As anyone who read my book Left Back (2000) knows, I have long been persuaded of the value of phonetic instruction for early readers. I was a friend of the late Jeanne Chall, who began her career as a kindergarten teacher and eventually became a Harvard professor and the nation’s most eminent reading researcher. Her 1967 book, Learning to Read: The Great Debate, should have ended the reading wars, but they continued for the next half century. She understood that both sides were right, and that teachers should have a tool-kit of strategies, including phonetic instruction, that they could deploy when appropriate.
In recent years, proponents of phonics have termed themselves champions of “the science of reading.” Even though I support phonics instruction, I find it misleading to use this term. Learning to read is one of the most important experiences that children have in their lifetimes. Of course, teachers should know how to teach students how to decode words. Of course, teachers should use reading and writing instruction together. Of course, teachers should introduce children to wonderful literature. Of course, of course, of course.
But teaching reading is not science. Good reading teachers use their knowledge, judgment, skill, and experience. They are not scientists. They are reading teachers.
The “science of reading” sounds to me like “the science of play,” “the science of cooking,” “the science of pedagogy,” “the science of love,” “the science of finding the right mate,” “the science of tennis.” You can take it from there.
Reading is not chemistry, biology, physics, or mathematics. Some children will learn to read before they ever start school, because they sat on the lap of a parent who read the same books over and over, with love, delight, and enthusiasm. Many children do need systematic decoding instruction and phonemic awareness. Reading teachers know which children need which approach.
Just as there is no “science of history,” “science of literature,” or “science of government,” there is no “science of reading.” I would go farther and ay there is no “science of teaching science.” Science is based on hypothesis and evidence, but teachers will find a variety of ways to teach science. Good teachers, whatever their field, rely on the knowledge and judgment gleaned from practice, study, and experience. With time and good teachers, all children will learn to read.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
nice. very you at your best
>
AMEN!
Thank you.
The Science of Manure
The Science of Manure
Is everywhere you look
In everything, for sure
It’s BS, by the book
It’s Science of the Reading
And Science of the Play
And Science of the Eating
And Science of the Lay
It’s Science of the Learning
And Science of the Teaching
And Science of the Yearning
And Science of the Preaching
It’s Science of the This
And Science of the That
And Science of the Kiss
And Science of the Cat
And, by the way, someone actually wrote an entire book called “The Science of Kissing”
I kiss you not.
I will not read that book. You can kiss it good-by
Away from me
Now don’t you see
I shn’t kiss thee
my dear.
For there is only
time for me
To stand apart
And Leer
With apologies to a much better poet
Miracle Grow
The science of Manure
In everything you see:
Scripted edutech’s couture
And a job for Michelle Rhee.
Give it a highfalutin name and some voodoo appeal and parents will fall for it hook, line and sinker. Marketing at it’s best! Any youth sport coach (because they are dumb enough to say it) will tell you the way they make their money is by pitting similarly skilled kids against each other in an effort to get parents to “loosen the purse strings” and pay for more lessons. Marketing and Competition……The American Way of life these last 30 yrs. Not good for people in general, but money makes the world go round!
“Reading is not chemistry, biology, physics, or mathematics.”
This sentence explains what the “Science of Reading” people are trying to do. They think that anything that can be attacked with mathematics is fundamentally scientific. Using tests, they plan to “measure” reading, thus gaining the upper hand in the argument between specialists. They know science is respectability in academic circles.
The problem is that mathematics is just a language that is used to describe Physics, Chemistry, and, to a lesser extent, Biology. Math can also be used powerfully to build an Egyptian Pyramid, The Hagia Sophia, or count the number of votes in a contested election. I know of people who feel the recent. election was fraudulent due to mathematics, specifically probability. They hope the math language will add legitimacy to their specious arguments about the election. Figures may not lie, but liars figure.
So it is with the reading wars. If teaching reading is science, my dog could learn Shakespeare. Reading and testing have a place in research as we look to understand how children learn to read, but human motivation is a long way from being put into a formula. Economists search for the holy grail of formulatic understanding of how people use currency or how masses of people become markets, only to land flat in their attempts. The good ones laugh at themselves, a sort of intellectual begging of forgiveness. Good reading researchers should do the same thing. Unfortunately, people want to make money on this thing. So they try to legitimize their peculiar approach to teaching reading so school systems will buy their product.
The reading wars are over. The war for a market has never been over.
“They think that anything that can be attacked with mathematics is fundamentally scientific. Using tests, they plan to “measure” reading, thus gaining the upper hand in the argument between specialists. They know science is respectability in academic circles.”
YES YES YES. As the student learning outcomes assessment person in my college, I see this sort of thinking all the time. It’s so incredibly wrong-headed. And it is, as you say, motivated by a desire to put the wisdom of experience on the same clinical footing as experimental sciences.
There is a science of reading based on how the brain works and linguistics etc. But as scientists know, science is hardly ever settled. There is always more to learn. The problem is as Diane says when people think there is only one way to teach reading. It is good to understand the science, but it is more important to understand the uniqueness of the child one is teaching to read. That is an art.
This also reminds me of the term “evidence based” also used to sell stuff from the educational-industrial complex. Luckily, I think most teachers are smart enough to figure out when they’re being sold snake oil. Unfortunately, administraters are often not.
NCLB had more than 100 references to “science-based” and “evidence-based” written into the law. But nothing in the law, none of its mandates and remedies, were based on science.
Chuck Jordan I think your note has some truth, but it also mixes apples and oranges, as in mixing reading and cognitional theory with methods of teaching. That mixing leads to thinking that “it’s more important to understand the uniqueness of the child one is teaching to read.”
Yes to that, but only as the teacher brings their knowledge of theory and different methods to their specific children. It NOT a choice between theory and method . . . one better than the other . . . but rather a well-educated professional mediating between their education and specific children. If theories get more refined, and new methods come on the scene, then it’s the teachers’ job to keep their finger on the pulse of change in our profession. (What a concept.)
Theory, by definition, is generalized knowledge. and “science” is more about **empirical method than being restricted to any specific kind of data. So that equating “science” with natural or physical data ALONE is already wrongheaded. Theories that take aspects of human beings as their data are not rocket science. They are rather much MORE complex than any data that the natural or physical sciences consider.
Reading theory, then, follows suit and is based on a good grasp of cognitional theory; and where cognitional data are neither natural nor physical data but data nevertheless that is open to theoretical generalization.
