A slow but significant change has been taking place in the early reading world over the past year, loosening the grip that some long-used, but unproven, instructional techniques have held over the field for decades.
Big names鈥攍ike Lucy Calkins, of the Teachers College 69传媒 and Writing Project, and author and literacy specialist Jennifer Serravallo鈥攈ave recently released updates to their published materials or announced impending rewrites that change how they instruct students to decipher words.
69传媒 researchers say they find these industry moves encouraging. 鈥淭he fact that there鈥檚 an awareness ... that鈥檚 a step in the right direction,鈥� said Claude Goldenberg, a professor emeritus at Stanford University who studies early literacy development in English-language learners.
But they also cautioned that this narrow change in materials won鈥檛 necessarily lead to large shifts in instructional practice, and that more needs to be done to support teachers of the youngest learners in developing kids鈥� early reading skills鈥攅specially after several years of disrupted, pandemic-era schooling.
The shifts curriculum providers are making mainly have to do with how teachers instruct students in word-level reading鈥攖hat is, decoding the words on the page into spoken language.
Much of teacher training and many classroom materials adhere to the theory that children should use multiple sources of information, or cues鈥攖he letters in a word, but also the pictures on the page or the flow of the sentence鈥攖o make a prediction about what the word is.
But evidence from cognitive psychology and neuroscience research has long shown that good readers attend to the letters in the words to identify what words say. Research has demonstrated that instructing students on how to crack the code of written language is one of the most effective ways to get them reading words.
And while it鈥檚 important to teach young kids about story structure and syntax, and to have rich conversations about illustrations in picture books, children shouldn鈥檛 rely on those sources of information to guess at what the words on the page say, said Goldenberg.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a very subtle, nuanced, delicate dance in sequencing,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 that kind of delicate balance that I see completely missing from programs that try to do everything all at once.鈥�
Now, some publishers are trying to make a shift in how they integrate, sequence, and attend to foundational skills instruction. But there are open questions about how these changes in materials will change practice in classrooms.
鈥淲e see ourselves at a hinge moment,鈥� said Maryanne Wolf, the director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies, and the author of several seminal books about how the brain learns to read. 鈥淭he separation of two doors on reading has been not just unfortunate, but even tragic, leaving behind children who have needed desperately a different form of instruction.鈥�
A public conversation about reading science led to materials changes
The research motivating these changes isn鈥檛 new.
In 2000, a panel of experts was convened by the federal government to evaluate the evidence on reading instruction. One of the takeaways from the National 69传媒 Panel鈥檚 report was that explicitly teaching about the sounds in words, and how those sounds matched up to written letters, would help children learn to read. This finding drove policy changes in the early 2000s, most notably the introduction of 69传媒 First, a federally funded program that emphasized phonemic awareness and phonics instruction.
The program had mixed results, leading to some improvements in children鈥檚 word-reading ability, but not in their reading comprehension. In its wake, many schools and teacher education programs adopted a model called balanced literacy鈥攁iming to balance foundational skills instruction with more focus on stories, comprehension, and developing a love of reading.
But in 2018, reporter Emily Hanford of APM Reports brought to light that in many balanced literacy classrooms, 鈥攈ow written letters match up to spoken sounds鈥攁nd were being encouraged to use other strategies to guess at words. Without this foundational instruction, many students never figure out how to decode the printed words on the page.
Hanford鈥檚 documentaries鈥攁s well as a slew of coverage from Education Week and other outlets鈥攊gnited a firestorm of controversy, with some teachers outraged that they had never learned how to teach phonics in their teacher preparation programs, and others pushing back with a defense of their teaching methods. In the several years that followed, more states started to mandate teacher training in, and classroom attention to, foundational skills instruction in an effort to adhere to what came to be referred to as the 鈥渟cience of reading.鈥�
But these word-guessing strategies are also deeply embedded in much of early reading curricula, as Education Week reporting has shown. Many programs and teacher guides encourage prompting students to rely on a story鈥檚 meaning and structure, as well as the letters on the page, to predict what words will say鈥攁 strategy known as three-cueing or MSV (for meaning, structure, and visual). And while most curricula incorporate phonics instruction, it鈥檚 often 鈥渃ompeting for teachers鈥� and children鈥檚 attention and time,鈥� said Goldenberg.
Now, some influential publishers are starting to make changes.
This summer, Serravallo released an update to part of her popular The 69传媒 Strategies Book, revising strategies for word-level reading to emphasize decoding and abandoning techniques that encourage students to guess at words. Early this year, literacy consultants Jan Burkins and Kari Yates released a new book, Shifting the Balance, that offers 鈥渨ays to bring the science of reading into the balanced literacy classroom.鈥�
And Calkins, of the Teachers College 69传媒 and Writing Project, has announced upcoming revisions to her popular Units of Study for Teaching 69传媒 program. The changes, Calkins said, will incorporate more explicit instruction in phonics and remove some prompts that ask students to look to pictures or context for word identification.
