This is a piece that is both brilliant and beautiful--a rare combination. As a former high school English teacher, I share many of your experiences. But as a current reading specialist working at the elementary school level, I took a different stance in this piece: Can We Inspire a Love of Reading? (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/can-we-inspire-a-love-of-reading?r=5spuf) without negating your primary points. I'm going to use this piece as a springboard for a follow-up. And I will certainly reread it so that I can quote liberally. Thank you for this amazing contribution to near-perfect prose.
I am familiar with that interview where she distinguishes between lower case science of reading and upper case SOR. Very important distinction. Especially this:
“Those are conducted by cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists. They're focusing on neurological and cognitive processes involved in reading, and often those are studies conducted in labs. Very important to know. There is a Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. They have conferences. They have a journal titled Scientific Studies of Reading, and some folks might be familiar with the books written by Mark Seidenberg, Maryanne Wolf, great works that help us understand how reading processes occur in the brain.
Helpful scholarship, interesting work. I love reading those books. However, the important part is that's not the only thing that we see happening. The second part is the science of reading where it's all capitalized. And some people just now say SOR, right? They don't even bother spelling it out.”
She agrees with the science of reading in those books and articles and that’s my interest as well. Thanks for raising this issue, though I’m concerned that you didn’t make this distinction clear in your comment.
Her distinguishing "SOR" from small-s science is less important than her drawing a line between Hanford's marketing, Amplify CKLA (and other curriculums), and the political/social/financial agenda of groups such as ALEC. She says things like, "So (the Science of Reading) is actually an onslaught on progressive pedagogy. It is actually an attack on civil rights and social justice because the people who support this movement, or who are writing materials for this movement question the agenda of justice, equity, and diversity. Hirsch, Ed Hirsch, who developed Core Knowledge Language Arts, blames multicultural education for the achievement gaps."
Phonics is a skill that some kids need help with, but the overemphasis of phonics skills at the expense of meaningful literacy events is a form of oppression.
Not really. Just because someone says it, it doesn't make it true.
This piece, Stop Gaslighting Teachers (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/stop-gaslighting-teachers?r=5spuf), gives you the distinctions that I, as a reading specialist, make. As for progressive ideology promoting an "agenda of justice, equity, and diversity," this advocacy is also murkier than you make it out to be. I should know because I have spent my entire career working with underprivileged children.
Reading researcher Keith Stanovich wrote in 2000:
"Ironically, the primary casualties of the Reading Wars are disadvantaged children who are not immersed in a literate environment and who are not taught the alphabetic code—precisely the children that progressive forces most want to aid. As Adams’s (1990) book makes clear, research has shown that a very efficient way to generate large social class differences in reading achievement is to implement an extreme whole language curriculum that shortchanges the explicit teaching of spelling-sound relationships."
But I do want to thank you for inspiring a future post: SOR: The good, the bad, and the ugly which I will base on Aydarova's interview. I will notify you when it posts.
"Elena Aydarova uses an anthropology of policy approach to analyze advocacy efforts that promoted SOR reforms and legislative deliberations in Tennessee. Drawing on Barthes’s theory of mythology, this analysis sheds light on the semiotic chains that link SOR with tradition, knowledge-building curricula, and the scaling down of social safety nets. This deciphering of SOR mythologies underscores how the focus on “science” distorts the intentions of these myths to naturalize socioeconomic inequality and depoliticize social conditions of precarity. This study problematizes the claims made by SOR advocates and sheds light on the ways these reforms are likely to reproduce, rather than disrupt, inequities and injustices."
I will definitely read and spend a lot of time trying to sort out all the jargon. In the meantime, I hope you read Stop Gaslighting Teachers (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/stop-gaslighting-teachers?r=5spuf) as well as Is Carl Hendrick Right about Reading? (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/is-carl-hendrick-right-about-reading?r=5spuf) to understand how I am first and foremost interested in SOR realities, not so-called mythologies. Every child I can send away from my intervention program able to read is a f****** big deal. I can't overemphasize this enough. Ask my students, and ask their parents. As one second grade boy recently said, "You changed my life--you made me become a reader." And anything that undermines my ability to help my students is problematic to say the least.
This was beautiful. A few weeks ago, my youngest daughter told me what she thinks is wrong with her peers: they're not readers. In her words, reading and writing fiction has always taught her empathy, then concluded that her own future children will be readers.
The benefit of having another reader in the family is that I receive great books from her on holidays.
This article is the truth beautifully expressed. As a primary school teacher I continue to create an environment that provides this experience for students and prepares them for even deeper future journeys. All the things people say about students struggling with learning gaps, short attention, lower skills etc., are true. And a high percentage come from homes where there is no reading habit.
But this is all the more reason we cannot give up. Despite all that, each year I have a high percentage of students who leave as readers. As I tell them at the beginning of the year, I choose to be the teacher who teaches them the most, even thought might not make me their “favorite”. It is not about my ego it is about their education. And their growing success and understanding is the best form of motivation and engagement.
