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Seideneberg's Yale Address: Where Does the Science of Reading Go From Here?  In this video, which is an expansion of an address at Yale Unviersity, Seidenberg shifts into an effort to correct the overreaches of the Science of Reading movement

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Seideneberg's Yale Address: Where Does the Science of Reading Go From Here?  In this video, which is an expansion of an address at Yale Unviersity, Seidenberg shifts into an effort to correct the overreaches of the Science of Reading movement

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Teacher question Shanahan's response: : I keep hearing that teachers don't know the science of reading. But all the teachers that I talk to say that they teach phonics. What's really going on?
I suspect that both the critics and the teachers are telling you the truth.

Unfortunately, we don't have a national education inspectorate that monitors classroom trends in the U.S. We all guess what may be happening based on our own narrow experiences. That means you could visit classrooms in your community, and I could in mine, and we might see very different patterns of teaching

But there is more to it than that kind of variation.

However, before we go there, we need to clarify one important point: The "science of reading" includes more than phonics and phonological awareness.

Phonics is certainly an important part of the science of reading, but it's not the whole thing.

Any real "science of reading" would include all the methods or approaches that have been found, through research, to give kids a learning advantage in reading.

That means oral reading fluency instruction should be part of the science of reading. And, vocabulary and morphology teaching, too. There are also a number of instructional approaches that have been found to boost reading comprehension by teaching thinking strategies or enhancing written language performance (e.g., cohesion, sentence combining/reducing). And, guiding kids to write about text is scientific, as well.

Any science of reading would concern itself with the amount of reading instruction provided and there are quality factors that need to be included. For instance, kids learn more when teachers provide clear purposes for the lessons, when there is plenty of interaction among teachers and students, and when teachers explain themselves clearly. Those are just examples, of course; there is even more.

But, with that said, back to your original question.

A reason for the seeming discrepancies in what you're hearing about teaching has to do with the lack of precision in how we talk about these things. What is phonics instruction and what is a sufficient amount of phonics teaching? How many minutes a day do your teachers teach phonics?

Most primary teachers when asked if they teach phonics are, in my experience, likely to say, "Yes." However, when I visit some of those classrooms, what they mean by phonics is pretty pale and thin; often no more than marking up a worksheet. Bloodless teaching not likely to help kids to figure out the decoding system.

When teaching the simple sound-symbol correspondences, teachers should make sure the kids can hear those sounds and distinguish them from other sounds; they should make sure kids can recognize these letters within words; they should make sure the kids can sound out unknown words or even nonsense words using those correspondences; and they should be able to read and write words with those elements, too.

Showing kids a spelling pattern and its pronunciation is a necessary step, but it's not sufficient, if the goal is enabling kids to read and spell. Phonics teaching should provide opportunities to decode and spell words, to sort words, to recognize misspellings, and to gain proficiency in using all this information.

Although the numbers of phonics skills to be taught is usually pretty limited, the amount of phonics instruction kids should be receiving is considerable. Experts usually recommend 20-30 minutes or so of daily phonics instruction in grades K-2 (in other words, about 200 hours of such teaching). That means there is a need for thoroughness and depth; we want mastery, not familiarization.

The teacher who I mentioned earlier, the one who may be doing no more than having kids mark up the daily phonics worksheet, can honestly say she is "teaching phonics," since those lessons are being dispensed.

But she, if probed, may also honestly admit that she knows nothing of the science of reading (in this case, the nature of the orthographic-phonemic aspects of the English language and the research on effective decoding instruction).

She may even complain, again quite rightly, that she received inadequate preparation at her local university. Her reading class was instructed by someone who thought guessing the words based on the pictures or on context were good ways of reading words (they are not; good readers don't do it that way), or perhaps they had a philosophy that scorned the value of explicit phonics instruction, despite the research.

And, the parents?

Those who see their children guessing words and struggling to read, grumble about the injustice of it all. They want more phonics. And, the reading community is as frustrated with those parents as the parents are with them.

Many reading professors simply can't understand why these moms and dads demand phonics so vociferously when there are other aspects of reading science that are important.

The parents can't understand why their kids' teachers don't know how to teach decoding and providing terrific classroom libraries and free time to read really don't help those kids who simply can't read the words. (And, telling them to look at the pictures and guess borders on cruelty).

