First of all the majority of states that enacted Science of Reading or research-based literacy laws did so in the past year or 2 and primarily for grades K-2 or K-3. Improvements will not show up in grades 4 or 8 yet and anyone who understands that will know this. Secondly science of reading is not just phonics and none of the legislation says that and the Louisiana work was much more than phonics with a heavy focus on content-rich text to build knowledge as well. It is important to be honest about this.
This has been a frustration of mine in the reporting as well; anyone who understands will know this, as will anyone on the ground in public schools. Even those districts that are working hard to change know that retraining teachers, curriculum adoption, and change management won't show up in a year or two automatically.
I agree, but none of this changes the fact that children who can't decode the words obviously can't comprehend the text. Regarding the states' extremely recent passage of LETRS legislation, far too recent to have had any effect on current scores: This stuff is a farce that legislatures and school systems, both blue and red, have been pulling on naive voters for decades. Public school reading instruction has been completely insane for over 80 years now; in 1955, Rudolf Flesch published "Why Johnny Can't Read", exposing how utterly preposterous their reading ideology had already become during the decade following the end of WW2. Since then, three generations of parents have labored under the fallacy that the system could be reformed if only the supposed professionals within the system could be shown the light by those of us outside. I know because I was part of the second generation to do so back in the late 1990s. We had no idea what we were up against. To get some idea of how preposterous it is that we're still fighting to get public schools to do what nearly every home-schooling mom does successfully at her own kitchen table, find "My Child Will Read".
I'm a fan of the late John Taylor Gatto, particularly his 2008 book "Weapons of Mass Instruction - A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling". It's a scathing, humorous, and slightly loony critique of U.S. public schools.
I think how the test is administered is another topic for discussion. We are assessing students, using a computer, which includes long passages that have to be read and reread by scrolling.
Kudos Natalie! You covered all the bases. Time for a paradigm change in reading instruction and assessment. Having students read and write about what they learned/are learning as a form of assessment makes the most sense. And with regard to phonics, as you say, it is needed for most students but let’s remember that there are thousands of profoundly deaf children who exclusively use American Sign Language and who are born to deaf parents who read just fine. Phonics is certainly important but certainly not mandatory.
If you want to go from print to words (decoding), sounding out words is the most efficient and effective way to do it. It goves you principles, not just vague patterns. Typically developing kids will eventually learn to read no matter how ineffectively you teach them, but for kids with dyslexia, it matters. We have over 40 years and multiple disciplines attesting that phonics is the best way to learn to *decode*.
IMO, problem is that people forget that reading is more than decoding -- we also need *comprehension*. So, they neglect to teach what words mean or how to understand texts. However, no actual reading scientist thinks that's a good idea.
(BTW, at least as of ~2020, deaf kids typically *are* behind in reading...though that could also be due to language deprivation)
With the caveat that I'm not a neurologist. My understanding is that lack of ability to hear, see etc means your brain develops differently (differently doesn't mean different side). I also know that learning to read actually rewires the brain. I would bet money that there's almost certainly some strange interactions between all of them.
Either way, for normal children the "science of reading" seems to be REALLY clear. The vast majority of them will need explicit phonics instruction to learn to read properly.
In particular the study where they took people that already knew how to read and made them learn a new made up written language was interesting. They had one group learn the new language phonetically, the other one by just trying to memorize the words. At first the memorization group did better, but then the phonetic group took off and left them in the dust.
Phonics really is important for the decoding part of learning to read.
Thank you, Natalie Wexler! Keep fighting the fight. "For students to acquire the kind of knowledge that enables reading comprehension, schools need to build it systematically, through a content-rich curriculum, ideally beginning in kindergarten."
It takes a high-quality knowledge-building curriculum, a strong foundational skills curriculum, a robust system that includes knowledge-building for educators with coaching support, and a strong mission and vision.
I don't disagree with any of your points about reading comprehension and knowledge-rich curriculum. Please keep banging the drum!
However, it's worth noting that even though NAEP Reading comprehension is an assessment of "comprehension" and does not isolate decoding/word reading or fluency, the 2018 NAEP Oral Reading Fluency Study found a correlation between NAEP level and average accuracy and words correct per minute. (They broke down the Below Basic category into low, medium, and high). https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/orf/
Low Below Basic 82%. accuracy 71 wcpm
Medium Below Basic 92% accuracy 95 wcpm
High Below Basic 94% accuracy 108 wcpm
Basic 96% accuracy 123 wcpm
Proficient 97% accuracy 142 wcpm
Advanced 98% accuracy 160 wcpm
This should not be surprising. Being able to demonstrate reading comprehension on a test like this is the outcome of many things, including word reading accuracy, reading fluency, AND knowledge and language. I know you know that, but I think it's important to emphasize that skills (and deficits) in these components usually go hand in hand.
