Reading · We must end the reading wars.... now

A year or two ago, at the start of a California legislative session, I was asked by someone to identify what I thought would be a truly research-based, comprehensive framework for early reading (literacy) legislation.

What a good question, I thought; I’d never actually considered trying to articulate that as transparently as possible and, to the extent possible, appealing to common sense. So I came up with a document I somewhat immodestly called What would a truly evidence-based early literacy policy framework address? (“Literacy by 9”).

When I shared the piece with the person who made the request, it was D.O. even before A. Will never happen. A non-starter. Nice, but… really?

So I mostly kept it on my computer. I showed it to some people, who were positive about it. Someone I think used it in their state. It will be included in a forthcoming report I’m working on with some colleagues. But I had no immediate plans for pushing it out, since I was not sure of its utility. I thought I had included it in a Substack post, but now I can’t find it, so I probably just dreamed it.

A couple of days ago I was speaking with some other good colleagues about another project. I had sent them “Literacy by 9” thinking it might be useful for an aspect of our work. I was a bit surprised by the warm, maybe even enthusiastic, response.

We had a useful discussion about possible additions to address issues not or insufficiently identified. But the overall concept was endorsed. In fact there was discussion of how to use it not only for the project but as a possible stand-alone that sketched out a comprehensive, comprehensible, even commonsensical way forward as we think about coherent, robust, and research-based literacy policies.

Now, I felt encouraged to—as they say—put it out there. So here it is.

1. Support for families to provide home environments to encourage language and literacy development, e.g.,

a. Face-to-face verbal interaction in adults’ strongest language or languages (from birth)

b. Poems, songs, rhymes in adults’ strongest language or languages (from birth)

c. Minimize screen time on personal devices (from birth)

d. Reading with and to children in adults’ strongest language or languages (start early)

e. Paper, chalk- and white-boards, writing implements to encourage writing and drawing

f. Alphabet blocks, letters (felt or magnetic) games, toys to encourage literacy play

2. Universal pre-school, same as above PLUS

a. For ELs/EBs/MLs, bilingual development (L1 and English)

b. For monolingual English speakers, bilingual option^[1]

3. In kindergarten (including “transitional” kindergarten), same as above PLUS

a. Explicit, systematic teaching of letters, sounds, phonological awareness^[2]

b. Oral language development (English, English + L1, or English + L2)²

c. Knowledge-building curriculum

d. Explicit, systematic beginning phonics, decoding, and encoding instruction

e. Home-school collaboration to promote language and literacy development²

f. Appropriate screening for potential reading difficulties

g. Additional explicit, systematic instruction for children at risk

h. Ongoing progress monitoring for all

4. In first-third grades

a. Continued explicit foundational skills instruction, as needed + spelling, morphology, and writing instruction

b. Increased emphasis on automaticity and reading fluency, based on student strengths/needs

c. Continued oral language development (English, English + L1, or English + L2)²

d. Continued knowledge-based curriculum

e. Continued home-school collaboration to promote language and literacy development²

f. Continued appropriate screening for potential reading difficulties

g. Additional explicit, systematic instruction for children at risk

h. Continued ongoing progress monitoring for all

i. Intensive explicit, systematic literacy support for those requiring it

j. Phasing out foundational skills instruction as children achieve “escape velocity”

k. Exposure to texts diverse in difficulty, complexity, genre, subject matter

l. Increased time spent reading, discussing texts in class

5. Pre- and in-service teacher prep to support all the above
6. Additional desirable elements, e.g., school and community libraries, librarians, and literacy-supporting programs.

Even more than my usual ask for comments, I will REALLY ask and would really appreciate if you would….

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Is “common sense” all that common?

Like many of you, I’m a big fan of common sense. But it’s also clear that what I consider common sense someone else might consider hogwash. This, in crude terms, is the subject of the great anthropologist Clifford Geertz’s classic essay, “Common Sense as a Cultural System.”^[3] In other words, “Common sense is relative.”

Relative to what? Geertz argues from an anthropological perspective that common sense is grounded in the cultural system in which you live, breathe, and interpret the world. What’s common sense is relative to your culture.

But culture itself is elastic, and cultures are not monolithic. They are not the same thing for everyone in any given society, country, or group. There are “micro-cultures” or cultures within cultures.^[4]

Take the micro-cultures around reading education. I don’t need to identify or enumerate them; I’m sure you know what I mean, at least generally speaking. Some of the micro-cultures will accept what follows in “Literacy by 9” to be full-on common sense. Others will be more selective, accepting some items as common sense and rejecting other as NON-sense. Or maybe ANTI sense-making. (Claims about what’s research-based will also be made.)

How do we reconcile contrasting common senses? I’ll offer a suggestion, which, once again, will be regarded as common sense by some and NON-sense, ANTI sense-making, or something else dismissive by others.

Here I go out on another limb: Resolution among contrasting common senses should rely on admitting into the discussion—note I am NOT saying making determinative—systematic investigations, formalized forms of research that aim at as much objectivity as possible, in other words… yes… SCIENCE. That much maligned, misused, and misappropriated term among our micro-cultures of reading educators.

Regardless, science, the scientific method, can influence what is regarded as common sense. Geertz himself says so: “The development of modern science has had a profound effect … upon Western common-sense views” (p.234). But, he adds, “though perhaps not so profound as sometimes imagined.”

Think of two contrasting examples: The effects of smoking and of foundational reading skills. Each has compelling scientific backing. In one case, it’s now plain common sense, culture-wide, that smoking is bad for your health. This was not an easy scientific victory; it took years for it to become common sense in the United States—even among physicians. I know this because I was the son of one and knew many others. Although in some micro-cultures in the U.S. this common sense has had less of an impact, generally speaking, the common sense about smoking being harmful is widely accepted. Now, even among physicians.

In contrast, common sense about what happens when children lack foundational reading skills—that is, are unable to connect the sounds of the language to how those sounds are represented in print—is still disputed in some micro-cultures of reading educators. In other micro-cultures it’s plain and simple common sense, and not coincidentally, supported by a large research literature: You won’t be able to read, or read well, if you can’t connect the individual sounds of the language (“phonemes”) to how the sounds are represented visually (“graphemes”).^[5]

How long before this becomes common sense and penetrates as deeply and becomes as commonsensical culture-wide as is the harm of smoking? No one knows.

Until then, it remains an illustration of what Geertz observed, that the effect of modern science is “not so profound as sometimes imagined.”

This is actually not surprising. Fundamental, grounding assumptions within a culture or a micro-culture do not change overnight. Some can change more quickly while ancient assumptions persist. A classic example is Isaac Newton, a pre-eminent figure in the scientific revolution during the 17^th and 18^th centuries. While transforming our understanding of the physical world, he also investigated alchemy (turning base metals into gold), the occult, and the “elixir of life.” Preposterous to us now, but it made perfect sense at the time.

I guess common sense is not so common. Nor is it always the best guide. “To me,” Geertz also observed, “the sun still rises and shines upon the earth” (p. 235).

More common sense, I hope

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