Now multiply this through the entire system. What I just described about phonics may be true in Mrs. Jones' first-grade class, but not in Mrs. Smith's down the hall. It might describe phonics instruction in one school, while in others it is the fluency, or vocabulary, or comprehension instruction that is so strenuously grounded in an ignorance of the knowledge of a science of reading.
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We need a substantial commitment to all those things found to benefit kids learning - not just to the ones we may like best.

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Teacher question Shanahan's response: : I keep hearing that teachers don't know the science of reading. But all the teachers that I talk to say that they teach phonics. What's really going on? I suspect that both the critics and the teachers are telling you the truth.

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Reading Rockets -- Q&A About the Science of Reading 

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Reading Rockets -- Q&A About the Science of Reading 

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What is the "science of reading?"

That depends on who you talk to. There is no agreed upon definition. Nor is there any official body like the Académie française that can dictate a meaning by fiat. Last year, Reading Research Quarterly published a science of reading issue (it blossomed into two, with more than 50 articles). There weren't 50 definitions, but it was close.

The disagreements turned on two points: the role of instructional research and the scope of reading covered.

Some use the term in reference to neurological and cognitive science studies of how brains process written words (e.g., Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read by Stanislas Dehaene or Reading at the Speed of Language by Mark Seidenberg). The problem with that approach, as valuable as those studies are, is that it ignores instructional research - the studies that consider the impact of how and what we teach. That approach wouldn't bother me if its purveyors weren't trying to tell us what and how we should teach on that basis.

No one in medicine would willingly apply basic scientific findings to medical practice without some intermediary tests of effectiveness and safety. Imagine, for instance, physicians administering COVID vaccines without proof that they work. Despite careful attention to basic research, only about 10% of medical therapies ever make it all the way through the testing process. "Can't miss" hypotheses based on terrific basic science research often fail to work in medicine and there is no reason to think it's any different in reading education. A century of failed hypotheses in teaching (e.g., right-handedness training, learning styles, programmed readers, eye training) should disabuse us of this idea (Shanahan, 2020).

To me, a science of reading - if we are talking about education - requires that our prescriptions for teaching be tempered by rigorous instructional evaluations. If a claim hasn't been tried out and found effective, then the claims - no matter how heartfelt aren't part of reading science.

Basic research shows that phonological activation takes place when people read words silently and simulations are showing that computers' responses to words are affected by the statistical properties of the words they process. Such findings suggest that readers look for visual patterns when they read and that reading requires that those patterns be processed phonologically. That's fascinating, but it doesn't reveal how we can best teach reading.

As cool as those studies are, I don't argue for explicit systematic phonics and phonemic awareness instruction because. I advocate such teaching because there are more than 100 studies showing that it improves kids' learning (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008; National Reading Panel, 2000). Those brain studies strengthen the case, admittedly, but without them I'd still support phonics. Conversely, if I only had the brain evidence, then no deal - not enough support for me to include that in my teaching.

When someone tells you what to do in the classroom based on what they think a "science of reading" shows, be skeptical. Ask to see the research that shows that teaching those things or in those ways improves learning.

The other definitional disagreement has to do with the scope of what counts in a science of reading. Historically, that term was used to refer to word reading ("decoding" in current parlance)- a tradition that goes back more than 200 years. Current claims align well with those historical uses. If someone says your school isn't aligned with the science of reading, they likely mean that you are not teaching phonemic awareness and phonics in the ways that they think you should.

There is nothing wrong or misleading about using the term that way. If my child had dyslexia and he was being taught guess words based on the pictures - an approach inconsistent with the basic science but also with the instructional science - I'd complain. That a science of reading or, more properly, a science of reading instruction includes much more than that wouldn't mean that I was being misleading - only that I was applying a general category to a specific case.

Many of those Reading Research Quarterly articles were aimed at trying to expand the scope of how science of reading is currently being discussed. It's great to try to reveal the entire scope of evidence that is encompassed by science of reading, unless the point is to distract folks from ensuring their kids get explicit phonics teaching.

I make that point because I know of no one who uses the term science of reading to exclude research on vocabulary, reading comprehension, domain knowledge, or oral language, no matter how narrowly they may be using the term in a specific instance. Reading researchers shouldn't feel threatened when parents try to make sure that some of that research is being applied.

In case, that isn't clear: Indeed, a science of reading instruction includes more than phonemic awareness, letter name learning, phonics, decoding, and text reading fluency; but it, importantly, includes all of those, too.

How does the science of reading differ from the National Reading Panel?

The last time these science of reading debates broke out was in the 1990s. That time, the federal government intervened. The term then was not "science of reading," but "scientifically-based reading instruction (SBRI)." That term focused specifically on instructional studies and provided a specific legal definition of the term; then scientists were empaneled to determine the scope of the matter based on research reviews.

