By Paul L. Thomas | For about three years, states across the U.S., including South Carolina, have been adopting new reading legislation. This recent movement has been driven by a media fascination with the “science of reading.”
Proponents of the “science of reading” have made some dramatic claims: teachers are not teaching reading based on the current research base because teacher educators have failed to prepare those teachers, and students are struggling to read because of those failures.
The “science of reading” movement has also taken aim at popular reading programs—notably those by Lucy Calkins and Fountas and Pinnell—arguing that they lack the support of research.
As a result, we are now in the midst of yet another Reading War, pitting systematic intensive phonics (supported by the “science of reading” advocates) against balanced literacy (which has its roots in the whole language movement).
While public education certainly has an obligation to focus on literacy for all students, especially students living in poverty as well as those struggling to read, the “science of reading” movement is causing far more harm than good.
Reading wars and debates over the proper place of systematic intensive phonics happen in English-speaking countries all over the world, including England where a shift to systematic intensive phonics occurred almost two decades ago. Dominic Wyse and Alice Bradbury detail the transition:
“Prior to 2006, the teaching of reading in most classrooms in England is best described as balanced instruction, in which some phonics teaching has always been part of the teaching of reading typically for children in the infant years (aged five to seven) although not necessarily ‘systematic phonics’ instruction…. However in 2006, the Rose Report recommended that there should be even more emphasis on phonics teaching….
“This was followed by the increased emphasis on discrete teaching of phonics recommended by the Rose Report and the PNS from 2006 onwards. Further intensification of synthetic phonics teaching was seen in England’s national curriculum of 2014, along with a range of other measures to ensure teacher compliance with the prescribed method of teaching reading, including the use of the PSC [phonics screen testing]; the vetting of phonics teaching schemes; and the use of the inspectorate to focus on outcomes in statutory reading assessments as a prime focus in school inspections.”
In other words, England shifted away from balanced literacy and toward systematic intensive phonics—the goal of the “science of reading” movement—about 16 years ago.
Therefore, Wyse and Bradbury’s analysis of this shift is a powerful message for the current call to drop balanced literacy for systematic intensive phonics (what advocates call the “science of reading”).
Wyse and Bradbury use a meta-synthesis of experimental research (the “science of reading”) and a survey of 2,205 teachers to draw the following conclusions: “Our findings from analysis of tertiary reviews, systematic reviews … do not support a synthetic phonics orientation to the teaching of reading: they suggest that a balanced instruction approach is most likely to be successful.”
The “science of reading,” in fact, supports balanced literacy and not prioritizing systematic intensive phonics.
Further, Wyse and Bradbury offer important recommendations:
“In addition to the importance of contextualized reading teaching as an evidence-based orientation to the teaching of reading, we hypothesize the following pedagogical features that are likely to be effective. Phonics teaching is most likely to be effective for children aged five to six. Phonics teaching with children younger than this is not likely to be effective. A focus on whole texts and reading for meaning, to contextualize the teaching of other skills and knowledge, should drive pedagogy. Classroom teachers using their professional judgment to ensure coherence of the approach to teaching phonics and reading with other relevant teaching in their classroom is most likely to be effective. Insistence on particular schemes/ basals, scripted lessons and other inflexible approaches is unlikely to be optimal. Well-trained classroom assistants, working in collaboration with their class teachers, could be a very important contribution to children’s reading development.”
Another key problem with the “science of reading” movement is state’s adopting prescriptive phonics programs, a move doomed to failure as this study confirms.
Although too many states have jumped on the “science of reading” bandwagon already, this important research from England is an opportunity to pause, readjust and not waste another decade or two making the same mistake England made in 2006.
Dr. Paul L. Thomas is a professor of education at Furman University. Have a comment? Send to feedback@statehousereport.com.
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Please explain the growth in reading scores in Mississippi after legislative push to encourage Science of Teaching approach to literacy instruction, particularly grades K thru 3rd grade. I believe their success is one of the reasons more than 20 states have either passed STR legislation, or considering it. As a reading specialist for more than 20 years, I have used both the balanced literacy approach(cueing systems with predictable/leveled text)and STR approach (structured/ sequential phonics,phonemic awareness at advanced level, and application to decodable and authentic text) and have found the STR approach to be much more effective when teaching reading and writing skills. I have also had to remediate the effects of the balanced literacy approach as a dyslexia specialist for the last 10 years. Teaching with leveled text has in fact harmed these students literacy progress.
The definition and my understanding of the Science of Reading is this: The Science of Reading is a vast, interdisciplinary body of scientifically-based research about reading and issues related to reading and writing. A myth associated with the Science of Reading is that it is only teaching phonics. In fact, it includes the five essentials of reading and writing: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. I found this information in an edWeb.net webinar entitled The Science of Reading, Part 1: Myths, Truths, Tips, and Takeaways. While there does seem to be an emphasis on phonics, that is not the entirety of The Science of Reading. The Science of Reading does include more. The “science” reference refers to all of the essentials that have been researched and found to be necessary for student to become proficient readers.
Here’s some better reporting that says you’re wrong:
https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
The Science of Reading is more than phonics. Google Scarborough’s rope please
Bless your heart! It’s not a bandwagon, it science. It is over 50 years of documentation that proves how the brain learns to read. Evidence based research does not lie.
These “growth in reading scores” cited above are really just growth in scores on phonics tests. SoR conflates sounding out words in a list with reading – making meaning from words. Intrinsic and automatic phonics ability in students is the result of reading, not the cause. The fact that K-3 scores have gone up after teachers were forced to teach phonics in some states is due to the fact that many teachers believed erroneously that LLI was a whole language approach, and those teachers did not teach phonics at all. Word walls were used that emphasized the shape of words, not the sounds in those words. Also, according to Krashen, we see that phonics instruction had no effect on reading comprehension, not to mention that it makes kids hate reading and feel like they can’t read – when they actually need highly interesting and engaging books at their ZPD. SoR throws out ZPD in reading and writing almost completely, which works well for the top 1% of students (those whose parents teach them to read using self-selected, high interest books at the child’s level). As hopefully we all know, English is a complex language orthographically. Systematic phonics followed by authentic reading is wonderful in a language like Spanish. Spanish is a phonetic language. I would venture to guess that many of the advocates of SoR don’t understand advanced English phonetics themselves. Finally, SoR and Kilpatrick have absolutely 0 focus on second language learning and reading. You have to go back to Krashen, Cummins, and Chomsky to find the real Science of Second Language Reading. The SoR movement has nothing to say about children who are learning English. In fact, SoR merely looks at them as being dyslexic or as having learning disabilities at a much higher percent than native English speakers.
Paul Thomas has never taught reading. He wants you to believe he is an expert simply in how children learn to read because he’s a professor. He’s not. To everyone who knows anything about the science of reading they know that 1. It is not only about phonics 2. It aligns with the federal law Every Student Succeeds Act which requires evidence-based systematic and explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, language structure, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. The key being based in evidence. Unless teachers use what has proven effectiveness we have no reason to assume outcomes will improve. Paul Thomas advocates for practices that have been studied, have zero evidence of effectiveness (based on valid, reliable, peer reviewed studies), and that are in fact HARMFUL to children. THIS is why there is a science of the field of large body of the many skills required for reading – so that we ensure children receive instruction with proven effectiveness. This is no different than fields such as medicine, aerospace, and engineering that rely on proven methods in order to be healthy, not crash, and so that buildings stay upright.