopes confronting Secretary of Education McMahon’s claim on social media, “When 70% of 8th graders in the U.S. can’t read proficiently, it’s not the students who are failing—it’s the education system that’s failing them”:

National Assessment of Educational Progress scores are not representative of grade-level performance, per the Department of Education’s website. According to 2022 data, most state reading standards are closer to the NAEP Basic level, and 67% of eighth-graders in 2024 met that standard.

You can add to the fact-free claims of the SOR movement, then, that 2/3 of students are not “proficient” (used incorrectly to mean not on “grade level”) readers based on misrepresenting or misunderstanding NAEP data.

As a country, we have never been happy with the reading achievement of our students. But decades of education reform and the current reading crisis based in misinformation and hyperbole are not serving our students, teachers, or schools well.

All of this reinforces a garbled truism: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes” (a quote misattributed to Mark Twain, somewhat ironically).

Maybe the truth about reading is finally putting on its shoes and will finds its legs.

Education, education reform, Educational Research, NAEP, reading, Science of Reading

The Zombie Politics of Misinformation about Students Reading at Grade Level

April 29, 2025 plthomasedd

[Header Photo by Daniel Lloyd Blunk-Fernández on Unsplash]

Yesterday, we had our last class session in my upper-level writing and research course that is grounded in students analyzing and evaluating how media covers a chosen education topic.

In that last class, we debriefed about what students concluded about media coverage of education. While some found the coverage valid and informative, much of the discussion focused on why media perpetuates misinformation more often than not—notably about student reading proficiency in the US.

Right on cue, then, I saw this posted on social media, Teaching reading is rocket science, with these two recurring claims that are, in fact, misleading at best and false at worst (see “Recommended” links below):

Eli’s story, and the stories of all my students, are not the exception. They represent the shared reality for two-thirds of our children, here in California and across the country since the 1990s. My students are not at risk because they cannot yet read — they are at risk because not knowing how to read limits their access to opportunities, both academically and beyond.

Research shows when we teach students to read by directly guiding them to break the code of how sounds in letters work, about 95% of them can become strong readers — including multilingual learners and those with dyslexia. So why have only one-third of our fourth graders been reading at grade level for the past three decades? This gap persists because students haven’t had access to evidence-based literacy instruction drawn from decades of vast interdisciplinary research in areas such as cognitive psychology, linguistics, communication sciences and education.

The “2/3 of students are not reading a grade level” claim is one of the most powerful recurring claims in the media. Note these high-profile examples:

Emily Hanford in APM Reports:

The stakes were high. Research shows that children who don’t learn to read by the end of third grade are likely to remain poor readers for the rest of their lives, and they’re likely to fall behind in other academic areas, too. People who struggle with reading are more likely to drop out of high school, to end up in the criminal justice system, and to live in poverty. But as a nation, we’ve come to accept a high percentage of kids not reading well. More than 60 percent of American fourth-graders are not proficient readers, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and it’s been that way since testing began in the 1990s.

Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times:

One of the most bearish statistics for the future of the United States is this: Two-thirds of fourth graders in the United States are not proficient in reading.

And even a college-based literacy professor in The Conversation:

Five years after the pandemic forced children into remote instruction, two-thirds of U.S. fourth graders still cannot read at grade level. Reading scores lag 2 percentage points below 2022 levels and 4 percentage points below 2019 levels.

Despite ample evidence to the contrary and repeated clarifications from many educators and scholars (See “Big Lie” link in “Recommended” below), media characterizations of student reading proficiency continues to be misrepresented, primarily by misunderstanding NAEP achievement levels, because the public has always believed that “kids today can’t read”—despite there being little evidence of a reading “crisis” over the recurring claims of “crisis” reaching back into at least the 1940s.