Thank you to all the teachers who are still there showing their love for students with high standards for our craft and for their growth.
Thank you for writing this lovely, insightful piece! I waited until I had ample time to read it and give it proper attention, only to find that that very act was part of your point.
As a teacher of English in Melbourne, this is something I have grappled with for a long time. I soon have to teach We have always lived in the castle for Year 12 English and it has caused me a lot of concern in how to get students to engage with the text. My recent mantra was that I wasn't there to make students love books and reading but to value reading for what it provides. Namely different perspectives untainted by an algorithm, apart from that of the assessment body that creates the text list. I have recently started to engage with explicit teaching with my classes and feel that by digging into knowledge and then letting students apply the knowledge to the text will allow them greater opportunities to interact and develop a voice. Keen to hear how other senior teachers lead students into learning texts in preparation for assessments and exams that still builds an appreciation for what reading can provide.
"The idea of attention or contemplation, of looking carefully at something and holding it before the mind, may be conveyed early on in childhood. 'Look, listen, isn't that pretty, isn't that nice?' Also, 'Don't touch!' This is moral training as well as preparation for a pleasurable life. (...) The far reaching idea of respect is included in such teaching." Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. This Murdochian sentiment you so beautifully describe is the main inspiration of my last piece as well!
I am a long-form writer, and have found myself editing and deleting, making my sentences shorter, less poetic. This affects us all. Our world has become shrill.
I loved this. I think it cannot be underestimated how dangerous it is that we are surrounding ourselves with only our own experience, our own desires and whims. I am going to bookmark and reread. So clearly and beautifully written.
In my fourth year of teaching I taught senior Philosophy (to Year 12, so 17 year olds) for the first time, and the Sovereignty of Good was on the mandated text list for 'The Good Life' (alongside Aristotle, Plato and Nietzsche). I had never studied it before, and so I learned it and felt it's impact alongside my students. As you say, it was transformative, and changed forever the way I viewed attention (and kestrels!) Am loving these pieces on reading Karl.
This is a piece that is both brilliant and beautiful--a rare combination. As a former high school English teacher, I share many of your experiences. But as a current reading specialist working at the elementary school level, I took a different stance in this piece: Can We Inspire a Love of Reading? (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/can-we-inspire-a-love-of-reading?r=5spuf) without negating your primary points. I'm going to use this piece as a springboard for a follow-up. And I will certainly reread it so that I can quote liberally. Thank you for this amazing contribution to near-perfect prose.
If you think the "Science of Reading" has any credence, you should be reading Elena Aydarova.
https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/podcast-saldana-aydarova
I am familiar with that interview where she distinguishes between lower case science of reading and upper case SOR. Very important distinction. Especially this:
“Those are conducted by cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists. They're focusing on neurological and cognitive processes involved in reading, and often those are studies conducted in labs. Very important to know. There is a Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. They have conferences. They have a journal titled Scientific Studies of Reading, and some folks might be familiar with the books written by Mark Seidenberg, Maryanne Wolf, great works that help us understand how reading processes occur in the brain.
Helpful scholarship, interesting work. I love reading those books. However, the important part is that's not the only thing that we see happening. The second part is the science of reading where it's all capitalized. And some people just now say SOR, right? They don't even bother spelling it out.”
She agrees with the science of reading in those books and articles and that’s my interest as well. Thanks for raising this issue, though I’m concerned that you didn’t make this distinction clear in your comment.
Her distinguishing "SOR" from small-s science is less important than her drawing a line between Hanford's marketing, Amplify CKLA (and other curriculums), and the political/social/financial agenda of groups such as ALEC. She says things like, "So (the Science of Reading) is actually an onslaught on progressive pedagogy. It is actually an attack on civil rights and social justice because the people who support this movement, or who are writing materials for this movement question the agenda of justice, equity, and diversity. Hirsch, Ed Hirsch, who developed Core Knowledge Language Arts, blames multicultural education for the achievement gaps."
Phonics is a skill that some kids need help with, but the overemphasis of phonics skills at the expense of meaningful literacy events is a form of oppression.
Is that clearer?
"Is that clearer?"
Not really. Just because someone says it, it doesn't make it true.
This piece, Stop Gaslighting Teachers (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/stop-gaslighting-teachers?r=5spuf), gives you the distinctions that I, as a reading specialist, make. As for progressive ideology promoting an "agenda of justice, equity, and diversity," this advocacy is also murkier than you make it out to be. I should know because I have spent my entire career working with underprivileged children.
Reading researcher Keith Stanovich wrote in 2000:
"Ironically, the primary casualties of the Reading Wars are disadvantaged children who are not immersed in a literate environment and who are not taught the alphabetic code—precisely the children that progressive forces most want to aid. As Adams’s (1990) book makes clear, research has shown that a very efficient way to generate large social class differences in reading achievement is to implement an extreme whole language curriculum that shortchanges the explicit teaching of spelling-sound relationships."
