Michelle Ruhe, a veteran reading teacher, feels that Emily Hanford hasn’t told the full story.
An interview conducted by Dr. Sam Bommarito.
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Dr. Sam Bommarito (Dr. Sam). I have been in education for over 6 decades. I’ve been a High School Social Studies teacher, a Title 1 reading teacher, and a professional developer for Title 1. I’ve taught virtually every reading course required at the university level, including the content area reading course. I’m currently “retired” but I continue working in literacy. I write a weekly blog advocating for taking a centrist view in the so-called reading wars. I regularly explore social media looking for things to write about. This week I came across something exceptional. Let me share what I found:
This entry contained a concise summary of the criticisms of Hanford’s claims that have been circulating on the internet. I knew the moment I saw this post that I wanted to find out about the credentials of the person making it and to interview her to unpack what she said. Here is what I found out about her, along with a copy of the interview where she had the opportunity to fully explain her position.
Here is Michelle’s biography (taken from her blog)LINK:
YOUTUBE VIDEO OF THE INTERVIEW:
KEY TOPICS COVERED IN THE VIDEO:
Here is my analysis of the interview
In terms of her credentials, they are impeccable. She is a practicing teacher who is well-informed about all aspects of “the great debate.” She represents a group that is too often ignored in this great debate. That group consists of practicing teachers who were successful in improving students’ literacy performance. They did so by using some of the so-called “failed practices”-practices that are rooted in a constructivist approach to teaching. Unfortunately, many of these teachers have become so discouraged that they are leaving the teaching field LINK. The rest are characterized as clinging to the “old, failed methods.” Many state legislators have bought into that point of view. They are banning the use of any of these practices based on the belief that research has demonstrated that these practices have consistently failed to work. If that belief is true, then how can we explain places like Wilton, Pennsylvania. LINK?
As you will discover when you listen to the full video, Wilton is not alone in being successful, the most successful in the state, but also being banned. Michelle’s own district is caught in that same dilemma. I am very proud of the way my fellow teacher handled being in that unenviable position. Rather than rejecting Hanford’s position as wrong and hurtful, she saw it as having some merit and doing some good. In our conversation during the video, we both went on to suggest that true science requires the SOR advocates to consider modifying their position. That is a widely held belief by folks who consider themselves scientists; they believe that scientists do change their minds based on evidence. According to the world-famous physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, that is how scientists learn to think. LINK.
There is a lot more to unpack concerning the post. Because of that, next week Michelle Ruhe and I will coauthor part two of this blog. In the meantime, I hope Emily Hanford and her followers take our request seriously. Some places don’t fit your model that claims that all balanced literacy sites have failed. Doesn’t that mean it’s time to revise your model? That is the way science is supposed to work.
Happy Reading and Writing!
Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the middle taking flak from all sides)
A New Brain Study Finds Reading is a Complex, Flexible Process- Implications for the Social Media version of SOR by Dr. Sam Bommarito.
A new and important study has recently been released. It is a meta-analysis of studies on the brain and its functions. Overall, the study reports data from 3031 subjects and 5444 activation peaks in a total of 163 experiments. I briefly discussed this study in one of my latest blogs. However, now that I’ve had a chance to really look over it, I realized that this study has the potential to be a real game-changer in our thinking about how we should conduct our literacy instruction. Here is a summary of what the study was about. It is taken from the website of Dr ASKY. “Dr ASKY”refers to a LinkedIn company profile and associated individuals, including the owner, Dr. Asif Sohrab, who is an MD doctor, entrepreneur, and science communicator. This page has over 11 M followers. Here is a LINK to the quote below. Here is a link to the main Facebook page for ASKY LINK..
Additionally, here is the link to the study that the Dr. ASKY site is analyzing: LINK. The name of that study is The ‘reading’ brain: Meta-analytic insight into functional activation during reading in adults by Sabrina Turker, Beatrice Fumagall, Philipp Kuhnke. & Gesa Hartwigsen.
