by Susan Vincent

Could the winds of change be blowing already? Like most literacy educators, I have watched with great interest (and often horror) the ways in which the Science of Reading movement has impacted literacy instruction. State after state has passed legislation dictating what happens in teachers’ literacy blocks. Many states even have short lists of programs districts are required to adopt. Most people would agree the literacy pendulum swing is currently at an extreme point, and extreme pendulum swings always lead to course corrections.

 In Reading Recovery, the term “recovery” means the return to the path of literacy for children who have gone off course. Perhaps the Science of Reading is starting its own recovery, as it also seems to have gone off course.

I recently attended the online conference Accelerate Literacy Conference: A Structured Linguistic Literacy Conference.  Some very big names in the Science of Reading movement spoke and I was a bit surprised and a bit pleased at what I heard.

Mark Seidenberg, author of Language at the Speed of Sound and an early leader in the SOR movement, presented a session: “Where does the Science of Reading go from here?”  He called for dialing back in a few areas. Some areas he addressed included:

• The role of implicit learning in learning to read. Not everything that needs to be known to read needs to be taught. Examples included vocabulary and exhaustive phonics principles.
• The fact that not everything teachers learn about how our printed language system works needs to be taught to children.  An example included LETRS training, mandated by some states. Some principles are interesting to know but don’t need to be taught.
• Too much instructional focus on phonics skills. This crowds out other important kinds of learning. Examples included oral language development, SEL, and play! (Seidenberg used the exclamation point.) There are opportunity costs for children who don’t need all the instruction. He refuted the oft-quoted statement that “it’s good for all and hurts none.”
• The nature of our professional discourse. He expressed concern that the SOR movement’s reaction to anyone questioning practices is to shut it down. He’s heard people say that questioning “will only help the Balanced Literacy people.” He also cited bullying, both online and in person.

I also saw Norah Chahbazi, founder of EBLI (Evidence-Based Literacy Instruction), a speech-to-print approach. She also made statements that would encourage a course correction from much of the current SOR narrative.  She refuted the tendency to think we must explain everything about our printed language to children, causing cognitive overload. She promoted the heavy use of connected text and meaning focus. Some examples from her talk include:

• Teaching the six syllable types is not needed. (I’ll add that, although no research supports it, this is now an Ohio Department of Higher Education standard for teacher education departments.)
• Teaching phonemic awareness as a separate component of the literacy block. Much time is wasted when this skill can be taught by embedding it within writing instruction (I’ll add that Reading Recovery has always known this!)
• Set for variability. Children need to know from the beginning that when their decoding doesn’t produce a meaningful word, they need to be flexible in their solving and think about what makes sense.
• Focusing on connected text and the processes of literacy, not so much the content or rules of literacy.

So what do these beginning breezes of change mean for those living with SOR mandates? I think they mean that some voices are being heard. I think some influential people are calling us back to what research says. And I think that means we need to keep speaking up, telling our stories, and questioning mandates that need to be questioned. Grassroots efforts can work — talk to other teachers, administrators, legislators, and parents. Engage in social media discussions and converse with other educators. This recent discourse shows we can recover from this latest extreme swing and finally do what’s best for children.

Susan has worked in the field of literacy for over 30 years as a classroom teacher, Reading Recovery teacher leader, reading specialist, literacy coach, and faculty at Miami University in Ohio. She is co-author of Intentional from the Start: Guiding Readers in Small Groups. She currently teaches as a Visiting Instructor at her alma mater, Miami University.