The Ever Changing World of Literacy- My Analysis of What  Seidenberg is now saying about SOR

 by Dr. Bommarito

I’ll start by sharing two slides from Seidenberg’s presentation at the Accelerated Literacy  Conference this summer. (Here is a link to more information about that conference LINK).

My interpretation of what Seidenberg is getting at in these two slides is as follows: He is saying there comes a time when the need for direct, explicit instruction diminishes (ends?). His use of the term “achieve escape velocity” is revealing. In the end game of reading instruction, skilled readers “continue to increase reading skill, knowledge of language, knowledge of the world. Entirely implicit. No Teacher. Feedback is self-generated:” (bolding is mine)

If I wanted to, I could take the path some journalists took in 2022 when they reported Lucy Calkins was backing away from workshop teaching. In fact, Calkins was simply recognizing that some of the things she had been doing needed revising and she was willing to make those revisions. I wrote about that at the time LINK.

Now that some in the SOR camp seem to be backing off some of their previous positions,  rather than “return fire” on SOR, I think it’s best to take this for what I think it is. It is an attempt to fix some things that the original version of SOR got wrong and it is becoming increasingly clear that there are some things that they got wrong. Remember that I am a centrist, someone who is interested in what we can use from all sides. I have been on a five-year quest to find common ground using common sense. Dichotomous thinking and moving to extremes has kept the pendulum of instruction swinging for all of the five decades I have been in education. The issue is not phonics vs no phonics but rather how much and what kind of phonics. The end game is not creating decoders; it is creating readers who reach that escape velocity and use all they have learned to finish the job and teach themselves how to read. The two sides share much more than most folks are willing to acknowledge. So rather than focus our attention on how the extremes of the two sides differ, why not talk more about things that all sides might agree on? Let me present you with a tentative list of areas of agreement.

The development of orthographic knowledge is crucial. However, such knowledge is useless if students don’t learn how to apply it to the process of problem-solving their words.

Background knowledge is necessary for comprehension, but it is not sufficient. There are strategies that readers can and should learn to use when making meaning, and reading is primarily a meaning-making process.

Decodable texts can be useful at the very beginning of the reading process, but as folks like Meismer have pointed out, the transition to other text forms needs to be made very early. Shanahan has soundly criticized those who call for years and years and years of using decodable texts.

We need both explicit instruction and implicit instruction. My own take on that is that explicit instruction has its philosophical roots in Aristotle’s thinking, and implicit instruction’s roots lie in Socrates’ thinking. Those two philosophies have been around for over 2000 years. One has never replaced the other. We need both. We need to learn when and how to use both.

There are no silver bullets. What works for one child does not always work for another. What works in one setting does not always work in another. The trick of it is for districts to find a cluster of practices that works for them. When districts are successful (and some already have been), we should look at the details of why what they did worked for them and ask ourselves how we can ADAPT THAT TO FIT OUR SITUATION.

(This item added at the suggestion from Leah Mermelstien commenting on the original post)- Understanding the implications of set for variability is crucial to developing a good program of literacy instruction.

This is only a partial list- a starter set. I would love to hear from you on other things all sides might agree on. Ultimately, I would love to see this evolve into a situation where there are no sides (dare to dream!). That can’t happen if we continue to use strawmen versions of the two sides. That can only happen if we admit that there are places where each of the two sides’ methods have worked rather than claim that one side or the other has been a total failure. Next week, I’ll be talking to Susan Vincent about her ideas on the Science of Reading Recovery (and yes, there is science supporting what RR does, and there is evidence that RR can work in many settings). In the following weeks, I hope to continue talking to folks from all sides and will focus my questions on what works and why. As I said earlier, I look forward to the day when the areas of agreement become large enough that there are no sides. Dare to Dream!

So, until next week, Happy Reading and Writing.

Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the middle taking flak from all sides)

Copyright 2024 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s views and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

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