Attack on “Balanced Literacy” Is Attack on Professional Teachers, Research https://t.co/O4h4E0ZIxo via @plthomasEdD

— Paul Thomas (@plthomasEdD) June 11, 2023

Madison, long tolerating disastrous reading results, embraced “balanced literacy”.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Christina Smallwood:

In Reading in the Brain (2009)—which Hanford recommends on the Sold a Story website, writing, “I’ve never filled a book with so many sticky notes”—the cognitive neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene identifies three stages of learning to read: the pictorial, where children memorize a few words as if they were pictures (these are likely to be the child’s own name or a familiar brand logo); the phonological, where they “decode graphemes into phonemes”; and the orthographic, where “word recognition becomes fast and automatic.”

2011: a majority of the taxpayer funded Madison School Board aborts the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School in a 5-2 vote.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Andrew Rotherham:

Policymakers are focusing on the craft of teaching reading. They must also focus on the politics.

Last year’s NAEP scores continued a lackluster streak and set off a predictable bout of handwringing. This time, it was reading instruction — or, more precisely, our national pandemic of ineffective reading instruction — catching the flak. In response, the Council of Chief State School Officers held a summit on reading last month, and the media is starting to pay attention. It’s certainly better than nothing. Yet when a National Council on Teacher Quality study found that about half of the nation’s teacher preparation programs are teaching reading instruction based on science, it was received as great news. Indeed, it was progress — only about a third did in 2013. Still, some analysts, at least the cranky ones, wondered how half was in any way really good news. Half? It’s a disaster for millions of kids.

Given the long, tortuous history on this issue, we might pause to ask whether some articles and meetings are really going to get at the core problem. And we might ask whether we even have the core problem correctly defined. Our reading problem and how we approach it is broadly illustrative of a confusion that often pervades education reform efforts: We conflate problems of education politics with problems of educational craft.

Reading isn’t just the latest obsession of education advocates; literacy is a real issue in people’s lives. Reading matters, from success and belonging in school and being able to navigate everyday situations to the ability to participate fully in the civic franchise of the United States. There is a reason slave owners actively sought to keep enslaved blacks from learning to read and people were killed for teaching them: Literacy is power. Deny people access to the written word, ideas, debate and dissent, and you deny them freedom, agency, liberty — even humanity.

Bethany Hill:

We have been doing it wrong. I have been doing it wrong. 

I was confused for months, even after attending the last three days of professional development. How have teachers not known what the research clearly states? How did my undergraduate program not prepare me? Why did I teach children to read by looking at the pictures and using strategies to “guess” words? 

I wanted to cry…I did cry. I wanted to go back in time. I wanted to contact the students I taught and apologize for any struggles they faced later in their education journey, because I taught them strategies to guess at words. I thought I was a great teacher…a master of literacy instruction…

At some point, every teacher will question their impact. The truth is just what Maya Angelou says…

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

“The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

Erica Meltzer:

Over the last year or so, an education reporter named Emily Hanford has published a series of exceedingly important articles about the state of phonics instruction (or rather the lack thereof) in American schools. The most in-depth piece appeared on the American Public Media project website, but what are effectively condensed versions of it have also run on NPR and the NY Times op-ed page.

If you have any interest in how reading gets taught, I highly recommend taking the time for the full-length piece in APM: it’s eye-opening and fairly disquieting. While it reiterates a number of important findings regarding the importance of phonics, its originality lies in the fact that Hanford takes on the uneasy truce between phonics and whole language that supposedly put an end to the reading wars of the 1980s and ‘90s, and points out that so-called “balanced literacy” programs often exist in name only.

In principle, this approach recognizes that both development of sound-letter relationships and consistent exposure to high-quality literature are necessary ingredients in helping students become proficient readers. What Hanford does, however, is expose just how vast a chasm exists between theory and reality. In many schools, phonics is largely neglected, or even ignored entirely, while discredited and ineffective whole-language approaches continue to dominate.

To be clear, “reading” in the complete sense of the term is an incredibly complex, multifaceted act, one that draws on the ability to form letter/sound relationships, recognition of sight words, vocabulary, syntax, and background knowledge, among other things. “Decoding,” in contrast, refers to the act of being literally able to translate squiggles on a page into words (although confusingly, it’s often referred to as “reading” as well). It’s a key component of reading but obviously in no way a substitute for the full range of skills required. What Hanford is primarily concerned with is the latter, and neither she nor any of the experts she cites view phonics as more than a single piece—albeit an extremely fundamental piece—of the reading puzzle.

So, it is all very well and good to agree that students need to learn some phonics, but what exactly does “some” mean? 10 minutes a day? An hour once week? An hour a month? Once a year? Hanford recounts the story of a parent who, concerned about her child’s reading, asked the teacher when the class would cover phonics. The teacher responded that she had covered phonics but that the child had been absent that day.

“The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts.

edweek:

Want to know if a K-2 classroom is using explicit, systematic phonics or balanced literacy? This visual illustrates some of the main instructional differences between the two approaches to early reading.

Erica Meltzer:

Over the last year or so, an education reporter named Emily Hanford has published a series of exceedingly important articles about the state of phonics instruction (or rather the lack thereof) in American schools. The most in-depth piece appeared on the American Public Media project website , but what are effectively condensed versions of it have also run on NPR and the NY Times op-ed page.

If you have any interest in how reading gets taught, I highly recommend taking the time for the full-length piece in APM: it’s eye-opening and fairly disquieting. While it reiterates a number of important findings, its originality lies in the fact that Hanford takes on the uneasy truce between phonics and whole language that supposedly put an end to the reading wars of the 1980s and ‘90s, and points out that so-called “balanced literacy” programs often exist in name only.

In principle, this approach recognizes that both development of sound-letter relationships and consistent exposure to high-quality literature are necessary ingredients in helping students become proficient readers. What Hanford does, however, is expose just how vast a chasm exists between theory and reality. In many schools, phonics is largely neglected, or even ignored entirely, while discredited and ineffective whole-language approaches continue to dominate.

Erica Meltzer:

Over the last year or so, an education reporter named Emily Hanford has published a series of exceedingly important articles about the state of phonics instruction (or rather the lack thereof) in American schools. The most in-depth piece appeared on the American Public Media project website , but what are effectively condensed versions of it have also run on NPR and the NY Times op-ed page.

If you have any interest in how reading gets taught, I highly recommend taking the time for the full-length piece in APM: it’s eye-opening and fairly disquieting. While it reiterates a number of important findings, its originality lies in the fact that Hanford takes on the uneasy truce between phonics and whole language that supposedly put an end to the reading wars of the 1980s and ‘90s, and points out that so-called “balanced literacy” programs often exist in name only.

In principle, this approach recognizes that both development of sound-letter relationships and consistent exposure to high-quality literature are necessary ingredients in helping students become proficient readers. What Hanford does, however, is expose just how vast a chasm exists between theory and reality. In many schools, phonics is largely neglected, or even ignored entirely, while discredited and ineffective whole-language approaches continue to dominate.

Javier Hernandez:

The reading lesson began like any other. Tara Bauer, a teacher at Public School 158 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, took her perch in front of a class of restless fourth graders and began reciting the beginning of a book about sharks.

But a few sentences in, Ms. Bauer shifted course. She pushed her students to assume the role of teacher, and she became a mediator, helping guide conversations as the children worked with one another to define words like “buoyant” and identify the book’s structure.

“Turn and talk,” she said as she raced around the classroom, prodding students to share their impressions.

The student-led approach to reading and writing used by Ms. Bauer, which is known as balanced literacy, is poised to make a comeback in New York City classrooms. The new schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, wants more schools to adopt aspects of balanced literacy, including its emphasis on allowing students to choose many of the books they read.

The move, while cheered by proponents of this method, is seen by some as a departure from recent trends in the city and nationwide.

The city’s Education Department turned away from balanced literacy several years ago amid concerns that it was unstructured and ineffective, particularly for low-income children. And Ms. Fariña is facing sharp resistance from some education experts, who argue that balanced literacy is incompatible with the biggest shift in education today: the Common Core academic standards.

Via Will Fitzhugh.

Much more on “balanced literacy”, here.

Linda Jacobson:

In interviews with The 74, EdReports officials say they’ve gotten the message.

Starting in June, its reviews of early reading materials will reflect a fuller embrace of the science of reading. “Phonics and fluency are now non-negotiables” for a green rating, said Janna Chan, EdReports’ chief external affairs officer.  

Reviewers will also verify that materials no longer use “three-cueing” — a practice associated with balanced literacy that encourages students to identify unfamiliar words by picking up clues from text or pictures. Since 2021, at least 10 states have banned the practice.

An internal memo sent to EdReports staff in February and obtained by The 74 acknowledged growing doubts about the organization’s credibility as states pass new reading laws. CEO Eric Hirsch wrote that the organization is “most vulnerable to criticism around our reviews” of comprehensive English language arts programs called basals or “big box” curricula — programs that some have attacked for being “bloated” and giving lip service to the science of reading. Hirsch wrote the memo in response to a Forbes article that critiqued the organization and highlighted newer groups providing alternatives to its reviews.

Bruce Thompson:

Beginning sometime after 2000, there was growing concern that many students had difficulty with reading. When comparing reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) among states, Massachusetts stood out. Suddenly, that state’s reading and math scores jumped.

Massachusetts’ scores (shown in yellow in the graph below) started the late 1990s looking similar to Wisconsin’s, but then enjoyed a substantial jump. By contrast, Wisconsin scores (shown in gray) were largely flat or decreasing and were eventually joined by the average national scores.

What accounted for the jump in Massachusetts’ scores? That state decided to replace whole language (currently called “balanced literacy”) with a program that was based on research into the science of learning to read. Children learning to read were taught to sound out the parts of unknown words (called phonemes) and then combine these parts to sound out the whole word.

To enforce this change, the state designed a test for aspiring teachers to assess their knowledge of the research on the process of learning to read.

As the next graph shows, Milwaukee Public Schools made little or no progress during the last two decades. Scores were also flat during this period, indicating that many of its students were struggling with reading. They also trailed the average scores for big cities in the nation.

——

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

APM Reports:

Banks: We have not taught the kids the basic fundamental structures of how to read. 

David Banks is the chancellor of the New York City public schools.  

Banks: We have gotten this wrong in New York and all across the nation. And many of us follow the same prescript of balanced literacy. And… 

Balanced literacy is the approach to teaching reading we focused on in Sold a Story. 

—-

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Still, at least once major American leader of the balanced literacy movement, Lucy Calkins, has rolled out changes to her reading curriculum under pressure from the science of reading movement. And initial test scores from around the country show this science of reading model seems to be working. Mississippi was one of the first states to pass a law related to “evidence-based” reading instruction. More than 30 states, including Wisconsin, have followed suit, especially after 2019, when Mississippi became the only state in the nation to meaningfully improve its fourth-grade reading scores. —– The Madison School District adopted EL Education in 2022, one of the four curricula that ended up on the state’s final list, which the school district estimated at the time to cost about $3.5 million for materials, including shipping. The Oregon School District also has been using EL Education since the beginning of the school year. The McFarland School District started using a curriculum called Wonders last fall. McFarland schools said it meets the standards outlined in Wisconsin’s reading law even though it’s not one of the four approved by the state. The Waunakee School District has been using an early literacy curriculum called Meaning Making since fall 2022. This curriculum also does not appear on the state’s short list but still meets ACT 20’s requirements, according to Amy Johnson, the district’s director of elementary curriculum and instruction. Waunakee already is looking for a new elementary math curriculum. Johnson said the district will be focusing on that work, rather than pursuing another reading curriculum change.

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Corri Hess:

Most school districts in the state now use a balanced literacy approach called “three-cueing,” that will now be illegal in all public and private schools.

The change comes at a time when fewer than 40 percent of third graders were proficient in reading on the most recent Wisconsin Forward Exam. Wisconsin’s achievement gap between Black and white fourth grade students in reading has often been the worst in the nation.

Quinton Klabon:

Joint Finance Committee FINALIZES reading curriculum list with the highest-quality options! 🎆🎇🎇🎆

Amplify: Core Knowledge
Great Minds: Wit And Wisdom and Geodes and Really Great Reading
Open Up: Bookworms
Open Up: EL

More.

Karen Vaites:

Wisconsin’s 2024 curriculum list is final:

The ELCC recommendations carry the day, giving Wisconsin the strongest ELA curriculum list in the country! 👏

Also, the lobbyist box is empty. 👏

—

Curious local media coverage.