With that in mind, what you are talking about is teachers having (as Diane says) a toolbox of methods on which to draw to meet exactly what you say: the uniqueness of the children we teach. Good theory, in this case, reading and cognitional theory, stand behind that toolbox of methods, so to speak, as answers to the questions like: What is cognition and how does it work . . . generally?
But theory AND methods are different aspects of what makes the profession of teaching professional. One apples, the other oranges, all different but related in the “bowl” that is the field and professions of education. CBK
Catherine King, I do not disagree. My point is about the nature of science, explained below very well by Arthur Camins. Such a great collection of people/voices on this blog.
I’ll drink to that! Nor should learning be based in business “principles,” or, even worse, a sludgey mix of faux science plus business. OBE, SLO, SWABAT: BS!
Having taught ELA and having been an assistant principal in early childhood education over 26 years to economically disadvantaged populations, there are research-based practices and practice-based evidences that show what works. I would never throw those out with the bathwater.
However, reading is a very complex, developmental cognitive process. One size never fits all and should NOT. The teacher must used judgments that allow for keen observation of the “reader’s behavior” and adjust constantly with differentiation per class, per small group, and ultimately, per child. That’s why we call it “balanced literacy” in the sense that one one sub-skill is weak, you balance it out by teaching it more, teaching it better, and having the child practice. And you don’t have to compartmentalize sub-skills necessarily, but you don’t’ want to establish too may goals too quickly, which is overwhelming for the child.
It’s not that one does not want a child to achieve a certain reading level by a certain time, but this timeline MUST allow for great and vast differences between children, which means that it is perfectly normal and healthy, unlike the standards movement, for children to bloom at different times during their school career. Knowing this, excellent teaching will indispensably incorporate constant vigilantism and observations of what the student does well, and what his weaknesses are, so that timely and engaging approaches can be employed to start to strengthen those weaknesses, be it comprehension, encoding, decoding, inferring, predicting, connecting, etc.
So, there is NO one-size fits all when it comes to teaching. Schools districts, in their good intentions and initiatives, often lose sight of this, forcing teachers to avoid creativity, critical thinking, and a deviation from the initiative’s path in order to better empower children. This cookie cutter mentality in districts MUST cease, and in some cases, can prove to be abusive towards otherwise very normal and healthy children. There are both dramatic and nuanced differences between differentiating for children and following a mandated district initiative of “one-size fits all”. English language learners are but one proof of that!
One thing I will say is that reading is like a muscle and it MUST be exercised constantly enough to really develop into something strong and wonderful. Educators must also have in-depth ongoing training on how reading is reciprocal with writing, speaking, listening, and representing. Those interplays are critical to understanding developmental reading in theory and in practice. They are critically interdependent.
It’s also always crucial to incorporate a large body of books whose topics and themes are self-selected by the student as part and parcel of learning how to read!!
Having done my second Master’s thesis on repeated reading, most of the research shows that reading something less than 3 times but more than 5 times produces no real improvements for most students, but somewhere in between those cycles often makes a tremendous difference in ultimate reading acumen.
David Coleman’s “close reading” was not a bad thing at all (while Coleman himself was sniveling villain!). What was bad about the Coleman culture was tying reading skills to obsessive testing and labeling the student, teacher, and school leaders with test scores. Reading performance data is strictly to be used to help the student improve, and not to punish anyone.
We must also not only teach children to read well, but must inculcate a LOVE and enthusiasm for reading . . . . If we do not model a joy, mirth, and persistence as readers ourselves, our students will not sense those behaviors, and reading can become a potentially dry and unattractive activity! There are many ways for adults to model reading behavior for children, and it can one learned in virtually all instances.
And, by the way, Lucy Calkins is by no means EVER the end-all and be-all of reading programs! But her ideas can be interesting and empowering.
Of course, addressing the whole child by preventing or fighting poverty, addressing emotional, social, and physical needs, etc. are part and parcel of what makes a great reader. Make no doubt about that!
Reading, therefore, should never be seen as a precise science nearly as much as a developmental process that should allow for high variability in how it gets taught and scaffolded for the student . . . Policy makers, district and school leaders, and teachers should be held accountable to that very tenet . . . .
Nice explanation. My only objection is metaphoric. Scaffolding is a metaphor that has been used in education discourse to give the impression of the gradual building up from the bottom. I like a different metaphor: the spider web.
Learning is more like a series of connections that begin somewhere and continually expand, a complex web of things that seemed independent of one another but are actually related. The teacher leads the student through the web as far as they can go.
Other than the metaphor, I consider this short essay a fine defense of good pedagogy, and i strongly support your ideas.
Thanks, Roy! I agree with the spider web metaphor.
Robert, based on your experience, do you find it worrisome that millions, maybe tens of millions, of students (just in the US) have not been in classrooms since March and may not return this year at all? Is there a risk that this will have a serious impact on reading development for young students who don’t have books in the home and whose parents are not readers? While understanding that children learn to read at different times, is it a problem if large numbers of children are learning to read later than they otherwise would be?
Of course it’s very worrisome. It has long term effects on everyone. But primary and secondary crises always have to be attended to in a hierarchy of concern. While they are not separate from each other, there is a learning curve to how we are navigating education right now, for obvious reasons. And wanting everyone to be at a certain level of proficiency is a good and important goal. When it does not happen, it is not an indication of failure. It is an indication of variation, which can be addressed with all sorts of supports and approaches put into place IF teachers, policy makers, and educational leadership are wiling to do so.
In Finland, when things are not happening with a student, he/she immediately gets surrounded with strong sustainable support (not necessarily SE services or labels!).
Here, we do the opposite, when we don’t want to “restrict” the child until every single piecemeal “blinders on”intervention is tried out for weeks on end . . . . Our policies are shaped far too much by politics and not nearly enough by listening to successful educators in the trenches.
Robert, I don’t think RtI had anything to do with not “restricting” the child. The original intent was supposedly to save children from being placed in special education for problems that could be remediated in the regular classroom. It quickly morphed into a way to reduce the cost of special ed. It’s the same reason that my teaching certification was changed to reflect eligibility to teach a much wider population than was originally intended all with no additional training.
Spedktr,
I agree with what you say completely. My question is that if the Finnish model can offer intensive, robust and specialized supports to kids not making the grade without putting them into SPED or labeling them as LD, when why can’t the United States?
The answer, I think, is in what you said. It’s all about money and power . . . Do the most with the least and see who survives, whether it’s student or educator or both. That is SO quintessentially American. You can bet that school funding in Finland is far more federalized than ours, which accounts for its ability to offer and put such systems into place.
And Obama and so many others in D.C. had the audacity and hypocrisy to cite Finland as an exemplary system!!! . . .