Two points are important to clarify:

NAEP achievement levels are confusing because “basic” is approximately what most states consider “proficient” and by implication “grade level.” NAEP “proficient” is well above grade level, set at an “aspirational” [1] level that is misleading and creates a perpetual appearance of failure for students, teachers, and schools.
Most states—notably Mississippi and Louisiana—set their “proficient” level just above the mid-point of NAEP “basic” (MS) or just below (LA):

Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto NAEP Scales, 2007–22

In short, if we consider NAEP and state assessments of reading valid, about 1/3 of students have over the last couple of decades performed below “basic” (NAEP) and thus seem to be below grade level in grade 4.

While the NAEP misinformation and misunderstanding is grounded in the “aspirational” use of “proficient,” the “95% of students can be on grade level” claim is just wildly overstated, and ironically, not based on scientific evidence (despite this being a refrain by the “science of” movement).

I recommend reading Can 95% of Children Learn to Read? to see some of how this claim gained its zombie status.

Historically and currently, many in the US have been and are concerned about student reading acquisition; this, of course, is a valid concern, notably that marginalized and vulnerable populations of students are disproportionately struggling to meet whatever standard we set for “proficient” or “grade level” (see HERE that explores how MS has not closed the race or socioeconomic achievement gaps, for example).

There is an insidious zombie politics to claims about 2/3 of students not reading at grade level, but that if we just did the right thing, 95% of students would read at grade level.

Since neither claim is empirically true, we must confront that basing education claims and reform on misunderstanding and misinformation have not yet worked and are unlikely to work moving forward.

Note

[1] Rosenberg, B. (2004, May). What’s proficient? The No Child Left Behind Act and the many meanings of proficiency. Washington, DC: American Federation of Teachers. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED497886.pdf

Recommended: Why We Cannot Go Back to Basics (Rethinking Schools)

April 3, 2025 plthomasedd

[Header Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash]

Note

The article below appears in Rethinking Schools and brings together several problems with and connections between the “science of reading” and book banning/censorship movements that I have been address since 2018.

Why We Cannot Go Back to Basics: Reclaiming The Right to Teach Literacy, Daniel Ferguson, Laurie Rabinowitz, and Amy Tondreau

Although the “culture war” and “reading war” have been described as separate causes promoted by disparate organizations, their stories are more connected than they appear. Both book banning and SoR dogmatism limit what teachers can teach and what students can read, narrowing the ability of public schools to address children’s diverse needs. We see this most explicitly in conservative parent groups, including Moms for Liberty, who have made it clear they endorse both. This should be a wake-up call to critically examine the potential impact of phonics-based policies on public school students and teachers.

Misreading Reading Scores (Again) [Unpublished OpEd Submission]

March 10, 2025 plthomasedd

[This piece has been submitted to national newspapers with no responses.]

[Header Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash]

Every two years reading scores make headlines. And this year, as has been the case since COVID, the news is not good. Scores are down (again), and the causes being pointed to for the drop are also wrong (again).

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the national program mandated with tracking student achievement. The 2024 results reveal that reading scores have hit their lowest point in 32 years. This decline is notable because in recent years many states have passed aggressive reading legislation, often labeled as the “science of reading” (SOR).

The SOR movement makes a few key claims: the US has a reading crisis, teachers fail to use “scientific” evidence for instruction, and educators and policymakers are making excuses by acknowledging poverty when addressing low reading proficiency.

When 2019 NAEP reading scores were released, Mississippi was proclaimed a “miracle” state for improving grade 4 reading scores despite being a high-poverty state, implying (without evidence) that those increases were caused by Mississippi implementing SOR policy. In the years that followed, the Mississippi “miracle” became the poster child for other states following the SOR legislative formula; to date 40 states and the District of Columbia have passed SOR legislation.

However, the Mississippi “miracle” story was an incomplete misreading of reading proficiency and policy.

With the average 2024 NAEP reading scores in further decline, the SOR era in reading reform appears to be failing. This is especially true for vulnerable students whose scores have dropped the most. Interpreting these scores correctly is key to forging a better path forward.

Thus, we must seek a more credible story about 2024 NAEP reading scores.

