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Scarborough’s Reading Rope model illustrates the complexity and interconnectedness of skills needed to become a proficient reader. In Reading Recovery, students are engaged in all of these skills while learning to read and write continuous texts.

This new downloadable resource illustrates and explores how Reading Recovery aligns with Scarborough’s Reading Rope by weaving Language Knowledge and Word Recognition in increasingly automatic and strategic skilled reading.

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By Billy Molasso, PhD

From the headline to the spurious points within, the latest teacher hit piece from the New York Times seems determined to oversimplify an extremely complex problem to the unfortunate detriment of struggling readers.

Apart from incorrectly conflating Whole Language and Balanced Literacy as the same thing (not at all), and using anecdote as fact, the author misses one very obvious point: There are no peer-reviewed research studies that show Structured Literacy, aka “science of reading,” is the best way for all children to learn to read.

No matter how much you push the “science of reading,” it’s not based on science at all. Far from being a settled science, how kids learn to read remains a hotly contested topic of conversation among researchers and educators, and peer-reviewed research largely favors Balanced Literacy.

The simple facts are these: All kids deserve the chance to learn to read, and no two kids acquire literacy in the exact same way.

But there is no single literacy program that works for every student, and there never will be. Some kids need a heavy dose of phonics. Some kids need help with comprehension. Some will need intensive one-on-one tutoring. So the real question is, “Who will be left behind with a restrictive switch to a single teaching method?” The only wrong way forward is trying to restrict which tools teachers can use to help them, lowering the bar for schools and underserving the readers who struggle most.

Looking at NAEP data, one can easily see that no matter which way the literacy pendulum has swung through history – toward Whole Language or Reading First’s Structured Systematic Phonics and back again – the results have remained essentially flat. Why then should districts spend millions to switch to a boxed program, when individualized instruction has a direct impact on our learners most in need? Flexibility is the key, and that’s something a scripted program can never provide.

The only way forward is Balanced Literacy, the freedom for teachers to use both intensive phonics and other methods to reach all kids. And for those who continue to struggle, it’s essential to offer an intervention such as Reading Recovery that allows for one-on-one individualized intervention tailored to a struggling reader’s needs. Decades of research prove it is a valuable tool, including the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse.

Don’t lower the bar for schools! Teachers must be permitted to keep every tool available for the child who may need it most.

Dr. Billy Molasso is the Executive Director of the Reading Recovery Council of North America.

Originally published April 8, 2023. Republished with permission by Paul Thomas, author of the blog Radical Scholarship. https://radicalscholarship.com/2023/04/08/the-negative-legislative-consequences-of-the-sor-media-story-an-open-access-reader/

Increasingly since around 2013, the media story around the “science of reading” has resulted in legislation that bans targeted reading instruction and mandates limited reading program options for schools, teachers, and students.

Concurrently, literacy scholars have documented that key aspects of the SOR media story are false, and thus, legislation based on the media SOR story is misguided and likely to be ineffective or harmful.

Scholars have documented that the following elements of the media SOR story are misleading or false:

• The US has a reading crisis because of reading programs not aligned with SOR and based in balanced literacy instead.
• SOR is settled science that is reflected in NRP reports and the simple view of reading (SVR).
• Students have not been afforded systematic phonics instruction that must be implemented for all students before they can comprehend or even “love” to read.
• The reading crisis includes misidentifying and under-serving students with dyslexia, who represent a large percentage of students struggling to read at grade level.
• The evidence of a reading crisis is NAEP data.

While there is a great deal of scholarly research available, such as two targeted issues of highly regarded Reading Research Quarterly, below is a listing of open-access scholarship that refutes the media story around SOR and establishes why reading legislation based on that SOR story should be rejected or revised:

• The Science of Reading and the Media: Is Reporting Biased?, Maren Aukerman
• The Science of Reading and the Media: Does the Media Draw on High-Quality Reading Research?, Maren Aukerman
• The Science of Reading and the Media: How Do Current Reporting Patterns Cause Damage?, Maren Aukerman
• Legislating Phonics: Settled Science or Political Polemics? David Reinking, George G. Hruby, and Victoria J. Risko
• Thomas, P.L. (2022). The Science of Reading movement: The never-ending debate and the need for a different approach to reading instruction. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/science-of-reading

These open-access scholarly examinations of the SOR movement should be used to advocate for an accurate characterization of reading and reading instruction, to address the individual needs of all students, to support the professional autonomy of teachers, and to call for reading legislation that avoids sweeping bans, narrow mandates, and creating yet more profit for the education marketplace.