The Science of Reading, used-car salesman version
It’s been a long time coming, and now it’s on: the first casualty reports for the "Science of Reading" are in. As I’ve said for years now, every time a "movement" is built on some kind of scientific insight, there is a danger that science is turned into an ideology – a closed-loop system of thought – and nonsense ensues. The good news is, I don’t see that happening in the Science of Reading world (yet). The bad news is that you don’t need an ideology to turn science into bunk. Old-fashioned greed will do the trick when it’s paired with a sufficiently shallow understanding of the science, and some savvy marketing.
That’s what happened in New York City’s attempt to keep up with the SoR development. Which is not a bad thing, per se, but it easily turns into one if your grasp of the matter extends no further than caveman-like grunts of "systematic explicit measurable". The city gave its schools three curricula to choose from. Two of them combined phonics foundations with a sound reading list. The third combined them with a shoddy assemblage of abridged texts and over-the-top assessment requirements. All but guaranteeing that kids in that curriculum would never get to read actual books, let alone develop a love of reading.
And guess who adopted that third option? The lower-income districts that serve over 60% of NYC's children. The richer kids get to read books. The rest get modern-day Dick-and-Jane readers.
There is a tragic irony here. Whole language has long been accused of failing children. And I can see how you might argue that based on WL’s stubborn rejection of systematic and explicit phonics. At the same time, however, WL has also long accused the SoR of failing children: by overemphasizing basic mechanics and systematically disregarding the actual act of reading. I don’t have sufficient data to prove or disprove either claim (and I doubt anyone has). But I do know that what’s happening in NYC is exactly what WL advocates have always predicted would happen should SoR take over.
Of note, the existence of good curricula proves that explicit, systematic instruction can be combined with a love of reading. But when you have only a shallow grasp of "the scientific method” (a weasel phrase if there has ever been one) and of the vast complexity that is reading, nifty marketing can easily take over your entire thinking about literacy, and the result is bunk. That’s what seems to have happened in NYC.
When I first posted about this, one of my SLP friends recognized the name of the shite curriculum. It had recently been introduced to her kid’s school. (This is in Louisiana, suggesting that the problem extends well beyond New York.) The results were so devastating that they ended up changing schools. I asked her if she’d be willing to share that story on my blog, and she happily obliged. So, if you don’t think one bad curriculum is a problem, here’s a lived experience of having to deal with it.
"Mom, why don’t we read real books in school anymore?"
Our Family’s Experience with the HMH Into Reading Curriculum
I personally lived the nightmare of the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) Into Reading curriculum with my own child. Her elementary school suddenly - and without any warning - scrapped their "novel study approach" to adopt HMH Into Reading for grades 2-4 (at the time, she was enrolled in the third grade). Their previous "novel study approach" had centered children’s literature as paramount in reading pedagogy; anchor texts such as Jeff Brown’s Flat Stanley, Kate DiCamillo’s Mercy Watson Fights Crime, and Beverly Cleary’s Muggie Maggie had been used to guide reading, writing, and cross-curricular enrichment instruction in her second grade classroom.
My daughter entered third grade as a motivated, enthusiastic and successful student who enjoyed reading, writing, and school in general. Parents were informed of the school’s transition to HMH Into Reading during parent night in late August. About a week later, my daughter got off the bus and asked me, "Mom, why don’t we read real books in school anymore?" As the days progressed, I watched in horror as she morphed quite dramatically into a child who cried on the way to and from school, started saying things like, "I just don't know how to read anymore," " I never want to read ever again," and, most shockingly, "Maybe I should go in the special class with kids who have reading disabilities."
HMH Into Reading does not use real books; the reading materials are decontextualized and nonsensical. They seem altered, edited, or otherwise "massaged" by AI - although I cannot personally prove AI’s role in their creation. Many of the texts have a kind of circular quality about them; the sentences are grammatically "correct," but the content lacks coherence. As a parent, I had access to the online textbook, and I saw all the assessments that came home. I am a proficient reader with a master's degree and have successfully completed over 30 hours of doctoral level coursework; however, I could not answer some of the "comprehension questions" on their third grade reading assessments. The reading passages were hollow shells – strings of words without comprehensible human meaning. I could genuinely relate to my daughter's remarks about "not knowing how to read anymore" because these texts did not make sense to me.
