I was a horrible reader as a child, and am a notoriously slow reader to this day. I empathize a great deal with my students who are not in love with reading - I was quite like them. While TikTok (or whatever other social media American teens are now flocking to) may seem like a detriment, there is evidence that short form video content trends like #BookTok has had a positive effect on literacy engagement for adolescent readers.

Despite this glimmer of hope, there has been a steady and severe decline in reading scores in my district, and our performance is well below our state average, which has led us to look for solutions to improve. For our elementary schools, the solution always seems to be: Let's just keep changing the curriculum until something sticks. Curriculum companies, likely foaming at the mouth, are more than excited to peddle their wares with the promises of increased test scores and daily lessons that are perfectly planned to save our teachers valuable time. Oh if it only ever truly worked that way.

The US as a whole is not too much different than us. If you've been following the online educator space recently, you may have heard that the 2024 NAEP Reading and Math scores have been announced. The overall results may not exactly shock you: Reading scores declined nationwide.

Now, there has been a great deal of debate about how to interpret this data, and how to more accurately adjust the data based on student demographics. I am not here to engage in that particular discussion, but rather to systematically analyze the results and methodologically-- Wait a second -- You see that right there? That deep shade of purple in the Deep South?

What in the world is going on in Mississippi?

We have to talk about Phonics...

Phonics teaching (that is, teaching students to read by sounding out individual words) rather than whole word teaching (getting students to recognize patterns of words in order to read) have been at odds with each other for decades. This academic debate for the best reading method have divided educators, scientists, and politicians alike in a period known as the Reading Wars.

The history of the Reading Wars are marred by conservative propaganda, Cold War ideology, and an undermining of education as a science, which still affects the discourse on the topic today. Removing the politics from the discussion for the moment, the intensive research conducted is straightforward: phonics-based education has a significant impact on student performance in elementary school.

Mississippi is the poster child for phonics education in younger grades. Just over the last 10 years, they have launched themselves from near last place in the NAEP report from 2015, to gracing the top ten in the nation in the latest results. This Mississippi Miracle as it's been coined, has been a predominant talking point for educators and politicians across the country, in part due to Mississippi's interminable devotion to phonics teaching in the classroom. Obviously this cannot be the only aspect involved in Mississippi's recent successes, but it would be difficult to claim that phonics played no part.

When looking at the research, there are many caveats to consider when utilizing phonics instruction. Everybody's favorite literacy academic, Dr. Timothy Shanahan of University of Illinois Chicago, expounds the use of phonics in early primary school education, and implies (with the limited research available) that using methods to explicitly teach the skill of decoding in middle and high school can have positive benefits when paired with other interventions targeted towards students that demonstrate the need for those specific skills. How to do this and which methods are best, however, are up for debate and further research.

Even whole word teaching may also have significant merits when addressing high school-aged youth. Like anything, it is not a one-size-fits-all strategy.

This goes for our language learners as well, Shanahan states in 2017:

No matter what your background, if you are trying to learn to read English, you will have to learn to decode. That means that you will need to be able to perceive English phonemes in oral language and that you will need to learn the relationships between the letters and spelling patterns and those sounds or pronunciations.

Today, we have a plethora more studies to pull from than Shanahan had at this time, which makes things ever more clear. Throughout just the last five years, studies have shown the benefits of phonics for language learners' reading fluency as well as increased reading comprehension and vocabulary development. This principle may have the capacity to efficiently teach language learners, but research is still lacking on which activities are best in order to facilitate this learning, especially for older students.

There is still much to be studied before making more weighty conclusions, but at the very least the research does not indicate teaching phonics will have any negative impact on learners in need. This may be the best we have to go off of for now.

In other words...

I've been on a streak of wanting to shatter the notion that there is any one panacea to a given educational problem. If someone is attempting to persuade you of this, then they are probably trying to sell you something. Education is in a large state of flux with threats to defund, ban, or outright eliminate leadership for one of America's most invaluable institutions. Some predatory professional development charlatans or curriculum hawkers are ready to take advantage of a school at any moment of desperation in order to siphon off public funds with large promises, but few tangible results.

If we want to get the United States education system on the right track, we are not looking at a single program that schools pay for. We need to engage all teachers in effective literacy practices, and accurately identify students in need to provide targeted interventions.

Despite the growing obstacles in our path, educators and educational leaders alike can make changes now that will positively impact our students in the long run. We do not need a shiny new curriculum or PD. We simply need research-based practices that we adjust to our individual students and circumstances, and effective systems created and supported by administration to implement them.

Maybe not so simple.

Reading is an indispensable component to create a civically-minded populace. It single-handedly enables people to efficiently analyze any topic imaginable. Being able to have this silent dialogue with an author who may be long gone, is one of the most fascinating combinations of human cognition and technology. If we have any hope in preserving and sustaining our democracy, we are obligated to put our eggs in this basket regardless of the actions of our leaders.