ChatGPT is raising concerns about the future of learning and advancing a new way to obtain information. Since many journalists, cognitive psychologists, educators, and parents claim that the Science of Reading (SoR) is the authentic way all children will learn to read, and there’s a drive for states to adopt expensive SoR programs, I asked ChatGPT what it thought about SoR as settled science.
One can argue that ChatGPT isn’t always precise, but it scans a massive amount of information so well that many are concerned that it will replace various professions. It has been dubbed scary good, especially concerning the future of jobs, but it’s also revolutionary.
For those new to ChatGPT it is described as follows:
…a language model developed by OpenAI, designed to respond to text-based queries and generate natural language responses. It is part of the broader field of artificial intelligence known as natural language processing (NLP), which seeks to teach computers to understand and interpret human language.
Here’s the question posed to ChatGPT and the answer it gives.
Is the “science of reading” settled science that determines how reading should be taught?
The “science of reading” refers to a body of research that has investigated how the brain learns to read, and what instructional approaches are most effective in helping children become proficient readers. While there is broad agreement among researchers that phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension are important components of effective reading instruction, there is ongoing debate and research on the best ways to teach each of these components.
Therefore, while there is a growing body of evidence-based research on how reading should be taught, the “science of reading” is not settled science in the sense that there is a single, universally accepted approach to teaching reading. Educational policies and instructional strategies can vary across states, districts, and schools, and there may be different interpretations of the research and how it should be applied in practice.
Moreover, the needs of individual students can also differ, and effective reading instruction should be tailored to meet the needs of individual learners. Therefore, while the “science of reading” provides valuable insights and guidance for educators, it should be used in conjunction with professional judgment and a deep understanding of the unique needs and strengths of individual students.
Focus primarily on the last paragraph and professional judgment. When it comes to teaching reading, it’s still the teacher and their evaluation to consider the individual needs of students. There is no one way to teach lessons, and every child deserves an individualized evaluation of how they’re learning and what’s needed without harshness and sometimes the unreasonable expectations that are written for all children on standardized tests.
ChatGPT could be better, is concerning, and might make mistakes. Still, the above seems well-described, especially upon observing the discussions and debates surrounding how to instruct students with decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Nothing seems written in stone.
Reading should never be considered one way of instruction. And the Science of Reading enthusiasts leave much out in their persuasion of how reading should be taught to everyone.
It is the teachers, those who teach children in the classroom, who should be given the resources and support that they need to work with children, all children, including those who have reading difficulties. It is their professional judgment and understanding of how individual children learn to read and what they need to be successful.
Bingo!
Yes! I thought so too. Thanks, Nancy.
????????
Mic Drop????️????heard around the. Science of Reading folks…….
“One Way for All, All for One with 100% Mastery” crowd……..Remember, No Child Left Behind…..nonsense?
Many of us, career special education teachers, have taught students who responded to some or few different ways, with creative trials and creative ideas, to learning to read — taught thousands of different learners who struggled in Reading.
The 100% Phonics or Die folks are willing to sort through 4-5 year olds, screen & test, looking for the slightest signs of Dyslexia, label them, provide interventions and have only one basic way of “teaching reading” to them. If they don’t make progress with 100% Phonics, THEY MUST BE SP ED.
Never crossed their minds that some children are not ready, some can’t see or hear well, bilingual,
some may learn to read differently, some need more time, some don’t like a RESPONSE COST evaluation system in PreK or K (or should ever).
Yes, there are children with Dyslexia, adults, too. Screening the world assembly line, has many more unforeseen harmful consequences for children. Easiest way to Kill the Joy of Reading.
Little ones are paying that price!
Thank you, Hanna. I appreciate your comments. We remember how it used to work. Somehow it has gone backward.
Yes! This is so sad and completely unnecessary. Emily Hanford, journalist who has never taught a child to read, is propagating misinformation that she doesn’t understand. We must all speak out! Thank you!
That’s not even a slightly meaningful critique. Most journalists have never done the things they report about. This does not make their reporting any less valid, In fact there’s a very good argument that it can make their reporting more valid, because they are not in the middle of the issue themselves..
I agree that reporters have every right to write about subjects they aren’t involved in, but I find Hanford’s reporting biased with an agenda. I believe she leaves out a lot. ChatCPT collects massive amounts of information and uses it to make meaning. It is what it is, and I found it interesting.