My thoughts about this analysis: Of special importance in these remarks is the observation that the brain reconfigures itself depending on how complex reading is. For instance, when comparing nonsense pseudo-words, the regions accessed are the ones the SOR folks always discuss —the regions for sounding unfamiliar words. However, the evidence supports the theory that the brain uses two routes depending on familiarity. THE BRAIN ACCESSES REAL WORDS USING THE PARTS OF THE BRAIN THAT ENGAGE MEMORY AND MEANING. So, there is more to reading real words than simply storing the code. As a teacher, I think it follows that there is more to reading than simply breaking the code. In addition, silent reading invokes more than the reader simply listening to themselves sounding out words. In fact, during silent reading, the brain actually suppresses vocalization. My take as a teacher is that silent reading comprehension involves more than just listening comprehension. That calls into question SOR’s definitions of comprehension.
The Dr. Askey site goes on to criticize the fact that the common tasks used in many of the brain studies don’t fully capture the natural reading brain’s activity. It suggests that understanding these differences could enhance our understanding of reading difficulties, such as dyslexia.
MIKE DROP
The current situation on social media seems to have evolved into an “us/them” winner-take-all battle about the issue of the best ways to teach reading. The two sides are SOR (as presented in social media) and Balanced Literacy. The dialogue involves defending one side or the other. The SOR side claims that it’s all “settled science” and that SOR should replace Balanced Literacy completely. The dialogue is often contentious. The goal of the Social Media version of SOR seems to be to eliminate Balanced Literacy permanently. The fact that Balanced Literacy means many different things to many different people leaves things open to the use of strawman arguments based on Balanced Literacy at its weakest or arguments based on a complete misunderstanding of what Balanced Literacy is.
One possible outcome of this new study could be that the dialogue could become even more divisive. The study contains research-based information that directly challenges some of the interpretations of Brain Research that form the underpinnings of the media-based SOR’s point of view. Especially since we are at a time in our country’s history when many view individuals with a different point of view as evil. The potential is there for this trend to rip apart our nation.
I want to propose a different path. It is apparent that science isn’t as settled as some claimed. To resolve that, we could ask a new set of questions. Where do both sides seem to agree? Let’s do what P.D. Pearson suggested and focus on practices instead of sides. I’d like to hear from all of you about places where you think we might agree. I’ll go first and suggest that I think we can all agree that some form of systematic phonics should be a part of any literacy program. So should the teaching of comprehension strategies. That means students should learn to internalize and apply these strategies. Finally, there is a growing belief from all sides that the use of the reading/writing connection should be included in literacy lessons. Are there practices on which we can all agree? Do you have others? I’m hoping to hear from you either through the blog or on Facebook. BTW, if you have programs you like, rather than suggest the complete program, instead pick out the practices within the program that research demonstrates are effective and be ready to discuss which students might be effective for. It’s time to find some common ground.
Dare to Dream!
Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the middle taking flak from all sides)
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.
Using Repeated Reading & Poetry to Improve Literacy Outcomes for Children:
Today I’m turning my blog over to Tim Rasinki and David Harrison. Tim is a professor emeritus of literacy education at Kent State University. In 2021 and 2023, Stanford University named Tim as part of the top 2% of World Scientists. Tim is widely recognized as an expert on the topic of fluency worldwide. David is the poet laureate of the state of Missouri. David Harrison’s first book for children (The Boy with a Drum) was released in 1969 and sold over two million copies. The first of his long list of awards came in 1972 when he received the Christopher Award for The Book of Giant Stories. Since then, David has published ninety original titles that have sold millions of copies. David has also collaborated with Tim on several publications designed for use in elementary classrooms. They will be discussing the use of some of those materials during the webinar. I am very grateful to Tim and David for providing this free on-demand webinar. I believe elementary teachers will find useful ideas, materials, and lesson plans that can be adapted for use across a variety of grade levels. The links that follow include one to immediately view the entire webinar and a link to a share folder containing information about supporting fluency instruction. Please enjoy what I hope is the first of many webinars provided through this blog.
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 in the blog are solely this author’s views and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
The Webinar is Copyright 2025 by Tim Rasisnki and David Harrison.
In this interview conducted by Dr. Sam Bommarito, Dr. Betty Porter Walls discusses the many insights she has gained during her nearly 60-year career in education. Those insights can help us all as we begin this new school year.