As an eighth grade teacher, these scores just add numbers to years of observations.
Beyond the classroom, folks ignore the role of culture here. With TikTok and so on, kids have been creating their own culture for some time now. Gone are the days of pastiche on Nickelodeon, when great plots were borrowed for children's television.
Culture has everything to do with knowledge building--even if it only plants the seeds. I'd lend you 1,000 words here if you wanted.
Thank you Natalie Wexler!!! In Florida, there is a mandatory retention if students cannot pass the FAST (Florida’s state test). I think that a foundational skills assessment (phonics, fluency & sight words) short be given to K-2 students. Those that cannot pass should be retained in 2nd grade in order to master foundational skills.
"We have made the mistake of trying to teach comprehension as though it were a set of transferable skills. In fact, comprehension is far more dependent on knowledge. Whether you can find the main idea of a text has a lot more to do with whether you have relevant knowledge in long-term memory than with how much you’ve practiced finding the main idea." Exactly! One needs "hooks" in one's brain for new information encountered. Otherwise, one experiences "buffer overflow."
So, where exactly do you stand? Here’s my well-rooted stance, speaking from 25 years of digging into and monitoring BAD science that is claimed to be the “science of reading (SOR).”
It has been like watching two children fight relentlessly over a toy—and neither is bothering to look at the evidence!
SOR was only ever designed to answer the question: What is the best way to teach basic skills? Well—why are we surprised that SOR then delivers only 3 out of 10 kids who read proficiently? The majority read EXACTLY the way they were taught to read.
A member of the National Reading Panel WARNED the nation this would happen in the NRP Minority View. READ IT. It clearly states why SOR isn’t working.
Making excuses and ignoring the failure doesn’t help kids. I tutor about 20 hours a week online—and the methods I use (40 years in the making) both help brand-new readers read excellently from the beginning, and remediate about most of the students I tutor. How? By explicitly teaching the STABLE consonants, and moving students after they master those into highly predictable books. Equipped with these two “tools,” my students figure out how to use phonics information strategically—not through decoding. Strategic use of phonics produces reading hat is fully comprehended and sounds just like natural speech. It’s brilliant—but it isn’t “SOR.” My thanks to Dee Tadlock, Ph.D. for developing the methods. Not only do I feel tremendous satisfaction helping kids out of the quicksand of reading problems, my grandkids started public school reading above grade level—and have never needed classroom instruction in reading. Their mother made sure their reading potential wasn’t destroyed by over-emphasis on phonics and decoding—the TRUE CAUSE of most reading problems.
Here’s a link to a nationwide study (https://rebrand.ly/ibs699n) that recently released about how large print format books help boost students’ reading skills and attitude towards The study was conducted independently by Project Tomorrow, an education non-profit, on behalf of Thorndike Press. 1,500 students in grades 4-12 and 56 teachers and librarians across 13 U.S. elementary, middle, and high schools participated in the study. 87% of teachers saw a positive impact on their students’ reading success and capacities when they switched to large print books, including reading skills like letter and word recognition, fluency and comprehension.
Key findings from the study include:
• 77% of teachers said large print books increased reading comprehension levels for below-grade-level readers.
• Among students in grades 6-12 who took part in the study, 89% said they enjoyed reading large print books. Almost half of high schoolers reported that they were more engaged in large print books than others they read for schoolwork.
• Teachers reported that large print helps students stay focused. When observing below-grade-level readers who read large print, 84% of teachers said these students had longer sustained reading periods without being distracted and 75% said they increased their time spent reading.
• Student confidence also soared while reading large print. According to 87% of teachers, below-grade-level readers demonstrated increased confidence in their reading abilities.
• 71% of teachers reported that reading large print improved Lexile scores by 2 grade levels among their students who had been reading at grade level, as did 59% of those teaching students who had been reading below grade level.
• 55% of teachers saw increased comprehension among students diagnosed with ADHD.
• 76% of teachers also found that large print books benefitted and helped students who were learning English.
• More than eight in ten teachers noted social and emotional outcomes of using large print books for students. Teachers said that students’ stress and anxiety associated with schoolwork reading decreased significantly—81% for below-grade-level readers and 71% for at-grade-level readers.
• Teachers also noticed increased student participation in classroom read aloud activities: 74% for below-grade-level readers; 63% for students diagnosed with ADHD and 52% for at-grade-level readers.