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Edna Cruz & Alaura Mack

In 2020, the Aldine Independent School District became the first district in Texas to adopt a high-quality, knowledge-based reading curriculum. It was a seismic change for teachers, who had been using a familiar balanced literacy program with skills-focused lessons and leveled readers for several years. But it was a necessary change for students — in 2018-19, just 30 percent of Aldine third graders were reading at or above grade level.
Despite the challenges of COVID-19 and its effect on academic achievement, we have made strides by implementing the Amplify CKLA curriculum. Today, teachers lead highly structured, thematic units that focus on the same content over a period of weeks. All students work with the same knowledge-rich, grade-level texts, whether they read them independently or with support. That gives every student the opportunity to build vocabulary and a base of common knowledge, which boosts reading comprehension and fosters inclusive communities of learning.
Our students have made rapid progress — within the first two years, 50 percent of third graders were reading at or above grade level. The percentage of third graders scoring “well below” benchmark dropped from 48 percent to 36 percent. These are heavy lifts in Aldine, where about 90 percent of students are economically disadvantaged and more than half are English language learners.

Alan Borsuk:

The approach is best known for emphasizing phonics-based instruction, which teaches children the sounds of letters and how to put the sounds together into words. But when done right, it involves more than that — incorporating things such as developing vocabulary, comprehension skills and general knowledge.

More:What is phonics? Here’s a guide to reading terms parents should know

The approach differs from the “balanced literacy” approach widely used in recent decades, which generally downplayed sounding out letters. One well-known balanced literacy approach, called “three-cueing,” will be illegal in Wisconsin in all public schools, charter schools and private schools taking part in the state’s voucher program as of this fall.  

What curriculums will be recommended? 

Good question. The law created an Early Literacy Curriculum Council with nine members, generally educators from around the state, to make recommendations. The council had a big job and got behind schedule. But it recently recommended four curriculums, generally ones regarded favorably by prominent “science of reading” advocates.

The state Department of Public Instruction has been critical of aspects of the council’s work, including saying that council members didn’t stick strictly to the requirements of the new law. DPI took the council’s recommendations, deleted one, and added eight to come up with 11 curriculum choices that it said meet the law’s requirements.

Some literacy council members and other advocates have criticized the DPI list for including programs that are not as good as the ones the council recommended.  

Can you give examples?  

Sure. “Into Reading,” by HMH (also known as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), is a popular program. It is one of three programs now being used by schools in New York City, the largest district in the country. And Milwaukee Public Schools has been using “Into Reading” for a couple years. It is considered to meet “science of reading” standards, but some experts regard other curriculums as better.

The literacy council did not include “Into Reading” on its list. The DPI included it. For one thing, including it could lead to saving districts, including MPS, large sums of money by not putting them under pressure to get new textbooks and other materials.    

And then there is “Bookworms.” This curriculum has some distinctive aspects, and some advocates, such as well-known curriculum analyst Karen Vaites of New York, regard it highly and say schools using it have had good results. The literacy council included “Bookworms” on its list. DPI did not and said the program did not meet all the standards of the new law.  

——-

Politics and the taxpayer funded DPI.

Wisconsin DPI Reading Curriculum Evaluation list

——-

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Erin Geary:

The letter of the day is B: Bureaucracy, benefits, and billions

The school reading wars have raged since the 1800s and consists of two camps: Those who believe that children learn to read through phonics and those that believe that children read using a whole language approach. A third recent addition to the ongoing battle over how to teach reading skills is referred to as balanced literacy, which combines the best of both phonics and whole language.

In preschool and kindergarten after recognizing each letter of the alphabet both in lower and upper case, phonics teaches that letters have their own corresponding sounds and that some consonants can be blended to form new sounds. Children are not taught letter sounds in alphabetical order, rather pupils ate instructed in an order of hierarchal importance based on frequency. First, for example, teachers may start letter sounds based on each child’s name before moving on to the letters: s, t, p, n, i, and a. It’s quite easy to make numerous words from these initial letters, their sounds, and rhyming words—sit, pit, nit, sat, pat, sin, pin, tin, etc. Words can easily be deconstructed by their individual letter sounds then brought together as a word: S-i-t, sit.

Naturally, not all words in the English language can be decoded in this way, and these words are the ones known as sight words (e.g. the, she, said), which must be memorized. Teachers have been using the 220 Dolch sight words, which were considered the most frequently used sight words seen by readers (excluding nouns) for kindergarten through the second grade since they appeared in the 1930s. The Fry list, first appearing in 1957 and updated in 1980, focused its attention on the1,000 most frequently used words beyond grade two. Both lists need children to memorize rather than sound out words, which is a whole language approach.

by Carolyn Jones • CalMatters

An Assembly bill introduced this week would require all California schools to teach students to read using the “science of reading,” a phonics-based approach that research shows is a more effective way to teach literacy.

AB 2222, introduced by Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, a Democrat from West Covina, is backed by Marshall Tuck, who ran for California superintendent of public instruction in 2018. Tuck is now the chief executive officer of EdVoice, an education policy organization. It’s also backed by the advocacy groups Decoding Dyslexia California and Families in Schools.

Many schools in California have already transitioned to the science of reading approach, but some are still using a method known as balanced literacy or whole language, which emphasizes sight recognition of words in addition to phonics. The battle over the best way to teach children to read has been heated, because the stakes are so high: strong literacy skills are linked to higher graduation rates, better employment opportunities, the chances of being incarcerated and the state’s overall economy.  

I wonder why the Biden Administration hasn’t sued the largest &/or most prestigious teachers college (i.e., Teachers College, Columbia University) for its deceptive and debunked Balanced Literacy curriculum, Units of Study?

It is, for all intents and purposes, singlehandedly…

— Marilyn Muller (@1in5advocacy) December 28, 2023

Kappan:

In the third installment of our series on literacy coverage, one of the parents featured in “Sold a Story” describes a dispiriting media response to problems at his daughter’s New York City school that continues to this day.

By Alexander Russo

Even before the pandemic, New York City parent Lee Gaul had sensed something seemed off about his daughter Zoe’s reading. “She would use a word that was completely wrong even if it conveyed the same idea,” he told me in a recent interview.

Then, like many other parents, he saw what was being taught in Zoe’s classroom during remote learning.

Looking around for answers to what was going on, Gaul eventually came across Emily Hanford’s documentary “At a Loss for Words” and found out that his daughter’s school was— like many other NYC DOE schools—using the Lucy Calkins (TCRWP) “balanced literacy” approach to teaching reading.

There was even a picture of Calkins schmoozing with the administrative staff in the familiar halls of his daughter’s school.

Trying to get some media attention to address the problems he was seeing, Gaul tried contacting several major local news outlets to tell them about the situation.

But no reporters ever got back to him with substantive interest until he was contacted by APM Reports’ Hanford.

Caitlin Moscatello

At a meeting with parents in May, Elizabeth Phillips, a longtime principal at P.S. 321, a highly sought-after elementary school in Park Slope, didn’t mince words about the new reading curricula being implemented across the city this fall by Mayor Eric Adams’s administration. Not only did she refer to the trio of options selected by Schools Chancellor David Banks and the mayor’s Cabinet as “three bad choices,” she also shared her plans to resist. “We are definitely pushing back against it,” she said, “and many principals in the district are. And our superintendent understands that we are not going to do it with fidelity, that we are going to keep doing what has worked for us.”

Phillips (who did not respond to interview requests; the spring meeting was recorded) is a devotee of “balanced literacy,” an approach to teaching kids to read that had been the prevailing ethos in New York City schools for roughly two decades — until it came crashing down last year when heightened scrutiny caused the method’s once-revered leader, Lucy Calkins, to concede that it was fundamentally flawed. Specifically, critics said kids were falling behind because they didn’t know how to sound out words. Instead of phonics, Calkins’s program pushed a cuing method that instructed students to look at the first letter of a word, then to a picture on the page, and consider the context and piece it all together. But this technique relied on students having enough background knowledge to make the proper inferences as well as the ability to process language without difficulty. As a result, many kids weren’t actually reading. They simply became really good at guessing.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Joanne Jacobs:

Thirty-eight percent of teacher-education programs are failing to prepare future teachers to teach reading using the most effective methods, according to a new report by the National Council on Teacher Quality, writes Kate Rix on The 74. Fifty-one percent of programs earned an “F” or “D,” while 23 percent received an “A.”

Teaching reading is the top priority in the early grades. As districts and states shift to what’s called the “science of reading,” many veteran teachers — trained to use “balanced literacy” or “whole language” methods that don’t work very well — need to retraining. You’d think the new teachers would be prepared, but many ed schools are slow to change.

Teachers need to understand how to teach phonemic awareness (hearing and manipulating sounds in words), phonics (matching sounds with letters), fluency (reading without much effort), vocabulary and comprehension, says NCTQ. Most teacher-prep programs don’t cover all five adequately: Phonemic awareness is the most neglected.

Kiera Butlers

Ten years ago, Marilyn Muller began to suspect that her kindergarten daughter, Lauryn, was struggling with reading. Lauryn, a bright child, seemed mystified by the process of sounding out simple words. Still, the teachers at the top-rated Massachusetts public school reassured Muller that nothing was wrong, and Lauryn would pick up the skill—eventually. Surely they knew what they were talking about. Their reading curriculum was well-regarded, and one that encouraged children to use context clues when they couldn’t decode a word. The class was organized into leveled reading groups—bronze, silver, gold, and platinum—with everyone starting out the year in the bronze group. By year’s end, everyone had moved up to a new level—except Lauryn. Muller’s daughter was the only kindergartner stuck in bronze all year.

First grade was no better. The teachers continued to brush off Muller’s concerns—but she couldn’t help but worry for all sorts of reasons, especially because not being able to read was starting to affect her daughter emotionally. Tears started each day, as Lauryn began to refuse to go to school in the mornings. Finally, Muller brought Lauryn in for a private neuropsychological evaluation, and the psychologist who tested her found that her daughter was dyslexic. After a long battle with the school, Muller eventually convinced them to provide appropriate services—something to which all students are entitled by law.

In Lauryn’s case, this meant that her current reading curriculum should have been replaced by a method of known as the structured literacy approach. Instead of guessing and looking for context clues, structured literacy—also known as phonics—teaches students how to map sounds onto letters to decode words. There was only one problem: Muller discovered that the teacher the school assigned to Lauren wasn’t trained in structured literacy. Lauryn continued to struggle.

Muller didn’t know it at the time, but she had stumbled into an educational controversy that in recent months has turned into something of a scandal. A spate of recent reporting—in podcasts, national magazines, and major newspapers—has highlighted new research finding that the balanced literacy approach wasn’t as effective as a phonics-based approach for most students—learning disabled or typical. And the national embrace of balanced literacy was particularly bad for low-income students of color. Today, a staggering third of all children—and half of all Black children—read below grade level. In May, leaders in the country’s largest school system of New York City officially announced plans to transition away from a balanced literacy curriculum and apologized for the harm they had caused. Addressing students and parents in a recent New York Times interview, Chancellor David C. Banks said, “It’s not your fault. It’s not your child’s fault. It was our fault. This is the beginning of a massive turnaround.” Understandably, parents are outraged.

“In a 2020 report, a team of reading researchers at the educational consulting group Student Achievement Partners (SAP) concluded that Calkins’ approach was only effective for students who had already received outside reading instruction.” https://t.co/P5tyNUVg7w

— Karen Vaites (@karenvaites) June 21, 2023

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Corrinne Hess:

A bipartisan bill is expected to be released this month that would change the way most public schools in Wisconsin teach reading. 

State Rep. Joel Kitchens, R-Sturgeon Bay, who chairs the Assembly Committee on Education, has been working with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction on the plan that would move more schools away from teaching what is known as “balanced literacy,” to a “science of reading” approach.

Instead of being taught reading through pictures, word cues and memorization, children would be taught using a phonics-based method that focuses on learning to sound out letters and phrases.

According to DPI, only about 20 percent of school districts are using a phonics-based approach to literacy education. Other reading curriculums that don’t include phonics have been shown to be less effective for students.

The bill will be introduced separately from the 2023-25 biennial budget that is currently being crafted but $15 million to support the plan would be included in the budget, Kitchens said during an April 24 interview on Wisconsin Eye.  

“Education is the one chance we have to break the cycle of generational poverty that we see in Wisconsin and reading is by far the most important skill to allow children to be successful in school,” Kitchens said. 

Kitchens told Wisconsin Public Radio on Thursday he is updating the current draft of the bill and will share it with DPI “in coming days.”

