Why Hasn’t the Science of Reading Movement Led to Greater Results?
The Rise of the Science of Reading Movement?
The science of reading movement exploded in 2020. Parents and teachers had a lot of extra time on their hands due to the lockdowns and they became increasingly aware that there was something wrong with how reading was being taught. The focus was often on learning discredited guessing strategies like three-cueing (Goodman, 1965), memorizing long word lists (Ed Center, 2020), and levelled readers not supported by research (Burns et al. 2015). I think Emily Hanford’s (2022) podcast “Sold a Story”) really brought this debate to the mainstream.
Since then, forty-three states have passed science of reading (SOR) laws. UFLI has sold over 500,000 manuals (Parker, 2025). Almost 700k teachers have received LETRS training (Lexia, n.d.). CKLA is being used by over 2.7 million students across more than 38,000 classrooms (Amplify, n.d.). It’s unclear how much money has been spent on the SOR revolution, but it’s safe to say that the cost is in the billions.
For example, Ohio alone spent 164 million dollars on their SOR revolution (Dupont, 2023).
However, it appears the fruits of this endeavour have been less successful than is ideal. Several articles came out this month on the fact that NAEP (2024) scores have essentially remained stagnant, despite the investment. For example, Annie Ma and Sharon Lurye (2026) wrote for PBS, “The same recovery has not emerged for 13-year-olds, whose average scores in math and reading remain below pre-pandemic averages. In fact, the latest reading scores, from teenagers who took the test in 2024, are essentially the same level as they were when the test started in 1971.”