The study shows that large print is an evidence-based reading intervention that’s easy to integrate within existing instructional practices and does not require any teacher professional development, changes in curriculum, adjustments to teaching practices or technology, nor the need to hire any additional staff – a cost savings for schools/districts.
When a simple change in format can lessen distractions, increase the time students spend reading, and improve reading confidence and participation in classroom read-alouds, the impact is enormous.
Here is a YouTube video of a 7th-grade student reading a standard print book and a large print book, you can literally see her whole posture and demeanor change when she switches to the large print book: https://rebrand.ly/i9lu6it -- Anyway, just sharing.
Natalie, this is one of the smartest posts I've read about the NAEP reading results. It's something I've been wondering and worried about for quite some time. Please contact me. I'd love to do something together on this topic.--Scott Marion
Have you written about the impact of the knowledge gap for segregated disabled students and access to GenEd? I read your book and kept expecting this to make an appearance and it didn’t.
I haven't written about that specific topic because it's not my area of expertise. But I have said, repeatedly that knowledge-building is crucial for all students, including those with disabilities.
Thank you! I fully agree. My daughter is in kindergarten in a specialized special education program (public school) and I advocate very hard for her to “push in” to GenEd during academic subjects because I feel like the knowledge gap is very much at work when we’re evaluating disabled kids in segregated classrooms. I’m “just a mom” but here is one public post I’ve written about it if you’re interested: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15zHD5cTtK/?mibextid=wwXIfr
I enjoyed this and hoped you would respond to the scores. I'm surprised you didn't also add that background knowledge isn't assumed on these tests- yet again making the results irrelevant.
Actually, background knowledge IS assumed on these tests! That’s the problem. The reading passages assume kids have knowledge that many actually don’t have.
First of all the majority of states that enacted Science of Reading or research-based literacy laws did so in the past year or 2 and primarily for grades K-2 or K-3. Improvements will not show up in grades 4 or 8 yet and anyone who understands that will know this. Secondly science of reading is not just phonics and none of the legislation says that and the Louisiana work was much more than phonics with a heavy focus on content-rich text to build knowledge as well. It is important to be honest about this.
This has been a frustration of mine in the reporting as well; anyone who understands will know this, as will anyone on the ground in public schools. Even those districts that are working hard to change know that retraining teachers, curriculum adoption, and change management won't show up in a year or two automatically.
I agree, but none of this changes the fact that children who can't decode the words obviously can't comprehend the text. Regarding the states' extremely recent passage of LETRS legislation, far too recent to have had any effect on current scores: This stuff is a farce that legislatures and school systems, both blue and red, have been pulling on naive voters for decades. Public school reading instruction has been completely insane for over 80 years now; in 1955, Rudolf Flesch published "Why Johnny Can't Read", exposing how utterly preposterous their reading ideology had already become during the decade following the end of WW2. Since then, three generations of parents have labored under the fallacy that the system could be reformed if only the supposed professionals within the system could be shown the light by those of us outside. I know because I was part of the second generation to do so back in the late 1990s. We had no idea what we were up against. To get some idea of how preposterous it is that we're still fighting to get public schools to do what nearly every home-schooling mom does successfully at her own kitchen table, find "My Child Will Read".
And when you're done perusing that, you might try understanding why no amount of reform effort under the current system can possibly succeed: "No, we are not going to fix the public schools": https://daveziffer.substack.com/p/no-we-are-not-going-to-fix-the-public
I'm a fan of the late John Taylor Gatto, particularly his 2008 book "Weapons of Mass Instruction - A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling". It's a scathing, humorous, and slightly loony critique of U.S. public schools.
Roland Fryer did, and wrote how to do it.
Everybody else just refuses
I think how the test is administered is another topic for discussion. We are assessing students, using a computer, which includes long passages that have to be read and reread by scrolling.
Kudos Natalie! You covered all the bases. Time for a paradigm change in reading instruction and assessment. Having students read and write about what they learned/are learning as a form of assessment makes the most sense. And with regard to phonics, as you say, it is needed for most students but let’s remember that there are thousands of profoundly deaf children who exclusively use American Sign Language and who are born to deaf parents who read just fine. Phonics is certainly important but certainly not mandatory.
My understanding is that the process of sounding out is actually important it engages a certain part of the brain.
Comparisons with deaf children are probably not relevant. As brain development is going to be different with a deaf child
Definitely!
