Good News/Bad News On How The Media Covers America's Reading Crisis

Good news: the New York Times ran an article on reading instruction on its front page. Bad news: as with other recent coverage, the piece overlooks a huge and fundamental aspect of the problem.

When journalists tackle the heated debate over how to teach reading-a subject that has taken on more urgency in light of stagnant or declining reading scores over the past 20 years or more, with some two-thirds of students scoring below proficient-they're basically asking for trouble. So it's not surprising that Times education reporter Dana Goldstein's recent piece has drawn critiques and pushback as well as praise. While some found it too admiring of the approach generally called "phonics," others complained it underplayed the evidence that it works. Still others charged that it reduced "reading" to "phonics," when it's clear there's much more involved.

I'd say that in its quest for balance, the piece cast unnecessary doubt on the value of phonics. To say, for example, that the massive government program called Reading First didn't produce evidence in support of phonics is a serious oversimplification. But the larger issue is the piece's narrow focus on phonics.

Goldstein does mention that "phonics boosters" say "that phonics alone isn't the answer"-so her piece doesn't exactly reduce reading to phonics. The problem is what's left out when she lists what else phonics boosters are advocating: "Alongside bigger doses of sounding out, they want struggling students to grapple with more advanced books, so they won't get stuck in a cycle of low expectations and boredom. Some schools are devoting more time to social studies and science, subjects that help build vocabulary and knowledge in ways that can make students stronger readers."

That may be an accurate summary of what phonics boosters advocate, but it's not a complete picture of what else goes into reading and what is actually going on in most classrooms. And the incompleteness of that picture could just prolong the "Reading Wars"-and ultimately undermine the benefits of phonics.

Let's take the idea that "struggling students" should "grapple with more advanced books." That directive came in with the Common Core, in reaction against the practice of assigning kids individual "reading levels" and then restricting them to books they can read easily on their own. In many cases, a student's individual reading level is years below her grade level, meaning she's reading books that have simpler concepts, syntax, and vocabulary than those being read by her more advanced peers. The authors of the Common Core literacy standards reasoned that kids who never get exposed to grade-level text-except on end-of-the-year standardized tests-are unlikely to improve. They were right: there's no evidence that "leveled reading" benefits struggling readers. Essentially, it's a pernicious form of tracking.

But, as Goldstein points out, proponents of "balanced literacy"-a slippery term that Goldstein sets up as being broadly in opposition to "phonics boosters"-object that "pushing students into harder texts could turn them off reading entirely." There's truth to that as well: merely handing students books they struggle to read and understand is unlikely to convince them of the pleasures of reading. Perhaps that's why leveled reading is still going strong, even in states that adopted the Common Core standards or something like them ten years ago.

But here's where the other sentence in Goldstein's piece, quoted above, comes into play-the one that says some schools are "devoting more time to social studies and science." Goldstein provides no hyperlink, so it's unclear what evidence she's relying on. Time spent on social studies and science has shrunk markedly since 2001, when No Child Left Behind elevated the importance of reading and math tests. That's especially true in schools with low scores, where the reading or literacy "block" may take up three or more hours of the school day, with the rest of instructional time devoted to math. Even though No Child Left Behind was replaced by legislation that supposedly allowed states to ease up on testing, that hasn't really happened, and I don't know of any data indicating that social studies and science are making a comeback.

It's possible Goldstein was referring to new elementary literacy curricula that cover topics in social studies and science during the reading block. It's true that more and more districts and schools are adopting those curricula, although it's still a relative handful-and, judging from Goldstein's descriptions, the classrooms she observed weren't using them. But that raises the question: what are the vast majority of schools doing during that block?

That's the big thing that not only Goldstein but most other education journalists have been missing: while some time may be spent on some version of phonics, a lot of it is focused on reading comprehension. Teachers are trained to have students practice comprehension "skills and strategies," like "finding the main idea" and "making inferences," and that's what most literacy curricula require, beginning in kindergarten or first grade. The theory is that if kids master those skills, using books at their individual reading levels on a random variety of topics, they'll be able to use them to understand any text put in front of them-even complex ones. Support for this approach transcends the phonics/balanced literacy divide, partly because those who advocate for the "science of reading"-a term that Goldstein and others place in opposition to balanced literacy-often believe it supports teaching comprehension skills.

In fact, as scientists have known for decades, what goes on in most schools during the literacy block won't boost comprehension. Why? As Goldstein suggests, comprehension depends primarily on knowledge and vocabulary. The more general knowledge you possess, the better your chances of understanding whatever you're reading. So the way to boost kids' comprehension is to teach them subjects that expand their knowledge, like social studies and science-not to cut back on those things to work on "skills."

I can hear education journalists sighing that they can't cover everything about reading in one piece. As I've written elsewhere, I get that. But if they want to get at the root of our reading problems, when they write about phonics they need to at least mention the problems on the comprehension side. And someday I'd like to see an entire article or radio documentary that does more than just allude to the need to "teach comprehension" or the importance of knowledge-one that describes what teachers are currently doing and how it conflicts with scientific evidence.

If we can put these pieces of the reading puzzle together, we have a chance of resolving the debate between those who want all kids to grapple with complex text and those who say that will only put them off reading. The first step is to build students' knowledge of a topic, through a coherent curriculum that includes having them listen to engaging texts they can't yet read themselves and discuss them. If they're given a complex text on a topic they're already familiar with-and given help in making sense of it-they'll have a much better chance of understanding the text and enjoying the experience.

And if we don't make it clear that a vital part of teaching reading is building kids' knowledge, we also risk having the pendulum swing, once again, away from phonics. Yes, there are signs of reading success at lower grade levels when phonics is taught well. But if schools don't start giving kids access to knowledge beginning in kindergarten, that success will evaporate. The longer you wait to fill in gaps in knowledge, the harder it becomes. We may end up with teenagers who can read words but don't have the background knowledge to understand what they add up to. And given the general confusion about what goes into reading, many will conclude that means we tried phonics, and it just didn't work.