I think teachers want to learn, and 鈥� I can model that it's OK to say, 鈥楾here were a few things I think I got wrong, and I'm learning about them.鈥�
At the same time, several more states have passed laws mandating that schools teach the 鈥渟cience of reading鈥濃�攍aws that would affect curricula and materials.
Mark Seidenberg, a cognitive scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies reading, said the publishers鈥� changes are a response to these new policy priorities. But he worries that the revisions will be surface level, only shifting instruction enough to 鈥渟atisfy the stipulations in those laws,鈥� he said.
鈥淭hey can鈥檛 change their materials too much, because they鈥檒l lose their followers,鈥� Seidenberg said. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 going to come out of this? Minimal changes that are enough to satisfy [these] states.鈥�
Wiley Blevins, an educational consultant and author of several books on phonics teaching, understands the critiques, and the skepticism, that some experts are expressing about these changes: 鈥淚 get the anger, because we鈥檙e talking about kids鈥� lives. We鈥檙e talking about their futures.鈥� But he sees more reason for optimism, in teachers who may now have more guidance to 鈥渄o better for their students.鈥�
Lucy Calkins outlines upcoming changes to Units of Study
In some cases, this guidance for teachers is still forthcoming. Calkins鈥� 69传媒 and Writing Project, a workshop-based program that publishes a reading curriculum used by about 16 percent of early elementary and special education teachers, according to data gathered by Education Week, is planning to release updated materials in summer 2022. (The timeline has been pushed back due to COVID-related production delays, Calkins said.)
The planned update reflects a shift in approach for the group. In November 2019, Calkins released a statement pushing back on those whom she described as 鈥渢he phonics-centric people who are calling themselves 鈥榯he science of reading.鈥欌�� About a year later, in fall 2020, TCRWP put out a new position statement, calling for attention to phonemic awareness and phonics instruction, and emphasizing that sounding out words is the best strategy for kids to use to figure out what those words say.
"[P]oring over the work of contemporary reading researchers has led us to believe that aspects of balanced literacy need some 鈥榬ebalancing,鈥欌�� the document read.
The revised units will offer different guidance on reading 鈥渟uperpowers,鈥� or reading strategies, Calkins said. Instead of being taught 鈥減icture power鈥濃�攖o look at the pictures to figure out words鈥攕tudents will be taught 鈥渟lider power,鈥� that they should 鈥渟lide鈥� over the word to blend the letter sounds together. Early units will also teach a progression of letter sounds and explicitly address how to decode short, phonetically regular words, Calkins said.
69传媒 will still learn 鈥減icture power鈥� later, she added, but as a comprehension strategy for understanding the meaning of the story, rather than as a strategy to identify words.
TCRWP will also release new decodable books that include sound-spelling patterns that children learn, so that students can practice applying their phonics knowledge to texts. (Studies have shown that using decodable books can encourage students to try to sound out words while they鈥檙e reading.) The group will recommend that teachers integrate these alongside their predictable books, which have repetitive sentence structures and pictures that give clues as to the words on the page. The earliest kindergarten units, which Calkins calls 鈥減re-reading units,鈥� still use predictable books to teach concepts of print and high-frequency words.
Though Calkins says that these changes are 鈥渘ot small,鈥� she also maintains that much of reading workshop will remain the same. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a trademark to our schools that are working with us. There鈥檚 a trademark tone to the classrooms. Kids collaborating deeply, passionate about books, talking all the time about their ideas about books, writing up a storm,鈥� she said.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think the teachers will find [these changes] jarring,鈥� she continued. 鈥滻 think teachers want to learn, and 鈥� I can model that it鈥檚 OK to say, 鈥楾here were a few things I think I got wrong, and I鈥檓 learning about them.鈥欌��
Goldenberg, who was one of the researchers who participated in an external review of the Units of Study in 69传媒 published in early 2020, said that many of the lessons in the current curriculum are well done, but that they鈥檙e 鈥渟itting on a flimsy foundation.鈥�
Layering on more attention to the foundations of reading could strengthen the program, but only if this focus is deeply and purposefully embedded, he said.
New teacher guides rethink old practices
Other authors have already released updates into the marketplace, like Burkins and Yates, who have written teacher guides on reading coaching, balanced literacy, and guided reading.
When Hanford鈥檚 work first came out, Burkins said, her colleagues in the field were on the defensive鈥攁nd she and Yates, were, too.
