Editor’s note: This discussion between members of the Fordham research team and Kari Kurto, The Reading League’s National Director of Policy and Partnerships, comes in the wake of Fordham’s recent survey, From the Teacher’s Desk: A Science of Reading Progress Report. Questions come from the Fordham research team.
1. Which of the report’s findings or results do you find most encouraging? And which is most troubling?
There is a lot to be encouraged by here. The growing understanding of phonics and word recognition among teachers is promising, as is the finding that 81 percent of respondents recognize the importance of breaking words into parts to support struggling readers. We were also especially glad to see the report include information on understanding the needs of students with dyslexia and English learners.
At the same time, several findings are deeply concerning. We are troubled by the continued finding that only 2 percent of teachers report learning evidence-aligned reading practices during their pre-service training, as opposed to the training they receive after years of teaching. This means the overwhelming majority of teachers have been entering classrooms without the knowledge they need. It is also troubling that 56 percent of teachers still associate dyslexia primarily with letter reversal. Finally, we are also concerned by the “science of reading gap” in high-poverty schools and at intermediate and secondary grade levels.
2. To what extent did the report confirm your expectations? Was there anything that surprised you about teachers’ responses?
Most notably, the report captures just how far the field has come in a relatively short period of time. One example that was encouraging to read was a classroom application scenario in which a student was having difficulty reading an unfamiliar word. The report states that “81 percent of teachers correctly indicate that the best strategy is to help the student break the word into parts to identify syllables or phonics patterns.” We celebrate this as tremendous growth in our collective understanding of how to support struggling readers.
Although there has been meaningful progress in shifting beliefs and practices, implementation remains uneven. Because of the frequent media attention on evidence-aligned phonics instruction, we expected to see progress in aligning word-reading practices with the science of reading. However, the survey confirms that we still have a long way to go in ensuring that all components of literacy are understood and implemented well. For this to happen, it is important for everyone, from legislators to researchers to the media, to focus on aligning all aspects of reading and writing instruction to the research.
It was surprising to see teachers’ comments on third-grade retention. In speaking with state leaders about this policy, it is often contentious. Yet the report suggests that implementation may be weakening the policy in practice.
We were also surprised that teachers and the report developers saw curriculum-based training as synonymous with training in the science of reading. While some of these programs are educative and teach teachers concepts, and support their understanding of the curriculum, these trainings are often not focused on building knowledge in the science of reading. Some of these curriculum-adjacent trainings may include practices that run counter to the science of reading, and several will only cover aspects of word reading, which may further reinforce the misconception that the science of reading focuses solely on word recognition.
3. After reading the report, what do you see as the biggest takeaway for the science of reading movement? What should we be doing differently?
The report makes clear that we have made real progress, but the work is still far from done. The biggest takeaway is that, while awareness of the science of reading has increased significantly, the typical elementary school teacher’s understanding of what it encompasses remains too narrow.
At The Reading League, we work hard to convey that reading science supports comprehensive, evidence-aligned literacy instruction, including explicit and systematic phonics and decoding, but also phonemic awareness, fluency, morphology, multisyllabic word reading, vocabulary, oral language development, discourse, writing, and reading comprehension. Our Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines identify 80 aligned practices across these domains. When the science of reading is framed narrowly as a phonics initiative, it can inadvertently validate the critics who argue it represents a narrow view of literacy, and it leaves teachers without a complete picture of what their students need. Going forward, the movement must do a better job of communicating this full picture.
4. One of Fordham’s core beliefs is that traditional reading comprehension strategies have diminishing returns—and that the single, most powerful “strategy” is a curriculum that systematically builds students’ knowledge of the world (and the associated vocabulary). Can you help me understand how The Reading League sees this question?
It is true that solid, empirical research supports the importance of building knowledge to enable comprehension. When a student develops a schema for a given topic, they can more easily comprehend more complex texts on that topic. This is a gateway to rigorous expository texts, which is an important goal.
However, when you elevate one strategy as the single most powerful, educators and leaders may latch onto it, believe their students will succeed based on that evidence, purchase a curriculum, and assume the problem is solved. With this view, we are concerned that the pendulum is swinging too far and that educators may abandon strategy instruction, which is also important when taught in an evidence-aligned manner.
In fact, even the meta-analysis cited in the report The Role of Background Knowledge in Reading Comprehension: A Critical Review supports both knowledge-building and strategy instruction.
“Findings from this review suggest that children would benefit from exposure to background knowledge in a specific, explicit and sequenced way (Connor et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2021): a so-called ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum (Hirsch, 2019) in addition to teaching of comprehension strategies such as summarizing.”
The three words “in addition to” are critically important. What happens when a student learns deeply about birds but then faces a reading passage about mitosis? Their knowledge about birds does not transfer. So while a deep understanding of the topic and related vocabulary is always the hope, it makes sense to give students some automated strategies that can help them parse and comprehend texts on unfamiliar topics.
To be clear, the research does not support teaching strategies through short, disconnected texts, as was the case in the balanced literacy era. However, it does suggest that certain strategies can be an effective source of leverage for students when they are applied in the context of an ELA curriculum that intentionally focuses on building knowledge, or through direct application in science, history, and other content area instruction.
Strategies are particularly effective when they are not taught in isolation but build upon one another using a framework like Dr. Kay Wijekumar’s Knowledge, Acquisition, and Transformation (KAT), which has a strong evidence base (Wijekumar, K et al., 2012). This is not a single strategy instruction approach, but an approach that leverages text structure to help students more easily understand the text’s essential ideas. From there, the student uses this understanding to develop a summary, which is then used to further students’ reading comprehension and to help them make inferences more easily. When practiced consistently in across texts, students can master those routines and apply them on their own.
Strategies and scaffolds to support students’ comprehension when reading rich and challenging texts should not be omitted from our instruction.
5. It’s obviously difficult to gauge teacher knowledge via survey. Is there anything else that you wish we’d asked teachers? What’s the most important question that you think remains unanswered?
Reid Lyon often shares that one thing he would have done differently during Reading First would have been to work more closely and directly with teachers. He and his team knew what worked in a research setting, yet sometimes it was not actually able to be implemented.
Thinking through this lens, it would be helpful to know from teachers what has been the most helpful knowledge to gain, where implementation gets tricky, and what can be done to sustain this work. This guidance cannot come only from top-down sources, but must be a collaborative and reciprocal process among educators, educational leaders, and researchers to avoid initiative overload and burnout.
There are still several unanswered questions, of course. When The Reading League was named, the word “league” was chosen very intentionally. Not one of us knows everything. It takes researchers, experts, educators, leaders, media, and legislators to tell a complete story of what will work when it comes to teaching kids to read.
It is our responsibility to ensure we remain grounded in the evidence and do not listen to ego or sensationalism that might take our eyes off this important prize. As Neil deGrasse Tyson said, “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.” The question before us, then, is whether we are willing to break down silos and row in the same direction—toward the evidence and the science—so that our nation’s literacy outcomes do not continue to decline, but instead grow stronger for generations to come.