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Troy Closson:

As New York embarks on an ambitious plan to overhaul how children in the nation’s largest school system are taught to read, schools leaders face a significant obstacle: educators’ skepticism.

Dozens of cities and states have sought to transform reading instruction in recent years, driven by decades of research known as the “science of reading.” But the success of their efforts has hinged in part on whether school leaders are willing to embrace a seismic shift in their philosophy about how children learn.

Already in New York City, the rollout has frustrated principals. The schools chancellor, David C. Banks, is forcing schools to abandon strategies he says are a top reason half of students in grades three to eight are not proficient in reading.

But principals will lose control over selecting reading programs at their schools, and their union has criticized the speed of change. And many educators still believe in “balanced literacy,” a popular approach that aims to foster a love of books through independent reading time but that experts and the chancellor say lacks enough focus on foundational skills.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Troy Closson:

As New York embarks on an ambitious plan to overhaul how children in the nation’s largest school system are taught to read, schools leaders face a significant obstacle: educators’ skepticism.

Dozens of cities and states have sought to transform reading instruction in recent years, driven by decades of research known as the “science of reading.” But the success of their efforts has hinged in part on whether school leaders are willing to embrace a seismic shift in their philosophy about how children learn.

Already in New York City, the rollout has frustrated principals. The schools chancellor, David C. Banks, is forcing schools to abandon strategies he says are a top reason half of students in grades three to eight are not proficient in reading.

But principals will lose control over selecting reading programs at their schools, and their union has criticized the speed of change. And many educators still believe in “balanced literacy,” a popular approach that aims to foster a love of books through independent reading time but that experts and the chancellor say lacks enough focus on foundational skills.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Andrew Bauld

In 2018, Anders Rasmussen arrived as principal of Wood Road Elementary School in Ballston Spa, NY, in his words, a “reading neophyte.” A former high school English teacher and assistant principal, Rasmussen came to the new job with a basic background in elementary reading curriculum and a readiness to learn what was working at his new school and what needed revamping.

What he heard from teachers was that there was a need to rethink the way reading was taught.

“What that started for me was a real effort to understand reading and how we teach it,” Rasmussen says.

Until then, the district had used an amalgamation of several different reading programs to provide a balanced literacy approach to reading instruction.

The concept of balanced literacy appeared in the 1990s, a curriculum meant to appease two camps in the long-feuding reading wars—those favoring explicit phonics instruction on one side; on the other, whole language advocates who believed simply exposing kids to a lot of books would get them to learn to read naturally.

Critics of balanced literacy say the approach, which emphasizes student choice, independent reading, and small group work along with some phonics, fails to incorporate the science of reading and the wealth of research that reading experts, especially cognitive scientists, have produced over the last few decades.

Rasmussen hadn’t been trained in any one program, so he immersed himself in everything recent studies said about how kids learn to read. He came away convinced there was a clear pathway to get students reading on grade level.

Sarah Mervosh:

About one in three children in the United States cannot read at a basic level of comprehension, according to a key national exam. The outcomes are particularly troubling for Black and Native American children, nearly half of whom score “below basic” by eighth grade.

“The kids can’t read — nobody wants to just say that,” said Kareem Weaver, an activist with the N.A.A.C.P. in Oakland, Calif., who has framed literacy as a civil rights issue and stars in a new documentary, “The Right to Read.”

Science of reading advocates say the reason is simple: Many children are not being correctly taught.

A popular method of teaching, known as “balanced literacy,” has focused less on phonics and more on developing a love of books and ensuring students understand the meaning of stories. At times, it has included dubious strategies, like guiding children to guess words from pictures.

The push for reform picked up in 2019, when national reading scores showed significant improvement in just two places: Mississippi and Washington, D.C. Both had required more phonics.

But what might have remained a niche education issue was supercharged by a storm of events: a pandemic that mobilized parents; Covid relief money that gave school districts flexibility to change; a fresh spotlight on racial disparities after the murder of George Floyd; and a hit education podcast with a passionate following.

“There is this urgency around the story, this unbelievable grief,” said Emily Hanford, a journalist at American Public Media. Her podcast, “Sold a Story,” detailed how stars of the literacy world and their publisher diverged from scientific research. It racked up nearly 5 million downloads.

The movement has not been universally popular. School districts in Connecticut and teachers’ unions in Ohio, for example, pushed back against what they see as heavy-handed interference in their classrooms.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Julia Silverman:

After weeks of furious, behind-the-scenes negotiations, Gov. Tina Kotek has thrown her weight — and a proposal to spend upwards of $100 million – behind a bill that aims to overhaul how Oregon’s youngest students are taught to read.

The effort, dubbed the Early Literacy Success Initiative, is up for a pivotal hearing in Salem this week. In an exclusive interview Monday, the governor made it clear the move she’s backing to make reading instruction more effective will hew to what research says works, not to techniques with which educators might be more familiar, and will be swift.

Only 39% of Oregon’s third-graders can read proficiently, including just 21% of Latino and Black students, the most recent statewide test results, from spring 2022, showed.

Kotek told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Monday, “We are going to make sure that the science of reading, the research, guides what districts do. We are expecting movement by districts in the upcoming school year.”

Science of reading is a key term that signals a systematic, phonics-based approach that is backed by decades of brain research and leaves no room for what is commonly called “balanced literacy.” The latter approach, still embraced by some Oregon school districts and colleges of education, includes teaching students to guess at words from pictures or context and leaving them to figure out many letter-sound patterns on their own.

Should the proposal pass, the level of specification Kotek is calling for would be a big departure for Oregon, which has traditionally allowed its nearly 200 school districts to chart their own course.

Kadjata Bah, age 18

new documentary film called The Right to Readadds to growing national debates about literacy and the science of reading. This timely and compelling film is streaming for free until March 9, 2023.

Directed by Jenny Mackenzie and produced by LeVar Burton, the film follows a long-time activist, a teacher, and two families as they navigate the future of education.

Kareem Weaver is an Oakland-based activist with the NAACP. He is an experienced educator, and his mission is to create a world where 95% of children can read. Working with Sabrina Causey, a rookie first grade teacher in Oakland, the two make a case for a new curriculum for their students based in the science of reading.

The film comes right as the “reading wars” of the 1990s have come to another head. The debate between the research-based science of reading and the whole language or balanced literacy approach now holds more dire consequences for the crisis American children face.

Currently, 37% of fourth graders in the U.S. read below grade level. While literacy is a concern for all children, gaps are especially pronounced among children of color. In fact, about 50% of all Black students graduate high school reading below grade level. Illiteracy is not only an academic burden as research shows that people who cannot read proficiently are more likely to end up in prison, homeless, and unemployed.

“Imagine being in the Stone Age and you ain’t got no stone. Imagine being in the Bronze Age and you ain’t got no bronze. We’re in the Information Age right now—and you can’t read the information,” said Weaver while explaining the current reading crisis.

Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Laura Hancock:

His budget proposal contains $162 million over the next two years to get the science of reading instructional approach into all of Ohio’s public schools.

At the same time, Ohio State University has been an epicenter of the approach to reading instruction that DeWine wants to get away from – known as “balanced literacy” or “whole language” – since 1984, holding a trademark for an intervention program used to catch struggling readers up with their peers. Hundreds of thousands of students across the country have been educated using the program – called Reading Recovery – which OSU professors take into local schools across the country.

Balanced literacy encourages students, when they encounter a word they don’t know, to use strategies such as looking at the book’s pictures and considering context, sentence structure and the word’s letters.

But DeWine, in his State of the State speech, cited the most recent results of Ohio’s State Test as a reason for schools to change their approach. Just 60.1% of third-grade students scored proficient or higher on reading.

Note that spending increases annually, with Madison taxpayers supporting at least $23,000 per student.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Sarah Mervosh:

But recently, he said, he has made strides, in part because of an unusual and sweeping high school literacy curriculum in Memphis.

The program focuses on expanding vocabulary and giving teenagers reading strategies — such as decoding words — that build upon fundamentals taught in elementary school. The curriculum is embedded not just in English, but also in math, science and social studies.

With his new tools, Roderick studied “I Have a Dream,” the speech by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — no longer skipping unfamiliar words, but instead circling them to discern their meaning. And when scanning sports news on ESPN in his free time, he knew to break down bigger words, like the “re/negotia/tion” of a player’s contract.

The instruction “helped me understand,” said Roderick, 17, who is on the honor roll at Oakhaven High School and is preparing to take the ACT. (He and other students, interviewed with parental permission, are being identified by their first names to protect their privacy.)

The program in Memphis is an extension of a growing national movement to change the way younger children are taught to read, based on what has become known as “the science of reading.” And it is a sign of how sharply the pendulum has swung in the decades-long, contentious debate over reading instruction, moving away from a flexible “balanced literacy” approach that has put less emphasis on sounding out words, and toward more explicit, systematic teaching of phonics.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

r2rp

As discussion of Emily Hanford’s new podcast builds,teachers are questioning stories we were sold by people we trusted. For some teachers, this is the first time they’ve doubted instructional materials that are ubiquitous in elementary and reading intervention classrooms. When we question the tenets of Balanced Literacy, teachers can unearth a trove of information. But how to make sense of it all?

As researchers Stanovich and Stanovich explain:

The current problem is how to sift through the avalanche of misguided and uninformed advice to find genuine knowledge. Our problem is not information; we have tons of information. What we need are quality control mechanisms.”

A lack of “quality control” has allowed disproven methods to take root in our classrooms and, if we don’t rethink our approach to finding answers, history may repeat itself. Dr. Emily Solari recently wrote:

Jessica Winter:

In the first spring of the pandemic, as families across the country were acclimating to remote learning and countless other upheavals, I sat down on the living-room sofa with my daughter, who was in kindergarten, to go over a daily item on her academic schedule called Reading Workshop. She had selected a beginner-level book about the alliterative habitués of a back-yard garden: birds and butterflies, cats and caterpillars. Her decoding skills, at that stage, were limited to the starting letter of each word, and all else was hurried guesswork—pointing at “butterfly,” she might ask, “Bird?” and start to turn the page. I coaxed her to look at how the letters worked together, to sound them out, starting by taking apart the first few phonemes: bh-uh-tih, butt. She didn’t appear to be familiar with this approach. She seemed to find it frankly outrageous.

Our subsequent reading workshops followed the same script. She would pick out a book, flip around, guess, bluff, and try to match words to pictures, while I plodded along behind her, grunting phonemes, until her patience frayed. I ascribed our ongoing failure to any number of factors—I wasn’t a teacher, for starters. (My kid wasn’t the only one bluffing.) She perhaps wasn’t ready to read. There were ambulance sirens wailing outside, forever.

I looked online for help, and learned that our Brooklyn public school’s main reading-and-writing curriculum, Units of Study, is rooted in a method known as balanced literacy. Early readers are encouraged to choose books from an in-classroom library and read silently on their own. They figure out unfamiliar words based on a “cueing” strategy: the reader asks herself if the word looks right, sounds right, and makes sense in context. My daughter was taught to use “picture power”—guessing words based on the accompanying illustrations. She memorized high-frequency “sight words” using a stack of laminated flash cards: “and,” “the,” “who,” et cetera.

It seemed to me that, rather than learning to decode a word using phonics, by matching sounds to letters with close adult guidance, a reader following this method is conditioned to look away from the word, in favor of the surrounding words or the accompanying illustrations—to make a quasi-educated guess, perhaps all on her own. It seemed possible that my kid’s scattered, self-directed reading style wasn’t entirely a product of her age or her temperament. To some extent, it had been taught to her.

David Boaz:

But increasingly parents and teachers are pushing back against “whole language” and “balanced literacy” theories. They cite decades of research on how children actually learn to read and write. In 1997 Congress instructed the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development to work with the Department of Education to establish a National Reading Panel that would evaluate existing research and evidence to find the best ways of teaching children to read. The panel reviewed more than 100,000 reading studies. In 2000 it reported its conclusion: That the best approach to reading instruction is one that incorporates:

• Explicit instruction in phonemic awareness
• Systematic phonics instruction
• Methods to improve fluency
• Ways to enhance comprehension

And yet more than a quarter of American school districts use this one particular curriculum that doesn’t reflect those conclusions. Other districts use other curricula built on similar principles. A 2019 investigation by American Public Media revealed “American education’s own little secret about reading: Elementary schools across the country are teaching children to be poor readers — and educators may not even know it.”

