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I’ve been friends with Susan Vincent for a very long time. She is an amazing educator with an extensive background and experience. From her biography, you can see she is reading recovery trained, trained in OG, was a teacher leader, and eventually began teaching at a university. That is what she is doing currently. She is a teacher of teachers. Recently, she posted a blog entitled The Science of Reading Recovery. As she explained in the interview, she believes there is a substantial body of research demonstrating both the short-term and long-term benefits of RR. However, as she also explains in her interview, her title for this particular blog post was meant to be a play on words- The Science of Reading (is in) Recovery. She views the recent pronouncements of major figures in the SOR world as indicating that SOR is in the process of undergoing a recovery from the extreme positions some SOR advocates took in the early stages of the formation of SOR.  For me, those same recent pronouncements helped me to continue to hope that there is a possibility of finding some common ground in what the various sides of the current debate about literacy are saying. Before exploring Susan’s thoughts, let’s look at her biography.

Instead of using my usual question-and-answer format for my blog posts, this blog’s format was to have Susan make a presentation using slides. During the course of her presentation, I had some discussions with her about what she was saying. What follows are the highlights of those slides and that discussion.

At 01:39, Susan explained her play on words in the title of her blog entry on the RR site LINK.

She explained that in the world of reading recovery, recovery means returning to the correct path. She views the recent pronouncements of major figures in the SOR world as actually being a course correction from the original course taken by the SOR movement. She explained that some of the recent chatter she was hearing from the SOR world sounded very much like what Marie Clay had said about teaching reading decades ago. That set the stage for her presentation, which delineated the ways those things that SOR folks are now saying fit what Marie Clay had said decades ago. Susan said she had found many SOR tenets in Marie Clay’s work:

She started with a slide that demonstrated that RR succeeded in the districts in which she taught (04:32 on the YouTube video) and that WHEN STUDENTS RETURN TO AN EFFECTIVE DISTRICT PROGRAM, the results of RR do stick long-term. For a more detailed look at this issue, please see my interview with Billy Molasso, where he explains the nuts and bolts of why some of the studies that claim that RR results don’t stick are inaccurate and misleading  LINK.

Beginning at 04:38 on the YouTube interview, she provides slides and information demonstrating four things from the recent SOR “reset calls” that are actually found in Clay’s writings.

One example she gives is using sound boxes for PA and writing about an instructional, decodable text.

At 19:31 on the tape, she talks about how students write about the books they have read. Our discussion pointed out that this clearly puts comprehension at the center of the lesson and provides a way for teachers to use language experience as a highly effective teaching move.

At 21:03 in the video, she talks about how folks like Debbie Hepplewhite call for a reset because they feel SOR “is becoming restrictive and too prescriptive in the classroom.”

At 23:20 in the video, she discusses set for variability and how she sees set for variability as similar to the flexible use of MSV.

The preceding are some highlights from the video interview. The full interview is on YouTube. Susan sent me a PDF of all her slides and has agreed to my sharing them with anyone who wants them. Write to me at bommaritosam@yahoo using the subject heading “Susan’s Slides,” and I will send you that PDF.

FINAL THOUGHTS FOR THIS BLOG

As I listened to Susan’s presentation for this blog, I realized she had some important insights on how what is now being said by many SOR folks.  As they take part in a reset of the SOR position what they say dovetails nicely with what Clay said decades ago. Susan knows RR. But she also took the time to learn about SOR. That includes being trained in OG and going to and listening to the “chatter” happening at the SOR sites. Folks like Susan give me hope that the day will come that we might listen to each other and find common ground in the middle instead of taking sides and going to extremes.

Dare to dream.

I want to thank Susan for sharing her time, her willingness to listen to all sides, and her many insights about the current dialogue about teaching reading (and writing!). Perhaps there is still hope for finding common ground using common sense.

In the meantime- Happy Reading and Writing

Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the middle taking flak from all sides)

Copyright 2024 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

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Join Susan Vincent at LitCon for her presentation Resetting the Dial on Science of Reading Initiatives on Tuesday, February 4. Register for LitCon and save your spot today!

This session will examine five areas educators should recognize as opportunities to reset the dial toward a more balanced approach. Come explore the research and see teaching examples in these areas:

• Time spent on isolated phonemic awareness and phonics skills
• The scope of phonics and phonemic awareness skills being taught
• The role of implicit learning in connected text
• Flexibility and set for variability in reading texts
• The exclusive use of tightly controlled decodable texts.