Debate rages on over how to teach kids to read

Hackett leads the school system in Lexington, one of the wealthiest towns in the state, where only 38 percent of third-grade students who come from low-income households are meeting grade-level expectations in reading. Not one Black or Latino third-grader exceeded grade-level expectations in reading.

To date, 40 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation or policies to require evidence-based instruction — which includes phonemic awareness, phonics, and instruction that is structured and sequential — because they recognized that their children were not properly learning how to read. Massachusetts has the opportunity to do the same; we have no more time to waste when 6 of every 10 third-graders are missing this critical milestone.

Mary Tamer

Executive director

MassPotential

Jill Norton

Facilitator

Mass Reads Coalition

Boston

Could it be that Lesley University doesn’t want to give up the power that it’s had over the teaching of reading in Massachusetts? Why not just accept that most kids, especially those who don’t live in a wealthy community, need structured phonics?

The authors of “The fallacy of settled science in literacy” complain that the new “science of reading” methods require teachers to follow a script. But when I was trained in Reading Recovery and the Lesley Literacy Collaborative in the early 2000s, I not only had to follow a script but was also constrained by a strict and narrow vision of reading that appears to still hamper their thinking about the current teaching of reading.

Rather than a swinging pendulum or reading wars, why not evolution? The teaching of reading is evolving, and schools and students are benefiting. The authors could learn from others and be open to the fact that structured phonics is essential and helpful to many students.

Eileen Sharkey

Milton

The writer is a retired literacy specialist who taught in North Andover.

In their op-ed, Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Julie Hackett write that debate over the best methods of teaching reading has gone on since the 19th century. It’s true that arguments have gone back and forth — should it be introductory phonics or whole-word reading? Of course it isn’t as simple as that.

Phonics is the basis for all reading that leads to putting all the sounds together so quickly that it results in a completed word. Once this basic approach is instilled in the reader’s mind, the art of reading fluently has begun. Even students who come into school reading fluently have already mastered this instinctively. Yet teaching children phonemic awareness is only the beginning. It must be followed up by reading instruction that includes all the elements of literacy, including vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and writing.

As far back as the 1920s when Dr. Samuel T. Orton recognized that children who were unable to read were not lacking in intelligence but, rather, just needed a systematic approach to become successful readers, he worked with psychologist Anna Gillingham to develop the Orton-Gillingham approach. Many similar programs have been introduced since then, but they all include the basic elements of literacy. Children benefit from this approach.

The op-ed maintains that “young readers get better by reading.” However, how is that possible if they have not been taught how to read?

Joyce Gillis

Lexington

The writer is the retired director of the Children’s Dyslexia Center – Boston North.

I do feel that phonics is a helpful part of sounding out new words, but — and this is key — not everyone can hear the sounds of letters. A good teacher knows that. So, that teacher must find a way to help new readers, be it phonetic, through sight recognition of words, or by other means.

Mary Sullivan

Medway

The writer is a retired second-grade teacher from the Medway Public Schools.

Re “The fallacy of settled science in literacy”: I am dumbfounded that any literacy curriculum purporting to be based on any scientific research would be combined with “attempts to remove storybooks from classrooms.”

In 1972, my husband was in fourth grade in a school in Dorchester so overcrowded that his classroom met in the library. His desk was next to the shelves. He remembers reading biographies about pioneers of aviation: Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron), Eddie Rickenbacker, and Amelia Earhart. He even read a grade-appropriate picture book of “Beowulf.”

This should not have to be spelled out: All classroom shelves should be overflowing with all sorts of books.

Claire Fitzmaurice

Quincy