Let’s consider three sets of data from the Department of Defense schools (DoDEA), Florida, and Mississippi. These student populations include significant racial and socioeconomic diversity as well as multilingual learners and other vulnerable populations of students.

Florida and Mississippi have long been applauded for aggressive education and reading reform, and in 2024, their grade 4 reading scores remained in the top 25% of states, seemingly defying the odds. But Florida and Mississippi scored again well below top-scoring DoDEA schools.

Although many rush to ascribe this success to SOR policies, we should really be looking at a different (ultimately harmful) policy: third-grade retention based on state testing.

As education analysts John Westall and Amy Cummings concluded in a report on reading policy: “[S]tates whose policies mandate third-grade retention see significant and persistent increases in high-stakes reading scores in all cohorts…. [T]here is no consistent evidence that high-stakes reading scores increase in states without a retention component.”

In other words, by holding back the lowest performing students in third grade, grade 4 scores appear higher. Florida and Mississippi retain thousands of K-3 students annually.

Inflated scores are not learning; by eighth grade NAEP reading scores for Florida and Mississippi drop into the bottom 25% of states. The widely applauded “gains” in grade 4 are, in fact, a mirage.

Here is a different story: DoDEA schools are the top-scoring schools on NAEP tests and tell a story we’ve resisted admitting in the US. Maroun and Tieken found in 2024, replicating decades of similar research, that 60+% of student test scores are not linked to teacher quality, instruction, or programs but to out-of-school factors like socioeconomic background, home environment, and parental involvement to name a few.

While DoDEA schools have significant populations from poor and working-class backgrounds and serve diverse as well as vulnerable populations of children, these students have healthcare, food security, stable housing, and parents with stable work—and consistently high reading scores.

NAEP reading scores, again, are not a story about teacher and reading program failure or even student reading proficiency. These scores tell a complex story about a long history in the US of negligence, the lack of political will to address not only the education of all our children, but also their lives outside of school.

Education

Misreading the Outlier Distraction: Illiteracy Edition Redux

March 3, 2025 plthomasedd

[Header Photo by Adam Winger on Unsplash]

Arthur Young graduated from high school with honors. However, as an adult, he was illiterate.

Literacy expert Helen Lowe featured Young and concluded:

Arthur could not read, even at a primer level. He could not drive a car, because he could not pass the test for a driver’s license; he could not read the street signs or traffic directions. He was unable to order from the menu in a restaurant. He could not read letters from his family and he could not write to them. He could not read the mixing directions on a can of paint or the label on a shipment of sheet rock. He had been cheated.

This story may be shocking but also sounds disturbingly familiar to a recent story on CNN:

This young woman, of course, has also been “cheated.”

But here is something important to acknowledge: The dramatic story of Young is from 1961 as part of a book on the illiteracy crisis in the US, Tomorrow’s Illiterates: The State of Reading Instruction Today.

Both problematic stories seven decades apart are outlier narratives that are both inexcusable failures but are not evidence of any generalizations about education, teaching, or literacy.

Stated bluntly, outliers can never lead to any sort of generalizations.

One of the great failures of public discourse and policy around reading and literacy in the US has been perpetual crisis rhetoric used to drive ideological agendas about what counts as literacy and how best to teach children and young adults to read and write.

If you had a time machine, you could visit any year over the past century in the US and discover that “kids today” can’t and don’t read because the education system is failing them.

These histrionic stories are compelling because they often include real children and adults whose lives have been reduced because of their illiteracy or inadequate literacy.

Ideally, of course, no person in the richest and most powerful country in the world should ever be cheated like that.

But here is the paradox: These outlier stories are distractions from doing the reform and work needed to approach all children and adults being literate.

Once again, reading test data for decades has shown exactly the same reality as all other forms of tests of student learning (math, science, civics, etc.): Over 60% of test scores are causally linked to factors beyond the walls of schools—access to healthcare, food security, housing security, access to books in the homes and communities, and thousands of factors impacting the lives and learning of children.

At best, teacher impact on measurable student literacy is only about 1-14%.