Recently, I interviewed my long-time friend and colleague, Dr. Betty Porter Walls. Betty has completed nearly sixty years of active service in the field of education. That is a remarkable accomplishment. She has taken on many roles over those years. At the start of her career, Betty spent a few years in the classroom. However, she spent the vast majority of her career in Central Office positions. She has been a curriculum coordinator, a school principal, a human resource director, and a director of state and federal programs. However, the position that has been closest to her heart is that involving professional development, including being a university professor. I’ve had the honor of collaborating with Betty on numerous projects, including the St. Louis Public School’s BTAP (Beginning Teacher Academy Program), annual read-ins at Harris-Stowe State Teachers’ College’s preschool, and several book giveaways sponsored by the St. Louis Regional Literacy Association. Betty has done presentations at the national and international levels. In our hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, Betty is a beloved fixture on the St. Louis Literacy Scene. Let’s learn more about her and hear what she has to say about what it takes to be a successful educator in 2025.
BIOGRAPHYBetty Porter Walls, Ph.D.
Dr. Betty Porter Walls, President of Walls Educational Services, is a former school district administrator, professor of literacy at Harris-Stowe State University (HSSU) and University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC). She’s past president of the Missouri Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (MACTE) and serves as a board member of state and local affiliates of the International Literacy Association (ILA). A social justice and literacy advocate, Betty is a member of the ‘1st Class Educators’ consulting firm. Internationally, Betty has presented in Hawaii, Iceland, Germany, and Senegal. She presented “Literacy is a Family Affair” at a Hawaii International Conference on Education (HICE). Betty serves on the Emerson Electric Scholarship Committee and the Educational Advisory Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis which recognized her as Educator of the Year.
Here is a link to the YouTube Interview:
Here are the time-stamped talking points for the interview (so you can go to the sections that interest you the most first)
LINK to one of Betty’s partners, the St. Louis Black Authors of Children’s Literature.
LINK to the St. Louis Fed Honors Program press release.
ST. LOUIS – Betty Porter-Walls is the recipient of the 2024 Economic Educator Advisory Board Educator of the Year Award from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The award is given annually to recognize a board member for his or her commitment to economic and financial education.
Porter-Walls, retired associate professor at Harris-Stowe State University, was honored at a May 8 dinner at the St. Louis Fed for helping to connect educators with St. Louis Fed teaching resources. She has served on the St. Louis Fed’s Educator Advisory Board for many years, said Eva Johnston, senior economic education specialist and board coordinator.
The board is composed of local teachers who review curriculum, attend meetings, present at events and contribute in other ways to the success of the St. Louis Fed economic education program, Econ Ed at the Fed.
“Betty Porter-Walls is an inspiring, devoted educator who is a role model and motivator for teachers across a wide range of curricula. She is tireless in her efforts to help teachers understand and adopt the best practices to help their students,” Johnston said. “We are deeply grateful for her work on our Economic Educator Advisory Board.”
St Louis Fed Economic Education Officer Scott Wolla expressed his gratitude for the service of Porter-Walls and Johnston, who is retiring from the St. Louis Fed on June 30.
“Eva has been an exceptional economic education practitioner and ‘teacher of teachers’ in her 10 years at the St. Louis Fed. She has inspired hundreds of educators across the nation to delve deeper into how they teach economics and created lessons and other resources that made their teaching more effective and engaging for students,” Wolla said. “Her positivity, encouragement and expertise will be missed by the many educators she inspired and all of us at the St. Louis Fed.”
Among her many activities, Porter-Walls serves as the facilitator of the Beginning Teacher Assistance Program for the St. Louis Public Schools and was president of the Missouri Association of Colleges for Teacher Education in 2019. She also has organized “read-ins” for International Reading Day.
In addition to teacher professional development consulting for 1st Class Educator Group, Porter-Walls has presented at the Write to Learn, Early Learning, and Interface (STEM) Conferences in Missouri and nationally for the International Literacy Association, National Council of Teachers of English, National Network for Educational Renewal, and the American Educational Research Association.
Internationally, Porter-Walls has provided professional development in Iceland, Germany and Senegal. She presented her noted “Literacy is a Family Affair Project” at the Hawaii International Conference on Education.
She has received numerous honors/awards, including those from the governor of Missouri, Harris-Stowe State University, University of Missouri-Columbia, B’Nai B’rith and the St. Louis American newspaper.
The St. Louis Fed’s Econ Ed at the Fed offers more than 400 free educational resources about economics, personal finance, money and banking. In addition, the St. Louis Fed’s Econ Lowdown™ teacher portal allows teachers to create a syllabus of resources and assign the syllabus to students. The St. Louis Fed’s lessons, videos, online courses and more are free and available for pre-K through college, as well as for parents and other consumers.