I agree that Emily Hanford’s reporting has an agenda, I think that was clear from the beginning and is clear even from the title. I thought of it as investigative reporting which is more often than not this way.
As for ChatGPT, it mostly provides a survey of what’s found on the internet, sometimes accurately and sometimes not. I don’t think it “makes meaning,” more just reports and synthesizes. Since people post various often strongly held opinions about Science of Reading online, if it’s working as designed I would have expected it to say exactly what it said: there are varying opinions about SoR, and the discussions around it are not “settled.”.
A lot of the critiques I see in this thread don’t at all match my understanding of SoR and its proponents. For example, someone characterized it as”100% Phonics or Die” which I have never seen anyone advocate, and which I agree would make no sense. Perhaps there are some people who really say that but I would think it’s a small minority if it’s there at all. Similarly I haven’t seen advocacy for ignoring teachers’ professional judgment or for using a single fixed approach for all children, and I frankly don’t know why these are being seen as characteristics of SoR.
There are many who claim it is settled science, and my particular concern is the pushdown of structured phonics and the pushout of other developmentally, tried and true activities, appropriate for early learners. Kindergarten has become the new first grade. Thanks for your comment, Tom
I totally agree about the push down of more structured curriculum to lower grades. But it seems like a somewhat different issue because I think that was going on way before science of reading became a driving force the way it is now. The issues around science of reading are about the best approaches to use — *how* reading is taught. The push down to lower grades is about *when* those approaches are taught. Obviously there are some things that connect them in terms of what is developmentally appropriate at different ages, but I don’t think that’s what’s driving either one.
The pushdown began with NCLB and Reading First which was about phonics instruction. Many who were involved in Reading First have reemerged with the Science of Reading. It’s an interesting history if you’ve got time.
Given students are now expected to read at a younger age, with benchmarks on which teachers are evaluated in Kindergarten and 1st grade, it makes sense that teachers would advocate for an approach that helps students reach these benchmarks “on time.” Scripted phonics helps meet that goal. The question remains whether overly focusing on this approach is helpful for students long term.
Not that ChatGPT is a reliable authority – but as we get pushed by Science of Reading advocates, I have been doing a close look at the research and opinions – and my main takeaway echos what I practiced in my 38-year teaching career. We have to provide all skills necessary to develop critical thinkers and help them make sense of the world around them. In this case, reading is much more than decoding. The vast majority of struggling readers I’ve worked with can decode. The issues are complex and any narrow view is bound to fail.
I agree, Jeff. Thanks.
Well said!
Thank you! i completely agree!
Genuinely asking: How do kids learn differently in Tennessee US vs. Australia vs. England?
Are you talking about how they learn in school? There’s quite a lot they have in common when it comes to reading and the claims surrounding the Science of Reading.
I find ChatGPT’s answer to question
“Is the “science of reading” settled science that determines how reading should be taught?”
amazingly good.
If it ever becomes aware that English literacy problems are uniquely Anglophone, caused by the inconsistencies of English spelling, the chances of learning to read and write English being made easier will become much greater.
Does anyone have any suggestions for how I can make aware of my work, especially my blog http://englishspellingproblems.blogspot.co.uk
Thanks, Masha. I can’t wait to check this out. It looks interesting!
PS Even after using English as my first language for 58 years now, I am still subconsciously nervous about writing in it and so apt to make silly slips, esp. leaving out short words (as in the comment I just posted.)
I understand. I tend to make ridiculous mistakes, especially when writing fast. I must check over and over.
This may sound like a strange metaphor, but when a bomb is dropped from 35,000 feet, it rarely hits its target and usually makes a big mess. When David Tyack wrote his book, “The One Best System” in 1974, his basic critique of systemic thinking attributed to pubic school bureaucracy was that it ignored what was happening on the ground floor; the school house. The science of reading is a reproduction of the school improvement approach that says one size fits all. Yes, phonemic awareness can be a significant building block toward reading fluently, but total focus on such fluency too often results in poor comprehension. We have a plethora of conditions and circumstances that have produced a wide array of schools driven primarily by socio-economic forces. In spite Hanford’s claims, most large districts have been using SoR strategies for over two decades with no real improvement. A desire to read comes from an understanding that there is something of benefit ahead. As we continue to make education policy choices at 35,000 feet, few benefit unless they had the resources or models to promote reading. We leave students behind because we don’t look at them as individuals. Schools are organisms, not machines. If we want to have a true impact on literacy, that is a lot more than simply reading by the way, then we need to provide the resources required to serve individual students at the school house.
