Artfully Teaching the Science of Reading: A Way to Empower Teachers to Help Kids by Dr. Sam Bommarito ©2026
My name is Dr. Sam Bommarito. As regular readers of this blog know. I am a not-so-retired reading teacher/reading professor. Over my 60-plus-year career in education, I have taught every grade from kindergarten through graduate school. I retired from full-time teaching in 2016. I began taking on a variety of activities, including tutoring, staff development, making presentations and, of course, writing this blog. For more information about me, see my blog post from 07/30/26: LINK. This entry is the third in the series Artfully Teaching the Science of Reading: A Way to Empower Teachers to Help Kids. For more information about the Phonics to Meaning program in South Africa, where a team I helped to organize is currently using the work of Rasinski and Fresh to provide help for over 1000 non-reading 3rd and 4th graders. That help uses the instructional methods suggested by Rasinski and Fresh. LINK
In the previous entries in this series, I have documented problems with the Social Media Point of View. This week, I want to address claims made by social media gurus like Emily Hanford. Among the claims are that Balanced Literacy resulted in teachers adopting failed practices, practices that were not grounded in research, and that Balanced Literacy is the cause of our current literacy crisis. Was Balanced Literacy a failure, as Hanford and others claim? Let’s look at the evidence.
The first contrary evidence comes from places like Wilton, Connecticut (see the screen capture below).
Here is the LINK from the screen capture: https://goodmorningwilton.com/board-of-education-stories/
Wilton is not the only example of a place that was forced to stop using Balanced Literacy practices, despite being HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL. This alone is enough to cast doubt on the claim that these practices failed.
Add to the analysis of what the NRP scores show about what’s been happening in the reading world in the past 20 years or so. Consider the next two screen captures:
The first slide shows that NRP scores from 1992 to 2022 remained flat. The second slide provides information on two literacy experts who have consistently criticized claims made by SOR advocates, including Emily Handford. They have both posted extensively online, and each has a well-researched book detailing the many issues surrounding claims made by SOR advocates. A major point to be made here is this:
If Balanced Reading is the cause of all the current problems in reading achievement, then
WHY WASN’T THERE A DIP IN THE SCORES WHEN BALANCED LITERACY WAS ADOPTED IN THE EARLY 1990s?
Some background: Balanced Reading came into widespread use starting in the early 1990’s. Dr. Michael Pressley was its creator. Its success led many programs to claim they were Balanced Literacy when they were not. In the long run, this misuse of the term became so widespread that there is no longer agreement on what constitutes Balanced Literacy. Folks like Shanahan say the term is virtually meaningless today. Seidenberg fears the term Science of Reading may suffer a similar fate.
Recently, Tim Pressley did an interview with me about his newest book. It provides documentation that, as defined by the two Pressleys, Balanced Literacy has a strong research base and a successful track record. Many programs/teachers say they use Balanced Literacy, but they don’t meet the Pressleys’ definition. See my interview with Tim Pressley, where he talks about all these details LINK.
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Dr. Sam
The guy in the middle taking flak from all sides
Coming up soon: Interviews with Nora Chabazi from EBLI, Laura Robb, Bruce Howett and Rachel Gabriel. (Please note I am talking to people from both sides)
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