Final Thoughts
I know that for Betty, of all the roles she has taken on over the years, the one she likes best is that of teacher, and teacher of teachers. Ever since the First Grade Studies were published, we’ve known that teachers make more of a difference than programs. Over the years, Betty has consistently made the most of every program she has been involved in. She is always open to new ideas. We would all do well to follow the advice she gave in the interview (tape position 22:27). She says, “Education is about the Big R, relationships. It’s about treating people with respect. You must remember that you can’t be a leader in an instructional program unless you understand that you’re not just teaching reading, writing, or social studies. You’re actually teaching people. You must respect the child, the person sitting in front of you. Only then can you respect the material.” These are words that can guide us all as we begin the new school year.
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.
It’s about a poem he wrote. The timing couldn’t have been better. I just had a conversation today with Tun Rasinski https://www.facebook.com/timothy.rasinski and David Harrison https://www.facebook.com/david.l.harrison.37 about the numerous uses of poetry in reading instruction. Poems are meaning-rich, and they are often short. Those facts can make them a powerful tool for teaching literacy. It is a tool that is too often ignored. Tim, David, and I plan to have future conversations around this untapped literacy resource. In the meantime, I hope you have fun with David’s poem. Dr. Sam!
One of the things I have been doing in retirement is writing poems–mainly doggerel that aspires to be amusing. This one, though, pleases me because it memorializes an all too real everyday routine. I call it Mobile Lover. You may recognize some of the characters!
When it comes to Literacy Practices, I don’t want Old Wine in New Bottles by Dr. Sam Bommarito
When it comes to literacy practices, I don’t want old wine in new bottles. Unfortunately, that is what is being offered up by what I have come to call the social media version of the Science of Reading (SOR). They claim they have a new paradigm. They claim that those of us who question that paradigm are too caught up in the old paradigm to properly understand the “true” path to improving literacy instruction. They say that all of what has come before failed. They take a scorched-earth approach to all that has come before. They effectively ban practices that don’t follow their particular model of literacy. Centrists like myself reject going to extremes and embrace the idea of nuanced approaches. My op-ed today is designed to serve as an introduction to the next two parts of my series about literacy instruction. Those next two parts are as follows:
The history of Structured Literacy and Direct Instruction. Direction Instruction as an instructional method vs direct instruction as a marketing tool.
Let’s not let profit get in the way of real progress. An analysis of what Billy Mollaso and others have had to say, in his blog entitled “Profit over Progress? When Market Hype Masquerades as Science, Kids Lose”
My next two blogs in this series will look at these two topics in depth. Right now, I want to give a quick overview of where I’m going with this part of the series. Those of us in the literacy world have tried approaches that overdo phonics (synthetic phonics) and underdo comprehension. It has not worked out well. After over a decade of mandated synthetic phonics, England has failed to improve reading instruction in a way that improves student comprehension. In the U.S., programs like No Child Left Behind dumped BILLIONS of dollars into programs that emphasized mainly code-based approaches. There is no evidence that student comprehension improved. Districts that opted for programs that mainly emphasized meaning-based approaches helped many students. They were not the total failures that social media would have you believe. HOWEVER, they did not help students who need direct systematic instruction in phonics. So, this approach also failed to result in improving all students’ (most students’) reading comprehension. Centrists like myself are saying that the one thing we’ve never tried is to draw the most effective practices from all sides and to allow districts to construct programs that draw on the effective practices that best fit their population. There are folks out there that are trying to do just that, but unfortunately the scorched earth policy that some (not all) folks in the SOR community are taking is standing in the way of that progress.
The overall narrative of the scorched earth folks goes like this. Balanced literacy programs, especially like those carried out by folks like Lucy Calkins, were a total, utter failure. We need to replace them with our version of SOR.
One of the problems with that position is that NAEP scores remained flat after BL came on the scene, and they stayed that way. How could BL cause a problem that the NAEP scores indicate never happened. I’ll refer readers to the work of Paul Thomas about the phony reading crisis. Paul also points out that the data was presented in a way that exaggerated the problem. My take on all this is that the folks making the claims that BL resulted in poor scores and the reading crisis are simply wrong. They were interested in getting rid of all that came before them and replacing it with their vision of what literacy is. They showed little or no interest in fixing what had come before. That fact leads me to point out one of the missed opportunities in this ongoing debate.
