Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 4: Addressing School Boards, Legislatures and the Public

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 4: Addressing School Boards, Legislatures and the Public

Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 4: Addressing School Boards, Legislatures and the Public

This series of posts has taken aim at the false Science of Reading (SOR) narrative that posits that the Simple View of Reading (SVR; Gough and Turner, 1986) is the scientifically proven best way to teach reading and all schools and all teachers should be adopting it. The first post in the series showed that SOR was far from settled science. The next three posts addressed ways to defeat this narrative by first focusing on the individual child, then talking to parents about the child, and then working with colleagues to improve everyone's breadth of understanding of the issues. In this post, I would like to address the need for teacher advocacy on the political level. Several respondents to the previous posts have noted that school boards and legislators are forcing the SOR instructional design on teachers through policy and legislation. Neither the school board members nor legislators are the professionals here. Neither is the journalist, Emily CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 4: Addressing School Boards, Legislatures and the Public

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 3: Building Bridges with Colleagues

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 3: Building Bridges with Colleagues

Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 3: Building Bridges with Colleagues

Over the past month I have been exploring the Science of Reading (SOR) narrative that has dominated discussion about reading instruction for the last few years in posts here, here, and here. What I have argued is that the SOR narrative is far too narrow a conceptualization of reading instruction and that making it the dominant mode of instruction is dangerous. The prior posts back up that argument with relevant and recent research. Some readers, while sympathetic to my overall message, have complained that my language in these blogs is confrontational and likely to cut off conversation rather than build bridges. 

I admit that I have used words like "defeat", "fight", "overturn", and "combat", in discussing how we must respond to the SOR narrative. That is because this narrative is being foist upon school leaders, teachers, and children through lobbying groups, state legislatures, and school boards that have bought into this narrow view of reading instruction. My language is CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 3: Building Bridges with Colleagues

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 2: Talking to a Parent

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 2: Talking to a Parent

Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 2: Talking to a Parent

In my first post in this series on how teachers and literacy specialists can push back at the Science of Reading (SOR) narrative currently dominating reading instruction conversation and legislation, I leaned on the work of Peter Johnston and Deborah Scanlon in their report An Examination of Dyslexia Research and Instruction to argue that dyslexia is not a useful term, and that the SOR narrative, with its focus on word level instruction, casts literacy learning in too narrow a light. In the second post, I posited that a focus on getting to know the individual child as a learner immediately makes clear that each reader is unique, and that each reader's needs must be viewed from a broader lens than is suggested by SOR. In this post I would like to suggest a way of communicating with a concerned parent, who has read and bought into the SOR narrative, about CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 2: Talking to a Parent

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 1: Focus on the Child

Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 1: Focus on the Child

Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 1: Focus on the Child

Last week I wrote a post, Unsettling the Science of Reading Narrative that highlighted a new report from the Literacy Research Association, on dyslexia and the Science of Reading. The report titled An Examination of Literacy Research and Instruction, with Policy Implications,  by Peter Johnston and Donna Scanlon, posits that 1) "dyslexia" is not a useful term for guiding teachers in making literacy instructional decisions and that 2) the "Science of Reading (SOR)" narrative, which states that a heavy phonics emphasis is the best and only way to teach reading to dyslexics and everyone else, is neither accurate nor scientific. Several readers of that post responded favorably, but asked, "Given that SOR has the support of the media, powerful parent lobbying groups, and state legislatures, what can we as teachers and literacy leaders do about it?" The question is a good one and the answer is complex. I will try to respond to that question over the next CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Defeating the Science of Reading Narrative, Part 1: Focus on the Child

Russ on Reading: Unsettling the Science of Reading Narrative

Russ on Reading: Unsettling the Science of Reading Narrative

Unsettling the Science of Reading Narrative

Call me crazy, but when I learned I had cancer a few years ago, I did not immediately consult a journalist. Instead I chose to see an oncologist. When COVID broke out, I threw in my lot with Dr. Fauci and other infectious disease scientists, instead of a former reality TV star who suggested I inject bleach. And so, when I want advice on reading instruction, I avoid the journalists, the parent lobbying groups, the reading program sales reps, and the agenda driven pseudo-education organizations, and I look to the experts.

Two such experts, Peter Johnston and Deborah Scanlon of the University at Albany, have recently laid waste to the so called Science of Reading (SOR) in a thoughtful report written for the Literacy Research Association, An Examination of Dyslexia Research and Instruction, with Policy Implications. I strongly recommend reading the entire report, but I would like to share a few takeaways that I think illuminate the current SOR debate. As the title of the report suggests, SOR cannot really be discussed outside of CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Unsettling the Science of Reading Narrative

Dismantling the “Science of Reading” and the Harmful Reading Policies in its Wake – radical eyes for equity

Dismantling the “Science of Reading” and the Harmful Reading Policies in its Wake – radical eyes for equity

Dismantling the “Science of Reading” and the Harmful Reading Policies in its Wake

After emailing me about new reading legislation being proposed in North Carolina—next door to my home state of South Carolina that also has jumped on the “science of reading” bandwagon—Ann Doss Helms of WFAE (NPR, Charlotte, NC) interviewed me by phone.

I have given dozens of interviews about education over the last 15 to 20 years, and they all have a similar pattern; the journalist tosses out predictable questions and then becomes somewhat disoriented by my answers. Typically, the journalist at some point notes they didn’t know or had never heard the information I offered, the context and complications I raised about the topic.