Yet, year after year, decade after decade, the US focuses on teacher quality, curriculum and standards, reading programs, and reading test scores without acknowledging or addressing the overwhelming impact of out-of-school factors on people acquiring the literacy they need and deserve to live their full humanity.

The two stories seven decades apart from above are likely far more complicated than any coverage could detail; the are both compelling and upsetting human stories that deserve our attention, in order to address their individual tragedies as well as taking greater care that others do not suffer the same fate.

However, misreading outlier distractions is not the way to honor that these people have been cheated.

Two things can be true at once: Outlier stories are heartbreaking and inexcusable; however, they prove nothing beyond the experiences they detail.

CNN uses outlier stories for traffic and profit.

Literacy ideologues use outlier stories to drive their agendas as well as to feed the education market.

We are all cheated, once again, when we play the outlier distraction game and refuse to acknowledge and address the crushing realities of inequity in the lives and learning of children.

Each child matters, and all children matter.

Yet, only the adults have the political and economic power to make that a reality.

Education

The “Science of Reading” Ushers in NAEP Reading Decline: Time for a New Story

January 30, 2025 plthomasedd

With the release of the 2024 NAEP reading results, a disturbing new story is developing:

Reading Scores Fall to New Low on NAEP, Fueled by Declines for Struggling Students (Education Week)
Florida reading, math scores fall to lowest mark in more than 20 years on nation’s report card (Orlando Sentinel)

The media has long been obsessed with reading in the US, crying “crisis” every decade over the past century. The most recent media-based reading crisis has prompted aggressive and new reading legislation reaching back over a decade, policy and programs identified as the “science of reading” (SOR).

The hand wringing over the 2024 NAEP reading results, however, seems to focus on learning loss and post-Covid consequences—not that reading achievement on NAEP was flat during the balanced literacy era and now has dropped steadily during the SOR era:

The senior cohort in the 2024 NAEP reading scores represent the SOR era begun in 2012.

Suddenly, media appears to forget that the SOR movement was built on a series of baseless claims: the US has a reading crisis (despite NAEP score being flat for decades) because teachers do not know how to teach reading and rely on failed reading programs and balanced literacy.

The foundational claim of the SOR movement has been firmly discredited: “[T]here is no indisputable evidence of a national crisis in reading, and even if there were a crisis, there is no evidence that the amount of phonics in classrooms is necessarily the cause or the solution.”

But a key element of the SOR story is often overlooked: “One of the excuses educators have long offered to explain America’s poor reading performance is poverty.”

In other words, the SOR story argues that the US has a reading crisis that is entirely the result of in-school policies and practices, that SOR-based reading instruction guarantees 95%+ of students will achieve reading proficiency.

How then is the recent 5-year decline in NAEP scores being blamed on out-of-school factors, Covid learning loss? The story being sold is such blame is merely an excuse.

The problem here is that the entire SOR story is a series of misrepresentations and ideological claims not grounded (ironically) is research or evidence.

As I have noted, NAEP achievement levels are confusing since “proficient” is well above grade level and “basic” tends to correlate with most state metrics for “proficient” (see here for a full explanation and state/NAEP correlations).

However, journalists persists is misrepresenting NAEP scores in order to feed their manufactured “crisis” story: Two-Thirds of Kids Struggle to Read, and We Know How to Fix It.

With the release of 2024 NAEP scores on reading, we have an opportunity to embrace a different story, a credible story, by examining scores from Department of Defense (DoDEA) schools as well as Mississippi and Florida.

First, note that DoDEA schools again are the top scoring schools in grade 4 reading, but MS and FL rank in the top 25% of states despite challenging populations of students being served (both states appear to be outliers defying the odds):

Both MS and FL have been praised for their reading and education reform; however, there are two parts to this “miracle” story that are often left out, that show there is a mirage, not a miracle.

First, MS and FL join many states that have enacted SOR reading reform over the past decade-plus, yet the research on that reading reform highlights something other than reading instruction or programs.