Today, many literacy leaders from the BL camp have begun modifying their programs. SOR practices are finding their way into Balanced Literacy Programs. Yet so far, there has not been a reciprocal set of actions from the SOR folks. Instead of drawing on things like teaching comprehension (as opposed to checking for comprehension) and taking full advantage of the symbiotic nature of writing and reading, they ignore and ban practices that don’t fit their paradigm. That happens even when the practices work.
Which brings me back to my point about old wine in new bottles. Too often what SOR folks are trying to sell is simply old wine in new bottles. We’ve already tried that path. I’d like to suggest a different paradigm. It is one that embraces effective research based on practices for all sides. The next two blogs in the series will talk about that in depth.
Dare to Dream
Dr. Sam (The guy in the middle, taking flak from both sides!)
This post is an introduction to the next two parts ot the series:
Let’s Stop the Nonsense and Start Using Common Sense to Guide Our Reading Practices
Copyright 2025 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
Blast from the past. This blog was posted at the start of school last year. It has been updated to reflect my current views about how to get your literacy program off to a good start.
Dr. Sam’s Advice for the Start of the School Year: Follow the Child, not the Program
Getting your literacy program off to a good start.
For the past five years, I’ve advocated for a centrist approach to literacy instruction. That means using ideas, practices, and programs from all sides. What should that look like as we start the school year? What that should look like is allowing teachers to follow both the Art and Science of reading instruction.
First, teachers should take care to directly and explicitly teach the students strategies they need for both decoding and comprehension. That means using a gradual release model. Most importantly, that means making sure strategy instruction goes beyond naming strategies or applying strategies. Strategy instruction needs to include helping students INTERNALIZE AND USE THE STRATEGIES. A simple way to check whether this is happening is to periodically ask students to share what strategies/combinations of strategies they’ve used lately. That thought —that they need to learn to use combinations of strategies — is often overlooked. However, it is supported by research going back as far as the NRP report.
Explicit, systematic phonics instruction should be a necessary but not sufficient component of each district’s literacy program. It can take the form of a synthetic phonics program. For most students, that is the program that best works for them. It should also systematically teach them orthographic knowledge and how to use it to unlock words. Take care about program implementation. There is some research indicating that when teachers teach orthography, students often fail to learn it and, most importantly, fail to use it. Make certain that any program you adopt does. I’ll say more about this in a minute.
There are two problems.
First, the exclusive mandated use of synthetic phonics programs has produced unclear results. Too often, what happens is that decoding improves, but comprehension does not. Read the research from England. Read the research from the United States indicating that reading achievement scores have remained flat for decades, including the era since the SOR movement has taken hold. As a matter of fact, NAEP scores dropped last year. Check out what folks like Bowers, Johnson, Thomas, Wyse, and Bradbury have reported about the research cited in the current rush to use what some call SOR. In addition to these critics, some folks in the SOR community have championed alternatives to OG-style synthetic phonics, such as linguistics-based phonics. Programs using that form of phonics have consistently outperformed the more traditional OG-based phonics. Also, check out what Seidenberg has said about OG and its limits and limitations. A close look at ALL the research will indicate that it is far from settled science. Choosing what form of phonics program to use is often a buyer-beware situation.
Second, some students thrive on using an analytic approach to phonics rather than a synthetic phonics approach. Yet, despite this, these students are often denied access to this approach. The Achilles’ heel of the analytic approach is that it is sometimes done in a way that is not systematic. There is a simple fix to that problem. When using “follow the child” schemes like those advocated by folks like Billy Molasso, teachers need to track what sounds have been taught and periodically fill in any gaps that may arise. As a centrist, I strongly advocate ensuring that children have access to all forms of phonics so that the program can fit each child’s needs. Well-designed three-tiered instruction can allow this to happen. So…, my advice around this issue is simple. Make sure you fit the students’ phonics instruction to what each student needs. Make sure that both synthetic and analytic phonics instruction is available to students as needed. Both these forms of instruction can scaffold students to use the orthographic information readers need to decode text effectively. LINK, LINK
Motivation matters. Recently, there has been some pointed criticism of SOR programs regarding motivation. Teaching reading should be done in a way that encourages the student to want to read. Rasinski’s research around repeated reading and his newly minted Fluency Development Lesson provides instruction that builds fluency and comprehension while motivating students of all ages to want to read. Work by folks like Eric Litwin, Ann Chase, Chase Young, and David Harrison has clearly demonstrated the efficacy of using music, poetry, and Readers’ Theatre to develop the fluency skills readers need. When I am asked what to do for older readers who have not yet developed their sound-symbol knowledge, I often recommend that teachers investigate ways to use music, poetry, and Reader’s Theatre to build that information. It is a win/win situation since the readers not only develop the needed sound-symbol knowledge but are also motivated to use it to read.