鈥淚鈥檓 going to own that I had defensiveness, dismissiveness, uncertainty about why some of these claims seemed outlandish or wrong,鈥� Yates said.
While Burkins had read the work of a few cognitive psychologists in her training, much of the body of research that Hanford drew from was unfamiliar to her. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e an educator, your information inputs have not been from the cognitive [research] side,鈥� she said. Even in her doctoral program, where she completed a dissertation on phonemic awareness research, research courses were limited and she felt that she received mixed messages about evidence-based practice.
Burkins approached Yates about exploring the research together. 鈥淛an really said, 鈥楰ari, we鈥檝e got to take a deep dive into this because, look鈥攚e鈥檝e built careers around supporting early literacy. And we have coached teachers on many of the practices that are being criticized,鈥欌�� Yates said. 鈥淎nd so I think part of it, for us, was: We know we owe it to the people we鈥檙e trying to serve鈥攚ho are not just children, they鈥檙e teachers鈥攖o figure out what鈥檚 amiss here.鈥�
The book outlines six 鈥渟hifts鈥� in thinking for the balanced literacy classroom: rethinking how comprehension begins, committing to phonemic awareness instruction, reimagining phonics teaching, revising instruction on high-frequency words, rethinking MSV, and reconsidering which texts beginning readers should read.
The focus, Burkins and Yates said, was on making the research that has appeared in journals accessible and actionable for teachers. They also tried to highlight where practices that many teachers already use align with evidence-based best practice鈥攍ike engaging students in rich read-alouds, or using text sets of books that approach one topic from different angles to build knowledge.
鈥淲hen you come in with the approach of, shut all this down and start fresh, you鈥檙e going to lose teachers. Energy is our most precious resource,鈥� said Yates. 鈥淭his work is as much about the reading science as it is about the science of understanding how to support human and organizational change.鈥�
Like Burkins and Yates, Serravallo, the author of The 69传媒 Strategies Book, also noted the inaccessibility of paywalled journals. More recently published books, like Seidenberg鈥檚 Language at the Speed of Sight, Daniel Willingham鈥檚 The 69传媒 Mind, and Wolf鈥檚 Reader, Come Home 鈥渕ake it easier for people to find the information,鈥� she said.
Serravallo worked with several reading researchers, including Wolf, on the updates to her book. Wolf, who met Serravallo while they were recording a podcast together for Serravallo鈥檚 publisher Heinemann, said that they were able to find common ground in a shared vision of what reading instruction should ultimately do.
鈥淪he knew that my particular goal, my ultimate goal 鈥� is deep reading,鈥� Wolf said. 鈥淒eep reading is when the brain has gone well beyond that first decoding brain, and into a place where all the parts are working automatically enough and connected to each other so that time can be allocated to critical thinking, inference, empathy, reflection. All of these are the real goals for a society.鈥�
Strong instruction in foundational skills is just one piece, but a fundamental piece, of achieving that vision, Wolf said.
This work is as much about the reading science as it is about the science of understanding how to support human and organizational change.
Serravallo鈥檚 revision is an overhaul of chapter 3 of The 69传媒 Strategies Book (the book is designed to help teachers work with students, but it鈥檚 not a curriculum). The chapter focuses on strategies for deciphering words. The old version starts, 鈥淚n order to construct accurate meaning from a text, children need to read words correctly, integrating three sources of information: meaning, syntax, and visual.鈥�
The new version takes an entirely different approach, explaining the different ways a child can decode a word, and noting that the goal of orthographic mapping鈥�"gluing鈥� the spelling and the sound together in memory, so the word can be retrieved automatically.
Gone are the recommendations that children guess at the word based on the pictures or the rest of the sentence; in their place are suggestions for helping students apply their phonics knowledge to word reading. The new version also cites different sources, from a body of research in developmental psychology and cognitive science that wasn鈥檛 referenced in the original.
鈥淭he common practice that I used, and that my colleagues used, back when I wrote that [original] chapter relied on a certain type of text that scaffolds kids鈥� early reading by providing a lot of exposure to high-frequency words, some decoding, and some use of meaning to decipher the words on the page,鈥� said Serravallo.
For some children, she said, the combination was enough to get them started on a path to fluent reading. 鈥淔or other kids, it is a problem,鈥� she said.
69传媒 community calls for more work translating research to practice
Seidenberg said the changes in Serravallo鈥檚 book, in particular, could prove a useful resource for classroom teachers. But he worries about a framework for reading instruction that is still oriented around 鈥渟trategies,鈥� focusing on how to respond to struggle.