Thank you for your great rundown, Paul. “In spite of Hanford’s claims, most large districts have been using SoR strategies for over two decades with no real improvement.” This is one of the facts that make her reporting so disturbing and why her work is difficult to fathom for me. I don’t think many of those on board for her work remember much about No Child Left Behind (Reading First) or the era of the unproven Hooked on Phonics programs (remember that one?). Many of those from Reading First have returned. Hanford brushes off concerns about NCLB from 2001 and Common Core State Standards. CCSS has existed since 2010. She also ignores the problems with online programs, which have done reading programs and corresponding assessments for years. I find her work biased.
YES!
Reading historic research, patterns, events, outcomes are critically important.
Not everything New is New or worth repeating.
Scholars owe it to the profession and to the public to research scholarly information, have actual experience in education and real children,
not adopting the LATEST NEW & IMPROVED idea which is often
more connected to $$$ than to ethics.
Due to the Huge teacher shortage & mass exit of highly experienced and educated career teachers, falling for every Tom, Dick & Harriet’s NEW CURE in teaching children about literacy is basically experimenting with children and never there to intervene when failure takes a toll for children.
Teaching is a PROFESSION not a fallback job or a stepping stone to something with quick results.
The constant advertisement world approach to educating children is exhausting, wrong, and damaging to kids and teachers.
I thank H. Hurley, who recognizes what it means to be a professional teacher. Great words. Thank you so much for commenting.
I totally agree with you that one size fits all is pretty much helpful to no one, but it’s also not mostly what I see happening here. I see the proponents of SoR focusing on phonics not because systematic phonics instruction is the only thing that matters, but because it has been missing. In other words, the focus is not because that’s the only important thing but because it hasn’t received enough attention and support, and there is new scientific evidence about its importance. Is there something in the current widespread support for SoR that promotes a “total focus” on phonics, that says *only* phonics matters? If so, what? I haven’t seen it. People here seem to be reacting as if it’s a fact that SoR proponents want a “phonics only” approach. Seems to me that is mostly a misinterpretation.
An analogy (imperfect as they always are, but perhaps it helps make my point): In my city there’s an historical lack of bicycle infrastructure, and cyclists have been very noisy about it, and politically successful in getting some changes made (I’m a cyclist myself, but not involved in the local politics of the issue). Others accuse them of only caring about improving the cycling infrastructure, and not about cars or drivers, the climate costs of more idling traffic, etc. But in fact most of the cyclists own cars and are drivers also. They focus on the infrastructure issue because it’s an issue that hasn’t been addressed, not because it’s all they care about or all they think is needed.
I am curious about your comment that most large districts have been using SoR strategies for years. Is that documented somewhere? Because anecdotally I hear about large districts recently moving toward using SoR strategies and away from whatever they were doing before. So either we are hearing about different districts, or different conceptions of what SoR is.
Finally, re “A desire to read comes from an understanding that there is something of benefit ahead” … I think it’s more complex than that, but as a general summary I’d agree. My kids certainly wanted that benefit, but they could not access it because most of the reading instruction they got was haphazardly based on whatever training their teachers had. And most of those teachers used balanced literacy approaches like Fountas and Pinell, and (in first grade) Reading Recovery. The teachers did not have the skills and experience to recognize their need for, or offer, phonics instruction that would have allowed them to access text. When they finally got help from Orton-Gillingham practitioners, they did far better – though that was again just the luck of the draw on who the district had hired at a particular grade level and what training they came with. Anyway, for them systematic phonics instruction absolutely worked, and enabled them to capture meaning from text. The balanced literacy approaches absolutely did not, and made reading an extremely frustrating and unpleasant experience which affects them to some extent even to this day (they’re young adults now). Did they also need to be excited about the content of books and the pleasure of reading? Of course, and they were when we or others read to them. But they could not do that for themselves without the systematic phonics that their early grades teachers could not give them. So I have little sympathy for the arguments that claim phonics instruction is in conflict with the love of reading. I’m sure if done poorly it can be, but for my kids it was totally the opposite. I know or know of dozens of parents with stories like this, and what Emily Hanford had to say in her podcast about the way kids cam suffer without good phonics instruction completely connected for me as a parent.