Fight Over Teaching Kids to Read

Too many teachers are using the wrong approach


“The debate — often called the “reading wars” — is generally framed as a battle between two distinct views. On one side are those who advocate for an intensive emphasis on phonics: understanding the relationships between sounds and letters, with daily lessons that build on each other in a systematic order. On the other side are proponents of approaches that put a stronger emphasis on understanding meaning, with some sporadic phonics mixed in.




“In fact, science has a lot to say about reading and how to teach it. Plenty of evidence shows that children who receive systematic phonics instruction learn to read better and more rapidly than kids who don’t…. According to U.S. government data, only one-third of fourth-graders have the reading skills to be considered proficient, which is defined by the National Assessment of Educational Progress as demonstrating competency over challenging subject matter. And a third of fourth-graders and more than a quarter of 12th-graders lack the reading skills to adequately complete grade-level schoolwork, says Timothy Shanahan, a reading researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago.”


Much more at:


       https://www.sciencenews.org/article/balanced-literacy-phonics-teaching-reading-evidence