Robert Rendo,
Thank you for this enlightening post. It rings exactly true from a parent’s perspective.
My kid was lucky to have an incredibly experienced early grade teacher who recognized this. And I have also experienced some teachers (often young and inexperienced) who seemed to have drunk the kool aid that a single method works best for every student and can never be changed.
You’re so fortunate to be so enlightened as a parent.
Teachers have not drunk the Kool-Aid nearly as much as the are mandated to carry out district initiatives, programs, and what directors of teaching and learning tell them to do. if they do not, they stand to “fall down” on their observations or not receive tenure. Teachers’ unions are generally apathetic to this sort of thing.
Hopefully, with greater awareness and advocacy, we will change federal and state policy, which will then impact schools and district leadership. Decoupling standardized test score from evaluations would be a giant and game changing step in the right direction . . .
Take painting. There is science in every aspect of it. Chemistry behind the paints used, physics behind the colors, math behind perspective. Still, science won’t make you a good painter.
And no one claims that there is a science of teaching painting.
The “science of reading” is a misnomer for phonics, ‘a method of teaching people to read by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters in an alphabetic writing system.’ When kindergarten teachers are teaching the “letter of the week,” they are not scientists. They are teaching students to connect sounds to graphemes, ie letters, although some letter names like ‘W and Y’ along with all the short vowels do not correspond to the sound they make. The science of language is known as linguistics, and perhaps this is where the confusion of the so-called “reading wars” begins. I do not know whether is linguistics is a science in the purest sense of the word. Linguistics is the study of language, its components, applications and societal contexts.
Students can learn to read in a variety of ways. Skilled teachers know there are several ways to teach students. Understanding the sound system and how to apply it is one of the elements in learning to read. Well trained teachers will use a variety of ways to teach reading, and they will adjust their teaching to meet the needs of the students.
OMG, I have tears in my eyes after reading this! What a relief and validation it is to read this! I am relatively new to teaching reading, after having taught science for quite a while. Having been aware of “balanced literacy”, “structured literacy”, phonics, whole language, etc., as a science teacher, I am now finding there is almost a war between rivaling factions. There is very much a “holier than thou” attitude of Science of Reading advocates who attempt to insult and intimidate other teachers to adopt their way of thinking. I am always learning, so I don’t reject any available information, but I also know what is working for my students. There is a language used by SOR-influenced teachers that is very biased and forceful, which leads me to wonder why they need to take such an aggressive tack with other professionals. My philosophy has always been there are a million right ways to teach. I would hope that we get past this divisiveness in reading instruction soon. I wonder just how much the money in publishing materials has led to this divide..
One of the best words of advice I ever got was from from Nancy Atwell, literacy coach. She said, “If what you are doing works well, keep doing it. If it does not work, stop doing it, and try something else.” Simple, yet profound!
Brilliant!
Yes!!! Why don’t districts get this? Its because of pressure and potlucks from within and from the state.
Love this!
Should be the guiding mantra of all teachers.
(The opposite is trying the same thing over and over again and blaming the student because “the method works for these 10 students over here, so that proves it’s your fault that it’s not working for you”.
Absolutely! Similar words: “Insanity is doing the same thing over & over again & expecting different results.” (&, no, Einstein didn’t say this. Thus far, it’s an uncredited quote.)
&, wow, I always felt so lucky to teach sp.ed., because the caseload was small enough to concentrate on each child (love those Individualized Education Plans, allowing for many “sizes” {as in “one size does not fit all”}). For some kids, phonetics worked, Orton Gillingham, Wilson Reading, SRA (even though widely criticized, I had quite a few Early Childhood kids who just loved it–& learned). Not always using programs, but working with different teaching methods worked out with colleagues in knowing our students.
Have a variety, a bag of tricks & follow Nancy Atwell’s advice.
Teaching middle schoolers, we used a Lexia computer program &–oddly enough–the company did not recommend using it with ESL students. However, the program worked best w/those students!
(BTW, I lived in a family that valued reading–as such, I started reading at 3 or 4. I learned my biggest words from comic books, my first big word being “disgruntled,” from Archie. Yeah, yeah, we did have books, dictionaries & the Encyclopedia Britannica as well.) Our Dad (o.b.m.) read 2 newspapers daily, & so I started reading them too, at an early age, because that’s what Daddy did.*
Principal to Archie: Don’t ask Miss Grundy any stupid ?? today; she’s
disgruntled.
Archie: Let us know when she’s gruntled.
Principal (in thought bubble): Gruntled?
I asked Mom (o.b.m.) what disgruntled meant, she told me, then asked her if there was a word “gruntled.” She asked, “Are you reading my comic books? (She was a true Archie fan!)
*This makes me think of being thankful for having had my parents. I miss them, & have, for many Thanksgivings.
“If what your doing isn’t working, stop doing it…” Obvious.
But the “try something else” part…that’s not brilliant. That’s the random and haphazard approach do many educators use and it’s also why so many students leave the American education system unable to read proficiently.
Amen, Diane!!!
Why is there no “science of reading”? Because of the astonishing variation and complexity of the phenomenon, including the astonishing variety and complexity of kids. Science must approach the natural world with humility about what is and can be, at present, known. Does this mean that scientific studies can never legitimately inform our instruction? Of course not. It’s important, for example, that teachers understand that most of the grammar and vocabulary of a language is acquired automatically, unconsciously, from the ambient spoken language. Does this mean that we should be attending to the fact that the ambient linguistic environments of children, in their early years, differ enormously? Yes. Does it mean we should be thinking about compensatory SPOKEN linguistic environments for some kids, with greater syntactic and semantic/lexical richness? Absolutely. Does this mean that we should eliminate all explicit grammar instruction from our teaching? Of course not, such instruction has some uses even if those aren’t what people used to think, and many still think, were the uses of such instruction but aren’t. One of the terrible things that happens frequently in education is that people half hear some scientific finding and then overapply it, Scientists themselves are not immune. Witness, for example, the disaster that was Behaviorism in US psychology AND education in the twentieth century. Maslow nailed this when he wrote about Thorndike, Skinner, and their ilk that if the only tool you have is a hammer, you start treating everything as a nail.
I do wish that more English teachers understood that kids have enormous, breathtakingly complex “grammars” in their heads that were never explicitly taught. This is something that a lot of English teacher preparation programs could improve upon by requiring a couple introductory linguistics courses, one on syntax and one on language acquisition.
