Contents introduction chapter

2.2 The best way to teach reading.
The best way to teach reading is a topic that has been hotly debated for many decades. If the past is any indicator, we’re going to be fighting about it for decades to come. It’s worth arguing about because literacy is important. Roughly 21% of American adults are illiterate. Illiteracy has harmful impacts on health, finances, and overall well-being. Thus, literacy is powerful and is a fundamental human right.
In case you haven’t read anything by me or been to my Book Riot page, let me introduce myself. I am a former elementary school teacher. After I left the classroom, I pursued my PhD in curriculum & instruction (with an emphasis on literacy) while working as a literacy consultant for the Kentucky Department of Education. Since then, I’ve been a professor who teaches people to teach kids to read. Thus, I have a LOT of opinions on this topic. Buckle up, friends!
WHOLE LANGUAGE VS. PHONICS
Even now, despite the changes in what we call things, the ongoing war is between those who believe a whole language approach is the best way to teach reading and those who advocate for a focus on phonics. The basic premise is that some educators believe in exposure to books and using meaning to help decode texts, and a competing faction that believes in phonics instruction as providing the necessary tools to decode text. Over the years, the field has swung between the two sides. For a couple of decades, whole language has been on top. Now, we’re shifting back to the phonics end of the spectrum.
Those against whole language are adamant that kids are being taught to guess at words they don’t know and that approach is failing them. Others who are against an overemphasis on phonics lament the drill-and-kill, decontextualized approach to reading. The truth is, both sides are right, and they’re also both wrong.
SYSTEMATIC PHONICS INSTRUCTION
Phonics (and its precursor phonological awareness) are crucial to reading instruction. We have to teach children how to crack the code, which means we have to teach how letters work. Furthermore, we have to teach this in a systematic way. Teaching the letter of the week or any other arbitrary approach is not effective.
We need to take a developmental approach to literacy instruction. That means that we meet kids where they are and prepare them to move forward. Children move through developmental stages in reading, just like they do in other areas. We know from research that emergent readers typically start to develop letter-sound correspondence starting with beginning sounds in consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words (p. 11). They then start to notice and represent ending sounds, followed by medial vowels. Once they’ve mastered that, they move into the beginner stage and on through transitional, intermediate, and skillful. (Sometimes these stages go by other names or are broken down further.)
I don’t expect you to know what all that means, but teachers should. Knowing the stages of development means we can assess where a child is and use that information to plan appropriate instruction that will move the child forward in the developmental sequence. That’s how we determine which letters and other features to teach at a particular time. (And that’s why grade levels are nonsense that I promise to rant about at a later date.)
The best phonics instruction includes hands-on practice building words, practicing skills with developmentally appropriate texts, and getting targeted guidance. There’s no need to drill kids to death and make them hate reading. Phonics can be phun!
THE “SCIENCE OF READING”
If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it’s to listen to science. Unfortunately, that means there are some people in the world that can use so-called science to manipulate others. The “science of reading” is a hot term that has caught on lately, but it means nothing. The term was created by media outlets as a way to present an emphasis on phonics instruction.
In this recent surge of interest in reading, one state has been placed on a pedestal. A specific program produced growth in Mississippi, citing the highest growth of all states on the National Assessment for Education Progress (NAEP) in 2019. But the truth behind that program is much more complex. Nonetheless, state legislatures are scrambling to find the same success for their own populations.
Literacy researchers like me, as well as many teachers, are so tired of this game. It seems like every year there’s a new miracle program, a new way to do things. Unlike many professions, everyone has an opinion about teaching. The mentality of “those who can’t do, teach” has permeated our culture. People believe that teaching is an easy job. Consequently, our expertise is devalued and we’re not treated like other professionals — just take a look at the pay if you need more evidence.
SOME OF THE POLITICS BEHIND THE “SCIENCE OF READING”
Politics and education go hand-in-hand, so it’s important to look at who is pushing certain decisions. One interested stakeholder in all of this is the International Dyslexia Association (ILD). If you click that link, it’ll take you to a test that suggests most of us have dyslexia. In actuality, only 5–15% of the population has dyslexia. The organization has branches in 37 states and DC. Big Dyslexia (I’m sorry, I can’t help myself) treats all learning difficulties as dyslexia. They have a lot of support from worried parents and lawmakers, resulting in policy and curricular changes that aren’t necessarily sound.
Despite the fact that there is no best way to teach reading to all kids with reading disabilities, the ILD standards suggest otherwise. In my state, the ILD standards are being touted alongside standards from the International Literacy Association, which is a 60-year-old professional organization that is widely respected among teachers and researchers. ILA has responded to ILD, saying (among many other things), that ILD standards and claims are based on misinterpreted research and represent an inaccurate stance on teaching reading. According to ILA (p. 8):
“ILA’s position is that teachers do not need to spend substantial amounts of time learning about dyslexia, which, as has been argued, is a construct of questionable utility. Nor should teachers be obligated to learn a specific and poorly researched approach to preventing and remediating reading difficulties.”
The ILA represents the views of thousands of educators and educational researchers worldwide. The organization has contributed a great deal to what we know about the best way to teach reading. Yet many states are legislating that professional development and other resources be allotted to mitigating dyslexia. Again, educators are being undermined by outside stakeholders.

Conclusion.

There are many considerations in teaching reading. What we have presented in the preceding sections is a set of what we believe are the most important principles. However, each of these principles must be adapted for a specific context, for a specific language, and for students of differing abilities. Teaching reading and writing is difficult work. Teachers must be aware of the progress that students are making and adjust instruction to the changing abilities of students. It is also important to remember that the goal of reading is to understand the texts and to be able to learn from them. Reading is a skill that will empower everyone who learns it. They will be able to benefit from the store of knowledge in printed materials and, ultimately, to contribute to that knowledge. Good teaching enables students to learn to read and read to learn.
Its task is also to form the student's ability to independently overcome difficulties in understanding a foreign language. The object of "study" in this type of reading is the information contained in the text, but not the linguistic material. It is learning reading that teaches respect for the text. Viewing reading involves getting a general idea of the material being read. Its purpose is to get the most general idea of the topic and the range of issues discussed in the text.