If you want to go from print to words (decoding), sounding out words is the most efficient and effective way to do it. It goves you principles, not just vague patterns. Typically developing kids will eventually learn to read no matter how ineffectively you teach them, but for kids with dyslexia, it matters. We have over 40 years and multiple disciplines attesting that phonics is the best way to learn to *decode*.
IMO, problem is that people forget that reading is more than decoding -- we also need *comprehension*. So, they neglect to teach what words mean or how to understand texts. However, no actual reading scientist thinks that's a good idea.
(BTW, at least as of ~2020, deaf kids typically *are* behind in reading...though that could also be due to language deprivation)
Left-hemisphere processing of linguistic input for both hearing and deaf children
With the caveat that I'm not a neurologist. My understanding is that lack of ability to hear, see etc means your brain develops differently (differently doesn't mean different side). I also know that learning to read actually rewires the brain. I would bet money that there's almost certainly some strange interactions between all of them.
Either way, for normal children the "science of reading" seems to be REALLY clear. The vast majority of them will need explicit phonics instruction to learn to read properly.
In particular the study where they took people that already knew how to read and made them learn a new made up written language was interesting. They had one group learn the new language phonetically, the other one by just trying to memorize the words. At first the memorization group did better, but then the phonetic group took off and left them in the dust.
Phonics really is important for the decoding part of learning to read.
Thank you, Natalie Wexler! Keep fighting the fight. "For students to acquire the kind of knowledge that enables reading comprehension, schools need to build it systematically, through a content-rich curriculum, ideally beginning in kindergarten."
It takes a high-quality knowledge-building curriculum, a strong foundational skills curriculum, a robust system that includes knowledge-building for educators with coaching support, and a strong mission and vision.
I don't disagree with any of your points about reading comprehension and knowledge-rich curriculum. Please keep banging the drum!
However, it's worth noting that even though NAEP Reading comprehension is an assessment of "comprehension" and does not isolate decoding/word reading or fluency, the 2018 NAEP Oral Reading Fluency Study found a correlation between NAEP level and average accuracy and words correct per minute. (They broke down the Below Basic category into low, medium, and high). https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/orf/
Low Below Basic 82%. accuracy 71 wcpm
Medium Below Basic 92% accuracy 95 wcpm
High Below Basic 94% accuracy 108 wcpm
Basic 96% accuracy 123 wcpm
Proficient 97% accuracy 142 wcpm
Advanced 98% accuracy 160 wcpm
This should not be surprising. Being able to demonstrate reading comprehension on a test like this is the outcome of many things, including word reading accuracy, reading fluency, AND knowledge and language. I know you know that, but I think it's important to emphasize that skills (and deficits) in these components usually go hand in hand.
This is very helpful, Miriam. Thank you!
As an eighth grade teacher, these scores just add numbers to years of observations.
Beyond the classroom, folks ignore the role of culture here. With TikTok and so on, kids have been creating their own culture for some time now. Gone are the days of pastiche on Nickelodeon, when great plots were borrowed for children's television.
Culture has everything to do with knowledge building--even if it only plants the seeds. I'd lend you 1,000 words here if you wanted.
Thank you Natalie Wexler!!! In Florida, there is a mandatory retention if students cannot pass the FAST (Florida’s state test). I think that a foundational skills assessment (phonics, fluency & sight words) short be given to K-2 students. Those that cannot pass should be retained in 2nd grade in order to master foundational skills.
Digging a little deeper into Louisiana's gains should bring one to looking at their changes in teacher preparation and certification.
"We have made the mistake of trying to teach comprehension as though it were a set of transferable skills. In fact, comprehension is far more dependent on knowledge. Whether you can find the main idea of a text has a lot more to do with whether you have relevant knowledge in long-term memory than with how much you’ve practiced finding the main idea." Exactly! One needs "hooks" in one's brain for new information encountered. Otherwise, one experiences "buffer overflow."
So, where exactly do you stand? Here’s my well-rooted stance, speaking from 25 years of digging into and monitoring BAD science that is claimed to be the “science of reading (SOR).”
It has been like watching two children fight relentlessly over a toy—and neither is bothering to look at the evidence!
SOR was only ever designed to answer the question: What is the best way to teach basic skills? Well—why are we surprised that SOR then delivers only 3 out of 10 kids who read proficiently? The majority read EXACTLY the way they were taught to read.
A member of the National Reading Panel WARNED the nation this would happen in the NRP Minority View. READ IT. It clearly states why SOR isn’t working.