Why is this important? Well, teachers need to understand that explicit grammar instruction is not the primary means by which the grammar of a language is acquired, that there is an inborn biological mechanism for this that can be harnessed with a kind of pedagogy that we don’t currently practice. This fact about the acquisition of syntax and morphology is something that linguists know but that many teachers, alas, don’t.
But then I have this fear that as so often happens in education, that this important learning from contemporary linguistics will be overapplied, overgeneralized, by some would-be edupundits, who won’t grok that it means that we should be giving some kids compensatory spoken linguistic environments full of a wider variety of syntactic forms but, rather, will make these overgeneralizations and conclude that there is no value in older kids (middle school and above) learning a simple, explicit version of a grammar in order to have a useful vocabulary for explicit discussion of persistent issues in their writing.
I used that realization, Bob, to show my high school special ed students what they knew about grammar that they didn’t know they knew. Scrambled sentences was one such a useful tool and a favorite break from routine. I treated it like a game; they could work alone or in groups. I did them along with everyone else and we discussed different construction and what made the most sense in a normal conversational pattern rather than a teacher lecturing. I was one of them in this task. It was enlightening for them and me. I couldn’t have put it in the terms you used but I knew a traditional remedial program was not going to engage these soon to graduate students. They had to know they could think!
“…if the only tool you have is a hammer, you start treating everything as a nail.”
This is entirely off the subject. My father-in-law used to work at a printing company (for 40+ years) . He knew his business like no one else. One of the million dollar machines he worked on was a shear that would slice through the paper that had been produced as Newsweek, Southern Living, or US News. After slicing millions of pages, he would have to strike the machine with a hammer. After that it would slice millions more before having to repeat the process. His innovation was to get a brass hammer.
Perhaps this is not off the subject. He had a feeling the hammer would do the trick. No data, no research, only experience. Sounds like a good teacher of reading.
Oh yes!!! Our habits learned on the job and in life are like the Common Law. They have been tried in the crucible of experience. They are heuristics, rules of thumb, that have stood the test of time. This was the entire theme of the life’s work of the great Herbert Simon, who noted that in many fields–business, science, economics, etc.–we simply don’t know enough to have optimal solutions but must rely on satisfactory ones. Good teachers establish relationships with kids in and around books, and they’ve learned how to do that in thousands and thousands and thousands of interactions with kids.
I’ve seen those cutters in operation on many a print run, Roy. They are pretty darned impressive.
I am not a reading specialist, but “science” was hard-wired into federal education policies at the same time NCLB came along. Various programs were moved into a new administrative unit called the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).
“IES was created by the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA).
ESRA also provides the legislative authority for the four IES Centers (NCER, NCES, NCEE, and NCSER) and for most IES programs. The Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems program is authorized under the Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress is authorized under the National Assessment of Educational Progress Authorization Act. IES is delegated the authority to conduct studies and evaluations of special education programs authorized by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act under section 664 of that Act.”
The alphabet soup for the four centers under IES refer to the National Center for Education Research (1979, Office of Education Research and Improvement), National Center for Education Statistics (1867), National Center on Education and the Economy(1988), National Center for Special Education Research (2002-04).
Since 2002, approved IES research has been modeled on randomized controls trials (RCT’s) of “interventions.” Studies meeting this criterion and others become part of the What Works Clearing House.” This (pseudo-scientific) enterprise marked a triumph of proponents of experimental research–students and teachers as guinea-pigs–above well-informed voices on behalf of qualitative research (who were too often scorned for lack of rigor). Although mixed methods of educational research are slowly gaining credibility, there can be no doubt that “science” as a modifier of almost anything is intended to elevate respect for the subject, or (as others have noted) make a joke). Trumpsters have had a preference for ridiculing or ignoring science when science really matters.
Laura,
I love how you state you are not a teacher as you validate those of us that are.
I was hoping you’d research this more. It seems like this science of reading group leaders are making money off of this. They are brutal.
Some say it leads to Amplify as one of their thought leaders is emily handford a non teacher but savior of the masses.
I can tell you the reading problems we are having are based on programs, not on best practice. Harmful policies are creating the problem.
(I mentioned your work here in my interview.)
Thankyou for ALL you do.
https://thericksmithshow.podbean.com/mobile/e/stefanie-rysdahl-fuhr-ed-blogger-badassteachersa/?fbclid=IwAR2lTg9EY7k-acL-4GuMYK__rVjQTjSOTycvCpT_LjHRK_TfAKoRUHM7T8M
Laura,
Also think it’s interesting that the International dyslexia association was started by Ortons…
https://dyslexiaida.org/history-of-the-ida/
Guess what program supports science of reading and is making quite a bit of money off of sor.
Also, no research to say this approach works.
OK. We know a thing or two about teaching reading.
However, one of the problems with the use of the term, science of reading, is widespread misunderstanding of the meaning of science. I’ve been a science educator for many decades. I hope that young people learn to and want to make sense of the natural word. I hope they learn to carefully observe the world to answer questions. I hope they learn to interpret what they observe, develop evidence and use that evidence to make claims about what they see. Above all, I hope they learn that when evidence suggests their claims are wrong, they change their minds. I hope they learn to say, I’m not sure when evidence is insufficient. I hope that students experience with the practices of science have some transferability to how they make sense of how people decide to live together.
So, I hope teachers adopt a scientific orientation about teaching and learning. However, since social and emotion wellbeing are inseparable from developing academic understandings, that is part of what teachers need to consider in making instructional decisions. Of course, teachers should learn from the experience of others. However, we need to reject rigid sweeping generalization in answer the question, “What works?” In fact, that’s an unproductive questions outside of misleading commercial claims. A better question is, “What works, for whom, under what circumstances?” And, we need to acknowledge the high level of uncertainty in answers to even the latter question.
Maybe claims about the science of reading are mostly about making authors’, researchers’ reputations and publishers sales quotas.
the last sentence says it all
Brilliant, Arthur. And spot on. I love how clearly you have explained here why phrases like “the science of reading” embody a misunderstanding of what is and how it is practiced.
Well stated. All teaching should be about connecting students with content in a supportive, meaningful way. There is no one rigid path to get there. Figuring it all out is what makes teaching interesting, challenging and rewarding.
