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Checking on Low Readers’ Achievement in a Phonics-Emphasis Era
By Darrell Morris
Document: Article
Introductory Paragraph: Early reading failure has long been a problem in U.S. schools. Approximately one third of kindergarten/1st-grade students get off to a slow start in reading and have difficulty “catching up” with their average-achieving peers as they move through the elementary grades (Morris et al., 2018; Slavin, 2003). Over the years, schools have addressed the beginning reading problem mainly by changing the classroom teaching approach. For example, since 1975, three instructional approaches have taken turns in influencing how reading is introduced to American schoolchildren: word-based (1975 to 1990), sentence-based (1990 to 2005), and phonics-based (2005 to 2020) (Morris, 2023). In each time period, the ascendant approach led to major changes in reading materials, instructional routines, and teacher training. However, these cyclical changes did not lead to significant gains in reading achievement, particularly for at-risk beginning readers. By the end of 4th grade, one third of all students—one half of those coming from poverty backgrounds—continued to read below the Basic Level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a standardized silent reading test (see Table 1; also see Slavin, 2003). (Note: Although one instructional approach tended to dominate in a given cycle, competing approaches continued to be used on a smaller scale.). In this article, I report on a new and radical reform in beginning reading instruction that is spreading rapidly across the nation. The reform, based on what is often called the “Science of Reading,” is radical in that it mandates, by law, the use of one type of reading instruction—systematic synthetic phonics—in all K-2 classrooms. Surprisingly, there has been little pushback on this singular reform from scholars in the historically contentious field of beginning reading (see, however, a recent and lucid critique by Tierney & Pearson, 2024). Furthermore, public school teachers and administrators have had little input into this instructional change and how it might affect the students in their charge, particularly at-risk beginning readers. Going forward, one thing that educators on the ground can and should do is monitor how this new form of instruction (intensive phonics) affects the achievement of low or struggling readers in grades K-2. At the end of this article, I discuss some simple assessments that directly address this monitoring function.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33600/IRCJ.53.2.2025.32
Page Numbers: 32-40
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