My conversation with Helms was no different as we gradually peeled back the layers of the onion that is the “science of reading” as well as the very harmful reading policies that are being proposed and adopted in its wake.

Over the past couple years, I have blogged almost nonstop and written a book on the “science of reading” media narrative and how it is oversimplified and misleading but very compelling and harmful since state after state is adopting CONTINUE READING: Dismantling the “Science of Reading” and the Harmful Reading Policies in its Wake – radical eyes for equity

Letter to the Editor: Tennessee Poised to Fail Students – radical eyes for equity

Letter to the Editor: Tennessee Poised to Fail Students – radical eyes for equity

Letter to the Editor: Tennessee Poised to Fail Students

In response to Third grade retention law causing suburban superintendents angst, I submitted the following letter to the editor:

While it is increasingly popular across the US to pass third-grade retention laws as part of larger reading policies, often under the guise of the “science of reading,” there are decades of research showing that grade retention is extremely harmful to children, especially minoritized students and students living in poverty.

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the largest organization of English teachers in the US, “oppose[s] legislation mandating that children, in any grade level, who do not meet criteria in reading be retained” and “oppose[s] the use of high-stakes test performance in reading as the criterion for student retention.”

As well, the National Education Policy Center (Boulder, CO) has issued a policy brief warning that states “[s]hould not adopt ‘ends justify the means’ policies aimed at raising reading test scores in the short term that have longer-term harms (for example, third-grade retention policies).” Further, states “[s]hould not prescribe a narrow definition of ‘scientific’ or ‘evidence-based’ that CONTINUE READING: Letter to the Editor: Tennessee Poised to Fail Students – radical eyes for equity

Understanding the “Science of Reading” Movement and Its Consequences: A Reader – radical eyes for equity

Understanding the “Science of Reading” Movement and Its Consequences: A Reader – radical eyes for equity

Understanding the “Science of Reading” Movement and Its Consequences: A Reader

MacPhee, D., Handsfield, L.J., & Paugh, P. (2021). Conflict or conversation? Media portrayals of the science of reading. Reading Research Quarterly, TBD. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.384

Abstract

In this article, we contend that in media stories on the science or reading, journalists have relied on strategic metaphorical framing to present reading education as a public crisis with a narrow and settled solution. Drawing on data from a critical metaphor analysis of 37 media stories, we demonstrate how frames used in recent media reporting have intensified the reading wars, promoting conflict and hampering conversation among stakeholders and across research paradigms and methodologies. The media have asserted a direct connection between basic research and instructional practice that, without sufficient translational research that attends to a variety of instructional contexts and student populations, may perpetuate inequities. We end with an example of collaboration and a challenge to reframe reading education in ways that center collaboration and conversation rather than conflict.

CONFLICT OR CONVERSATION?MEDIA PORTRAYALS OF THE SCIENCE OF READING

Bowers, J. S., & Bowers, P. N. (2021, January 22). The science of reading provides little or no support for the widespread claim that systematic phonics should be part of initial reading instruction: A response to Buckingham. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/f5qyu

Abstract

It is widely claimed that the science of reading supports the conclusion that systematic phonics should be part of initial reading instruction. Bowers (2020) challenged this conclusion after reviewing all the main evidence, and Buckingham (2020a) provided a detailed CONTINUE READING: 

Understanding the “Science of Reading” Movement and Its Consequences: A Reader – radical eyes for equity

The “Science of Reading”: A Movement Anchored in the Past – radical eyes for equity

The “Science of Reading”: A Movement Anchored in the Past – radical eyes for equity

The “Science of Reading”: A Movement Anchored in the Past

One of the defining moments of my first-year writing seminar is my reading aloud the first few paragraphs from A Report from Occupied Territory by James Baldwin.

This essay in The Nation from July 11, 1966, offers students dozens of powerful examples of compelling and purposeful writing, Baldwin at his best. But the circumstances of the essay are what first strike my students.

“There was a great commotion in the streets, which, especially since it was a spring day, involved many people, including running, frightened, little boys,” Baldwin writes. “They were running from the police.”

We note that Baldwin uses “police[men]” five times in the first paragraph, which focuses on people in the Harlem “in terror of the police” because “two of the policemen were beating up a kid.”

Students immediately noted that Baldwin was addressing exactly the same racism grounded in policing that has been the source of social unrest in the CONTINUE READING: The “Science of Reading”: A Movement Anchored in the Past – radical eyes for equity

Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement – radical eyes for equity

Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement – radical eyes for equity

Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement

SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement (link coming; original with hyperlinks below)

South Carolina is poised with Bill 3613 to continue the historical failures of addressing reading in South Carolina through micromanaging legislation that has not resulted in improving home, community, individual equity or learning outcomes for students living in poverty, Black students, Emergent Bilinguals, or students with special needs.

Currently, I am in year 37 of teaching in SC, serving as a high school English teacher at Woodruff High for 18 years before moving to teacher education at Furman University for the past 19 years. I entered education in SC in 1984, the first days of the accountability movement in our state.

Despite political leaders changing standards and high-stakes testing multiple times over the past four decades, political and public perception remains convinced our schools are failing, and that our students are, specifically, failing to learn to read.

Read To Succeed, which Bill 3613 seeks to amend, was a serious mistake at its inception since it misreads both how students learn to read and how best to teach reading. Reading growth is not simple, and test scores are a stronger CONTINUE READING: Greenville News (SC): SC should not “jump on bandwagon” of “science of reading” movement – radical eyes for equity