For all children, but especially for the one for whom learning to read is going to be difficult, early learning must be a safe and joyful experience. Many of our students, in this land in which nearly a third live in dire poverty, come to school not ready, physically or emotionally or linguistically, for the experience. They have spent their short lives hungry or abused. They lack proper eyeglasses. They have had caretakers who didn’t take care because they were constantly teetering on one precipice or another, often as a result of our profoundly inequitable economic system. Many have almost never had an actual conversation with an adult. Some come to school barely articulate in the spoken language and thus not ready to comprehend written language, which is merely a means for encoding a spoken one. They haven’t been read to. They haven’t put on skits for Mom and Dad and the Grandparents. They don’t have a bookcase in their room, if they have a room, brimming with Goodnight, Moon; A Snowy Day; Red Fish, Blue Fish; Thomas the Tank Engine; The Illustrated Mother Goose; and D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. They haven’t learned to associate physical books with joy and closeness to people who love them. In the ambient linguistic environment in which they reached school age, they have heard millions fewer total numbers of words and tens of thousands fewer unique lexemes than have kids from more privileged homes, and they have been exposed to much less sophisticated syntax. Some, when they have been spoken to at all by adults, have been spoken to mostly in imperatives. (This is for some compensated for, partially, by having had a lot of exposure to the language of other children.) Such children desperately need compensatory environments in which spoken interactions and reading are rich, rewarding, joyful experiences. If a child is going to learn to read with comprehension, he or she must be ready to do so, physically, emotionally, and linguistically (having become reasonably articulate in a spoken language). Learning to read will be difficult for many kids, easy for others. And often the difficulty will have nothing to do with brain wiring and everything to do with the experiences that the child has had in his or her short life. In this, as well as in brain wiring, kids differ, as invariant “standards” do not. They need one-on-one conversations with adults who care about them. They need exposure to libraries and classroom libraries filled with enticing books. Kids need to be read to. They need story time. They need jump-rope rhymes and nursery rhymes and songs and jingles. They need social interaction using spoken language. They need books that are their possessions, objects of their own. They need to memorize and enact. And so on. They need fun with language generally and with reading in particular. They need the experiences that many never got. And so, the mechanics of learning to read should be only a small part of the whole of a reading “program.”
“They haven’t learned to associate physical books with joy and closeness to people who love them. ”
Much wisdom in this short sentence. Kids who love to read almost universally have this experience.
Exactly. The first step in learning to read is sitting very close to someone who loves you and reads out loud to you. As often as daily.
This was our approach with our children. We read to them long after their teachers were (oddly in my view) telling us that we should stop. Long after they were able to read on their own.
I worry about the VERY large number of children whose parents do not read to them much if at all, and who have not been in classrooms since March. I’m not an expert on reading development or child development but it is hard for me to believe that this does not pose longer-term risks to the academic development of at-risk children.
I’m sorry, but are you serious? And how do you explain the fully 10-20% (in many places much higher %) of children with word level reading deficits (call it dyslexia if you’d like) that despite beautiful homes full of books with supportive parents CAN NOT READ. I’ve evaluated struggling readers in middle to upper class districts for 20 years.
Their parents weren’t joyful enough? They weren’t immersed in the proper books? Stop acting like the joy of reading fixes reading disabilities, it certainly does not. Explicit, systematic instruction in phonological awareness and phonics has the best chance of fixing it. Not love of books. Not nice people around them. SKILLS. Reading is joyful when you can do it.
I don’t know how much you have read this blog, but your comment is not saying anything that hasn’t been said and acknowledged. Your concern is misplaced.
Michele, I don’t think anyone means that children who struggle to learn to read have joyless homes. Of course there are going to be a % of children (my understanding is typically about 10 – 15%) who may need interventions to support their learning to read fluently – whether or not they had the conditions for learning to read early in their homes.
I am understanding the above comments to be referring to the well below average reading attainment in some communities (well below 10-15% of the typical population that may need intervention). When 50-60% of students struggle to read by grade 4…. we can’t ignore conditions of poverty and lack of exposure to those early learning experiences.
I love this post so much, Diane!!!
Bravo!!!
I hope it is printed and reprinted far and wide.
Right on! …but there is a science of fleecing the taxpayers, a science of quantifying everything so that a dollar sign can be attached. As some important people, like Mac Namara, used to say, “If you can’t measure it, it didn’t happen.”
Jack D. Burgess writes: “Right on! …but there is a science of fleecing the taxpayers, a science of quantifying everything so that a dollar sign can be attached. As some important people, like Mac Namara, used to say, ‘If you can’t measure it, it didn’t happen.’”
These ARE distortions of science, not science.
Throwing out the baby (critical science) with the bathwater (anything wrongly labeled science), however, is what the severe right wing has done with the virus, mask-wearing, and distancing. I doubt any of us want to do that. CBK
Faux science for the advancement of capitalism is a way to describe it.
retired Yes, FAUX science, as we watch our language be mangled in thoroughly Orwellian fashion. CBK
Great post and spot on. As someone who has supported many children as they learn to read, I completely agree.
To piggy back on Bob’s post above – which is also spot on – it reminded me of a course I took in 2008 near the start of my teaching career. I have taken oodles of literacy courses over the years. I was fortunate to take a master’s level reading course with Henry Amoroso at the University of Maine, who was battling cancer at the time. His very philosophy matched Bob’s post. He started a reading program in Cuba based on connecting visiting teachers with young students to do just what Bob describes. He stressed that learning to read “on the lap of a parent or grandparent” was most powerful and strived to replicate that experience for children that did not have that in their lives.
Here is the book that he never got to finish. I just read that his wife and son completed it in his memory.
Thanks, Diane. I’ve long been skeptical of this particular locution I’ve read quite a bit on the subject–I’m partial do Daniel Willingham and Kylene Beers, but I also found Edmund Burke Huey’s “The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading,” (on which I wrote one of my first blog posts–see here: https://wp.me/p50jv5-S) a seminal work on the subject, fascinating. I’ve tried to figure out an argument to use in situations where this pretentious pseudo-term of art arises, but have been too busy teaching kids to read to deal with this. I’m grateful to you for doing the heavy lifting on this one.
Hey, international reading experts: How is reading taught in other countries that use the Latin alphabet? Does the emphasis on phonics vary?
My experience is mostly with Romance languages that are a lot less complicated to read. These languages are extremely regular and more more consistent than English. English has rules for about 86% of its words, but the rest must be memorized. English borrows so many words from other languages that it is a challenge to spell in English. Here are some poems that show the complexity of reading and spelling in English.http://spellingsociety.org/uploaded_misc/poems-online-misc-1419940069.pdf
Even if there are rules, it doesn’t mean that they are easy to apply. Just because “ee” is pronounced the same as “ea” doesn’t mean, this makes logical sense. Just because there is a rule that tells us how to pronounce “able” in a word, it doesn’t mean, the rule makes sense.
Are there any non-English speaking countries where they have spelling bee contests?
