Wednesday, February 5, 2020

NANCY BAILEY: The Science of Reading Plot to Replace Reading Teachers with Phonics on a Screen

The Science of Reading Plot to Replace Reading Teachers with Phonics on a Screen

The Science of Reading Plot to Replace Reading Teachers with Phonics on a Screen


Not only are school districts spending huge sums on laptops with little research to indicate students learn better on computers, they’re also pushing children to face screens to learn the most serious subject, how to read. They’re doing this alongside efforts by corporate reformers to kick teachers out of the classroom, and by promoting the idea that teachers don’t understand a Science of Reading.
The Science of Reading (SoR) refers to explicit systematic or structured phonics. This argument has been around for a long time, but it recently resurfaced, and it seems a bit different. Now phonics is on a screen.
Commercial programs in reading and phonics have always been sold to school districts for teachers to use. In the past, this process usually involved a vetting process where parents and teachers would help choose the district program. Sometimes there has been controversy over those programs. 
The difference today is that those programs are increasingly digital with embedded digital assessment. Phonics fits into software well. Think of it as worksheets on a CONTINUE READING: The Science of Reading Plot to Replace Reading Teachers with Phonics on a Screen