I served on that panel. That effort led to strong public support for explicit teaching of phonemic awareness, phonics, oral reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Based on those reviews, the feds adopted policies that promoted such instruction in the primary grades. At that time, fourth grade reading achievement rose in the U.S. - something we haven't seen since those policies were allowed to lapse.

To me, the National Reading Panel results are part of a science of reading. But remember that was carried out in the late 1990s. During the past two decades research has expanded and we know more about what should be included in a science of reading instruction. Topics like writing and spelling to improve reading, text complexity, teaching reading comprehension within science and social studies, differentiation of instruction, quality of instruction, and text structure have all generated extensive bodies of research since the Panel closed its books. (A science of reading is always a moving target since knowledge is always conditional and research is always ongoing).

How do I know if an instructional program or approach is part of a science of reading?

This question comes up a lot these days. And no wonder.

A couple of weeks ago, I issued a blog that explained that some widely touted practices are not part of a science of reading. You wouldn't believe the messages that I received from people angry with me for daring to write that. They assured me that those practices were part of the science of reading, and they knew it because they believed it.

I asked an author of a program touting some of those practices under the science banner.

She knew there was no research supporting what she was selling as "science of reading," but she defended her approach since it was "just logical that those things work given the science."

She may or may not be right about that. I don't know. I do know that my hunches, biases, deeply held beliefs, and inklings aren't science - and I don't know how hers get to be so sanctified.

In this case, she not only was embracing practices that haven't yet been studied, but those which research hasn't supported.

Unfortunately, the only real protection against that kind of logical overreach is caveat emptor, buyer beware. When someone tells you that something is part of the science of reading, you need to ask for the study or studies that proved that to benefit learning. Finding support for those claims shouldn't be on your shoulders but on theirs.

The lack of research supporting an instructional approach is NOT proof that an approach does not work. It may work, even if it hasn't been tested yet. Lots of time it's necessary to stretch research findings beyond what was directly studied. There is no other information to go on.

There is nothing wrong with advocating or adopting instructional approaches without evidence - as long as everyone recognizes that to be the case. When untested practices are promoted under the guise of a science of reading, it isn't okay. It's dishonest, false advertising, fake news; it's just another case of someone trying to manipulate you to do what they want you to do.

Additional Reading

What Constitutes a Science of Reading Instruction? ( Reading Research Quarterly, December 2020)

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That depends on who you talk to. There is no agreed upon definition. Nor is there any official body like the Académie française that can dictate a meaning by fiat. Last year, Reading Research Quarterly published a science of reading issue (it blossomed into two, with more than 50 articles).

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Rebalancing Literacy Key Talking Points and Research

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Rebalancing Literacy Key Talking Points and Research

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Responses To The Science Of Reading: Videos And Resources

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Responses To The Science Of Reading: Videos And Resources

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The important truth is that teaching children to be great readers and writers is not simple, nor is developing an informed curriculum for doing so. Studies show that the most effective way to help kids become accomplished readers is to lean on all the research that can inform instruction: the research behind fluency and motivation, comprehension instruction, knowledge development, language development, and yes, the research that supports systematic phonics.

The videos linked explain Dr. Lucy Calkins' philosophy on Rebalancing Literacy, and what it means for teachers and students across the world.

More media coverage and sources regarding rebalancing literacy can be found here.

What matters most to you as a teacher?

Author and scholar Lucy Calkins describes what matters most to her as a teacher of reading and writing.

Tell us about the disputes in the field of reading and where you stand

Tell us about the disputes in the field of reading and where you stand

Lessons from the Science of Reading

Author and scholar Lucy Calkins discusses the lessons educators have learned from the science of reading movement.

What is a "Science of Reading curriculum"?

Author and scholar Lucy Calkins addresses questions about "Science of Reading curricula."

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Rebalancing Literacy Videos | Mossflower

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The Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower with Lucy Calkins

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Fact-Checking the Science of Reading, Executive Summary

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Fact-Checking the Science of Reading, Executive Summary

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Analysis of State -Approved Reading Programs and The Units

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Analysis of State -Approved Reading Programs and The Units

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An 2024 Analysis of State-Approved Reading Programs and The Units of Study

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(Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

The "reading wars" have been around for longer than you might think. In the 1800s, Horace Mann, the "father of public education" who was the first state education secretary in the country (in Massachusetts), advocated that children learn to read whole words and learn to read for meaning before they are taught the explicit sounds of each letter. Noah Webster, the textbook pioneer whose "blue-back speller" taught children how to spell and read for generations, supported phonics. So it started.