Other parents were also finding themselves confused by third grade reading assignments; they were sending me pictures of their children’s homework and test papers, and asking about various items – was the answer to number 5 b, or c? You could logically make the argument for both – or neither. They, too, were reporting extreme frustration and internalized feelings of failure in their third grade children – all of whom had been successful and happy readers up until just a few weeks prior.
I calmly approached the school administration and offered to provide an extensive list of peer-reviewed references that would outline a robust, evidence-based rationale regarding why I thought this change in curriculum was a complete disaster. After all, I have professional expertise in the field of language and literacy development, and I work in academia. Administration declined the offer. Next, the classroom teacher sent me a caustic email suggesting that my child probably had an undiagnosed reading disability if she hated third grade reading so much. I responded with a polite email explaining that my professional scope of practice includes the assessment and evaluation of language and literacy disorders. I was ultimately told by a school administrator via email, "It may be time to reevaluate whether (school name) is a good fit for your family."
I teamed up with a concerned group of third grade parents who pushed to know which, if any, novels or full-length books would be read during the academic year. We were told that the third grade teachers were "not sure" if they would "have time to fit in” any actual books, given the time-intensive demands of the HMH Into Reading curriculum. Administration assured us they would do their best to fit in Charlotte's Web. I have been told by other parents that eventually the third grade teachers assigned Charlotte's Web to be read, mostly at home with parents, as a long-term homework assignment with an at-home project (diorama) to be completed for a grade.
We ultimately withdrew my daughter’s enrollment the last week of September and transferred her to another school – one that read real books. Her new third grade class read literature like Deborah and James Howe’s Bunnicula, Esther Brady’s Toliver’s Secret, and Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn Dixie. Within two weeks of her transfer, my daughter came home declaring that she loved to read again. By January, she was putting together a list of book recommendations for me - because she wanted to ensure I experienced the joy of reading her newly discovered favorite novels. Her end of year report card and test scores indicated that her reading skills were in the advanced range as compared to grade-level peers. Her teacher even commented about her love of reading in the comments section. Indeed, my daughter did not have a reading disability; she had simply been shell-shocked and unable to transition from reading actual literature to reading the HMH Into Reading basal passages - not to mention she knew baloney when she saw it.
Until this experience, I had conceptualized the so-called “reading wars” as a debate centered mostly on emergent literacy in grades K-2 - with long-term disagreement over the level to which phonics is emphasized. Of course, I saw ongoing tensions in the educational sector regarding reading instruction in third grade and above - mostly with critics emphasizing that too much of the academic year tends to be geared toward standardized test prep. However, as both a professional and a parent, I had generally seen most programs using actual literature in the classroom - albeit sometimes in contrived ways within various packaged and/or "scripted" curricula. Then I experienced HMH Into Reading, which drove the whole "bottom up” paradigm far beyond phonics and into the discrete instruction of isolated comprehension skills using decontextualized texts – effectively forcing out any idea of students reading real books and developing comprehension skills within the context of actual literary engagement.
Now that our family’s horrific encounter with HMH Into Reading has ended, I have spent some time reflecting on the fundamental sociopolitical implications of removing literature from classrooms. Ramifications appear to go much deeper than more customary concerns related to "reading proficiency" – we stand at the frontier of a dystopian, authoritarian definition of "reading instruction." After 13 years of professional interface with literacy curricula and various pedagogical practices, I assert that the HMH Into Reading curriculum is alarmingly troubling as a new low in literacy education. It has an Orwellian 1984 kind of vibe – and that should terrify us all.
By: Katherine ("Katie") Hays, M.S., L-SLP, CCC-SLP
Some relevant links:
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