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’m confused. SoR was established in 1999 as a result of a review of reading research. It has only been labeled “SoR” more recently. Where does the idea it is only a few years old come from?
I know from personal experience that Texas has been wholly devoted to it (through strict TEA funding requirements and, later, state law) for at least 20 years. No one talks about how well Texas is doing because they’re not doing well. Where they WERE doing well was where school employees trained in our methods were helping kids abandon decoding and word-naming as the primary reading strategy for what we guide them to do implicitly: use all the needed brain systems to construct meaning from the text.
We have the data from those schools. They were devastated to lose our program. If you’re an academic, check it out for yourself. Ask me for a list of school districts and schools using our methods. I’ll send you a list of starting year and program termination year. Measure the rise and fall of the data at these schools before, during, and after use of our program for yourself.
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.
Hello David. LTRS isn’t based in anything new. It’s foundation, the Science of Reading, emerged from the work of the National Reading Panel (1998-99), but few people are aware that the Panel chose to limit their review to the same body of science reviewed by The Committee for the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children (1997-1998). Thus, the basic skills recommended to be explicitly taught have been known and used by various school systems and states for more than 25 years.
David—what do you think of the possibility that BOTH the “Simple View of Reading” (everything has a foundation; this is the Science of Reading’s) and “Whole Language” fall short? Dyslexia has grown from both; and the Science of Reading can’t cure dyslexia (the International Dyslexia Association says it is “incurable.” I use methods grounded in far broader brain science and I am “curing” it—if curing means students become successful readers.
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.
Actually—the data suggests that most deaf students get stuck at a Grade 3 reading level if SoR is followed. My mother taught deaf K-2 children before SoR. She relied on sign language with whole stories, not individual world/vocabulary lessons. Her kids learned to read well.
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.
Content rich, 100%!! Enjoyable, 200%!! And authentically brain science-based, 1000%!! But SoR cannot not get us there. Those responsible for it ignored emerging findings from neuroscience. Natalie Wexler—might we talk about the brain science missing from SoR? Reading desperately needs a social media influencer to get reading instruction on track. We should be producing 80% of kids nationally that read proficiently or above by Grade 4, not 35%.
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.
I admire your sincerity on this important topic. Question: I guide students into reading excellence. It takes me only 1 to 3 months for my 5-year-olds to master the letter and sound information I require them to know with automaticity before we start working in progressively more difficult books.
In the equivalent of 1 school year, working 5 days a week, 30 minutes per day, they emerge reading with comfort, full comprehension, and oral fluency that sounds just like natural speech at between an upper 1st/lower 2nd grade reading level (depending upon their vocabulary and concept knowledge). I do it fairly systematically—but my students are only required to know the sounds made by the 15 stable consonants before we start.
What do you think about the idea that my students would fail the phonics test you suggest —because their “explicit” phonics knowledge grows over time. First, they figure out how to read using only STRATEGiC phonics information (not “literal,” letter in string), then grow more explicit phonics knowledge over time through embedded phonics.
It’s so easy to forget that there are 350+ phonics rules associated with the 43 to 45 English language phonemes. Fact: English is phonetically unstable. Thus. Might it be possible that teaching kids that decoding is the only path to reading excellence is a bit of a trap?? My students never develop reading problems when they remain with me until they achieve authentically excellent reading ability. I know—I check back years later.
"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.
I agree with much of what you say above in terms of the whole brain activity and the notion that the goal of literacy is comprehension rather than decoding the words on the page. Have you seen my book, Calling All Neurons! How Reading and Spelling Happen? If you haven’t, suggest you check it out, as I explain the brain processes in easy to understand language for kids, families, and educators. Maryanne Wolf endorsed it, so I think I am on the mark. I, too, have worked with struggling students for decades, the vast majority of whom are now college graduates.
Rhonda, this is untrue. Suggest you have a look at what The Reading League has to say about SoR and also look at Hollis Scarborough's Reading Rope. SoR is FAR more than phonics.
I respect what you believe. I’ll check out “The Reading League.” I could be wrong, and apologize if so, but you appear to be an SoR advocate unaware of the manipulated body of “science” it is built upon (it was first a theory, then the selected theory was supported by hand-picked studies selected by a few experts who chose a few hundred studies and papers supporting their theory and eliminated thousands that did not). Notably, the selecting scientists did not choose core brain studies that could help them determine what ideas associated with their favored reading theory had the potential to violate known implicit capacity and functional limitations of the brain.