Westall and Cummings concluded in a report on reading policy: “[S]tates whose policies mandate third-grade retention see significant and persistent increases in high-stakes reading scores in all cohorts…. [T]here is no consistent evidence that high-stakes reading scores increase in states without a retention component [emphasis added].”

States implementing K-3 grade retention are gaming the system by pulling out the lowest performing students and then re-inserting them into the testing population when older.

In fact, MS has been retaining about 9000-10,000 K-3 students a year since 2014, and FL retains about 17,000 students annually. [1]

Beyond the impact of grade retention on test scores, we should also ask: If SOR “works,” why do states continue to retain about the same number of students per year?

But NAEP also tells a story about SOR that has been ignored for years. Both MS and FL rank in the top 25% of grade 4 but the bottom 25% by grade 8 while DoDEA remains the top scoring schools in both grades:

Grade retention creates a mirage of achievement in grade 4 that disappears by grade 8, further evidence that SOR is not working at either grade.

Reading achievement as measured on testing has never been about reading instruction, teacher quality, or reading programs.

DoDEA school reading achievement is a testament to what research has shown for decades about student achievement:

Almost 63% of the variance in test performance was explained by social capital family income variables….The influence of family social capital variables manifests itself in standardized test results. Policy makers and education leaders should rethink the current reliance on standardized test results as the deciding factor to make decisions about student achievement, teacher quality, school effectiveness, and school leader quality. In effect, policies that use standardized test results to evaluate, reward, and sanction students and school personnel are doing nothing more than rewarding schools that serve advantaged students and punishing schools that serve disadvantaged students.

DoDEA student populations are diverse, often coming from impoverished and working class backgrounds; these schools also serve vulnerable and challenging populations of students.

However, teacher pay is high, and those students have healthcare, food and housing security, and parents with stable work.

DoDEA students almost all have the advantages mostly afforded children living in privilege so that how and what they are taught can matter.

If reading and literacy matter—and they do—and education matters in the US, we are well past blaming teachers, declaring false “miracles,” and jumping on the reading program merry-go-round once again.

Students must have their lives addressed so that their education can serve them well.

NAEP scores tell us little about reading (or math), but confirms again and again that the US is a country determined to ignore the corrosive impact of inequity on the lives and education of children.

Update

Media has only one story—a false one—about outliers in NAEP scores. Compare the coverage of MS in 2019 with LA 2024:

[1] Note that in the early 2000s, FL was the “miracle” state and established the Florida Model that essentially became the MS “miracle.”

Next up is Louisiana, and most of the coverage is claiming LA’s success is because the state has copied MS.

And a part of the lineage is more grade retention. Here are the currently available data on LA grade retention:

Dyslexia, Education, education reform, Educational Research, grade retention, literacy, reading, Science of Reading, teacher preparation, Teaching

“Science” as Bad Faith Bullying

December 7, 2024 plthomasedd

[Header Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash]

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Especially in America.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, set in the 1920s, centers the story on a few rich characters—Tom and Daisy Buchanan, who have “old” money, as well as Jay Gatsby, representing the nouveau riche.

At the cusp of 2024 and 2025, a century later, one page from the novel seems disturbingly relevant:

In this scene, Fitzgerald uses Buchanan to portray the rise of scientific racism in the US. The scientific racism era in the early 20th century is but one of many examples of how “science” can be used by bad faith actors to promote an ideological agenda.

It isn’t his fault, Buchanan seems to suggest, that he is among the superior white Western civilization: “‘It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.'”

In recent years in the US, navigating science, proof, and science skepticism has reach a level of complexity that defies postmodern thought. Simultaneously, we may be living in the most advanced era of scientific knowledge along side a rising and powerful science-skepticism era.

Vaccination deniers, flat Earthers, and Covid conspiracy theorists have increasingly prominent voices and policy influence due to social media, and the Trump era certainly has eroded how most people understand and what counts as “proven” science.