Making excuses and ignoring the failure doesn’t help kids. I tutor about 20 hours a week online—and the methods I use (40 years in the making) both help brand-new readers read excellently from the beginning, and remediate about most of the students I tutor. How? By explicitly teaching the STABLE consonants, and moving students after they master those into highly predictable books. Equipped with these two “tools,” my students figure out how to use phonics information strategically—not through decoding. Strategic use of phonics produces reading hat is fully comprehended and sounds just like natural speech. It’s brilliant—but it isn’t “SOR.” My thanks to Dee Tadlock, Ph.D. for developing the methods. Not only do I feel tremendous satisfaction helping kids out of the quicksand of reading problems, my grandkids started public school reading above grade level—and have never needed classroom instruction in reading. Their mother made sure their reading potential wasn’t destroyed by over-emphasis on phonics and decoding—the TRUE CAUSE of most reading problems.
Here’s a link to a nationwide study (https://rebrand.ly/ibs699n) that recently released about how large print format books help boost students’ reading skills and attitude towards The study was conducted independently by Project Tomorrow, an education non-profit, on behalf of Thorndike Press. 1,500 students in grades 4-12 and 56 teachers and librarians across 13 U.S. elementary, middle, and high schools participated in the study. 87% of teachers saw a positive impact on their students’ reading success and capacities when they switched to large print books, including reading skills like letter and word recognition, fluency and comprehension.
Key findings from the study include:
• 77% of teachers said large print books increased reading comprehension levels for below-grade-level readers.
• Among students in grades 6-12 who took part in the study, 89% said they enjoyed reading large print books. Almost half of high schoolers reported that they were more engaged in large print books than others they read for schoolwork.
• Teachers reported that large print helps students stay focused. When observing below-grade-level readers who read large print, 84% of teachers said these students had longer sustained reading periods without being distracted and 75% said they increased their time spent reading.
• Student confidence also soared while reading large print. According to 87% of teachers, below-grade-level readers demonstrated increased confidence in their reading abilities.
• 71% of teachers reported that reading large print improved Lexile scores by 2 grade levels among their students who had been reading at grade level, as did 59% of those teaching students who had been reading below grade level.
• 55% of teachers saw increased comprehension among students diagnosed with ADHD.
• 76% of teachers also found that large print books benefitted and helped students who were learning English.
• More than eight in ten teachers noted social and emotional outcomes of using large print books for students. Teachers said that students’ stress and anxiety associated with schoolwork reading decreased significantly—81% for below-grade-level readers and 71% for at-grade-level readers.
• Teachers also noticed increased student participation in classroom read aloud activities: 74% for below-grade-level readers; 63% for students diagnosed with ADHD and 52% for at-grade-level readers.
The study shows that large print is an evidence-based reading intervention that’s easy to integrate within existing instructional practices and does not require any teacher professional development, changes in curriculum, adjustments to teaching practices or technology, nor the need to hire any additional staff – a cost savings for schools/districts.
When a simple change in format can lessen distractions, increase the time students spend reading, and improve reading confidence and participation in classroom read-alouds, the impact is enormous.
Here is a YouTube video of a 7th-grade student reading a standard print book and a large print book, you can literally see her whole posture and demeanor change when she switches to the large print book: https://rebrand.ly/i9lu6it -- Anyway, just sharing.
Natalie, this is one of the smartest posts I've read about the NAEP reading results. It's something I've been wondering and worried about for quite some time. Please contact me. I'd love to do something together on this topic.--Scott Marion
Thanks! I'm not sure how to contact you, but please feel free to email me via my website or at natwexler@gmail.com.
Have you written about the impact of the knowledge gap for segregated disabled students and access to GenEd? I read your book and kept expecting this to make an appearance and it didn’t.
I haven't written about that specific topic because it's not my area of expertise. But I have said, repeatedly that knowledge-building is crucial for all students, including those with disabilities.
Thank you! I fully agree. My daughter is in kindergarten in a specialized special education program (public school) and I advocate very hard for her to “push in” to GenEd during academic subjects because I feel like the knowledge gap is very much at work when we’re evaluating disabled kids in segregated classrooms. I’m “just a mom” but here is one public post I’ve written about it if you’re interested: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15zHD5cTtK/?mibextid=wwXIfr
I am begging you! lol Please visit me. Law school drop out. 10th year 2nd grade teacher. 8th largest school district in California. CA is willld.
I enjoyed this and hoped you would respond to the scores. I'm surprised you didn't also add that background knowledge isn't assumed on these tests- yet again making the results irrelevant.
Actually, background knowledge IS assumed on these tests! That’s the problem. The reading passages assume kids have knowledge that many actually don’t have.