States and school districts are ‘adopting the Science of Reading’ (Schwartz, 2025) as the basis of their early reading programs while critics, such as this recent opinion in the Wall Street Journal, are already saying it doesn’t work despite the incredible results Mississippi schools have achieved using their adopted Science of Reading program. Is this another example of the pendulum swinging in education as we go around in circles.
It is a pattern in our education system that we rush to buy the latest, greatest, shiniest new curriculum. We conduct a day or two of professional development and then declare that our students’ scores are sure to go up. If this is what happens with the Science of Reading, we will again wonder why our students’ literacy is not vastly improved. Shiney new curriculum presented with poor instructional techniques will fail and lose it’s luster.
Make no mistake, I am a strong proponent of the Science of Reading and cautiously optimistic as I watch schools adopt it. The Science of Reading delineates the content of what students need to know to develop as strong readers. As a former reading teacher, principal, and superintendent, I have seen that this content is critical to ensuring all students read at high levels. This content was identified by the National Reading Panel (2000) after extensive review of reading research.
Synthesizing their findings, many publishers and researchers, such as the National Center on Improving Literacy (2022) and the Success for All Foundation (2025), have identified the Science of Reading to include the following skills as critical for reading development and proficiency.
- Phonemic Awareness
- Phonics
- Fluency
- Vocabulary
- Comprehension
However, there is more to teaching and learning than content. There are also the instructional strategies or techniques used to help the learner master the content. How this is done is as critical to success as the content. The instructional strategies must be married with the content to form a program that ensures that every learner is highly engaged and mastering the content.
If we keep teaching reading to young students in small groups where each group gets 20 to 25 minutes of instruction with the teacher and spends the rest of the literacy instructional period working at centers reading/looking at books of their choice or completing worksheets such as coloring all the pictures that start with /d/. We have not changed anything. If we send students who are struggling with reading down the hall to the ESL teacher or the Special Education teacher, once again we have not changed anything.
Those students assigned to the Eagles reading group will most likely remain an Eagle reader throughout school. Those students assigned to the Buzzard reading group will most likely remain a below level reader and struggle throughout their educational career. (Holmes, 2023; Shanahan, 2025). As we work to adopt new curriculum, why do we cling to the very practices that have failed us time and time again.
We have strong evidence of what works in teaching students to read. Multiple sites now review rigorous studies conducted on various reading programs and publicize those with reliable and replicable strong positive results. Educators can find these results online at Best Evidence Encyclopedia, Evidence for ESSA, Proven Tutoring, and What Works Clearinghouse (be sure you are looking at intervention reports, not practice guides which are not research proven.)
The programs that work not only contain the content of the Science of Reading, but also use instructional strategies that highly engage all students in learning to read for the entire literacy block. These programs use explicit instruction, teacher modeling, and true cooperative learning (not group work). They demand rigorous engagement from students, while teaching grade level and above skills with no lowering of grade level expectations.
Recently Education Week, published a list of states that have adopted the Science of Reading. The majority of these states have included requirements for what materials or programs districts can use. These list of programs/materials, created by the states, reminds me of the 2000s when Reading First was pouring money into states for reading instruction.
Will We Ever Learn?
If you have been around Education for a while, you will remember the Reading First and Early Reading First programs supported by the U.S. Department of Education. These programs provided large sums of monies to states to adopt curriculums selected by their states and approved by the USDE. These curriculums were to provide instruction on the five components of the science of reading and provide teachers professional development and coaching. However very few of the programs selected were research proven.
The end results of Reading First and Early Reading First found that the program only slightly increased the amount of instructional time spent on the five essential components of reading instruction (Science of Reading). It significantly improved first graders’ decoding skills. However, it did not produce a significant impact on reading comprehension (Institute of Education Sciences, 2008; Shanahan, 2020; MDRC, 2009).
So, while these programs changed the reading content that many teachers taught, they did not change significantly the amount of time spent on reading instruction for individual students (increase of up to 10 minutes per day) or the instructional strategies that teachers were using so that students were getting a full 90 to 120 minutes of engaged literacy instruction rather than 25 minutes in a reading group with the teacher and the rest of the time occupied by busy work so the teacher could teach another group.
To qualify for some of the huge amount of funds being poured into literacy instruction by the federal government the states, with federal sign-off, had to identify what reading programs they would approve to be used in school districts. Districts could access the funds with the adoption of one of these programs.
There was not an emphasis on ensuring that the programs approved by the state were research proven programs (not just research based) being used to ensure that all students mastered the content. The short list that each state had of approved reading programs for Reading First, almost without exception, included textbook adoptions from major curriculum publishers that had little to no rigorous research conducted on them to determine their effectiveness. In fact, the directors working for the U.S. Department of Education to approve state selections of reading programs were also found being “paid to promote certain publishers while simultaneously advising schools to adopt the company’s products” (Center for Public Integrity, 2008).
Our children only get one shot at their education. Let’s not mess it up using programs that have not been proven through rigorous research. We must use research proven programs that marry the Science of Reading and highly effective instructional strategies.
Mississippi has dedicated years to intense staff development on the phonemic awareness and phonics components of the Science of Reading. They divided the Science of Reading content into two major areas: decoding and language comprehension. They are now focusing on helping teachers explicitly teach language comprehension in reading and throughout the content areas. Classroom instruction is changing because of this and more students are learning to read. Let’s keep watching what’s happening in Mississippi schools as they continue to work to develop all students as strong readers.
References:
Center for Public Integrity, (Dec. 10, 2008). Reading First: Scandalous and Ineffective. Retrieved at https://publicintegrity.org/politics/reading-first-scandalous-and-ineffective/
Holmes, G. (2023). Equity in Our Schools: Ensuring Marginalized Students Achieve At A High Level. Chapter 4. Rowman and Littlefied.
Institute for Education Sciences, (Nov. 2008). Reading First Impact Study: Final Report. U.S. Department of Education
MDRC. (June 2009) Understanding Reading First, Policy Brief Retrieved at https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/understanding_reading_first.pdf
National Center on Improving Literacy. (2022). The Science of Reading: An Overview. https://www.improvingliteracy.org/resource/the-science-of-reading-an-overview
Schwartz, S. (Oct. 9, 2025). Which States Have Passed ‘Science of Reading’ Laws? What’s in The? Education Week.
Shanahan, T. (2025). Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives: How Students’ Reading Achievement Has Been Held Back and What We Can Do About It. Harvard Education Press
Shanahan, T. (Jan. 18, 2020). Shanahan on Literacy: Did Reading First Reveal Phonics Instruction to be Futile? Retrieved at https://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/did-reading-first-reveal-phonics-instruction-to-be-futile
Success for All Foundation (2025), Alignment to the Science of Reading Standards. https://www.successforall.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SFA_SoR_alignment_2025.pdf
This blog is written by Dr. GwenCarol Holmes, a long-time educator and passionate advocate for all students mastering rigorous standards.