Education Week - December 4, 2019 - 24

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1. Mississippi teachers
and aspiring teachers
attend a training
session on a
science-based
reading program.
2. William Cary
University student
Alyssa Bussolati and
Mississippi teacher
Parrish Cumbest show
how parts of the brain
work together in a
LETRS training
led by Sandy Dossett
(middle).

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which found evidence that explicit phonics lessons help
kids become better readers. The review did not find the
same about whole language.
The National Reading Panel named five essential
components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics,
fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. To be a reader,
a student must learn how to decode words and also
comprehend them.
"A fundamental piece of whole language is that reading
is natural," said Amy Murdoch, an associate professor and
the director of the reading science program at Mount St.
Joseph University in Cincinnati. "And what the science
shows is that is absolutely not true. Reading is something
humans invented, and it's not at all natural."
Over the years, whole language has fallen out of vogue,
and an approach known as balanced literacy has gained
traction-in fact, nearly 70 percent of teachers say
that's their philosophy, according to an Education Week
Research Center survey. Proponents say balanced literacy
combines explicit instruction, guided practice, and
independent reading and writing. Critics, however, say
that balanced literacy is just whole language rebranded,
with a bit of phonics sprinkled in.
"Who wouldn't want balance?" Murdoch said. "Many
people look to balanced literacy as the answer. But what
balanced literacy typically is, is not systematic, explicit
instruction."
Even so, balanced literacy dominates the nation's
colleges of education. In an Education Week Research
Center survey of more than 530 professors of reading
instruction, just 22 percent said their philosophy of teaching
early reading centered on explicit, systematic phonics with
comprehension as a separate focus. Most-57 percent-said
they ascribed to a balanced literacy philosophy. Only
4 percent said that their philosophy was whole language.
Of course, balanced literacy can be defined in many
different ways. Professors gave definitions that ranged
from basing instruction in all five components of reading
and giving equal focus to decoding and meaning-making
to immersing students in authentic texts with phonics on
the side.
Nearly a fifth of professors said they agree or strongly
agree with the idea that most students will learn to read on
their own if given the right books and time to read them.
And while most professors correctly identified the five
essential components of reading, phonics was the least

24 | EDUCATION WEEK | December 4, 2019 | www.edweek.org

known-87 percent of professors picked that, compared to
the 95 percent of professors who picked comprehension.
Twelve percent of professors incorrectly picked exposure
to authentic and meaningful texts.
Like Sacchetti, many teachers have said they feel like
they were cheated out of learning how to teach reading
from their preparation programs.
A common refrain from graduate students, Murdoch
said, has been, "You've told me everything I learned in
undergrad is wrong, and I've been teaching reading the
wrong way. Why didn't I learn this in undergrad?"
A 'Lockstep' Approach?
Professors who are skeptical of systematic phonics
instruction told Education Week that phonics is
necessary-but they don't want it to be done in isolation,
without opportunities for students to make meaning
of the words they're learning to read. And they worry a
systematic approach can make it harder for teachers to
differentiate instruction for advanced readers.
"Yes, readers do need to know how to decode words.
That's not even a question," said Mary Lose, a professor
of reading and language arts at Oakland University in
Rochester, Mich. "Yet this label [of systematic phonics]
is least aligned with my philosophy because it suggests a
lockstep approach to phonics teaching and learning that
doesn't take into account what each child already knows,
and it proposes a one-size-fits-all approach to supporting a
child's decoding skills."
The Education Week Research Center survey found that
55 percent of professors said they put "a lot" of emphasis
on phonics in their courses; 36 percent said "some," and
5 percent said "a little."
More than half of professors said they thought students
could understand unfamiliar words they see on the
page even if they don't have a good grasp of phonics.
Melanie Keel, an assistant education professor at Wingate
University in North Carolina, said many students can
learn to read with minimal phonics, or when phonics is
incorporated through a balanced literacy approach.
"When we say everyone has to do it this way, when we
have kids that already know it and it just comes more
naturally for them, then we're doing them a disservice,"
she said. "We can push them in other ways to help them
grow as readers in areas that they need, more than one-
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Education Week - December 4, 2019

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