I’m sure the term ‘science of reading’ has been used wrongly and tendentiously, as you say. But please don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, by becoming anti-scientific. Reading can be studied scientifically, and what is learned may help inform teaching, or not. I wrote an article about some old but important studies on visual fatigue of reading text of various designs. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335148881_Readability_Discovery_and_Disputation/stats
Being by training a philosopher of science (PhD) and by avocation a type designer—one of my fonts is in use in The New Yorker—I was delighted to find and learn from this research. Such studies can help inform type design and graphic design, but they don’t determine what a person should design. I would think the same is with teaching reading. Past research should help inform what you do, if the research was actually good and holds up over time, but there will be a lot more involved.
Reading has been studied, more than anything, more than CANCER, for decades. Please look into the eye movement studies from the 1970s. When you say there is no science of reading you are dismissing an enormous body of peer-reviewed work with clear implications for certain instructional practices over others. Acknowledging that is not diminishing love of reading, it is teaching well. The problem is that MANY teachers have been deprived of this information in their college and university preparation programs and instructional casualties have been the result, on a mass scale.
Chemistry is science but there is no “science” of teaching chemistry. Reading is not science and there is no science of teaching reading.
Most anything relatively non-abstract can be tested for through empirical design and metrics. But even if an experiment produces valid and reliable results, the problem is that the result is then amplified and factory produced into programs, methods, policies, and narrow, restrictive school district initiatives, producing a “one-size-fits- all” mandate for all teachers. This is just wrong.
It is important that teachers share constantly with each other what works, and confer with each other. While not ignoring the research, practice-based evidences must have parity, and they exist, as teachers are in the trenches . . .
Diane, my friend, I do not believe that teaching is a science, no matter what you teach. Teaching is an art! Our University schools of education actually do a poor job of teaching would be teachers the skills they will need to be effective teachers.
Yes there are “teaching of reading” classes for the people who will get elementary certifications. But there aren’t any for people who will get secondary certificates. Here the stress is being competent in the subject matter that these students will be teaching. Usually requiring subject majors and requiring that there be written “boards” [tests] in the subjects they will be certified to teach.
But my observation after 37 years to teaching in middle schools, high schools, and Community Colleges is that even if a person is certified to teach a given subject on the secondary level [even some teaching in the CC] doesn’t understand the art of teaching they will only be a boring failure and often will turn students off from developing an interest in the very subject that the teacher loved enough to want to teach it.
I don’t understand how to teach the art of teaching, I only know it when I see it. Now in my retirement and self quarantined I am finally feeling that I actually practiced the art of teaching because my ex-students have made contact with me and expressed how much I made history come alive for them and thanking me for being their teacher and still being a positive influence on their lives. I can get no greater thanks.
The term ‘science of reading’ is shorthand for the vast body of scientifically derived evidence on reading acquisition and instruction. In the context of reading research, ‘scientific’ does not just mean lab experiments. It comprises studies that follow a set of research principles designed to advance knowledge and get closer to the ‘truth’.
The aim of scientific research on reading instruction is to establish causality to as high a degree of confidence as possible. When investigating which teaching methods lead to the highest rates of reading proficiency, researchers use a variety of experimental research designs that allow conclusions to be drawn about causality as well as the strength of the relationship between two variables, with varying levels of certainty.
In the words of Lyon and Chhabra (2004), “Quantitative research attempts to answer questions about ‘what causes what’. To draw reliable inferences about cause and effect—for example, to determine whether a particular instructional approach pro- duces significant gains in reading achievement—researchers must use specific types of quantitative research known as experimental and quasi-experimental studies.”
See these definitions:
“The body of work referred to as the ‘Science of Reading’ is not an ideology, a philosophy, a political agenda, a one-size-fits-all approach, nor a specific component of instruction. It is the emerging consensus from many related disciplines, based on literally thousands of studies, supported by hundreds of millions of research dollars, conducted across the world in many languages. These studies have revealed a great deal about how we learn to read, what goes wrong when students don’t learn, and what kind of instruction is most likely to work best for the most students.” (Dr Louisa Moats, 2020)
“The Science of Reading is a general body of scientific knowledge (coming largely from psychology) about how skilled reading works, how children learn to read, and disorders of reading (either developmental, or acquired through brain damage) … The Science of Reading is by definition committed to the idea that no claim about reading or learning to read can be made unless it is supported by empirical evidence (which amounts to publication in peer reviewed journals)” (Emeritus Professor Max Coltheart, 2020)
And many children learn to read before they start school, in defiance of the so-called “science of reading.”
Jennifer Buckingham I like everything you say and understand and endorse the research and theory paradigm in our fields and subjects, including education.
The “however” there, however, is that OFTEN, I hope not always, theoreticians fail to account for the place of living persons in the life of the learning reader. This is not merely being nice to teachers, but rather it concerns three things:
(1) children learn from other persons in several ways and about several developmental arenas in their lives . . . aka the “hidden curriculum”; and they are more likely to learn to read if the WHOLE experience is habituated AND mediated through a teacher/parent/ older sibling, etc.
(2) theories by definition are generalized; as such, as applied, they still need to be sorted out and delivered to VERY particular circumstances . . true even in engineering, medicine, and other natural/[physical sciences, BTW.
(3) in brief, and in human situations, teachers/persons are those ESSENTIAL personal mediators between the general and the particular; and well-trained teachers are the only ones who can have their conscious finger-on-the-pulse of situations and problems that are covered by theory and that INDIVIDUAL children present, not to mention that teachers are often able to know their students’ histories and understand them through the eyes of having not just knowledge, but the wisdom that comes from teaching experience.
Reading theory without “room for,” and an account of, the above is nothing but a severe and dangerous abstraction. And what defines an educational nightmare is where general theory, even through technology, meets a specific child without human persons as a mediators.
I haven’t kept up with reading theory of late and probably should. However, I can offer that, when I left off, I didn’t see explicit references to that “room for” in what was available at the time; and I DID see a lot about how tech was going to make “old hat” out of live teaching. . . . AKA the making of a NIGHTMARE. CBK
ADDENDUM to my note: Statistics and algorithms, as good as they can be, do not and cannot account for, understand, direct, or help individual students, some of which are anomalies . . . where statistics and algorithms leave off . . . and where change occurs in moments and not only weeks or months . . . the teacher is the only suitable way to pick up the slack. CBK
“The Science of Reading is by definition committed to the idea that no claim about reading or learning to read can be made unless it is supported by empirical evidence (which amounts to publication in peer reviewed journals)”
If the assumption that reading is science was correct, the above demand would be correct, since this is what we demand from science. But the question is and has been whether the assumption is correct.
