HOW TO DO A READING STORY RIGHT

Isobel Stevenson:

This week’s pick is the EdWeek/PBS NewsHour segment, Parents of Students With Dyslexia Have Transformed Reading Instruction, which tells the story how weak reading results and impatient parents are pushing schools in Arkansas and other states to reconsider how they teach kids to read.

Produced and reported by EdWeek’s Cat McGrath and Lisa Stark, the piece makes explicit the connections between struggling readers, dyslexic and otherwise, slow-moving schools, and frustrated parents.

The segment succeeds because it tells the story from a human, individual perspective, with Arkansas parent advocates playing the underdog role going up against the school system. The policy and ideological issues are kept in the background. The segment is also a breakthrough for a national broadcast story in its reconsideration of phonics and other research-backed reading practices, part of a growing tide this past year.