Wide reading in self-selected material matters. Somewhere in the rancor of the current debate about reading instruction, an important fact has been ignored. Wide reading in self-selected texts builds readers’ background knowledge, which is crucial to reading comprehension and builds a student’s vocabulary. In the process of reading self-selected materials that the student finds relevant to their lives, students’ reading improves.
Finally, remember that building background knowledge is necessary but not sufficient to teach comprehension LINK, LINK. There are decades of research demonstrating that teaching students to UNDERSTAND AND USE comprehension strategies does dramatically improve students’ reading. Even SOR advocates like Shanahan have pointed out the flaws in Willingham’s suggestion that teachers spend less time teaching comprehension strategies LINK.
I could add more things to the to-do list for getting off on the right foot this school year, but I think I’ve given you a good starter set of ideas. I’m currently lining up other educators to talk about how to get literacy instruction off to a good start. At the end of the day, my answer to that remains: use practices informed by all the research. That includes direct, explicit instruction in both decoding and comprehension, balancing the time spent on decoding and comprehension instruction LINK, and making motivation a key component in all that you do. I hope you have a wonderful start to your school year.
Until next week, 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.
We can’t give teachers mandates for teaching decoding and comprehension that exceed the instructional time available in the classroom: Part 3 of the Common Sense Series by Dr. Sam Bommarito
Time on Task
Instructional time is a finite commodity. It is often said that you should not rob Peter to pay Paul. Yet many districts are routinely doing that, especially at the elementary level. I’ve talked to teachers carrying out mandated phonics programs who find there is little to no time left for things like teaching comprehension if they carry out the phonics instruction program the district has mandated. Compounding the problem of some districts over-teaching phonics is that research does not give a clear answer to the very important question of how much time is the right amount of time for teaching various phonics components. Consider this recent research paper from the Scientific Studies of Reading journal: A Meta-Analysis on the Optimal Cumulative Dosage of Early Phonemic Awareness Instruction. Here is an excerpt from an Educational Weekly article by Sarah Schwartz reporting about this paper:
Schwartz goes on to say that there is no magic number.
“Integrated analyses revealed that reading comprehension instruction infrequently aligned with research-based practices. Findings revealed that, on average, 23% of instructional time during reading/language arts instruction was dedicated to reading comprehension. Like Durkin’s study (1978–1979), the results indicated that teachers spent much of this time engaging in initiation-response-evaluation conversation patterns rather than engaging students in extensive discussion of text or teaching knowledge or practices (e.g., text structure, reading comprehension strategies) that support reading comprehension.”
In a nutshell, the above excerpt is saying that simply asking and answering questions about what is read is not enough for the comprehension component of instruction. You must also engage in extensive discussion or teach concepts such as text structure or reading comprehension strategies. I’ve written about that before LINK, LINK and will talk more about this in future entries for this series.
So, where does this leave the classroom teacher in terms of what she should teach and when she should teach it? In my opinion, it leaves her between a rock and a hard place. When states mandate programs without considering how much instructional time will be needed to carry them out, they leave the teacher with the choice of using up most of their instructional time on phonics, leaving them little or no time for comprehension. When states mandate programs that only check comprehension (Ask and answer questions) instead of teaching comprehension (reading comprehension strategies, etc.), they leave the teachers with a blueprint for failure. When the kids are given higher-level comprehension questions, they often lack the necessary tools to answer them. Teaching children to use those tools should be a critical part of every literacy program. To add insult to injury, when the mandated programs fail, the blame falls on the teacher rather than on the inadequate programs that many of them are being asked to carry out.
Let’s look at some commonsense answers to this situation:
Common sense suggests that the phonics programs picked must have demonstrated success with students like those being served and demonstrated the ability to achieve that success within the typical time allotments used for phonics instruction.