So please don’t argue by assuming the very thing which is under scrutiny. What does the judge say when the accused says “Since I am not guilty, I demand that all my legal fees are paid for, I get a red Ferrari to take me away from here, I want a new house in Miami with swimming pools for each of my kids, …” ? My suspicion is that the judge will say “Son, we first have to examine if you are guilty.”
“The term ‘Science of Reading’ is by definition committed to the idea that no claim about reading or learning to read can be made unless it is supported by empirical evidence.”
Wrong, that’s not “by definition” of the words ‘science’ and ‘reading’. People may and do misuse and get wrong the implications of research, and how good particularly research is. Popper explained that scientific theories currently accepted are only tentatively accepted, as they haven’t (yet) be contradicted by evidence. Science evolves, and is always limited in its understanding. Those who understand science rightly have a lively awareness of the limits of current theories and testing. So you can make new claims, and they can be right. They may be a result of experience. They will ideally be systematically tested and if the claims hold up to testing, they will gain credibility in the eyes of science.
I’m afraid that in this thread, starting with Diane’s initial comment, there is a lot of conflation of the misuse of science, with false claims being wrongly made on its basis, and the importance of scientific research.
A response by the great Dan Willingham.
http://www.danielwillingham.com/daniel-willingham-science-and-education-blog/if-youre-going-to-write-about-science-of-reading-get-your-science-right
I dunno. Willingham writes
What goal does “greatest avenue to reading” refer to? That children will read more? That children will improve fluency? Gain vocabulary? That children will be able to read more challenging texts? These are not the same outcomes, and in fact there is a robust research literature on the extent to which access to books serves any of these goals.
He demands precise goals, as if reading and teaching reading was science. The “great” Willingham’s problem is with this basic assumption about reading. If your basic assumption is wrong, you can claim anything. The statement “If reading is science then …” is true, irrespective of what you replace “…” with. The same way, “If Elvis is dead, then …” is true.
Is there cognitive science behind reading? Of course. Is there congnitive science behind painting? Of course. Should we set goals for painting and narrow those goals down so that it can be examined and evaluated precisely using scientific methods? Hm.
“Is there cognitive science behind reading? Of course. Is there congnitive science behind painting? Of course. Should we set goals for painting and narrow those goals down so that it can be examined and evaluated precisely using scientific methods? Hm.”
I like this argument. It is logical and easy to follow.
Brilliant. Thank you.
Dyslexic students have very different needs from students that are not dyslexic. Interesting that this discussion does not mention them.
One year my child had a teacher that responded to the stress of the world of high stakes testing by assigning six hours of homework a night. I lent the school a copy of Rick Lavoie’s “Frustration, Anxiety Tension” [FAT CITY] learning disability simulation workshop. When I played the VHS tape at home to make sure it was working, my dyslexic son had tears running down his face, saying he wished that his teacher would watch this and realize that being dyslexic is not being a lazy student that just doesn’t try hard enough.
Posted on the 3rd grade reading thread:
There is an elephant in the reading room. Screening for dyslexia and intervention programs are deemed to be too expensive yet we have wasted billions on useless reading tests. Teachers receive little to no training for recognizing the signs and parents of dyslexic children are on their own. This should be a national scandal.
I’m very surprised you are taking a stance that will hurt so many kids, kids like mine. I once believed that kids would magically pick up on reading if I, the parent, just read to them enthusiastically. I love reading myself. You know what? It didn’t work. When my son started school, his teachers were at a loss on how to help …all because they didn’t realize there is, in fact, a science to teaching reading. I had to seek outside help, and now he is thriving. Had I left it up to those who don’t believe in the science of reading, he wouldn’t be. I truly hope you reconsider your stance. This post hurts my very soul. I thought you knew better. Since so many educators follow you, this is going to harm many kids. I speak from direct experience as the parent of a struggling reader who crossed oceans to help my child and overcame many obstacles from those who don’t believe in science along the way. Climate change is real. The Earth is round. And science has, in fact, pinpointed what will help kids learn how to read.
Julie, read the post again. I favor phonics. But different children learn differently. One size never fits all.
“One size never fits all.”
Which is a strong indication of a non-scientific endevor.
Mate “‘One size never fits all.’ Which is a strong indication of a non-scientific endeavor.”
A common misconception . . . but it’s not even the case with the relationship between architectural theory and applications in engineering, for instance.
The endeavor can be quite scientific. The difference is that one set of theories are applied to a non-conscious non-human field while the other is applied to humans who are conscious and who have individual histories that MUST be taken into account . . . in both the theories about human cognition; of human development; and in the knowledge of individual histories of children where the intersection between general theory and the specific individual is concerned.
It’s the same with theory and practice in medicine where human bodies are concerned and where physical problems are not yet the full consciousness and history of human patients. Take this much medicine, but if you are a child or an adult, you adjust the amount according to individual size, etc. Science doesn’t lose its value as generalized theory just because it works in a different data field.
On the other hand, things go bad when scientists try to adjust human DATA to their preconceived ideas of what to expect of a science that deals with nonconscious, non-developmental, non-historical data. THEN we have education, for instance, conceived as in FAILURE MODE if it doesn’t “produce” people who act like robots off the assembly line, according to some plan associated with an outcome test . . . predictable or fail.
What makes scientists truly scientific is when they can adjust their expectations of their field to account for the fullness of the data under consideration; in this case, highly developmental, conscious, historical humans.
Science’s empirical method is not restricted to the data of sense which has no consciousness, but rather their critical method can take any data under its consideration. CBK
It’s sometimes hard once I see posts pop up on my email – even though I am busy cooking 😉
I don’t think I heard anyone say that dyslexia, learning disabilities aren’t real. Or that different approaches for different learners aren’t needed.
In my state, every child must be screened for dyslexia before 2nd grade. We do it twice, once in K and again in 1st. Is the test foolproof and “science” like a blood test? No. It’s a screener that can be impacted by a lot of different things (including anxiety or attentiveness to the questions). That’s why we administer twice before 2nd grade. When used with other information it can help us know how to support and intervene with students who may later struggle with decoding.
I have been trained in both Wilson and Reading Recovery – two very different approaches – both which are most effective one-on-one and for different student populations. I pull from each a little bit in my classroom.
Do I think these are valuable programs / approaches / tools to support some students – yes.
Do I think it’s a “science” ? Or an art to know when to intervene with which approach.
Some programs may have been developed using scientific methods. But that does not mean teaching reading is a “science.”
