For multiple decades, a war in education has been growing. These “reading wars” have been a contentious contest among educators over the most effective way to teach children how to read.
Some are turning to a science-based phonics approach as the nation continues to grapple with declining reading scores.
The newest statistics released by the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as The Nation’s Report Card, showed continuing declines in average scores for reading for students in fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades.
The 2024 average reading score for 12th graders is the lowest ever recorded. These poor performances could be remedied by a switch to a new reading education methodology.
For many years, the educational system in the United States has used a so-called “balanced literacy” methodology. The main criticism against balanced literacy is that it fails to teach phonics effectively and utilizes a whole word approach that relies too much on context. As a result, many are now pushing for a “Science of Reading” approach that focuses more on phonics.
“We’re moving back to what is really grounded in science, which is phonics. It’s how we teach kids how to read most easily,” said SMU PhD researcher Charlotte Gregor, who also holds a master’s degree in education from Vanderbilt University.
Phonics can be defined as the system that ties written letters to spoken sounds in English. Phonics education teaches children to learn the relationships between letters and sounds, allowing them to sound out and read many words instinctively.
And with its intuitive basis, phonics allows children to develop strong reading foundations.
“Our English language has about 900,000 or more words, and so if you’re learning to read with a whole word approach, then you’re basically trying to memorize those words,” Gregor said. “If you’re using phonics, we know we’ve only got 26 letters. They can only make about 44 sounds. So if we know each part of the word and we can sound them out and then put them back together, I only need to teach you those 44 sounds and those 26 letters instead of the entire language.”
Phonics has been shown to be effective in teaching kids how to read and write, helping build reading comprehension and literacy skills.
“Our English language gets a really bad rap that everything doesn’t follow the rules and that all of our words are spelled with crazy derivatives, but actually, about 85 percent of our language could be sounded out if you know the rules of phonics,” Gregor said.
Nationally, many educators have seen the value in phonics education, and this has been reflected in legislation.
In Texas, all public schools are required to use a phonics curriculum from kindergarten through third grade, based on requirements stated in House Bill 3, passed in 2019. Many other states have passed literacy laws in the past five years as well, marking a gradual push towards more science-based reading education across the nation.
In the lower school teachers are tasked with the objective of building the young students into strong readers and writers, and their teaching methods can sometimes include phonics education, among other methods.
“When they arrive and they get here within the first couple weeks of school, we have them bring to us level readers to kind of find out what level they’re on,” first grade teacher Teri Broom said.
Because all students are new to the school in first grade, reading abilities differ from student to student. Some schools don’t teach basic reading skills until first grade while others prioritize reading skills.
“Even within the boys who are reading, they have definitely a range of ability and experience,” Broom said.
Regardless of their background, most students come to the school with knowledge of phonics. Thus, language arts teachers such as Broom focus on other aspects of reading fundamentals.
“In general, they come to us with those skills, so we don’t have to do a lot of that. We just kind of have to reinforce it and assess, but not quite to the same depth that a good Montessori school or good kindergarten would do,” Broom said.
Reading instruction is vastly different across the world. Traditional methods of group readings vary from a more individual learning in a Montessori program. In this spectrum, the school tries a variety of approaches to better help each student.
“I do think it’s a pretty rich program, just because there’s so many facets to it,” Broom said. “If you’re not getting them hooked with one idea, one thing that we’re doing in reading, then maybe you’re getting them in another way.”
As more children are exposed to social media at a younger age, making reading a more exciting experience becomes increasingly important. Transforming the “chore” into a passion leads students to improve fluency and comprehension.
“They each have to hold the book (when reading).” Broom said. “They have to criss-cross applesauce. And then they put the book between them, and then one person reads a page, then the other.”