For what it’s worth, I’m not a novice. I can quote Scarborough’s rope, and I know SoR almost as well as I know the back of my hand. The problem is the same with both: SoR’s underlying theory communicated that reading is a cluster of separate acts and/or brain functions that can be explicitly identified and explicitly taught. First, separating any process-oriented brain activity (which reading is) into separate, teachable acts, opens the door for reading problems to form. How? Because, if the separate pieces don’t come together as they need to for high-level reading ability to result, what will be the inevitable result? A reading problem. That’s simple logic. Second, “brain activity” (more accurately, processing) is never explicit. It is always implicit—so it cannot be “taught”. The brain toggles between and integrates at least two distinctly different forms of knowledge—declarative (that which can be declared) is explicitly “known” and can be explicitly taught; but that which is responsible for the seamless performance of any act is implicitly-operating. We aren’t consciously aware of it. It is called procedural knowledge, and it can only be “figured out” by every individual brain through experimentation to determine what works and what does not, and striving to figure out how to succeed.
This is where SoR’s foundational objective goes wrong: it guides the brain to figure out, first, how to decode, then identify every single word individually. My students aren’t told to do that—and they leap over word-by-word reading into literal comprehension and authentic oral fluency.
Scarborough’s rope does a better job than SoR of identifying the forms of knowledge involved in some way with the reading act, but the image of separate strands twisting together is misleading. Obviously, there is no rope-like structure in the brain.
Why not talk about what the brain actually DOES to seek, locate, and integrate (1) explicit knowledge of letter sounds AND two other forms of declarative knowledge essential for early reading development; (2) implicit knowledge we accumulate from infancy of the complex structure of language that must be applied to the reading act; (3) application of context as a support for anticipating what a text says—essential for figuring out a message during the reading act (e.g., when we see “blue” in a sentence, is the author talking about the color of the sky or the emotion? Only context can settle this); (4) knowledge of the world and how it works that must be used to establish context and applied for understanding to occur; (5) and everything else required to produce true oral reading fluency, total comfort during the reading act, and full comprehension SEAMLESSLY, in ONE fluid act.
This is WHOLE BRAIN, not whole language. High-quality reading is NOT a “language” act. It is seamless whole-brain cognitive processing.
Why not express these things as what they are? Bits of information organized and stored throughout the brain, with executive function directing attention AND the brain’s naturally occurring anticipatory systems pulling it all together spontaneously by seeking, locating, and integrating all of the knowledge stored in the brain required to make sense of text?
Twisting things together does not produce successful reading. A neural network built by the implicitly-operating brain for a singular purpose, to produce reading that is always fully understood and authentically fluent as long as the vocabulary and concept knowledge are familiar, is the only path to literal comprehension and oral reading fluency. Such reading is comfortable to the brain because it is effortless and seamless.
Such reading ability does not grow from SoR for 2 out of 3 students. SoR has the process wrong: words to meaning. NO: it’s seamless, integrated cognitive processing engaging the WHOLE BRAIN.
Every day I help brand new readers figure out how to read excellently and I use the same methods to correct reading problems once they form (including dyslexia). And I do it without EVER asking new or struggling readers to decode a single word individually.
The success of those who use these methods, developed by Dee Tadlock, Ph.D, 40 years ago challenge the accuracy of SoR. That you aren’t aware of them is the fault of SorR’s founders, who we made sure knew about them 20 and 25 years ago (depending on the expert).
While I understand your concern about commentaries emphasizing the importance of foundational skill (phonics as you mention), and the notion that the NEAP is an assessment of comprehension, I have 2 thoughts to share. 1-one cannot comprehend text if one cannot decode the words--and additionally connect the words syntactically. 2-assessment of phonics is difficult, if not impossible, to implement in a group setting; phonics skills are often assessed in a one to one setting with interaction between a student and a teacher. If anyone has a better way to effectively assess phonics, I am literally 'all ears' (pun intended!).
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
Keep pushing! I insisted that all of our children attend public school and that my visually impaired daughter NOT be segregated when she entered K-12. She was provided large print books, magnifiers, and cctv access. That began in 2002. She graduated from college with high honors in 2021 and launched her successful career as an accountant the same year. In December 2024, she independently bought her first home! I'm convinced she wouldn't have succeeded academically, nor socially if we'd have allowed her to be segregated all those years ago.