“Science” as Bad Faith Bullying: Education Edition

Concurrent to the larger political and cultural problems with “science” and science-denial, the education reform movement grounded in the early 1980s accountability movement has adopted “science” as a bad faith bullying approach to reform.

The “science of reading” (SOR) movement [1], essentially driven by conservative ideology, exploded around 2018 under the first Trump administration, and now, SOR has spawned a series of “science of” companion movements—the “science of math,” “the science of learning,” etc.

We may have reached peak “science” as bad faith bullying, however, with a law suit against Heinemann and a few reading programs [2] disproportionately attacked and scapegoated by Emily Hanford and much of mainstream media: “The suit alleges ‘deceptive and fraudulent marketing and sale of products and services which are undermining a fundamental social good: literacy.'”

If this weren’t yet another personal attack on a few literacy leaders and potentially significant waste of time and money to navigate the nonsense of this legal move, it would be funny since the SOR movement itself is practicing exactly what the suit accuses Heinemann of doing, “fraudulent marketing and sale of products.”

Let’s start with the foundational argument among SOR advocates that teaching practices must be grounded only in practices supported by experimental/quasi-experimental research published in peer review publications, as argued by The Reading League:

While I think these standards are too narrow for real-world practice, this is in fact the basis upon which SOR advocates (and the substance of the law suit) rest sweeping and misleading claims about a range of discounted practices labeled as either whole language or balanced literacy (SOR advocates both interchange and mischaracterize these terms repeatedly along with misrepresenting other terminology such as “three cueing”).

Further, the SOR movement has adopted an old and inaccurate assertion about “science,” echoing Tom’s “‘it’s been proved.'”

Similar to the reading crisis rhetoric from 1961—when Walcutt announces: “We have said that no further ‘research’ into methods of reading instruction is necessary” (p. 141)—Hanford and Moates proclaimed SOR “settled science” in 2018 (and we must note Moates has a huge market interest in these claims as author of LETRS, see below):

However, the “science” in reading research is not settled, and the SOR movement, as I stated above, is committed to a “deceptive and fraudulent marketing and sale of products and services”; as I have shown repeatedly, the SOR movement is itself grounded in a plan from 2014 to brand “structure literacy” to “help us sell what we do so well.”

That plan has included exaggerated attacks on some reading programs, some literacy leaders, and some literacy practices while simultaneously endorsing different programs and some practices that are also not supported by SOR’s mandate for a narrow type of “science.”

For example, in a literature review of the current status of SOR from 2022, note that practices either ineffective or lacking scientific support include those rejected by SOR and those embraced by SOR; while this lit review identified “three cueing” as not supported by science as SOR advocates claims, it also lists decodable texts and multisensory approaches (such as Orton-Gillingham), practices and programs aggressively supported by SOR advocates and legislation:

That pattern is standard practice in the SOR movement, including the false attack on teacher education and teacher knowledge being used as “science” as bad faith bullying to sell LETRS.

LETRS falls into the “ineffective and currently unsupported” category as well since only a few studies exist, showing no improvement in student reading.

The SOR movement has also adopted slogans not supported by science (95% of students can be proficient readers) and practices that inflate test scores, target and harm marginalized groups of students, but are not supported by research (grade retention, which seems to be the sole SOR policy impacting test scores).

The “science of” era of education reform is not about improving instruction or student learning. The movement uses “science” as a Trojan horse for de-professionalizing teaching and teachers (selling scripted curriculum) while clearing market space for a new round of “fraudulent marketing and sale of products.”

The law suit is another example showing this “science of” education reform movement is more bad faith bullying than a credible avenue to better supporting teachers and better serving students as readers and learners.

Once again, don’t buy it.

[1] See We Teach English in Times of Perpetual Crisis: Selling a Story of Reading (and Literacy) [Webinar Companion Post]: “Also when I address the SOR movement, I am not contesting reading science or valid concerns about reading instruction or reading proficiency by students. I am challenging the media story being sold.”

[2] I reject adopting any reading programs and maintain that the reading-program-merry-go-round is the problem, not the solution to reading achievement.