But I do want to thank you for inspiring a future post: SOR: The good, the bad, and the ugly which I will base on Aydarova's interview. I will notify you when it posts.
In your future post, make sure to thoroughly address her article in Harvard Educational Review:
https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-93.4.556
"Elena Aydarova uses an anthropology of policy approach to analyze advocacy efforts that promoted SOR reforms and legislative deliberations in Tennessee. Drawing on Barthes’s theory of mythology, this analysis sheds light on the semiotic chains that link SOR with tradition, knowledge-building curricula, and the scaling down of social safety nets. This deciphering of SOR mythologies underscores how the focus on “science” distorts the intentions of these myths to naturalize socioeconomic inequality and depoliticize social conditions of precarity. This study problematizes the claims made by SOR advocates and sheds light on the ways these reforms are likely to reproduce, rather than disrupt, inequities and injustices."
I will definitely read and spend a lot of time trying to sort out all the jargon. In the meantime, I hope you read Stop Gaslighting Teachers (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/stop-gaslighting-teachers?r=5spuf) as well as Is Carl Hendrick Right about Reading? (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/is-carl-hendrick-right-about-reading?r=5spuf) to understand how I am first and foremost interested in SOR realities, not so-called mythologies. Every child I can send away from my intervention program able to read is a f****** big deal. I can't overemphasize this enough. Ask my students, and ask their parents. As one second grade boy recently said, "You changed my life--you made me become a reader." And anything that undermines my ability to help my students is problematic to say the least.
This was beautiful. A few weeks ago, my youngest daughter told me what she thinks is wrong with her peers: they're not readers. In her words, reading and writing fiction has always taught her empathy, then concluded that her own future children will be readers.
The benefit of having another reader in the family is that I receive great books from her on holidays.
This article is the truth beautifully expressed. As a primary school teacher I continue to create an environment that provides this experience for students and prepares them for even deeper future journeys. All the things people say about students struggling with learning gaps, short attention, lower skills etc., are true. And a high percentage come from homes where there is no reading habit.
But this is all the more reason we cannot give up. Despite all that, each year I have a high percentage of students who leave as readers. As I tell them at the beginning of the year, I choose to be the teacher who teaches them the most, even thought might not make me their “favorite”. It is not about my ego it is about their education. And their growing success and understanding is the best form of motivation and engagement.
Thank you to all the teachers who are still there showing their love for students with high standards for our craft and for their growth.
James Furey's account on X reposted this essay, and it's very nearly caused a kerfluffle. Maybe dust up.
https://x.com/JamesAFurey/status/1928070947837284608?t=ZeeSOWsrdyzjWuaiL7DZEg&s=19
Thank you for writing this lovely, insightful piece! I waited until I had ample time to read it and give it proper attention, only to find that that very act was part of your point.
As a teacher of English in Melbourne, this is something I have grappled with for a long time. I soon have to teach We have always lived in the castle for Year 12 English and it has caused me a lot of concern in how to get students to engage with the text. My recent mantra was that I wasn't there to make students love books and reading but to value reading for what it provides. Namely different perspectives untainted by an algorithm, apart from that of the assessment body that creates the text list. I have recently started to engage with explicit teaching with my classes and feel that by digging into knowledge and then letting students apply the knowledge to the text will allow them greater opportunities to interact and develop a voice. Keen to hear how other senior teachers lead students into learning texts in preparation for assessments and exams that still builds an appreciation for what reading can provide.
I liked your article
I liked your article
"The idea of attention or contemplation, of looking carefully at something and holding it before the mind, may be conveyed early on in childhood. 'Look, listen, isn't that pretty, isn't that nice?' Also, 'Don't touch!' This is moral training as well as preparation for a pleasurable life. (...) The far reaching idea of respect is included in such teaching." Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. This Murdochian sentiment you so beautifully describe is the main inspiration of my last piece as well!
Here's what you inspired: Is Carl Hendrick Right about Reading? (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/is-carl-hendrick-right-about-reading?r=5spuf)
Thank you!
I am a long-form writer, and have found myself editing and deleting, making my sentences shorter, less poetic. This affects us all. Our world has become shrill.
I loved this. I think it cannot be underestimated how dangerous it is that we are surrounding ourselves with only our own experience, our own desires and whims. I am going to bookmark and reread. So clearly and beautifully written.
In my fourth year of teaching I taught senior Philosophy (to Year 12, so 17 year olds) for the first time, and the Sovereignty of Good was on the mandated text list for 'The Good Life' (alongside Aristotle, Plato and Nietzsche). I had never studied it before, and so I learned it and felt it's impact alongside my students. As you say, it was transformative, and changed forever the way I viewed attention (and kestrels!) Am loving these pieces on reading Karl.