Common sense dictates that program success in comprehension should demonstrate that the program has been successful in teaching students to use the tools they need to comprehend. The program needs to have demonstrated success with students similar to those being served by each district. They must also demonstrate the ability to achieve that success within the typical time allotments used for literacy instruction. Let’s end this era where many of the most experienced teachers are leaving the field out of frustration, partly because of the way ill-conceived mandates are being carried out. LINK.
I began writing this blog 5 years ago because of complaints from teachers who were forced to give up many things that were working, dispose of them and then replace them with magic kits, many of which simply didn’t work. Wouldn’t it have made much more sense to have them keep what was working and tweak what wasn’t? I remain steadfast in my belief that the real solution to our reading problems does not lie in adopting either phonics-based or meaning-based approaches. It lies instead in allowing districts to use things from both approaches and put together a system of instruction that fits their particular population.
Dare to Dream
Dr. Sam (The guy in the middle, taking flak from both sides!)
Copyright 2025 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
This post is part three of a blog series entitled:Let’s Stop the Nonsense and Start Using Common Sense to Guide Our Reading Practices.
My thoughts about research that challenges some of the Science of Reading’s Interpretations of Brain Research: A blog post by Dr. Sam Bommarito
One of the more recent posts about brain research was made by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, famous for his work in physics. His post was made to his Facebook Group on June 30th. His public group has almost 320,000 followers. He is a world-renowned, well-published expert in physics —a scientist in every sense of the word. One of his posts contained an enry by Dr. ASKY, a well known medical doctor.
In his post, Dr. Tysen quotes Dr ASKY who said:
“Reading seems simple, but a new meta-analysis by neuroscientists at the Max Planck Institute reveals just how complex the brain’s activity is during reading. By analyzing data from 163 brain imaging studies with over 3,000 readers, the researchers mapped how the brain dynamically processes every stage of reading—from letters to full texts—showing that different brain areas are involved depending on the reading task.”
My takeaway from this is that it seems to support the traditional views about reading words. Words are first decoded by sounding out (think “b-a-t”). After several exposures, the words are then stored in a different part of the brain as sight words. These are the whole words, words that we know by sight (think “bat”). Sentence-level reading and reading of longer texts are processed in different ways and in different parts of the brain. As Dr. Tyson indicates, “The Study Reveals reading is a complex, flexible brain process involving multiple neural networks.”
The name of the study is The ‘reading’ brain: Meta-analytic insight into functional activation during reading in adults. Here is a link to the study LINK
Here are some highlights from that study:
The scientists at the Max Planck Institute, where the study was conducted, are not alone in viewing reading as a complex, interactive process. In 2023, I did several interviews with Dr. George Hruby on the topic of brain research. Here is a LINK to one of those interviews. The talking points from that interview are listed below:
As you can see, Dr. Hruby also reports that different reading activities are stored and processed in different parts of the brain.
These are far from the only criticisms of SOR claims about neuroscience but they are ones that I think are important for all literacy folks to know. MY TAKE on all this is that science around the teaching of reading (and writing!) is far from settled. I’ve had many online conversations with SOR advocates who make the claim that readers sound out all their words, even their sight words. Brain research simply does not support that view. In addition, historically, one-size-fits-all solutions have proven ineffective. See what Dr. Hruby said about that in his famous video LINK.
I’ve been teaching since 1970, and I’ve been teaching reading since 1977. I’ve taught every grade, from K to graduate school, including graduate-level reading courses. I often started those courses by announcing that I was going to show a slide containing all the things that would help every child every time. After a dramatic pause, I would put up a blank slide. The point is that what works for one child doesn’t always work with another. For the past five years, I’ve been blogging about the idea that rather than taking sides in the Great Debate, we should take positions on various methods and how and when to apply them. Methods should not be banned simply because they come from the “wrong” point of view. Many in our field have begun taking what I call nuanced positions. This means taking a position where teachers are allowed to use research-based information from all sides, ensuring that they examine all the research, both qualitative and quantitative. It also means working toward the day when there are no sides. When that day comes, it will be a day when teachers are allowed to locate the research-based practices that will help the particular children they are working with. That would be the day when Empowered Teachers are allowed to use alternate methods when the current mainstream methods fail a particular child. Only then will we have a shot at ending the ever-swinging pendulum of reading instruction.
Dare to Dream!
Dr. Sam (The guy in the middle, taking flak from both sides!)
This post is part two of a blog series entitled:
Let’s Stop the Nonsense and Start Using Common Sense to Guide Our Reading Practices
Copyright 2025 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
