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Jonsson's avatar

Comment on SOR and your statement that: "..commentary about the “science of reading,” interpreted to mean “phonics”—despite the fact that the NAEP purports to test reading comprehension, not decoding ability..."

Our Canadian school division has gone whole hog into 'PHONICS IS GOD and thou shalt have no other concepts before thee!' As a Psychologist who experienced the '70s effort to open Teachers/Divisions minds to larger aspects of reading, i find the SOR fanaticism abhorrent.

Good teachers i know say: "Yes its good to know more about phonics and I'd add more to my Balanced Literacy approach..but not throw out context, sight words, background knowledge etc."

Our local school division has made it clear to CTs that CONTEXT IST VERBOTTEN which is such a loss to our students.

You criticize (subtly?) educators equating 'decoding = comprehension' - our educators are being railroaded into believing DECODING = COMPREHENSION. E.g. "DON'T USE GUESSING AS A STRATEGY" when Teachers actually teach "READ ON, ASK SELF IF YOUR PREDICTION FITS BY LOOKING AT THE (depending on student's level - first letter/end/blend) AND ....".

Good reading requires contextual skills. And contrary to SOR's refusal to consider VISUAL MEMORY - "OH MY GOD NEVER NEVER EVER TEACH SIGHT WORDS GACK PUKE RETCH!" - sight words drive increased comprehension and reading speed from at least Grade 4 onwards. (If anyone is interested I'll find the 40 page critique an SOR professor produced where he struggles mightily to use any synonym for sight words he can so that VISUAL MEMORY doesn't need to be recognized as a fact of human learning. The SORers settled on 'unitized' as their code word for the awful-wrong-stupid-disgusting term SIGHT WORD!)

HERE'S A USEFUL COMMENT FROM 2015 RESEARCHERS: " McArthur et al. (2015) found that struggling readers who received mixed phonics and sight-word instruction made just as strong gains in their alphabetic decoding ability as those receiving phonics instruction alone."

Apologies for rambling into (legitimate) anger about the fanaticism of many SORers. It hurts kids and Teachers who need all the tools of competent reading respected. Have a peek at Dr. Sam Bommarito's blog on WE NEED A NEW STORY to tell ourselves that respects all tools. SOR has become in effect a lie, a carefully constructed narratival lie about 'PHONICS IS THE MAGIC ANSWER'. Sad. And so sad intelligent educators are taken in.

https://doctorsam7.blog/

https://doctorsam7.blog/2025/02/08/my-take-on-dr-paul-thomass-idea-that-the-decline-in-naep-reading-scores-shows-it-is-time-for-a-new-story-by-dr-sam-bommarito/

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Jeremy Ney's avatar

Really interesting. I appreciate the balanced approach on this one. Lots of helpful pros and cons laid out

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