It’s not like people were unaware of the problems with such approaches to reading before the 2000 report. In 1995, after state test results showed that the vast majority of California public school students could not read, write, or compute at levels considered proficient, Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin appointed two task forces to investigate reading and math instruction. The reports were clear — and depressing. There had been a wholesale abandonment of the basics — such as phonics and arithmetic drills — in California classrooms. Eastin said there was no one place to lay the blame for the decade‐long disaster. “What we made was an honest mistake,” she said. Or as the Sacramento Bee headline put it, “We Goofed.” Eastin promised to put more emphasis on phonics, spelling, and computation in the classroom. What an excellent idea. But cold comfort for about 4.5 million students who suffered from the system’s decade‐long “honest mistake” of not teaching them to read, write, or compute. The mistake didn’t come cheap for taxpayers, either. California spent about $201.7 billion on public schools during the “mistake” decade.

Dale Chu:

In the 1840s, Horace Mann, known as the “father of American education,” argued that children should be taught to read whole words instead of individual letters, which he described as “skeleton-shaped, bloodless, ghostly apparitions” that make children feel “death-like, when compelled to face them.” This malformed opinion morphed into the broader whole-language theory, whose proponents hold that learning to read is analogous to learning to speak, coming naturally, as if through osmosis. Disciples of whole-language instruction believe that if a word is unfamiliar to a child, it can be skipped, guessed at, or picked up from context. To wit, Kenneth S. Goodman, the founder of whole language, once referred to reading as a “psycholinguistic guessing game.”

Phonics takes exactly the opposite approach. Mastery of a set of symbols is the initial step; an analogy for learning how to read might be learning music notation or Braille. Children should be taught that words are made up of discrete parts and shown how different letters and letter combinations convey the English language’s 44 phonemes. Also dating back to the 1800s, the theory behind phonics is that learning to read requires knowledge and understanding of the relationships between letters and sounds, with the aim of helping early readers develop decoding skills (i.e., sounding out and recognizing words) that will eventually become automatic.

Those with allegiances to either phonics or whole language have ever since fought to determine how reading is taught in America’s classrooms. By the 1980s, the debate had become so intense that people began referring to it as “the reading war.” Things got so hot between the two opposing camps that Congress was pulled into the fray, convening the National Reading Panel in the late 1990s to review all the research on reading in the hopes of facilitating a truce. The upshot from the panel’s report was that phonics lessons help kids become better readers. The same could not be said for whole language.

The myths about the efficacy of whole language / balanced literacy are legion nonetheless. Its proponents assert that children don’t all learn to read in the same way and that a whole-language approach meets their different needs, and they confidently claim that kids learn more when teachers use this method. Research has shown that neither is true. On the contrary, reading researchers have found that, unlike learning to speak, a natural process that occurs by being surrounded by spoken language, learning to read does not come naturally. That’s because the written word is a relatively recent addition in human history, dating back just a few thousand years. To crack the code of how the spoken word connects to the word on a printed page, children need explicit, systematic phonics instruction. This is the premise undergirding the science of reading.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Robert Pondisco:

Every teacher of struggling readers hasexperienced the moment when a student says, “I read it, but I didn’t get it.” It can be a bewildering experience. Why don’t they get it?

For several decades, elementary schools in New York City and across the country have turned to Columbia University education professor and acclaimed reading guru Lucy Calkins to answer that question. But in recent years, her influential and best-selling “Units of Study” curriculum has faced an intense barrage of criticism from experts who complain its “balanced literacy” approach is ineffective and gives short shrift to phonics — teaching children to look at pictures and guess words, for example, instead of sounding them out.

Schools Chancellor David Banks has announced plans to move literacy instruction in New York City away from Calkins’ curriculum in favor of approaches based on the “science of reading,” including phonics. Perhaps as a result, Calkins now appears to have conceded the argument, promising in a lengthy New York Times article to include “daily structured phonics lessons” in her program. That’s welcome news, but it’s not enough.

The South Bronx elementary school where I taught 5th grade for several years was a proponent of Calkins’ approach. We adopted her teaching methods and employed her literacy coaches for years, to very little effect. Her greatest sin against literacy comes after kids learn to “decode” the written word, whether or not they are taught with phonics, which is just the starting line for reading.

Dana Goldstein:

How Professor Calkins ended up influencing tens of millions of children is, in one sense, the story of education in America. Unlike many developed countries, the United States lacks a national curriculum or teacher-training standards. Local policies change constantly, as governors, school boards, mayors and superintendents flow in and out of jobs.

Amid this churn, a single charismatic thinker, backed by universities and publishing houses, can wield massive power over how and what children learn.

Some children seem to turn magically into readers, without deliberate phonics coaching. That has helped fuel a mistaken belief that reading is as natural as speaking. In fact, functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain demonstrates that humans process written language letter by letter, sound by sound. Far from being automatic, reading requires a rewiring of the brain, which is primed by evolution to recognize faces, not words.

But that finding — by cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists — is often disconnected from the work of training teachers and producing classroom materials.

Indeed, Professor Calkins, 70, is far more typical in the world of curriculum development: She is a teacher, a writer and a theorist.

But her influential 2001 book, “The Art of Teaching Reading,” warned about what she saw as the risks of too much sounding-it-out. She praised one teacher for avoiding “an intricate series of activities with phonics,” and argued that a simple way to build “lifelong readers” was to allow children to spend time with books they chose, regardless of content or difficulty.

For children stuck on a difficult word, Professor Calkins said little about sounding-out and recommended a word-guessing method, sometimes called three-cueing. This practice is one of the most controversial legacies of balanced literacy. It directs children’s attention away from the only reliable source of information for reading a word: letters.

Three-cueing is embedded in schools. Online, novice teachers can view thousands of how-to guides. In a 2020 video, a teacher tells children to use a picture to guess the word “car,” even though simple phonics make it decodable.

Professor Calkins said word-guessing would not be included in her revised curriculum. But in some ways, she is offering a hybrid of her old and new methods. In a sample of the new materials that she provided to The Times, teachers are told that students should first decode words using “slider power” — running their fingers under letters and sounding them out — but then check for mistakes using “picture power.”

Mark Seidenberg, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said that while he found some of the revisions “encouraging,” he was concerned that “objectionable” concepts remain.

Ann Althouse notes a comment:

The top-rated comment is from someone who has taught in a NYC public school for 21 years where they use Calkin’s “Units of Study”: “The degree to which we have had to supplement them with other approaches and sources is immense. Most kids would not learn literacy with these curricula alone. There really has been a sort of cult of personality around Lucy Calkins. The professional developers she hires parrot her ideas and demeanor. Regardless of her claim that she wants to support and respect teachers, the message was always ‘Lucy knows best.'”

1. I spoke to a dozen educators and parents in Units of Study schools for this piece. Many could not be named. One thing notable in movements led by charisma is that adherents often develop more extreme views than leaders. For example… https://t.co/EgtKkryxle

— Dana Goldstein (@DanaGoldstein) May 22, 2022

We Madisonions have long tolerated disastrous reading results. To wit:2005:

What the superintendent is saying is that MMSD has closed the achievement gap associated with race now that roughly the same percentage of students in each subgroup score at the minimal level (limited achievement in reading, major misconceptions or gaps in knowledge and skills of reading). That’s far from the original goal of the board. We committed to helping all students complete the 3rd grade able to read at or beyond grade level as demonstrated by all students in all subgroups scoring at proficient or advanced reading levels on the WRCT.

Mandates, closed schools and Dane County Madison Public Health.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Anna Nordberg, via a kind reader:

California’s reading scores are dismal, with 68% of fourth-graders reading below grade level. This is the result of the disastrous decision in the 1980s for the state to embrace whole language, the idea that children should learn to recognize words and phrases through context, guessing and memorization. But evidence shows the whole language approach has left millions of kids behind. What children actually need is to be taught how to decode, or sound out, words — a phonics-based approach called structured literacy that requires explicit instruction and works with all students, including those with learning disabilities and second language learners.

The debate over whether children should be taught to read through whole language (rebranded as balanced literacy in the ’90s) or phonics became known as the Reading Wars, turning a complex issue into a catchy cultural meme. Which is depressing, because how we teach kids to read really matters. It can be the difference between an intact, confident child and one who thinks they can’t succeed in school.

One of the biggest challenges, explains Kymyona Burk, a senior policy fellow at ExcelinEd and the former state literacy director at the Department of Education in Mississippi, is changing the mindset of a state’s education system. “California has long been a whole language state,” she says, and that’s influenced an entire generation of teachers and administrators.
The first step is teacher knowledge. “All the new curricula in the world doesn’t matter if teachers don’t have the training to pivot during instruction,” says Burk, who oversaw the implementation of Mississippi’s Literacy-based Promotion Act from 2013-2019, which dramatically increased the state’s reading scores. “When a child says, ‘I don’t understand,’ does the teacher have the knowledge to fill the gap?” In Mississippi, Burk ensured that teachers had access to high-quality professional development, and put literacy coaches into the highest need schools.

Robert Pondisco:

In some of his first public comments since being named New York City’s incoming schools chancellor, David Banks has drawn cheers from savvy education observers and literacy experts for remarks critical of “balanced literacy,” the city’s long-standing approach to teaching reading.

“‘Balanced literacy’ has not worked for Black and Brown children. We’re going to go back to a phonetic approach to teaching. We’re going to ensure that our kids can read by the third grade,” Banks told CBS2′s Marcia Kramer. “That’s been a huge part of the dysfunction.”

The incoming mayor seems to agree. “We are in a city where 65% of Black and Brown children never reach proficiency and we act like that’s normal, it’s all right,” said Eric Adams, introducing Banks last week. If the same number of white children couldn’t read proficiently, he said, “they would burn this city down.”

Adams citing this inexcusable failure and Banks laying the blame on “balanced literacy” suggests our new mayor and his hand-picked chancellor understand that equity starts with literacy.

That said, keep the champagne corked for now. This is not the first time New Yorkers have heard the supposed death knell of balanced literacy. Former Chancellor Joel Klein, the first person ever put in charge of the system under mayoral control, became convinced of its shortcomings late in his tenure, and wished in his memoir that he’d acted sooner. “Our ‘balanced literacy’ approach wasn’t all that balanced,” he wrote.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Karen Vaites:

Later that evening, Minneapolis superintendent Ed Graff nearly lost his job. Four school board directors voted not to extend his contract. The only named concerns related to literacy, a weak spot in his performance review and a source of community concern (cut to 1:52:15 of the meeting for more). Graff held onto his job by only one vote.

The story is both unique and all-too-familiar to literacy advocates. It deserves national attention – especially by superintendents in balanced literacy districts (which is most school districts in America). 

The concerns in Minneapolis aren’t new. Parents with concerns about literacy outcomes in MPS have been organizing for more than a year now, and held their first protest back in June. 

These concerns also aren’t unique to MPS. Minneapolis teaches kids to read via an approach described as balanced literacy. It’s the dominant model in K–12 schools, having risen to popularity over the last two decades – a period marked by flat reading outcomes in US schools. And while the nuances of implementation vary, common issues persist in balanced literacy curricula and classrooms.

Parents are catching on to these issues, as evidenced by a growing chorus of voices in social media and a growing number of districts whose parents have organized to advocate for better approaches. The issues in Minneapolis are absolutely reflected in districts across America.

The Economist:

Mississippi, often a laggard in social policy, has set an example here. In a state once notorious for its low reading scores, the Mississippi state legislature passed new literacy standards in 2013. Since then Mississippi has seen remarkable gains. Its fourth graders have moved from 49th (out of 50 states) to 29th on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a nationwide exam. In 2019 it was the only state to improve its scores. For the first time since measurement began, Mississippi’s pupils are now average readers, a remarkable achievement in such a poor state.

Ms Burk attributes Mississippi’s success to implementing reading methods supported by a body of research known as the science of reading. In 1997 Congress requested the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Department of Education to convene a National Reading Panel to end the “reading wars” and synthesise the evidence. The panel found that phonics, along with explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, fluency and comprehension, worked best.

Yet over two decades on, “balanced literacy” is still being taught in classrooms. This method, based on Kenneth Goodman’s “whole language” theory developed in the 1960s, views reading as a natural process that is best learned through immersion, similar to learning to speak. Goodman argued that reading is a “psycholinguistic guessing game”. He claimed that proficient readers do not identify every element in a text, so whole-language instructors encourage pupils to guess unknown words. Imagine a child is reading the sentence, “The rider leapt onto the back of his h___”, but is stuck on the last word. According to this philosophy, a child would be encouraged to look at pictures in the text and think about what would make logical sense as the next word, based on the meaning of the sentence, grammar rules and the spelling of the word.