In the last century and now again, we have gone in and out of debates about the best way to teach reading - as if there was a single best way for all children - with the arguments focusing on phonics, whole language and balanced literacy. We're in another cycle: Just this week, New York City, the largest school district in the country, announced it would require all elementary schools to employ phonics programs in reading instruction.

New York City requires reading instruction to be phonics-based

This post - written by David Reinking, Peter Smagorinsky, and David B. Yaden - looks at the debate on phonics in a different way than is most often voiced these days. It notes, among other things, that the National Reading Panel report of 2000, which is often cited in arguments for putting phonics front and center in school reading curriculum, says many things about the importance of systematic phonics instruction but it also says this: "Phonics should not become the dominant component in a reading program, neither in the amount of time devoted to it nor in the significance attached."

Reinking is a professor of education emeritus at Clemson University, a former editor of Reading Research Quarterly and the Journal of Literacy Research, a former president of the Literacy Research Association and an elected member of the Reading Hall of Fame.

Smagorinsky is a research professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, a visiting scholar at the University of Guadalajara, a former editor of the journal Research in the Teaching of English, and an elected member of the National Academy of Education.

Yaden is a literacy professor in the College of Education at the University of Arizona, a former editor of the Journal of Literacy Research, and a past president of the Literacy Research Association.

By David Reinking, Peter Smagorinsky and David Yaden

Two of the nation's most trustworthy news sources, the New York Times and The Washington Post, recently ran opinion pieces asserting that there is a national reading crisis and a single solution: more phonics instruction. The Times followed with a news article about how a "science of reading" movement is sweeping the United States in support of more phonics instruction.

These claims have clearly impressed many politicians, journalists, educational leaders and parents. Phonics has become political fodder with copycat legislation in state after state mandating more of it. There is now a firmly rooted popular narrative of a national crisis in reading achievement supposedly linked to inadequate phonics instruction and unequivocally supported by a science of reading. Those who question it and ask for more evidence are portrayed as unenlightened or even as science deniers, including many experienced, dedicated and successful teachers who contend daily with the complex, multifaceted challenges of teaching children how to read.

As researchers and teacher educators, we, like many of our colleagues, shake our heads in resigned frustration. We believe phonics plays an important role in teaching children to read. But, we see no justifiable support for its overwhelming dominance within the current narrative, nor reason to regard phonics as a panacea for improving reading achievement.

Specifically, we do not see convincing evidence for a reading crisis, and certainly none that points to phonics as the single cause or a solution. We are skeptical of any narrowly defined science that authoritatively dictates exactly how reading should be taught in every case. Most of all, we are concerned that ill-advised legislation will unnecessarily constrain teachers' options for effective reading instruction.

As for a crisis (always useful for promoting favored causes), the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been tracking reading achievement in the United States since 1972. Until the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020, the scores were mostly flat for decades, even trending slightly upward before covid-19 shut down schools. The decline since the pandemic is a clear example of how societal factors influence reading achievement. Given the nation's increasing linguistic and cultural diversity and widening economic disparities, that upward trend might even suggest encouraging progress.

Less absurd, but no less arbitrary, is using NAEP scores to argue that two-thirds of students are not proficient in reading. Diane Ravitch, a former member of the NAEP governing board, has equated scores at the proficient level with a solid A. Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers NAEP, has said that basic level is generally seen as grade-level achievement. Adding students who achieve at a Basic level (interpreted as a B) or above, two-thirds of students have solid reading skills. In other words, the argument only holds if we expect every student to get an A. We can always do better, but there is neither no convincing evidence of a crisis nor magic that eliminates inevitable variation in achievement.

The straw man in the new round of the reading wars

But crisis or not, is there evidence that more phonics instruction is the elixir guaranteed to induce higher reading achievement? The answer isn't just no. There are decades of empirical evidence that it hasn't and won't.

In the mid-1960s, the federal government funded two landmark national studies of early reading instruction in the United States at 23 sites (districts or regions) carefully chosen to represent a cross section of the nation's students. One purpose was to determine which of several approaches to teaching reading was most effective, including a strict phonics approach.

The conclusion? All approaches worked well at some sites and less so in others. Phonics worked best when it was integrated with other approaches and is most effective with beginning readers. The researchers leading these multiple studies concluded "that future research should focus on teacher and learning situation characteristics rather than method and materials."

