About the New York Times article claiming the reading wars have been won. Questions and Ponderings by Dr. Sam Bommarito

Let’s begin with the key questions we must ask about the article and its topic. Is the LTRS program really the silver bullet that the article implies it is? The short answer is no. Here is why I say that:

• The LETRS program has been shown to improve students’ decoding scores and teachers’ knowledge of phonics. On its own, it has not been shown to raise comprehension scores. https://riveteducation.org/a-timely-reminder-there-are-no-silver-bullets-even-with-professional-learning/. Direct, explicit instruction in synthetic phonics raises students’ decoding scores. It also improves teachers’ phonics knowledge. But as analysts like Johnson and Thomas have pointed out in both their books and blogs on the subject, LETRS training improves students’ decoding scores, but does not significantly improve their comprehension scores. In addition, some supporters of LTRS and other programs focused on teaching synthetic phonics have made some misleading claims. Before readers accept claims about the “Mississippi Miracle” at face value, they should examine them carefully. At the end of the day, the “miracle ” applies mainly to gains in decoding scores, not comprehension scores. The programs in the “Miracle states” did much more than add synthetic phonics.  The net result is that researchers like Rachel Gabriel report districts are having buyer’s remorse about the choices they made LINK. Rachel cites the work of Rachel Canter LINK, which indicates that in her home state of Mississippi, “When adjusting for demographic factors such as poverty, we’re in first place.” This shatters the belief that many seem to have that all you need to do to improve students’ reading test performance is to add synthetic phonics to the program. Other demographic factors do matter. The so-called Mississippi Miracle involved much more than simply adding LETRS.
• Within the SOR community, there is now an interest in a different form of analytic phonics. This form of phonics gets students to the “takeoff point” of teaching themselves phonics in months, not years. It also uses up less classroom instructional time, allowing more time for comprehension-related activities. For details, see my blog interview with Nora Chabazi from EBLI, the most cited source for this form of phonics: LINK.
• When LTRS was created, research on the brain as a problem-solving machine had not yet emerged. See my blog post outlining the results of that newest brain research LINK, and its implications for the “Great Debate”. The newest studies fundamentally challenge some assertions SOR advocates make about the brain’s role in the reading process LINK.
• The results of mandating analytic phonics in England gives us a peek at what we can expect in the United States. See Dr. Michael Rosen’s analysis of the effects of mandating phonics in England. You can find it on his Oct 2n Facebook post this year. The upshot: mandating phonics didn’t work, even after millions of dollars were spent.
• My overall position on the “Great Debate” is that treating this issue as a debate is counterproductive. My position is that we need to explore and use evidence from ALL sides and give all students access to both analytic and synthetic phonics.  LINK.

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I’ll leave the reader with three additional things to ponder. One is what the NRP actually said about reading instruction. Here is the excerpt:

Add to that what Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson said about how scientists handle questions. They DON’T debate. They argue, exploring all sides of the issue. They treat the “truth” as being written in Xerox, not in stone. SCIENTISTS CHANGE THEIR MINDS WHEN NEW EVIDENCE COMES ALONG. The best we ever have is the “current consensus”. 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kDHD-zcwDPI

Duke and Cartwright, 2021: Active View of Reading model and added effect sizes for selected parts of the model.

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ESPECIALLY NOTICE THE EFFECT SIZE FOR BRIDGING PROCESSES AS THEY APPEARED FROM THE SLIDE ABOVE

The effect size for the bridging processes is considerably larger than the effect size for word recognition. That means there could be a real advantage to adding programs like Rasinski’s Fluency Development Lesson Plan, which is based on decades of Rasinski’s research on the best ways to teach fluency.

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Overall, I must respectfully disagree with Dr. Louisa Moats about whether the issues of how best to teach phonics are settled. I also must question her implication from the Times Article that the problems inherent in teaching LETRS would be solved with better implementation over time. In many districts, more than enough time has passed, and the promised results haven’t materialized.

Please remember, the NRP outlines five ways to teach phonics, not just one. Yet folks promoting Moat’s brand of SOR have outlawed all but one. Many of the approaches that involve analytic phonics (think problem-solving phonics) have a proven track record of improving BOTH decoding and comprehension. My disagreement with her position, and with the position of some of her supporters, in no way diminishes the importance of what she did by pointing out that many schools of education were not teaching synthetic phonics. Too many of them were totally focused on analytic phonics, and because of that, many children suffered. However, the solution to that should not be to do to the kids who thrive on analytic phonics what was done to the kids who needed synthetic phonics. Analytic phonics is NOT GUESSING; IT IS PROBLEM SOLVING. What she and her supporters are doing hurts the kids who thrive on analytic phonics.   I still believe that if we consider ideas from ALL SIDES, we can build ways to teach most kids most of the time. It’s time to explore the common ground already emerging from the current discussions LINK.

Dare to Dream!

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

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