For most of the 20th century, reading methods were based on theory and observation. But advances in statistics and brain imaging have debunked the whole-language method. So why is it still being taught? One reason may be its appeal to personal experience. To the teacher who is a proficient reader, literacy seems like a natural process that requires educated guessing, rather than the deliberate process emphasised by phonics, explains Mary Clayman of the DC Reading Clinic, which trains teachers in Washington, DC. Teachers can imagine that they learned to read through osmosis when they were children, she explains. Without proper training, they bring this to classrooms.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

Emily Hamer:

What is the best way to improve student literacy?

Crull-Hanke: Early childhood includes getting the parents involved in reading and giving them strategies to use with their children. Having a balanced literacy program which includes oral, guided, and independent reading, writing, and repetitive use of phonics and site words. Middle school age would be to get books in their hands instead of phones!

Hall: I think the best way to improve student literacy is to meet the individual student where they are at. At the same time, we need to challenge each student to do their best. While electronics have their place, I feel we need to get books and print media back into the hands of students.

Hoffman: In Milton we collect a great deal of data on students of all grade levels in the area of literacy. We have the ability to analyze the data and identify standards that are in need of improvement. Concentrating instruction in these areas for students of all learning abilities is the best way to improve literacy and academic achievement.

Holterman: We need parental involvement and one-on-one interaction with students. We start early in the pre-K/elementary setting and maintain both reasonable class sizes as well as a reasonable staff-to-student ratio. Additionally, we measure progress among students and assign additional resources if we identify kids that are struggling to keep up.

Scott Girard:

Logan Wroge:

Morateck said new materials also provide clearer direction for teachers by grouping instructional components of literacy, such as grammar, into “text sets.”

“We actually know a little bit more about the science of reading and how to teach reading,” Kvistad said. “We know more now that reading actually has to be taught. Children don’t just come knowing that.”

This year, the district is doing a “field test” with materials from curriculum provider EL Education in five kindergarten classes at Allis and Gompers elementary schools.

Morateck said the point of the pilot is to learn about implementing new classroom lessons and what training will be necessary.

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.

Robert Pondisco:

I owe my education career to reader’s workshop, the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, and its founder Lucy Calkins. I started as a mid-career switcher with a two-year commitment to teach fifth grade in a South Bronx public school. Two things about my school are worth knowing: It was the lowest-performing school in New York City’s lowest-performing district. And we were devoted to Calkins’s Units of Study.

My initial response to the reading and writing “workshop model” Calkins helped make famous and ubiquitous was willing suspension of disbelief. To the degree I remembered learning to read at all, it had nothing in common with how I was expected to teach it. Next came frustration. My “TC” staff developer spoke in inscrutable koans, encouraging me to “be the author of your own teaching.” When I took that advice and gave explicit instruction, however, she shook her head and said, “That’s not teaching, that’s giving directions.” Frustration gave way to exasperation, then resistance, and finally hostility. I left the classroom determined to advocate for curriculum and instruction thanks to Calkins and balanced literacy. My struggling fifth graders needed a lot of things, but not that.

Ripen Fofaria:

The balanced literacy approach combines a little language instruction with whole-group, small-group and independent reading exploration. While there isn’t one balanced literacy method, a common example involves demonstrating three ways of cueing readers to guess words through meaning, syntactical and visual information. Calkins’ curriculum is widely used throughout the nation, and, as of last year, balanced literacy instruction was in a majority of North Carolina school districts. 

Rivera was overjoyed, and more than a little surprised, when the district asked her to go into other grade-level classrooms to model balanced literacy instruction for her peers. 

But the joy didn’t last long.

She noticed some students in her class every year that she couldn’t reach. The reading light bulb wasn’t turning on for them, and she couldn’t figure out why. Although puzzled, she pressed forward. A few years later, the problem took root in her own home when her son, Brendan, started coming home talking about his “bad brain.” 

International Literacy Association:

Learning to read can, at times, seem almost magical. A child sits in front of a book and transforms those squig- gles and lines into sounds, puts those sounds together to make words, and puts those words together to make meaning.

But it’s not magical.

English is an alphabetic language. We have 26 letters.

These letters, in various combinations, represent the 44 sounds in our language. Teaching students the basic letter–sound combina- tions gives them access to sounding out approximately 84% of the words in English print. Of course, equal amounts of time need to be spent on teaching the meanings of these words, but the learning of these basic phonics skills is essential to becom- ing a fluent reader.

Research has shown the power of this early instruction in phonics for young students’ reading and writing development. Government-funded documents have shown that phonics in- struction is helpful for all students, harmful for none, and cru- cial for some. A recent brain research study out of Stanford explained how beginning readers who focus on letter–sound re- lationships, or phonics, instead of trying to learn whole words, increase activity in the area of the brain best wired for reading. And the meta-analysis work has detailed the significant effect size of phonics instruction on students’ early reading growth.

So why is there a debate when the research evidence has been consistent for decades? It’s because how we translate that research into instructional practice varies widely, resulting in practices that are sometimes ineffective or unbalanced and in- structional materials that too often have serious instructional design flaws. Some phonics instruction is random, incomplete, and implicit. Other instruction is overdone and isolated, devoid of the extensive application to authentic reading and writing needed for mastery. Neither is as effective as it needs to be.

Wisconsin Reading Coalitikn, via a kind email:

The International Literacy Association (ILA) has issued a Literacy Leadership Brief titled Meeting the Challenges of Early Phonics Instruction, which is closely aligned with reading science. ILA is the parent organization of the Wisconsin State Reading Association (WSRA).

Principal author Wiley Blevins and an ILA panel include the following observations:

Phonics is essential to becoming a fluent reader

Basic phonics allows 84% of English words to be decoded

Phonics is helpful for all, crucial to some, and harmful to none

Instruction should be explicit and systematic, with a logical scope and sequence, continuous review, and practice in controlled, decodable text

Phonemic awareness instruction should include blending and segmenting at grades K-1 and phoneme manipulation through grade 3

The main instruction for decoding should be blending of sounds (synthetic phonics)

Dictation of words is essential to building spelling and writing skills

Instruction should be active, engaging, and thought provoking, using techniques such as word building and word sorting

The best teachers need a background in phonics or linguistics, and a positive attitude toward using phonics instructional materials

These ILA recommendations are remarkably similar to “structured literacy,” as outlined by the International Dyslexia Association (IDA), raising hopes that a WSRA/IDA team in Wisconsin will be able to agree on the elements of effective instruction in the drafting of a guidebook for dyslexia and related conditions.

Will we soon see the day when syntactic and semantic cues are used to confirm meaning, and not used as guessing substitutes for phonic decoding? This ongoing problem is vividly described in “The three-cueing system and its misuses (or: the biggest problem in reading you’ve never heard of),”by Erica L. Meltzer. Meltzer identifies Regie Routman as an outspoken advocate of the three-cue system of decoding. Given that Routman was brought to Wisconsin in 2014 by the Department of Public Instruction, WI-ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development), and CESA’s 2, 5, 6, 12, and brought back by WSRA for a keynote address in 2017, we know that this type of reading instruction is deeply ingrained in our state. Are we on the verge of a new day?

Additional commentary.
Stephen Sawchuk :

“This is why the ILA’s word choice ‘systematic and explicit’ matters so much. In balanced literacy, while there can be a phonics component, it’s often limited or incomplete”

“The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”.

Jenny Peek:

Mark Seidenberg, a UW-Madison professor and cognitive neuroscientist, has spent decades researching the way humans acquire language. He is blunt about Wisconsin’s schools’ ability to teach children to read: “If you want your kid to learn to read you can’t assume that the school’s going to take care of it. You have to take care of it outside of the school, if there’s someone in the home who can do it or if you have enough money to pay for a tutor or learning center.”

Theresa Morateck, literacy coordinator for the district, says the word “balanced” is one that’s been wrestled with for many years in the reading world.

“I think my perspective and the perspective of Madison currently is that balanced means that you’re providing time to explicitly teach those foundational skills, but also that’s not the end-all be-all of your program,” Morateck says.

According to the district, students in elementary school get 120 minutes of daily literacy instruction.

Lisa Kvistad, the district’s assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, lays out what those two hours look like for kindergarten, first and second grade. For 30 minutes, students focus on foundational skills including print awareness (the difference between letters, words and punctuation), phonemic awareness (the ability to hear, identify and make individual sounds), and phonics (correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters).

Then teachers move into a 15-minute group lesson on a topic the class is focusing on. That’s followed by a workshop in which students are broken up into different groups for 20 to 40 minutes.

In these workshops, says Kvistad, “students are in varying groups and approaching literacy acquisition through opportunities to work with the teacher, read independently, and engage in word study.”

That independent learning allows students to choose books at their assessed skill level, Kvistad says. The district also offers a supplemental online program called Lexia for students who want to work on phonics.

At the end of the workshop, teachers bring students together again to connect their independent or small group study with the mini-lesson they started with.

After reading, 30 to 50 minutes are dedicated to writing, which is also done in a workshop model. The 120 minutes are rounded out by about 20 minutes of “speaking, listening and handwriting.”

For third, fourth and fifth graders, the 120-minute block looks similar, except no time is spent on foundational skills — except for the continued ability to use Lexia.

Kvistad explains that getting the right balance of foundational skills and exposure to grade-level curriculum is an art.

“There’s always a temptation to do more phonics,” Kvistad says. But she says there are drawbacks to that: “Those little ones never get a chance to access grade level curriculum, to engage in rich dialogue with the students in class, to have experience with grade-level vocabulary.”

But for those who advocate for a purely science-based approach to teaching reading, children need to master foundational reading skills before they have any hope of progressing to the more advanced skills that are emphasized with balanced literacy.

Steven Dykstra of the Wisconsin Reading Coalition, an organization that advocates for science-based reading instruction, pulls no punches, calling balanced literacy the “current name for the bad way to teach reading.” He says it evolved from “whole language,” a now-discredited type of instruction.

“In whole language you would have taught no phonics, and when you read books with kids you would have taught them to guess and use pictures,” Dykstra says. “In balanced literacy you teach some phonics, but when you sit and read a book you still give priority to guessing and pictures as a way to identify words. And you resort to phonics as a last resort.”

The UW’s Seidenberg explores the complex science of reading in his book Language at the Speed of Sight.

“What happens when you become a skilled reader is that your knowledge of print and your knowledge of spoken language become deeply integrated in behavior and in the brain,” he tells Isthmus. “So that when you are successful at becoming a reader you have this close, intimate relationship between print and sound.”

Related:

2018: “The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”.

“Plenty of resources”. Madison has long spent far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts, between $18 to 20K per student, depending on the district documents one reviews.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before

THE PRICE OF TEACHER MULLIGANS: “I DIDN’T STOP TO ASK MYSELF THEN WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO ALL THE KIDS WHO’D BEEN LEFT IN THE BASEMENT WITH THE TEACHER WHO COULDN’T TEACH”
– MICHELLE OBAMA.

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has granted thousands of elementary teacher reading content knowledge waivers.

Wisconsin elementary teachers are, by law, required to pass the Foundations of Reading exam. This requirement – our only teacher content knowledge imperative – is based on Massachusetts’ highly successful MTEL initiative.

An emphasis on adult employment.

Emily Hanford:

Balanced literacy was a way to defuse the wars over reading,” said Mark Seidenberg, a cognitive neuroscientist and author of the book “Language at the Speed of Sight.” “It succeeded in keeping the science at bay, and it allowed things to continue as before.”

He says the reading wars are over, and science lost.

Seidenberg knows of a child who was struggling so much with reading that her mother paid for a private tutor. “The tutor taught her some of the basic skills that the child wasn’t getting in her whole language classroom,” he said. “At the end of the school year the teacher was proud that the child had made so much progress, and the parent said, ‘Well, why didn’t you teach phonics and other basic skills related to print in class?’ And the teacher said ‘Oh, I did. Your child was absent that day.'”

For scientists like Seidenberg, the problem with teaching just a little bit of phonics is that according to all the research, phonics is crucial when it comes to learning how to read. Surrounding kids with good books is a great idea, but it’s not the same as teaching children to read.

Experts say that in a whole-language classroom, some kids will learn to read despite the lack of effective instruction. But without explicit and systematic phonics instruction, many children won’t ever learn to read very well.

In 2016, the National Council on Teacher Quality, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, reviewed the syllabi of teacher preparation programs across the country and found that only 39 percent of them appeared to be teaching the components of effective reading instruction.

