Science of Reading and the Emperor's New Clothes

By Michael B. Shaffer

I should clarify that I am not against ANYTHING that improves the practices of literacy instruction and helps students gain better reading skills. I am not against anything that supports teachers in gaining additional skills in literacy instruction. I dedicated most of my professional life as a principal to studying literacy, and providing professional development to the teachers in the schools where I was principal on the topic of literacy. I should say that I started my career as an elementary teacher.

The major argument I have against the current push for Science of Reading at this point is that it is the embodiment of the fable, The Emperor's New Clothes. We have been told that it is something shiny and new and that if we follow it, our students will suddenly start to read effectively where they could not prior to following the path established by SOR and as trained by the State of IN through Keys to Literacy, and includes (are you ready for this?) phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. Hold on. Every responsible reading approach I have seen in the last twenty years has been built on these five pillars! Oh, yeah, that is what they call them. The Five Pillars of Reading Instruction. That is not new.

So, what is new? Oh, they added in a focus on Orton-Gilingham which was the basis for Reading Recovery and a host of other programs. Orton-Gillingham has been around since the 1930s. Again, not new.

I know, they have created a new approach to dealing with dyslexia as we teach literacy. That has to be what is new! Some of you are not old to remember that we were told not to use the term DYSLEXIA. So, allow me to give you a very brief history. Dyslexia was first added to the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychological Association) in 1980. It had five distinguishing characteristics then. It stayed there until DSM 5, which removed dyslexia because the APA said there were more precise terms to describe reading difficulties than the broad term dyslexia. However, now, we have brought dyslexia back. PATOSS (the Professional Association of Teachers of Students with Specific learning difficulties) announced a new definition of dyslexia on 15th May 2024. The new definition that PATOSS gave of dyslexia is: Dyslexia is primarily a set of processing difficulties that affect the acquisition of reading and spelling. Thank you, PATOSS, but that is even less specific than we had before.

Now, let's approach the title, The Science of Reading. I personally love to hate that title. Why? Because I am a teacher at the university level, and I teach teachers. What I do, what YOU do, is as much art as it is science. That is every bit as true about the teaching of reading as it is anything else. Now, don't get me wrong, I am a huge believer in intense reading programs for students in kindergarten through second grade. I believe in programs that focus heavily on the five pillars and identify the needs of students who need additional assistance because they cannot learn through traditional means and require RtI or assessment for learning disabilities. I believe in a strong identification process at the building level that actively progress monitors every student to insure that they are making progress and learning. As far as I have seen, the lower grades are largely the setting where much of the science part applies because I have worked with many incredible lower elementary teachers who have mad skills in teaching children to read.

The art side of reading instruction is what I believe applies once a student has gained the skills and mastery of the actual act of reading. It is here that we cross a line in the sand that outsiders to our great profession don't even know exists. This is where the teachers take students from "stop and go" reading to I LOVE READING! What does that mean? To a teacher, it means that a kid will have a book under their desk that they pull out any time they have a free second. It means a boy will scour the library for any book they can find on motorcycles because they are fascinated and want to read every word written about them. It means that a principal or teacher starts book wars against another class and they all read the same book, and the biggest thing going in the school is who can answer the most questions correctly about a book they have all read. It means that a principal has started a book club for boys that has 100 fourth and fifth-grade boys who skip recess every other Friday to hang out and talk about books, and then every day on the way to the bus one of those boys stops to talk to the principal about a. book he is reading.

So, am I impressed with The Science of Reading as defined by what is happening now? If and only if it generates the kind of practices that get teachers more motivated to raise expectations for every child to read in their room, whether that is kindergarten, fourth grade, sixth grade, eighth grade or tenth grade. I am for anything that gets Indiana reading. I am just afraid that the approach mandated by the legislature, ordained by ALEC, and implemented by the DOE is not going to get us there.

Indiana Educators United, we deserve better, and it is about time we demanded it. This THING was rolled out by the legislature without input by professional teachers because ALEC despises teachers' unions (it is part of the warp and woof of their very being) and that is why they did not ask for any of us to participate. And now you know the rest of the story.

Reprinted with permission. Find the original on the Indiana Educators United Facebook page.