The Big Lie about the “Science of Reading”: NAEP 2019 Edition
After the release of the 2017 NAEP reading scores, states such as Mississippi launched a campaign to celebrate the success of their reading legislation. This effort coincided with a recent explosion in states adopting reading legislation driven by dyslexia advocates who promote systematic intensive phonics for all students.
The claims coming from Mississippi didn’t seem credible, so I began what turned into a very long (and maybe endless) examination of the growing power of dyslexia advocates to drive what are essentially very bad forms of reading legislations, notably third grade retention and systematic intensive phonics for all students.
In my initial analysis of 2017 NAEP reading scores for 4th and 8th grades, I addressed the use of “the science of reading” as veneer for ideological advocacy; I also focused on the misuse by dyslexia/phonics advocates and the media of the National Reading panel and flawed claims about and definitions of “balanced literacy” and “whole language,” including mostly ahistorical understandings of how reading has been taught and discussed in political and public forums.
With the release of 2019 NAEP data, as we should expect, the same folk are back at over-reacting and misunderstanding standardized reading test data (mostly mainstream media), and dyslexia/phonics advocates are cherry CONTINUE READING: The Big Lie about the “Science of Reading”: NAEP 2019 Edition | radical eyes for equity