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’m confused. SoR was established in 1999 as a result of a review of reading research. It has only been labeled “SoR” more recently. Where does the idea it is only a few years old come from?
I know from personal experience that Texas has been wholly devoted to it (through strict TEA funding requirements and, later, state law) for at least 20 years. No one talks about how well Texas is doing because they’re not doing well. Where they WERE doing well was where school employees trained in our methods were helping kids abandon decoding and word-naming as the primary reading strategy for what we guide them to do implicitly: use all the needed brain systems to construct meaning from the text.
We have the data from those schools. They were devastated to lose our program. If you’re an academic, check it out for yourself. Ask me for a list of school districts and schools using our methods. I’ll send you a list of starting year and program termination year. Measure the rise and fall of the data at these schools before, during, and after use of our program for yourself.
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
Hello David. LTRS isn’t based in anything new. It’s foundation, the Science of Reading, emerged from the work of the National Reading Panel (1998-99), but few people are aware that the Panel chose to limit their review to the same body of science reviewed by The Committee for the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children (1997-1998). Thus, the basic skills recommended to be explicitly taught have been known and used by various school systems and states for more than 25 years.
David—what do you think of the possibility that BOTH the “Simple View of Reading” (everything has a foundation; this is the Science of Reading’s) and “Whole Language” fall short? Dyslexia has grown from both; and the Science of Reading can’t cure dyslexia (the International Dyslexia Association says it is “incurable.” I use methods grounded in far broader brain science and I am “curing” it—if curing means students become successful readers.
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.
Actually—the data suggests that most deaf students get stuck at a Grade 3 reading level if SoR is followed. My mother taught deaf K-2 children before SoR. She relied on sign language with whole stories, not individual world/vocabulary lessons. Her kids learned to read well.
Your mother was spot on right. Kudos to her.
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.
Content rich, 100%!! Enjoyable, 200%!! And authentically brain science-based, 1000%!! But SoR cannot not get us there. Those responsible for it ignored emerging findings from neuroscience. Natalie Wexler—might we talk about the brain science missing from SoR? Reading desperately needs a social media influencer to get reading instruction on track. We should be producing 80% of kids nationally that read proficiently or above by Grade 4, not 35%.
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!
Indeed, this IS very helpful and thought provoking.
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.
I admire your sincerity on this important topic. Question: I guide students into reading excellence. It takes me only 1 to 3 months for my 5-year-olds to master the letter and sound information I require them to know with automaticity before we start working in progressively more difficult books.
In the equivalent of 1 school year, working 5 days a week, 30 minutes per day, they emerge reading with comfort, full comprehension, and oral fluency that sounds just like natural speech at between an upper 1st/lower 2nd grade reading level (depending upon their vocabulary and concept knowledge). I do it fairly systematically—but my students are only required to know the sounds made by the 15 stable consonants before we start.
What do you think about the idea that my students would fail the phonics test you suggest —because their “explicit” phonics knowledge grows over time. First, they figure out how to read using only STRATEGiC phonics information (not “literal,” letter in string), then grow more explicit phonics knowledge over time through embedded phonics.
It’s so easy to forget that there are 350+ phonics rules associated with the 43 to 45 English language phonemes. Fact: English is phonetically unstable. Thus. Might it be possible that teaching kids that decoding is the only path to reading excellence is a bit of a trap?? My students never develop reading problems when they remain with me until they achieve authentically excellent reading ability. I know—I check back years later.
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.
I agree with much of what you say above in terms of the whole brain activity and the notion that the goal of literacy is comprehension rather than decoding the words on the page. Have you seen my book, Calling All Neurons! How Reading and Spelling Happen? If you haven’t, suggest you check it out, as I explain the brain processes in easy to understand language for kids, families, and educators. Maryanne Wolf endorsed it, so I think I am on the mark. I, too, have worked with struggling students for decades, the vast majority of whom are now college graduates.
Rhonda, this is untrue. Suggest you have a look at what The Reading League has to say about SoR and also look at Hollis Scarborough's Reading Rope. SoR is FAR more than phonics.
I respect what you believe. I’ll check out “The Reading League.” I could be wrong, and apologize if so, but you appear to be an SoR advocate unaware of the manipulated body of “science” it is built upon (it was first a theory, then the selected theory was supported by hand-picked studies selected by a few experts who chose a few hundred studies and papers supporting their theory and eliminated thousands that did not). Notably, the selecting scientists did not choose core brain studies that could help them determine what ideas associated with their favored reading theory had the potential to violate known implicit capacity and functional limitations of the brain.