Beachteach,
Agree with you!
Science of reading terminology is as contentious as the term planet. [Earth is a terrestrial planet, Saturn is a gas planet and Pluto is a dwarf planet, just as St. Bernard’s and lhasa apsos are all dogs.] The word planet should never stand alone.
Anyone that claims that a “one size fits all approach” to reading is valid science is misapplying science. In elementary school, my child would get a perfect score at the Equations Math Competitions, but mis-spell his name on the sheet. It is not fair to throw out the valid parts of reading science, just because a lot of white guys that have never managed a classroom misapply the valid science. One male crime victim was almost convicted of the crime against him when the lab tech mixed up the labels on the suspect and victim DNA sample tube-one guy mixing up the labels doesn’t invalidate the carefully done DNA work!
My child learned how to read because I took him to a Wilson language tutor after school.
Rick Lavoie ROCKS!
In his LD simulation video, the segment where the teachers and parents are given two vocabulary lists and the participants are given a paragraph and asked questions about the paragraph is fantastic. Most of the participants didn’t understand the paragraph that contained all the words they knew before hand and they could answer every question about the paragraph using nonsense made up words.
This from NATURE magazine who was, in turn, quoting from the Guardian:
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“’Uncertainty is the engine of science, and a sign of knowledgeable humility.’
‘Scientists can feel as if they’re in a communications arms race with COVID misinformation, but must remain honest about the complexities and trade-offs behind public-health advice, argues statistician David Spiegelhalter. (The Guardian)'” CBK
Yes! Thanks for looking at reading as a process that encompasses more than just one component of reading instruction.
Ms. Ravitch,
While I appreciate your enthusiasm for the value of phonics, I’m disappointed that you have failed to acknowledge current research that is not only highly regarded but has shown without a doubt that students learn reading through various methods. I am hoping that you will update your research beyond the 1967 book that you mention. You state that you object to the term “science of reading,” and unfortunately, you fail to recognize that there is science involved in learning how students read. For instance, you may find many reputable and peer reviewed articles that discuss neuroscience, in which we can see images proving that dyslexic brains are actually wired quite differently. You may also read recent books such as Overcoming Dyslexia and The Dyslexic Advantage in which you will learn that neuroscience supports the idea that many learners need direct phonemic awareness and decoding skills.
There are many skilled educators; however, we are doing a disservice to our students if we refuse to learn how to best reach each and every learner. I am an experienced educator myself that spent hours and hours reading to my children (and still do at ages 8 and 10). Yes, we read the same books over and over again; and yet my daughter still couldn’t recognize simple sight words. She complained of headaches, letters moving, and many other characteristics common among dyslexics. I can tell you that Orton-Gillingham instruction has made a world of difference for her. When educators are not educated, misunderstand, or refuse to acknowledge the struggle of a dyslexic student, they are also perpetuating the stigma that causes great social-emotional harm. I am very disappointed that you continue to perpetuate this debate that seems to be held most firmly by educators that fear new methods, research, and development. The research is clear. I encourage you to move beyond what is comfortable and what may have been done in the past, and move into current pedagogical and instructional practices that benefit all students.
Heidi,
My post said everything you think I should have said. Teachers should know a variety of methods and use them as needed. Children learn in different ways. Some learn to read at home. Some require specific help. Wise and well prepared teachers do what is needed.
You have obviously not been following this thread long enough. Read a lot more before you decide what Diane thinks. As to the “science of reading” and studies using science to study aspects of what goes on during reading are different things. I can do studies of what parts of the brain light up when I play golf but that doesn’t make golf a science nor does it negate the fact that scientific studies could be designed to study aspects of golf.
Yup. And with this statement, you hurt nobody’s feelings and didn’t deny that science can help your golfing.
“You state that you object to the term “science of reading,” and unfortunately, you fail to recognize that there is science involved in learning how students read.”
Nobody denies that there is science involved in learning or teaching to read. This fact doesn’t make teaching or learning to read a science. The same way, there is science involved in painting (cognitive, chemistry, math, etc), still, painting is not a science.
As soon as you delegate something to science, you only talk about quantitative stuff, like percentages, tests, evaluation of tests, etc.
If you take two teachers with the same skills, their knowledge about their subject is the same, but one has a magical personality, curious, obviously cares about the kids and makes the whole class excited, while the other one just gives instructions in a monotone tone, makes no personal connection with the kids, you can easily guess which class will learn the subject better, which class will leave lasting memory in the kids.
It’s possible that on various scientifically designed tests, the two classes show the same results. But that would just show that science doesn’t capture the essence of teaching.
Exactly the reason we had to woodenly recite instructions for standardized tests and could not answer any questions. Somehow it never dawned on the powers that be that the way a test is presented may actually influence how well a student does, especially some of my special ed students.
I think you are taking this post out of context and may not be a regular reader of this blog.
There have been many posts about reading on this site. Diane Ravitch advocates for well trained teachers who are able to pull from a variety of tools / practices / pedagogies to support the teaching of reading.
What I got out of above post is that phonics instruction is a necessary part of reading instruction and should not be left out.
Diane has also said – many times – that students who need it should have access to Orton-Gillingham / Wilson (which is based on Orton-Gillingham) instruction / programs.
Along with the great Daniel Willingham (The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads), I highly recommend the great Stanislas Dehaene (Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read) and the great Mark Seidenberg (Language at the Speed of Sight: How We Read, Why So Many Can’t, And What Can Be Done About It). Also, the September Science of Reading issue of Reading Research Quarterly has a great article by Mark Seidenberg: Lost in Translation? Challenges in Connecting Reading Science and Educational Practice. As a reading specialist who has worked with hundreds of struggling readers (and has also taught whole class reading to kindergartners and first graders) getting reading right is something I think about every day.
Our schools bought into whole language over phonics instruction. We were asked not to teach phonics at home, rather we were to embrace their little flip books full of pictures. It was ridiculous. The district also bought into poor mathematics pedagogy (TERC Investigations). Most of the district’s elementary students headed to middle school with poor reading and worse math skills. We learned not to trust our local schools.
If somebody says “This is the way to teach ….”, just put back your airpods and keep walking without feeling any guilt whatsoever. .
“Reading teachers know which children need which approach.”
“With time and good teachers, all children will learn to read.”
Both demonstratively false statements. Disappointed with you.
As a retired, special ed teacher I am guessing you had a bad experience, which should not lead to condemnation of all teachers. It is the rare child that cannot learn to read. It may never be easy for some but that hardly supports your blanket criticism.