Seidenberg says the scientific research has had relatively little impact on what happens in classrooms because the science isn’t very highly valued in schools of education. “Prospective teachers aren’t exposed to it or they’re led to believe that it’s only one of several perspectives,” he said. “In a class on reading, prospective teachers will be exposed to a menu in which they have 10 or 12 different approaches to reading, and they’re encouraged to pick the one that will fit their personal teaching style best.”

Education as a practice has placed a much higher value on observation and hands-on experience than on scientific evidence, Seidenberg said. “We have to change the culture of education from one based on beliefs to one based on facts.”

Kelly Butler has been trying to do just that for nearly two decades in Mississippi.

The Wisconsin DPI, lead by Mr. Evers, has largely killed our one (!) teacher content knowledge requirement: Foundations of Reading.

Related: MTEL

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before

2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”

2011: A Capitol conversation.

On the 5-2 Madison School Board No (Cole, Hughes, Moss, Passman, Silveira) Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School Vote (Howard, Mathiak voted Yes)

2013: Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

2018: The Simpson Street Free Press (!) digs: Are Rising MMSD Grad Rates Something to Celebrate?, and digs deeper: Madison’s ACT College Readiness Gap.

The state of journalism, 2018.

Alan Borsuk:

But consider a couple other things that happened in Massachusetts: Despite opposition, state officials stuck to the requirement. Teacher training programs adjusted curriculum and the percentage of students passing the test rose.
A test for teachers

In short, in Wisconsin, regulators and leaders of higher education teacher-prep programs are not so enthused about FoRT, and I don’t know of evidence that the way students are prepared to become teachers has made the adjustments FoRT advocates want. (FoRT support comes generally from the “phonics” side of the reading debate and the higher ed folks are generally “balanced literary” folks.)

According to DPI records, two-thirds of people who took the FoRT test between 2013 and 2016 passed on the first try. Including those who took it two or more times, 85% passed. Pass rates were better for white test-takers than for minority test-takers, which led to concerns that the test keeps a disproportionate number of minority potential-teachers out of classrooms.

Department of Public Instruction officials say many who have not passed FoRT would be good teachers and passing FoRT isn’t the only sign someone will be a good teacher.

DPI proposed steps such as making it easier for more people to get emergency licenses that, at least in the short term, allow them to teach without passing FoRT. FoRT advocates say this will water down the impact the test could have in improving the quality of reading instruction. Proceedings over whether the DPI’s proposed rules will go into effect are underway and have become contentious.

Reid Riggle, an education professor at St. Norbert College and past president of Wisconsin Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, said steps such as FoRT aren’t enough to drive improvement in literacy. The big barriers lie in kids’ lives outside of school. “We have to take a comprehensive look at what the children’s lives are like,” Riggle said. “There has to be a community-based solution. You can’t ask the school district to solve the problem.”

Steve Dykstra, one of the leaders of the Wisconsin Reading Coalition, which supports FoRT, said many Wisconsin education leaders show “deep commitment to incremental change.” He added, “The problem with that is that it doesn’t work.” He said teacher preparation programs haven’t done the introspection needed to see why bigger change is needed.

Dykstra acknowledged that there is an issue with the percent of minority students not passing FoRT. His answer? “So fix it. Teach them what they need to know.”

Evers said “the sheen” has come off of FoRT and there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between high FoRT scores and higher effectiveness in the classroom. (There is no public data on this yet.)

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

A Capitol Conversation.

University of Wisconsin Madison Professor Mark Seidenberg.

The Wisconsin DPI (lead by Tony Evers) has created a number of ways around the Foundations of Reading teacher content knowledge requirement (MTEL). Recent legislative activity on this important issue.

Wisconsin Reading Coalition:

Alan Borsuk wrote a column, The ‘Read to Lead’ plan – six years later, for the July 1 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in which he points out the less-than-hoped-for results of that legislation. What he didn’t address was who or what is behind the disappointing outcomes, and what we should do about it. Should we just abandon the recommendations of Read to Lead, or should we double down to make sure they are implemented as intended? Here are some of his points along with our comments:

The Foundations of Reading Test has not led to rise in statewide reading performance or changed how reading is taught in the classroom. This is not a surprise. There are several factors that make it unlikely that we would see statewide improvement in a short period of time:

• Practicing teachers were grandfathered, and only new teachers of reading have to take the exam.
• The exam did not kick in until 2015, so it has really been a factor for less than three years.
  DPI under Tony Evers has been granting emergency licenses to teach for individuals who have failed the FORT: up to 1400 per year according to recent DPI testimony before the legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules They now seek legislative approval of rule PI-34, which further expands exemptions from the FORT. This dilutes the impact that the FORT was intended to have.

• The legislature has also granted exemptions from the FORT for individuals who use an online-only path to teaching, as well as some out-of-state teachers moving into Wisconsin.
• Even teachers who have passed the FORT are limited in what they can do for student achievement if they are employed by balanced literacy districts that require them to teach guessing strategies and whole word memorization. There has been no guidance by DPI to encourage districts to move toward more scientifically-based instruction.
• There is no data collection system in place that would let us see whether students in classrooms led by “FORT-certified” teachers outperform those in other classrooms.
• Educator preparation programs have not sufficiently aligned their reading curricula with reading science, as evidenced by only 66-68% of their graduates passing the FORT on the first try. All indications are that new teachers of reading continue to have a weak grasp of reading fundamentals. The expansion of exemptions from the FORT requirement gives these programs even less incentive to improve their coursework. DPI has not set standards or strengthened oversight of educator preparation programs to ensure they are teaching the science of reading.

After several years, the statutory requirement to universally screen kindergartners for reading risk factors was dropped.

Actually, schools are still required to screen all student in grades K4 through 2.

• The legislature dropped the requirement that the assessment tool be universal. Districts may now use the assessment tool of their choice, as long as it measures phonemic awareness and letter sound knowledge.
• Screening methods used by some districts are most likely not objective enough or sensitive enough to pick up children at risk for reading failure.
• Most districts do not appear to screen for rapid naming, which is an important early indicator, or oral vocabulary, which becomes a more important indicator as children age.
• Children identified as at-risk often do not receive appropriate intervention.
• There is no data collection system in place that would allow DPI to determine whether the type of screener and form of intervention a district uses has any impact on student achievement.

The Read to Lead Development Fund has dwindled, and the Read to Lead Council is largely inactive.

• From the beginning, this fund was administered politically rather than scientifically. Grants for scientifically-based initiatives were offset by other grants that carried little potential for significant student growth. This became a disincentive for people to serve on the council.
• The focus on scientifically-based initiatives seemed to fade further once this program was shifted from the Governor’s office to the Department of Children and Families.
• Funders interested in effecting change in student reading achievement are more likely to choose the recipients of their grants directly rather than turn their money over to a council that lacks clear grant-making guidelines.

​The Wisconsin replication of the Minnesota Reading Corps has gained some traction and had some success.

• Some Milwaukee schools have seen positive results from Reading Corps tutors, and expansion to other communities is likely.
• Fidelity to the program is important, and is ensured by continued oversight from Minnesota.
• The Reading Corps interventions are solid and effective, but there is only so much the Corps can do to remedy the failures of a school or district’s core reading program. The core reading program needs to successfully serve a much higher percentage of the students, leaving a more manageable number for Reading Corps intervention.

Or: the concerted efforts to undermine the Foundations of Reading Test requirement from day 1, not the FoRT itself, haven't helped the reading crisis in Wisconsin https://t.co/2dFYPxshAJ via @journalsentinel

— Chan Stroman (@eduphilia) July 8, 2018

The pitch to the feds in the state ESSA plan, approved in January, was quite different: pic.twitter.com/oEeWxV7ENc

— Chan Stroman (@eduphilia) July 8, 2018

Alan Borsuk:

Overall, the Read to Lead effort seems like the high water mark in efforts to improve how kids are taught reading in Wisconsin — and the water is much lower now.

What do the chair and the vice-chair think?

Efforts to talk to Walker were not successful.

Evers said, “Clearly, I’m disappointed. . . . We’re certainly not where we want to be.” He said FoRT had turned out not to be “a lynchpin” to improving teaching the way some envisioned, and he agreed that other efforts pushed by the task force had faded.

Overall, Evers said, it has become clearer that “this is a whole society issue, especially in Milwaukee.” He said dealing with traumas that shape so many children’s lives is necessary. ”If there were a magic bullet, we’d all do it,” Evers said.

Yet some cities and states have succeeded in seeing reading scores go up, slowly but surely, over the last couple of decades. And that sixth sentence of the letter from Walker and Evers, about Wisconsin returning to times when it was a leader, remains a wish and not a reality.

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

A Capitol Conversation.

University of Wisconsin Madison Professor Mark Seidenberg.

The Wisconsin DPI (lead by Tony Evers) has created a number of ways around the Foundations of Reading teacher content knowledge requirement (MTEL). Recent legislative activity on this important issue.

Wisconsin Reading Coalition:

Alan Borsuk wrote a column, The ‘Read to Lead’ plan – six years later, for the July 1 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in which he points out the less-than-hoped-for results of that legislation. What he didn’t address was who or what is behind the disappointing outcomes, and what we should do about it. Should we just abandon the recommendations of Read to Lead, or should we double down to make sure they are implemented as intended? Here are some of his points along with our comments:

The Foundations of Reading Test has not led to rise in statewide reading performance or changed how reading is taught in the classroom. This is not a surprise. There are several factors that make it unlikely that we would see statewide improvement in a short period of time:

• Practicing teachers were grandfathered, and only new teachers of reading have to take the exam.
• The exam did not kick in until 2015, so it has really been a factor for less than three years.
  DPI under Tony Evers has been granting emergency licenses to teach for individuals who have failed the FORT: up to 1400 per year according to recent DPI testimony before the legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules They now seek legislative approval of rule PI-34, which further expands exemptions from the FORT. This dilutes the impact that the FORT was intended to have.

• The legislature has also granted exemptions from the FORT for individuals who use an online-only path to teaching, as well as some out-of-state teachers moving into Wisconsin.
• Even teachers who have passed the FORT are limited in what they can do for student achievement if they are employed by balanced literacy districts that require them to teach guessing strategies and whole word memorization. There has been no guidance by DPI to encourage districts to move toward more scientifically-based instruction.
• There is no data collection system in place that would let us see whether students in classrooms led by “FORT-certified” teachers outperform those in other classrooms.
• Educator preparation programs have not sufficiently aligned their reading curricula with reading science, as evidenced by only 66-68% of their graduates passing the FORT on the first try. All indications are that new teachers of reading continue to have a weak grasp of reading fundamentals. The expansion of exemptions from the FORT requirement gives these programs even less incentive to improve their coursework. DPI has not set standards or strengthened oversight of educator preparation programs to ensure they are teaching the science of reading.

After several years, the statutory requirement to universally screen kindergartners for reading risk factors was dropped.

Actually, schools are still required to screen all student in grades K4 through 2.

• The legislature dropped the requirement that the assessment tool be universal. Districts may now use the assessment tool of their choice, as long as it measures phonemic awareness and letter sound knowledge.
• Screening methods used by some districts are most likely not objective enough or sensitive enough to pick up children at risk for reading failure.
• Most districts do not appear to screen for rapid naming, which is an important early indicator, or oral vocabulary, which becomes a more important indicator as children age.
• Children identified as at-risk often do not receive appropriate intervention.
• There is no data collection system in place that would allow DPI to determine whether the type of screener and form of intervention a district uses has any impact on student achievement.

The Read to Lead Development Fund has dwindled, and the Read to Lead Council is largely inactive.

• From the beginning, this fund was administered politically rather than scientifically. Grants for scientifically-based initiatives were offset by other grants that carried little potential for significant student growth. This became a disincentive for people to serve on the council.
• The focus on scientifically-based initiatives seemed to fade further once this program was shifted from the Governor’s office to the Department of Children and Families.
• Funders interested in effecting change in student reading achievement are more likely to choose the recipients of their grants directly rather than turn their money over to a council that lacks clear grant-making guidelines.

​The Wisconsin replication of the Minnesota Reading Corps has gained some traction and had some success.

• Some Milwaukee schools have seen positive results from Reading Corps tutors, and expansion to other communities is likely.
• Fidelity to the program is important, and is ensured by continued oversight from Minnesota.
• The Reading Corps interventions are solid and effective, but there is only so much the Corps can do to remedy the failures of a school or district’s core reading program. The core reading program needs to successfully serve a much higher percentage of the students, leaving a more manageable number for Reading Corps intervention.

