Recently, two Massachusetts families filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit targeting publishers and authors of literacy curricula. The families seek class action status for Massachusetts students who were taught reading with curriculums that they say downplay the importance of phonics in early reading and resulted in harm to their children.
The families are seeking financial compensation and an injunction that the defendants provide them a free curriculum that incorporates the “science of reading,’’ claiming it is a body of research into how children learn to read, including phonics.
The science of reading is not a body of research — it is a reform movement intended to change curriculum, instruction, and teacher education programs. As lifelong educators with pre-K, elementary, and secondary literacy backgrounds, we know the reading research. We believe in teaching children to read fluently and voraciously and to think critically. For those who also like to think critically, interrogating the claim that the “science of reading’’ is “settled science’’ is worthwhile.
The reading field has been a site of passionate debate since the 19th century, with views about how children learn to read shifting in and out of favor. But today, the “reading wars’’ have hardened and polarized. Media reports have presented misleading and false statements about reading, only to walk them back later. These reports have confused the public and enlivened legislators who likely want an easy answer. Currently, 40 states and the District of Columbia have jumped on board, passing science of reading laws.
However, no clear, empirical evidence supports a reductive, singular approach to reading. We know from decades of research and theory that reading is far more complex and nuanced than what most science of reading advocates claim.
Many would like to find a simple solution to teaching reading that all teachers could implement — but one size does not fit all when learning to read. The truth is that reading is a complicated endeavor, and children accomplish it in various ways. They learn differently and have different learning trajectories. They bring their culture, background, and language knowledge into the reading experience, integrating all this with the letters and sounds they try to master. No single program fits every learner. Research shows that different approaches to teaching reading have greater or lesser success depending on the children and the teacher. In other words, it isn’t the program that is as important as the human beings engaged in the learning process.
Science of reading laws prescribe or prohibit specific reading programs according to the “science of reading’’ criteria. The approved programs implement a singular model of reading in which the explicit teaching of decoding/phonics skills dominates reading instruction. Many approved science of reading programs are scripted lessons that tell teachers what to teach, when to teach, and how to teach. School authorities monitor teachers to ensure they are following the script.
This approach often combines with the attempts to remove storybooks from classrooms. Storybooks are an essential part of a successful reading program. They inspire and delight children and motivate them to read as they see a world of diverse identities, which often includes them.
The science of reading movement has unnecessarily polarized the field of reading and public education. We have watched as reading programs we have known and respected are vilified when phonics has always been important in reading instruction, especially for beginning readers. We have seen children who need a lot of systematic instruction in phonics and others who seem to sail into reading independently without it. As cognitive scientist Mark Seidenberg maintains, “Instruction in subskills such as phonemic awareness is justified to the extent it advances the goal of reading, not for its own sake.’’
So when the pendulum swings back and forth, favoring different viewpoints and philosophies of reading, how are we serving our students? There are answers in the writings of Elena Aydarova, Rachel Gabriel, and many others, who show us how the science of reading mythologies advance the agendas of the private sector at the expense of underserved communities. Millions of dollars, Aydarova explains, go into the science of reading reforms to pay for products, consultants, and services, allowing legislators to treat these reforms as a substitute for social safety nets and finding real solutions to poverty.
Teachers do not need another new reading mandate. What they need is expanded options in their reading toolbox: skills for observing the strategies children are using in their early reading and options for providing the best interventions at any given time in any child’s reading development. Training in one approach that reduces reading to a technical skill where all kids get the same drill will not serve children or teachers well and won’t ultimately improve reading scores.
There is no “settled science’’ in literacy instruction. The reality is that young readers get better by reading. Massachusetts has a chance to get this right, and the science of reading movement urgently needs a mid-course correction.
We are concerned about how the movement is undermining teacher efficacy at a time when educators are leaving the profession. If the state continues on the current path, it further disenfranchises the teacher workforce. Worse, it risks creating a generation of functional readers incapable of evaluating what they read and unable to discover the richness and joy that comes through reading.
Nancy Carlsson-Paige is a professor emerita at Lesley University. Julie Hackett is superintendent of schools in Lexington.