In the 1980s, Dolores Durkin, an iconic reading researcher, found that phonics lessons dominated reading instruction and that the problem is not phonics-or-not, but ineffective instruction that, as she concluded, "turns phonics instruction into an end in itself but also deprives children of the opportunity to experience the value of phonics."

The subsequent National Reading Panel report of 2000, much cited today for its support of phonics instruction, actually reported that teaching phonics had only moderate effects, limited to first grade. The report also advocated for balanced reading instruction in which phonics was only one of many components. In Chapter 2, page 97, the report stated unequivocally, "Phonics should not become the dominant component in a reading program, neither in the amount of time devoted to it nor in the significance attached." And it says this: "Finally, it is important to emphasize that systematic phonics instruction should be integrated with other reading instruction to create a balanced reading program. Phonics instruction is never a total reading program."

In the early 2000s, there was the evaluation of the massive Reading First program implemented across six years in grades 1 through 3 in more than 5,000 schools across all 50 states and implemented with federal funding north of $5 billion. Teachers were carefully trained to deliver "scientific" reading instruction that included a numbing 1.5 to 3 hours of phonics instruction each day. Yet, students receiving this extensive phonics instruction scored no better on tests of reading comprehension than did students in schools providing more conventional instruction.

These findings do not mean that phonics is unnecessary or unimportant. They simply suggest that there is no basis for the conclusions that the absence of phonics is the cause for a reading crisis and that the sole solution to reading difficulties is intensive phonics instruction for all readers. Nor is there a reason to believe that more phonics is the linchpin to raising reading achievement.

Rather, the lack of evidence supporting an increase in phonics may indicate that there is already enough phonics being taught in schools. Despite nebulous claims that there is widespread neglect of phonics in classrooms, no recent data substantiate those claims. But, beyond phonics, what other factors might inhibit greater reading achievement - factors that could be addressed more appropriately through legislation? There are possibilities, grounded in data, that are at least as reliable and convincing as increasing phonics.

Here are a few examples. There is hard evidence that in schools with a good library and librarians, reading scores are relatively high. Unfortunately, in a growing number of states, libraries are defunded, sometimes for ideological reasons. The number of school nurses has declined during the ongoing assault on school budgets, which we know increases absenteeism, which in turn, decreases achievement. Kids can't learn phonics or any other academic skill if they are not in school.

What about poverty and hunger? We know that kids who do poorly on standardized reading tests tend to come from the nation's least affluent homes. And, there is considerable evidence that educational reforms focused only on classrooms and not broader social factors like poverty often fail. What does help is the availability of free meals, which are associated with enhanced academic performance, including reading and math test scores.

So, to boost reading achievement, why not legislate more funding for libraries, school nurses and programs to feed hungry children? There is no less evidence, and arguably more, that such legislation would improve achievement better than increased phonics instruction would. The recent declines in NAEP scores during the pandemic, which raise concerns, sharpen the point. Possible explanations include lack of internet connections, distractions inherent to home learning, and untrained and overworked teachers, not phonics.

When pressed on these points, inveterate phonics advocates play a final trump card: the science of reading. They cash in on the scientific cachet of esoteric cognitive and neurological research, often collectively referred to as "brain science."

There are several reasons to discount that response. Many brain researchers concede that their work is in its infancy using marginally reliable methods with small samples, leading to debatable interpretations that are difficult to translate into classroom practice. They are only beginning to investigate how social factors influence brain activity.

Further, as our colleague Timothy Shanahan has argued, there is a difference between a basic science of reading and a science of how to teach reading. The two are not entirely in sync. He cites several examples of empirical research validating effective reading instruction that is inconsistent with brain studies. Just as hummingbirds fly, even when aeronautical science concludes they can't, brain research doesn't negate the reality of instructional practice that works.

But, like the snark, the mysterious creature in a poem by Lewis Carroll, the narrative about phonics persists, because enough people say so, over and over. For at least 70 years, demanding more phonics has become a shibboleth among those who see, or want to see, reading as essentially a readily taught technical skill. We've been fiddling with phonics ever since, while more consequential societal factors burn brightly in the background.

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Perspective | On the latest obsession with phonics

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The "reading wars" have been around for longer than you might think. In the 1800s, Horace Mann, the "father of public education" who was the first state education secretary in the country (in Massachusetts), advocated that children learn to read whole words and learn to read for meaning before they are taught the explicit sounds of each letter.