For what it’s worth, I’m not a novice. I can quote Scarborough’s rope, and I know SoR almost as well as I know the back of my hand. The problem is the same with both: SoR’s underlying theory communicated that reading is a cluster of separate acts and/or brain functions that can be explicitly identified and explicitly taught. First, separating any process-oriented brain activity (which reading is) into separate, teachable acts, opens the door for reading problems to form. How? Because, if the separate pieces don’t come together as they need to for high-level reading ability to result, what will be the inevitable result? A reading problem. That’s simple logic. Second, “brain activity” (more accurately, processing) is never explicit. It is always implicit—so it cannot be “taught”. The brain toggles between and integrates at least two distinctly different forms of knowledge—declarative (that which can be declared) is explicitly “known” and can be explicitly taught; but that which is responsible for the seamless performance of any act is implicitly-operating. We aren’t consciously aware of it. It is called procedural knowledge, and it can only be “figured out” by every individual brain through experimentation to determine what works and what does not, and striving to figure out how to succeed.
This is where SoR’s foundational objective goes wrong: it guides the brain to figure out, first, how to decode, then identify every single word individually. My students aren’t told to do that—and they leap over word-by-word reading into literal comprehension and authentic oral fluency.
Scarborough’s rope does a better job than SoR of identifying the forms of knowledge involved in some way with the reading act, but the image of separate strands twisting together is misleading. Obviously, there is no rope-like structure in the brain.
Why not talk about what the brain actually DOES to seek, locate, and integrate (1) explicit knowledge of letter sounds AND two other forms of declarative knowledge essential for early reading development; (2) implicit knowledge we accumulate from infancy of the complex structure of language that must be applied to the reading act; (3) application of context as a support for anticipating what a text says—essential for figuring out a message during the reading act (e.g., when we see “blue” in a sentence, is the author talking about the color of the sky or the emotion? Only context can settle this); (4) knowledge of the world and how it works that must be used to establish context and applied for understanding to occur; (5) and everything else required to produce true oral reading fluency, total comfort during the reading act, and full comprehension SEAMLESSLY, in ONE fluid act.
This is WHOLE BRAIN, not whole language. High-quality reading is NOT a “language” act. It is seamless whole-brain cognitive processing.
Why not express these things as what they are? Bits of information organized and stored throughout the brain, with executive function directing attention AND the brain’s naturally occurring anticipatory systems pulling it all together spontaneously by seeking, locating, and integrating all of the knowledge stored in the brain required to make sense of text?
Twisting things together does not produce successful reading. A neural network built by the implicitly-operating brain for a singular purpose, to produce reading that is always fully understood and authentically fluent as long as the vocabulary and concept knowledge are familiar, is the only path to literal comprehension and oral reading fluency. Such reading is comfortable to the brain because it is effortless and seamless.
Such reading ability does not grow from SoR for 2 out of 3 students. SoR has the process wrong: words to meaning. NO: it’s seamless, integrated cognitive processing engaging the WHOLE BRAIN.
Every day I help brand new readers figure out how to read excellently and I use the same methods to correct reading problems once they form (including dyslexia). And I do it without EVER asking new or struggling readers to decode a single word individually.
The success of those who use these methods, developed by Dee Tadlock, Ph.D, 40 years ago challenge the accuracy of SoR. That you aren’t aware of them is the fault of SorR’s founders, who we made sure knew about them 20 and 25 years ago (depending on the expert).
While I understand your concern about commentaries emphasizing the importance of foundational skill (phonics as you mention), and the notion that the NEAP is an assessment of comprehension, I have 2 thoughts to share. 1-one cannot comprehend text if one cannot decode the words--and additionally connect the words syntactically. 2-assessment of phonics is difficult, if not impossible, to implement in a group setting; phonics skills are often assessed in a one to one setting with interaction between a student and a teacher. If anyone has a better way to effectively assess phonics, I am literally 'all ears' (pun intended!).
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
Keep pushing! I insisted that all of our children attend public school and that my visually impaired daughter NOT be segregated when she entered K-12. She was provided large print books, magnifiers, and cctv access. That began in 2002. She graduated from college with high honors in 2021 and launched her successful career as an accountant the same year. In December 2024, she independently bought her first home! I'm convinced she wouldn't have succeeded academically, nor socially if we'd have allowed her to be segregated all those years ago.
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.