Sol Stern:

In his press conference introducing Carmen Fariña as New York City’s next schools chancellor, Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested that he had picked her over several other candidates because she was on the same page with him in opposing Bloomberg-era education reforms. Most of the city’s education reporters took the new mayor’s spin and ran with it, even though Fariña had served loyally as Michael Bloomberg’s second-highest-ranking education official. Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez predicted that Fariña would now bring “revolutionary” changes to the department of education that she left in 2006. A headline in The Hechinger Report claimed that Fariña wanted DRAMATIC–EVEN JOYFUL–DEPARTURE FROM BLOOMBERG ERA. But that depends on what Bloomberg era you’re talking about: during the years that she served in the administration, Fariña was fully on board with its education policies.
In fact, considering Fariña’s pivotal role during the first Bloomberg term in shaping the Department of Education’s radical initiatives, portraying her as a dissident from within seems absurd. Mayor Bloomberg took control of the schools in June 2002, but he knew little about what actually went on in the city’s classrooms. He appointed Joel Klein, a corporate lawyer with no background in instructional issues, as his first schools chancellor. Bloomberg and Klein deferred virtually all decision-making on classroom instruction and curriculum to a cadre of veteran progressive educators led by Diana Lam, Klein’s first deputy chancellor for teaching and learning. Lam and Fariña convinced Klein to introduce the constructivist “balanced-literacy” reading and writing program, developed by Lucy Calkins of Columbia Teachers College, along with a fuzzy constructivist-math program called Everyday Math, into just about every elementary school classroom in the city. (Klein would eventually realize that adopting balanced literacy was a serious mistake.)
In an early 2003 speech presenting his administration’s new education reforms, Mayor Bloomberg declared that the “experience of other urban school districts shows that a standardized approach to reading, writing, and math is the best way to raise student performance across the board in all subjects,” and therefore that “the chancellor’s office will dictate the curriculum.” And so it did. Lam soon became embroiled in a nepotism scandal and had to resign. Fariña then took over as deputy chancellor for instruction. She became the DOE’s enforcer, making sure that all teachers in the elementary schools toed the line and implemented Calkins’s constructivist methods for teaching reading and writing. Teachers received a list of “nonnegotiable” guidelines for arranging their classrooms, including such minute details as the requirement that there must be a rug on the floor for students to sit on in the early grades and that nothing but student work be posted on the walls.
Balanced literacy has no track record of raising the academic performance of poor minority children. No independent research study has ever evaluated its methodology. Nevertheless, it was popular in education schools because it promulgated two of progressive education’s key commandments: that teachers must abandon deadening “drill and kill” methods and that students are capable of “constructing their own knowledge.” Progressives such as Calkins evoked ideal classrooms, where young children naturally find their way to literacy without enduring boring, scripted phonics drills forced on them by automaton teachers. Instead, in a balanced-literacy classroom, students work in small groups and follow what Calkins calls the “workshop model” of cooperative learning. The program takes for granted that children can learn to read and write naturally, with minimal guidance. Calkins rejects E.D. Hirsch’s finding (based on an overwhelming consensus in cognitive-science research) that the key to improving children’s reading comprehension is grounding them in broad knowledge, which she and other progressives dismiss as “mere facts.” Calkins also believes that her model classrooms promote “social justice” for all. In an interview I conducted with her at the time the DOE selected her program, she told me that “It’s a great move to social justice to bring [balanced literacy] to every school in the city.”
That’s what Fariña tried to accomplish in the early years of the Bloomberg administration–including the social-justice part. She was instrumental in creating the most centralized, top-down instructional system in the recent history of American public education. Agents of the deputy chancellor (euphemistically called “coaches”) fanned out to almost all city elementary schools to make sure that every teacher was marching in lockstep with the department of education’s new pedagogical approach. Under the rubric of “professional development,” DOE central headquarters launched an aggressive campaign to force teachers to teach literacy and math only one way–the progressive way. Each of the city’s 80,000 teachers got a six-hour CD-ROM laying out the philosophy behind the new standardized curriculum and pedagogy. The CD portrayed the world of progressive education writ large, with all its romantic assumptions about how children learn. In addition to inculcating Calkins’s balanced literacy, the DOE’s training manual celebrated the theories of an obscure Australian education guru–Brian Cambourne of Wollongong University in New South Wales, a leader of the whole-language movement (a cousin of balanced literacy) then dominating Australian public schools. Cambourne’s ideas gave city teachers not only more balanced literacy (or whole language) theory, but also a warrant for social-justice teaching.
Cambourne claims that as a young teacher, he discovered that many of his poorly performing students were actually quite bright. To his surprise, almost all demonstrated extraordinary competence in performing challenging tasks. The son of the local bookie, for example, “couldn’t learn basic math,” according to Cambourne, “but could calculate the probability the Queen of Spades was in the deck faster than I could.” Cambourne decided that children learn better in natural settings, with a minimum of adult help–a staple of progressive-education thought. Thus the role of the educator should be to create classroom environments that stimulate children but also closely resemble the way adults work and learn. Children should no longer sit in rows facing the teacher; instead, the room should be arranged with work areas where children can construct their own knowledge, much as in Calkins’s workshop model of balanced literacy.
Such constructivist assumptions about how to teach literacy were enforced with draconian discipline in city schools for several years. Progressives like Calkins, Cambourne, and Fariña don’t insist that more learning occurs when children work in groups and in “natural” settings because they’ve followed any evidence. To the contrary, as much as it tells us anything on this issue, science makes clear that, particularly for disadvantaged children, direct, explicit instruction works best. But under Fariña, reeducation sessions for teachers were meant to overcome dissenting opinion and drive home the progressive party line. To quote the directives to teachers included on the CD: “Your students must not be sitting in rows. You must not stand at the head of the class. You must not do ‘chalk and talk’ at the blackboard. You must have a ‘workshop’ in every single reading period. Your students must be ‘active learners,’ and they must work in groups.”
As I reported at the time, some brave teachers objected. At Junior High School 44 in Manhattan, a teacher tried to point out to his supervisor, quite reasonably, that some teachers feel more comfortable with and get better results through direct instruction and other traditional methods. The school’s literacy coach, sent by the DOE, then responded: “This is the way it is. Everyone will do it this way, or you can change schools.”
Calkins was grateful for Carmen Fariña’s efforts in advancing her instructional agenda, her career, and her organization’s bottom line. (Calkins’s Readers and Writers Program at Teachers College received over $10 million in no-bid contracts from the city.) Calkins expressed her appreciation in a forward she penned for Fariña’s book, A School Leader’s Guide to Excellence, coauthored with Laura Koch, Fariña’s closest associate and collaborator at the DOE. “When Carmen and Laura took the helm of New York City’s school system, teachers, staff developers, and principals across the entire city let out a collective cheer of enthusiasm,” Calkins writes. She conjures a glorious history: “Within a week [of Fariña’s promotion to deputy chancellor for instruction] our education system began to change. Educators at every level could feel possibility in the air; the excitement was palpable.” And because of Fariña’s magic, “sound practices in the teaching of reading and writing became the talk of the town–the subject of study groups and hallway conversations in every school . . . The entire city began working together afresh to meet the challenge of improving education for all children.”
In reality, though, the balanced-literacy advocates failed in this task. The city’s eighth-grade reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests barely budged over 12 years, despite a doubling of education spending–from $12 billion to $24 billion. There was no narrowing of the racial achievement gap. (In sounding his tale of two cities theme, Mayor de Blasio makes no accounting for the failure of progressive education programs to reduce the academic achievement gap between poor and middle-class children.)
Recognizing balanced literacy’s meager results, Chancellor Klein reverted to a system of more autonomous schools, giving principals far more discretion over instructional matters. Klein apparently came to believe that he had been misled by Fariña and Calkins. The chancellor then became a supporter of Hirsch’s Core Knowledge curriculum, with its focus on direct instruction and the teaching of broad content knowledge. He set up a three-year pilot program, matching ten elementary schools using the Hirsch early-grade literacy curriculum against a demographically similar cohort of ten schools that used balanced literacy. The children in the Core Knowledge schools significantly outperformed those in the schools using the Calkins approach.
Still opposing the direct teaching of factual knowledge, Fariña recently shrugged off the pilot study, saying that not enough schools were involved. But if Fariña is serious about that criticism, she now has an opportunity to run a much larger evaluation of Core Knowledge. As a result of the city’s adoption of the Common Core State Standards and of aligned curricula emphasizing the “rich content knowledge” that the standards require, 71 elementary school principals have chosen to use Hirsch’s Core Knowledge literacy program in their schools.
Let Fariña visit and study those schools over the next year. If she really is committed to changing the tale of two cities, as she and the new mayor claim to be, one way to start would be to cast aside ideology and judge whether those Core Knowledge classrooms, drenched in “mere facts,” are actually the key to narrowing the devastating knowledge gap between middle-class kids and poor children, who begin school with little knowledge of the world and with a stunted vocabulary. She might also find that there is at least as much “joy” in classrooms in which children get taught explicitly about the world around them as there is in classrooms in which children “construct” their own knowledge.

Madison Superintendent Jane Belmore (2.5MB PDF):

For the past four years, MMSD has been aware that the current implementation of balanced literacy, our core instructional program for literacy at the elementary level, has not resulted in all students making the progress necessary to meet grade level standards. The research shows that three key things are necessary for students to gain proficiency in the common core standards:

• a highly qualified teacher in the classroom

• a strong instructional leader in the school and
• access to an aligned, guaranteed and viable curriculum (Marzano, 2003).

It is clear that MMSD has two out of these three in place: highly qualified teachers and strong instructional leaders. To maintain and develop strong teachers and leaders need well planned, embedded, ongoing professional development. The
School Support Team and Instructional Research Teachers provide us the mechanism for delivering this necessary professional development.
What is needed is a decision about a guaranteed, viable core instructional curriculum that is cohesive across all 32 elementary schools. All student will benefit from consistency across grades levels and schools. Our students from mobile families must have the security and consistency that this core will provide.

60% to 42%: Madison School District’s Reading Recovery Effectiveness Lags “National Average”: Administration seeks to continue its use.
When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before.

Madison Superintendent Jane Belmore (2.5mb PDF)

Background on Goals: During the Student Achievement Committee meeting of October 1, several Board members discussed the issue of setting reasonable goals and the time needed to accomplish them. Most of the goals presented today are based on a five-year convergence model. Under this approach, achievement gaps are closed for every student subgroup in five years.
Forr example the baseline four-year graduation rate among white students is 85%. It is 61% among Hispanic students, and 54% among African American students.. With a five-year convergence model, the goal is for all student subgroups to reach a 90% on-time graduation rate. It is a statement that all student subgroups should improve and all gaps should close.
The reason for this approach is twofold. First, as adopted by the Board, the Achievement Gap Plan is a five-year plan. It is important that the student achievement goals reflect the timeline in the plan itself. The timeline for goals could be pushed out to ten years or more, but it would require formal directive from the Board to adopt ten years as the district’s new timeline for the Achievement Gap Plan.
Second, other models can be seen as conveying different expectations for students based on race/ethnicity or other characteristics like poverty, and that is not our intent. Taking ten years or longer to achieve stated goals may be viewed as a more reasonable time frame, but a five-year plan comes with a natural snapshot half way through that will illustrate persistent gaps and potentially convey varying expectations. Again, that is not our intent or our goal.
A note on Chapter 1, Literacy: The Accountability Plans for literacy are an example of two important concepts:
1. The district wide, instructional core in literacy must be strengthened in every school and every grade. Chapter 1, #1 speaks to a part of strengthening that core.
2. Once the core is strong fewer interventions are needed. However, some students will continue to need additional support. Chapter 1, #2 speaks to one example of an intervention that will help to prevent summer reading loss and close gaps.
The Board approval of $1.9 million for the purchase of elementary literacy materials provides a powerful framework for bringing cohesion to the elementary literacy program. The purchase will provide a well-coordinated core literacy program that is aligned with the common core standards and meets the needs of all learners.
The first steps will bring together an Elementary Literacy Leadership team to clarify the purpose and framework for our program. The overall framework for our entire elementary literacy program is Balanced Literacy. Building upon the current MMSD core practices in 4K-12 Literacy and Focus documents, the work being done to align our instruction and assessment with common core standards will increase rigor and take our current Elementary Balanced Literacy Program to what could be seen as an Elementary Balanced Literacy Program version 2.0. The Elementary Literacy Leadership team will bring clarity to the components of the program and what is expected and what is optional.
Chapter 1, #1 and #2 are important supports for our Balanced Literacy Program

Reading is certainly job number one for the Madison School District – and has been for quite some time….
Related: November, 2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before

On November 7, Superintendent Art Rainwater made his annual report to the Board of Education on progress toward meeting the district’s student achievement goal in reading. As he did last fall, the superintendent made some interesting claims about the district’s success in closing the academic achievement gap “based on race”.
According to Mr. Rainwater, the place to look for evidence of a closing achievement gap is the comparison of the percentage of African American third graders who score at the lowest level of performance on statewide tests and the percentage of other racial groups scoring at that level. He says that, after accounting for income differences, there is no gap associated with race at the lowest level of achievement in reading. He made the same claim last year, telling the Wisconsin State Journal on September 24, 2004, “for those kids for whom an ability to read would prevent them from being successful, we’ve reduced that percentage very substantially, and basically, for all practical purposes, closed the gap”. Last Monday, he stated that the gap between percentages scoring at the lowest level “is the original gap” that the board set out to close.
Unfortunately, that is not the achievement gap that the board aimed to close.
In 1998, the Madison School Board adopted an important academic goal: “that all students complete the 3rd grade able to read at or beyond grade level”. We adopted this goal in response to recommendations from a citizen study group that believed that minority students who are not competent as readers by the end of the third grade fall behind in all academic areas after third grade.
“All students” meant all students. We promised to stop thinking in terms of average student achievement in reading. Instead, we would separately analyze the reading ability of students by subgroups. The subgroups included white, African American, Hispanic, Southeast Asian, and other Asian students.