For example, he said: 鈥淚f the kid understands that there are digraphs, and has had enough relevant practice with them, you shouldn鈥檛 have to have a backup strategy [for recognizing digraphs].鈥�
But Sandra Maddox, a literacy specialist with the South Carolina Department of Education, who consulted Serravallo on the revisions to her book, said that the classroom context isn鈥檛 always so predictable. Some students might be able to apply the new phonics skills they learn right away; others need more repetition and targeted reminders. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not enough to just say, 鈥榮ound it out,鈥欌�� said Maddox, who specializes in working with children with dyslexia.
69传媒 researchers, publishers, and educators alike all voiced a need for more translational work鈥攃ollaborations between cognitive psychologists and educators to implement reading science in ways that are effective and practical.
Understanding reading research is one thing; applying it is another, said Yates. 鈥淜nowing how the brain learns to read does not answer the question that a kindergarten teacher [asks], in those 4,000-plus decisions they make every day, about exactly how to proceed with this group of kids in front of them,鈥� she said.
Wolf said that her team at UCLA is 鈥渂usily building bridges.鈥� They鈥檙e working within the school of education, teaching teachers about dyslexia, while also collaborating with neurologists at the University of California San Francisco. 鈥淲e are really determined to pull neuroscience and education together, for the benefit of all,鈥� she said.
Other researchers, too, are working on local efforts: In Madison, for example, Seidenberg sat on an early literacy task force with leaders from the Madison Metropolitan school district and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, with the goal of improving student reading outcomes and closing opportunity gaps.
This kind of work is happening slowly, Wolf said.
It鈥檚 hard to know, yet, what effect these publishing changes will have
Maddox has already seen some uptake of Serravallo鈥檚 new pages among the teachers she works with. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e downloading them, printing them out, and adding them to their book,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hat I hope it does is make teachers more aware of the strategies for decoding, and make them more aware of phonemic awareness and phonics in general.鈥�
This knowledge is more necessary this year than ever, said Blevins, who consults with school districts. Because of educational disruptions during the pandemic, he said, teachers in older elementary grades are seeing large numbers of students with foundational skills gaps鈥攊n some cases, for the first time.
鈥淭hey don鈥檛 even know where to start. [The teachers have] never heard of blending,鈥� he said. He鈥檚 started doing sessions with 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade teachers in addition to the earlier elementary teachers he normally works with, teaching them a handful of key routines they can use and introducing them to a comprehensive phonics survey they can give kids to figure out what skills they need to focus on.
鈥淚 think that there鈥檚 a recognition that upper grade teachers need more knowledge of phonics,鈥� said Calkins. 鈥淭hird graders, the last time they had an uninterrupted year in school was kindergarten.鈥�
But researchers say there are still barriers in schools to identifying student needs. 鈥淚 do think the measurement groups have been slower to respond than some of the instructional ones,鈥� Matthew Burns, a professor of special education in the University of Missouri鈥檚 College of Education and Human Development, said of common classroom tools used to take reading inventories, evaluating what students know and don鈥檛 know.
In a study on publisher Fountas and Pinnell鈥檚 reading inventory, Burns and his colleagues found that the results weren鈥檛 reliable: 69传媒 would receive different scores with different books that were supposedly both at their reading level. 鈥淲e put too much stock in the score we get from these measures,鈥� he said.
Fountas and Pinnell materials, which include reading curricula as well as assessment tools, use many of the word-guessing strategies that other publishers are starting to move away from. The group鈥檚 founders, Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, declined to comment for this story through their publisher, Heinemann.
However, in a Sept. 8 opinion piece for Education Week, Fountas and Pinnell distanced themselves from the term 鈥渂alanced literacy,鈥� and characterized the ongoing conversation about reading practice as the 鈥渓atest chapter in the reading wars.鈥�
鈥淲e believe this round of conflict, like the previous ones, is harmful to our profession and has real potential for confusing children as well as teachers and administrators,鈥� they wrote.
Fountas and Pinnell鈥檚 intervention materials, Leveled Literacy Intervention, hold a large share of the market鈥�43 percent of early elementary and special education teachers said they used LLI in a 2019 EdWeek Research Center survey.
Changes to materials would better support teachers, Blevins said. But he stressed that stamping a 鈥渟cience of reading鈥� approved seal on a resource and putting it in teachers鈥� hands doesn鈥檛 necessarily give teachers the knowledge and understanding they need to change their instruction.
鈥淲henever you see these shifts happening, it鈥檚 always surface knowledge,鈥� Blevins said. 鈥淲hat that has boiled down to is 鈥� on social media, teachers will name a program and say, 鈥業s this science of reading?鈥欌��
The overwhelming interest in reading research presents an opportunity, and a caution, Blevins said. 鈥淚t is a moment that if we did it right, we could take advantage of it and help millions of kids. But we need to go deeper.鈥�
