Dr. Jill Kerper Mora talks about how the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) blocked the Science of Reading legislation AB2222

This week, I interviewed Dr. Jill Kerper Mora. In the interview, Jill explained how and why the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) blocked the Science of Reading legislation AB2222 in California last year. She played an important role in that process. The lessons she learned will be helpful to anyone trying to stop the adoption of cookie-cutter SOR legislation that is currently sweeping the nation. I think it is an important part of developing the new story about literacy that P.L. Thomas is calling for LINK.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

February 2025

Jill Kerper Mora, Ed.D.

Jill Kerper Mora is Associate Professor Emerita from the School of Teacher Education at San Diego State University. Dr. Mora’s career as a biliteracy educator began in Texas, where she was an elementary bilingual teacher, a secondary Spanish teacher, and a consultant for the Texas Education Agency’s Region IV Service Center in Houston. She has engaged in scholarship, leadership and teaching as a university teacher educator specializing in preparing teachers for work with culturally and linguistically diverse students in Texas, California, and Mexico. She brings an international perspective to the arena of Spanish language and literacy education. Dr. Mora served as Resident Director of the California State University International Program and Mexico Bilingual Teacher Credential Program in 2003 to 2005.

Dr. Mora has received numerous honors and awards for her activism and scholarship. In 2002, she received the California Association for Bilingual Education Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarly Activity in recognition of her MoraModules Website for biliteracy and English language development educators. In 2009, Dr. Mora was recognized with the Promoting Biliteracy Award from the Two-way California Association for Bilingual Education for her strong advocacy for educational equity for language minority students.

In her active retirement, Dr. Mora continues to work as an author of professional books for dual language teachers and as a consulting author with Benchmark Education Company. She maintains her MoraModules Website at moramodules.com. The website includes a Book Companion Website to accompany her textbook Spanish Language Pedagogy for Biliteracy Programs (2016) with Montezuma Publishing. Dr. Mora’s book co-authored with Silvia Dorta-Duque de Reyes titled Biliteracy and cross-cultural teaching: A framework for standards-based transfer instruction in dual language programs will be published with Brookes Publishing in 2025.

 Here are the timed stamped talking points for the interview (so, you can go to the sections that interest you the most first)

Here is a link to the U-Tube Interview:

Mora’s Website LINK:

The LINK to MORA’s article in the 50^th-anniversary edition of the CABE Multilingual Educator published in the Spring of 2025. The article appears on page 42.

Mora’s Resources:

Science of Reading: A Critique | MoraModules

Oppose AB 2222 | MoraModules

Dual Language Researcher Fact-checks SoR | MoraModules

Dual Language Researcher Fact-checks SoR Claim 5 | MoraModules

CCTE Conference SoR Pushback Panel | MoraModules

Multilingual Educator 2025 50^th Anniversary Edition Mora Article

Final Thoughts

There are some critics of the folks who question the rush to SoR currently sweeping the nation, saying those that oppose it are ignoring/denying the research. I respectfully disagree with them. What is actually going on is that folks are looking at ALL THE RESEARCH, not just the research that supports one narrow and self-serving point of view. In the case of California, there was already a working set of practices in place and a curriculum backed by decades of research that was especially relevant to the population being served. The proponents of one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter reform use the public relations tactic of discount and discredit. They claim they are replacing “failed practices” with no “research base.” As with all things to do with research, the devil is in the details. What the California folks were able to do was show that what they were doing fit the population they served and actually had a substantial research base. I’m not saying we don’t need reform. Rather, I’m saying look at all the research, try to find common ground of best practices, and make the reforms fit the needs of the particular population being served in each state. Dare to Dream.

Happy Reading and Writing,

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

Copyright 2025 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. PS If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss future posts.  Us

My take on Dr. Paul Thomas’s idea that the decline in NAEP reading scores shows it is time for a new story by Dr. Sam Bommarito

The Science of Reading star has been rising for quite some time. See this chart from the Jan. 21^st edition of Education Week LINK.

A quick glance at the chart shows that since 2019, sixteen states have mandated SOR practices. By 2021, another 14 states joined, bringing the number of states with three to five-year commitments to SOR practices up to 30. Given the promises made by SOR proponents and the number of districts adopting SOR practices in the past few years, one would expect substantial gains in reading scores nationally. Instead, NAEP scores have DROPPED to below pre-pandemic levels. Remember that those scores provide a long-term longitudinal look at national reading scores. Paul Thomas, a major critic of SOR, has written some posts on this very topic. Let’s look at some highlights from his recent posts.

LINK

Paul’s post provides a lot of well-researched information. This post is a must-read, and I suggest that my readers take the time to read the full post. I want to call attention to several important points he makes.

• “reading achievement on NAEP was flat during the balanced literacy era and now has dropped steadily during the SOR era”

• “NAEP “basic” is approximately grade level (although even that claim is problematic since no standard exists in the US for “proficient” or “grade level”), and “proficient” on NAEP is high:”

This point is especially important in light of a point he made in an earlier post LINK.

“As I have noted, NAEP achievement levels are confusing since “proficient” is well above grade level and “basic” tends to correlate with most state metrics for “proficient” (see here for a full explanation and state/NAEP correlations).”

MY TAKE- The bottom line is that the claim often made in the media that about 2/3 of our students are reading below grade level is completely inaccurate and greatly exaggerates the actual problem.  Paul labels this as one of the “Big Lies” being told by SOR advocates.

• But a key element of the SOR story is often overlooked: “One of the excuses educators have long offered to explain America’s poor reading performance is poverty.”
• “In other words, the SOR story argues that the US has a reading crisis that is entirely the result of in-school policies and practices, that SOR-based reading instruction guarantees 95%+ of students will achieve reading proficiency.”

MY TAKE- The relationship between poverty and low reading achievement is well established. Yet SOR advocates downplay/ignore the impact of poverty on reading achievement. In addition, the claim that SOR-based instruction guarantees 95% of students will achieve reading achievement simply is not borne out by the longitudinal NAEP data In addition, England’s experience with synthetic phonics for over a decade has demonstrated that synthetic phonics is not the cure-all some make it out to be LINK.

I agree with Paul that it is time for a new story. It is time for the WHOLE STORY. It is time to look at ALL the research, not just that research that supports one side or the other’s point of view. My own opinion is that if we stay the course with the brand of SOR currently being mandated, the result will be yet another very expensive swing of the pendulum LINK.

I’ll say it again- it is time to stop taking sides. It is time to end the “Big Lies”. It is time to talk about what we can all agree on so we can find a path to improving the literacy performance of all students (see my blog last week, LINK). Dare to dream!

Happy Reading and Writing,

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

Copyright 2025 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.

PS If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss future posts.  Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

Seeking Common Ground Using Common Sense, my recent exchanges with Dr. Claude Goldenberg.

For the past 5 years, I’ve promoted the position that we should look at ALL the research in the “Great Debate”  about reading. I’ve done interviews with folks promoting different ideas and practices. I’ve been critical of folks from either side who “put blinders on”. They sometimes leave out research and sometimes define their opponents in a way that effectively creates strawmen. Here is one important conclusion I’ve reached. We need to USE ALL THE RESEARCH and draw on practices from all sides:

Figure 1

For more details on this position, please visit my previous blog post LINK.

A while back, I suggested that instead of taking sides and looking at things as a dichotomy, we should start conversations about things most of us can agree on. To that end, I recently had several exchanges with Claude Goldenberg on his substack Ending the Reading Wars Now LINK. Thanks to Dr. Goldenberg for taking the time to seek some areas of common ground (some areas of agreement).

This is the message I got back from Dr. Goldenberg:

I don’t mean to get overly optimistic (I’ve been there before). Still, one string of comments initiated by Sam Bommarito (https://doctorsam7.blog/) yielded the following, which many readers might not have seen unless they read the string of comments/discussion on the last post, “Can we talk?”

If this needs context to make sense, please see the comments there for other tidbits.

Sam’s comments are in quotes:

1. “context needs to be used in word recognition. Current laws are removing it entirely. That is a HUGE mistake.” Completely agree. (Tim does, too, btw).
2. “Frankly, the words cue/cueing have become divisive.” Agree again. 100%, or more, if it’s possible to agree more than 100%. That’s the point of the DEADLY WORDS posts I’ve been working on.
3. “When in-servicing teachers, I urge them to encourage students to use the graphophonemic information first and then cross-check it against context & syntax.” Once again, we are in agreement…
4. …. whether we call it “a “take off” point” or a “self-extending system” is less important than providing the sort of instruction that will hasten students’ getting there. What you provide in your in-services sounds like it will help accomplish that.

Common Ground

I find his statement #1 around the use of context particularly hopeful. He says that he and Shanahan feel that the current laws removing the use of context from word recognition are a bad idea. I’d love to hear more from him on that point (and I’m posting this blog entry on his site to see what he meant by that).

Rather than focusing on claims and counterclaims around “The Three Cueing System” (BTW, it is NOT a system of instruction), I think his point #2 establishes the need to stop using the term cue and to start discussing what information readers use with decoding. Most importantly, what information do readers use when the graph phonemic information fails to produce a meaningful word? That can sometimes be because the word is not spelled the way it sounds (irregular word). It can sometimes be because it is not in the reader’s current listening vocabulary. I’d especially like to clarify his views about this in light of the concept of set for variability.

Point 3 is one on which I hope teachers from many points of view can agree. Students should use grapho phonemic information first. Other information can be used to confirm the grapho phonemic information or, in the case of irregular words, can be used to start a problem-solving process.

Ground for Future Discussion

Point 4  indicates that establishing a “take-off point” or a “self-extending system” is less important than establishing practices that get us there. This misses a very important point. Folks like Mesmer indicate that using decodables is a temporary practice and should end fairly early in the reading process. Shanahan has indicated that those advocating using decodables for years and years and years based on “research” are simply making that stuff up. Ultimately, I think the time comes to take off the training wheels and start riding the bike on your own. We don’t want to under-scaffold or over-scaffold (see figure 1 at the start of this blog). I’ll end with the thought that I would like to continue the discussion with Dr. Goldenberg about the best ways to ensure we promote the creation of engaged readers. I think that is best done by allowing teachers to use both the art and science of reading to achieve that end.

I’m looking forward to the future discussions.

Happy Reading and Writing,

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

Copyright 2025 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.

PS If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss future posts.  Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.