Lisa Wachtel, Executive Director of Curriculum & Assessment [104 Page PDF]:

Grades K-2 Literacy Walkthroughs
Background: Observations of literacy classes, or, walkthroughs, were scheduled for seventeen of MMSD’ s highest poverty elementary schools during the months of April and May. Three administrators visited each school for a half-day for a minimum of 12 hours of observation per school. All K-2 classrooms are observed for at least an hour by one of the three administrators. Second/third grade classrooms were observed in schools with multi-aged instructional designs. When substitute teachers are present, follow-up observations were attempted.
The purpose of the walk throughs was to provide schools with a baseline of literacy practices and to communicate a district snapshot of K-2 observable literacy practices when student routines and independence are well established. Although not a complete picture, the walkthroughs provided evidence of teaching emphasis, expectations, school/district implementation efforts and additional anecdotal information that might suggest potential areas for consideration.
Timeline: April16- May 25, 2012 Observations
May 30-31,2012 Meet with principals to discuss results of the observations
Observation Tool: Please see the attached document. This is an observation protocol merging documents developed by Fountas and Pinnell and Dom. This observation tool was selected because it captured the general categories of literacy instruction that would be included in a 90-120 minute literacy lesson. Observers could capture any of the elements observed during the 60 observations. An additional section, classroom environment provides a way to document materials and classroom structures.
Preliminary Findings:
1. The majority of primary literacy environments were organized around a Balanced Literacy Model. However, within that model, there was significant variation in what the model looked like. This lack of consistency was seen both within and across all 17 schools.
2. Most classrooms were organized in a planned and thoughtful manner. Attention was given to the development and use of a classroom library, individual book boxes and areas where students could work in pairs or small groups.
3. Although classrooms in most schools were thoughtfully organized, some classrooms were cluttered and there were not optimal environments for learning. It is recommended that IRTs work with teachers to create good physical environments in all classrooms.
4. Although the majority of classrooms had at least a 90 minute literacy block, some did not. Attention to direct instruction for at least 90 minutes is crucial for the success of all learners. Principals must make this a clear expectation. The literacy block must also be implemented with fidelity.
5. There was a lack of consistency both within and across grade levels based on common core standards and best teaching practices. This should be an area of emphasis for all schools. IRTs and principals will need to develop a tight structure of accountability that supports the Common Core State Standards and the Curriculum Companion tool.
6. In most cases, instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness was clearly evident. This instruction reflected the professional development both at the district and school level around phonics instruction, phonemic awareness and word work. Instruction appeared to be more systematic, targeted and focused than in previous years.
7. Guided Reading Instruction was observed in the many of the classrooms. It should be noted that in several schools guided reading did not occur five days a week. A wide range of practices were observed during guided reading. Teaching points were often unclear. Observers noted few teachers administering running records or maintaining other types of formative assessments.
8. Targeted, focused instruction around a precise teaching point is a critical component of quality literacy instruction. Focused feedback emphasizing areas of student mastery was also inconsistent. Again, consistency related to core practices as well as ongoing specific assessment practices should be apparent within and across elementary grades.
9. Professional development work should continue around the use of assessment tools. Principals must require the practice of ongoing assessment in all classrooms.
10. The development and use of anchor charts and mini lessons are critical pieces of strong core instruction. Anchor charts and mini lessons were seen in some classrooms and not in others. Professional development should address these ideas so that there is consistency across the district.
11. In many classrooms, the quality of independent student work was of concern. Teachers in all classrooms must pay careful attention to independent student work. This work must support the structure of the literacy block, be consistent with the focus of guided reading and be at each student’s independent level. Emphasis must consistently be on authentic reading and writing tasks. Work should be differentiated. Coloring, cutting/pasting and copying of other printed work would not be considered quality independent literacy work and this was seen in many classrooms (bold added).
12. Teachers were inconsistent in giving feedback to students related to specific learning. Clear, corrective feedback and/or affirmation of solid understandings will accelerate individual student learning and help learners tie the known to the new.
13. All students should also be receiving ongoing, focused feedback related to independent work and independent reading. Regular conferencing and assessment of independent reading and writing is a crucial component of a rigorous literacy curriculum.

Related: 60% to 42%: Madison School District’s Reading Recovery Effectiveness Lags “National Average”: Administration seeks to continue its use.

Lisa Wachtel, Executive Director of Curriculum & Assessment [104 Page PDF]:

Grades K-2 Literacy Walkthroughs
Background: Observations of literacy classes, or, walkthroughs, were scheduled for seventeen of MMSD’ s highest poverty elementary schools during the months of April and May. Three administrators visited each school for a half-day for a minimum of 12 hours of observation per school. All K-2 classrooms are observed for at least an hour by one of the three administrators. Second/third grade classrooms were observed in schools with multi-aged instructional designs. When substitute teachers are present, follow-up observations were attempted.
The purpose of the walk throughs was to provide schools with a baseline of literacy practices and to communicate a district snapshot of K-2 observable literacy practices when student routines and independence are well established. Although not a complete picture, the walkthroughs provided evidence of teaching emphasis, expectations, school/district implementation efforts and additional anecdotal information that might suggest potential areas for consideration.
Timeline: April16- May 25, 2012 Observations
May 30-31,2012 Meet with principals to discuss results of the observations
Observation Tool: Please see the attached document. This is an observation protocol merging documents developed by Fountas and Pinnell and Dom. This observation tool was selected because it captured the general categories of literacy instruction that would be included in a 90-120 minute literacy lesson. Observers could capture any of the elements observed during the 60 observations. An additional section, classroom environment provides a way to document materials and classroom structures.
Preliminary Findings:
1. The majority of primary literacy environments were organized around a Balanced Literacy Model. However, within that model, there was significant variation in what the model looked like. This lack of consistency was seen both within and across all 17 schools.
2. Most classrooms were organized in a planned and thoughtful manner. Attention was given to the development and use of a classroom library, individual book boxes and areas where students could work in pairs or small groups.
3. Although classrooms in most schools were thoughtfully organized, some classrooms were cluttered and there were not optimal environments for learning. It is recommended that IRTs work with teachers to create good physical environments in all classrooms.
4. Although the majority of classrooms had at least a 90 minute literacy block, some did not. Attention to direct instruction for at least 90 minutes is crucial for the success of all learners. Principals must make this a clear expectation. The literacy block must also be implemented with fidelity.
5. There was a lack of consistency both within and across grade levels based on common core standards and best teaching practices. This should be an area of emphasis for all schools. IRTs and principals will need to develop a tight structure of accountability that supports the Common Core State Standards and the Curriculum Companion tool.
6. In most cases, instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness was clearly evident. This instruction reflected the professional development both at the district and school level around phonics instruction, phonemic awareness and word work. Instruction appeared to be more systematic, targeted and focused than in previous years.
7. Guided Reading Instruction was observed in the many of the classrooms. It should be noted that in several schools guided reading did not occur five days a week. A wide range of practices were observed during guided reading. Teaching points were often unclear. Observers noted few teachers administering running records or maintaining other types of formative assessments.
8. Targeted, focused instruction around a precise teaching point is a critical component of quality literacy instruction. Focused feedback emphasizing areas of student mastery was also inconsistent. Again, consistency related to core practices as well as ongoing specific assessment practices should be apparent within and across elementary grades.
9. Professional development work should continue around the use of assessment tools. Principals must require the practice of ongoing assessment in all classrooms.
10. The development and use of anchor charts and mini lessons are critical pieces of strong core instruction. Anchor charts and mini lessons were seen in some classrooms and not in others. Professional development should address these ideas so that there is consistency across the district.
11. In many classrooms, the quality of independent student work was of concern. Teachers in all classrooms must pay careful attention to independent student work. This work must support the structure of the literacy block, be consistent with the focus of guided reading and be at each student’s independent level. Emphasis must consistently be on authentic reading and writing tasks. Work should be differentiated. Coloring, cutting/pasting and copying of other printed work would not be considered quality independent literacy work and this was seen in many classrooms (bold added).
12. Teachers were inconsistent in giving feedback to students related to specific learning. Clear, corrective feedback and/or affirmation of solid understandings will accelerate individual student learning and help learners tie the known to the new.
13. All students should also be receiving ongoing, focused feedback related to independent work and independent reading. Regular conferencing and assessment of independent reading and writing is a crucial component of a rigorous literacy curriculum.

Related: 60% to 42%: Madison School District’s Reading Recovery Effectiveness Lags “National Average”: Administration seeks to continue its use.

Anna Phillips:

Children in New York City who learned to read using an experimental curriculum that emphasized nonfiction texts outperformed those at other schools that used methods that have been encouraged since the Bloomberg administration’s early days, according to a new study to be released Monday.
For three years, a pilot program tracked the reading ability of approximately 1,000 students at 20 New York City schools, following them from kindergarten through second grade. Half of the schools adopted a curriculum designed by the education theorist E. D. Hirsch Jr.’s Core Knowledge Foundation. The other 10 used a variety of methods, but most fell under the definition of “balanced literacy,” an approach that was spread citywide by former Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, beginning in 2003.
The study found that second graders who were taught to read using the Core Knowledge program scored significantly higher on reading comprehension tests than did those in the comparison schools.
It also tested children on their social studies and science knowledge, and again found that the Core Knowledge pupils came out ahead. Citywide, budget cuts and the drive to increase scores on the state reading and math exams have led many elementary and middle schools to whittle down their social studies and science instruction.

Jason Shephard:

As a teacher-centered lesson ended the other morning at Midvale Elementary School, about 15 first-graders jumped up from their places on the carpeted rug and dashed to their personal bins of books.
Most students quickly settled into two assigned groups. One read a story about a fox in a henhouse with the classroom teacher, and another group, headed by a UW-Madison student teacher, read a more challenging nonfiction book about a grandmother who, as one child excitedly noted, lived to be 101.
In addition to this guided reading lesson, one boy sat at a computer wearing headphones, clicking on the screen that displayed the words as a story was read aloud to him, to build word recognition and reading stamina. Two other boys read silently from more advanced books. Another boy received one-on-one help from a literacy coach conducting a Reading Recovery lesson with him.
“I think what’s so important is that this program truly meets the needs of a variety of students, from those who are struggling to those who are accelerated,” says Principal John Burkholder.

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Clash of philosophies, direct instruction vs balanced literacy (aka whole language) in Rockford, IL discussed in NYtimes

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On Friday, October 15, Madison School Board members received an e-mail from Superintendent Art Rainwater announcing that the district will withdraw from a federal program known as Reading First.
In subsequent interviews with local newspapers, Rainwater estimated that the decision means forgoing approximately $2M in funds for materials to help students in the primary grades learn to read. The Cap Times
Wisconsin State Journal
Whenever the district qualifies for such federal grants, the Board votes to increase the budget to reflect the new revenues. To the best of my knowledge, the superintendent has not discussed this decision with the Performance & Achievement Committee. He has certainly not included the full Board in the decision to withdraw from Reading First.
The memo follows (click on the link below to view it or click here to view a 200K PDF):

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