I’m not a gambler, but if I were, I’d bet that a lot of parents whose elementary school-age children are getting explicit phonics instruction, memorizing rules, and who can define words like diphthong and schwa will be disappointed when their children get to high school and couldn’t care less about reading.
New reading programs promising the Science of Reading don’t cover what children need to become good readers. What’s missing are reading comprehension and the incentive to read because it’s fun and interesting.
When critics of public schools and teachers debate how to teach reading comprehension today, they chatter about knowledge building (of course, previous knowledge is important) and raise questions like, should you teach a child about the main idea? (of course, you should), as if teachers haven’t taught children to read (and write) in the past.
The difference is that, today, they often ignore the main star: books children like to read.
There are several reasons for this.
1. Many programs being chosen to teach reading in the name of the Science of Reading fail to place reading comprehension, vital to children’s learning to read, at the heart of learning.
The Atlantic’s recent The Schools That Are No Longer Teaching Kids to Read Books, by Xochitl Gonzalez, showed how bad it has become:
The city [NYC] has adopted a new literacy regimen under which many public elementary schools are, in effect, giving up the teaching of books—storybooks, narrative nonfiction books, children’s chapter books—altogether. The curriculum is part of an initiative from the Eric Adams administration called, ironically, NYC Reads.
Gonzalez discusses the chosen reading programs. EL Education (which I have written about) and Wit and Wisdom use fiction and nonfiction to discuss real-world issues and pique curiosity, but these programs are controlled. Children read what they’re told to read.
According to the author, another program called myBooks has a questionable amount of book reading. The students get mostly phonics and excerpts of longer narrative decodable readers.
Children don’t appear to get chapter books, which provide reading practice with stories they love before moving on to more difficult reading material. It also doesn’t sound like there’s much exploratory reading or writing for expression either.
What’s chilling, the Department of Education consultants police classrooms to make sure teachers are using the materials they’re told.
Gonzalez makes excellent points, but it’s unclear why they’re critical of balanced literacy, where understanding text and reading books is highlighted and a prominent feature of learning to read.
2. Reading instruction has been influenced by nonprofits and for-profits, people who write about it, cognitive psychologists, corporations and others who usually don’t teach.
I’ve never been opposed to viewpoints from beyond the classroom, but there’s real concern today that the Science of Reading is politicized.
In light of the Gonzales report, the new programs receiving the stamp of approval from EdReports, should raise questions.
EdReports is funded by Broadcom Corporation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, the Helmsley Charitable Trust, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Overdeck Family Foundation, the Samueli Foundation, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, the Stuart Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Oak Foundation.
Many individuals representing these corporations have favored school choice, charter schools, and reduced requirements for teachers (they’re fans of Teach for America). So when they tell Americans how reading should be taught, shouldn’t red flags fly?
How much input did teachers and parents have in choosing these programs that will dominate how their children will learn in school? Did their voices count? If they did, why would they neglect the use of books and the stories that help children thrive?
3. It’s a global problem.
Casting reading comprehension aside, has been described as a global problem, as New Zealand’s guest blogger Ian Powell recently noted in the 2024 Hegemony, Meaning, and Structured Literacy.
Powell states:
Phonics has in various ways previously formed part of literacy learning in New Zealand. It can be a useful additional aid for some children. However, structured literacy places it at the centre; the be-all and end-all. Meaning is a casualty.
New Zealand ended its successful reading program including Reading Recovery which has been criticized by SoR advocates, for children experiencing reading difficulties. As in this country, the changes have focused on unproven political ideology and reduced reading for meaning to phonics.
3. Commercialized programs, many on screens, are replacing teacher expertise, stealing their autonomy for innovation, and further eroding teacher professionalism.
Without teachers to encourage children to read good literature, to discuss novels, read together in class, and help children choose books, children will not care about reading.
The same folks who cast aside three reading programs, seem impervious to the pricey so-called SoR advertised programs being bought up in school districts that disregard reading for pleasure.
There’s little accountability and even less proof that these programs will work.
Parents disliked so much computer time during the pandemic, why do they not object to it in their child’s classroom?
4. Emphasizing isolated phonics skills and rules without understanding that reading comprehension, reading interesting material for meaning, must be consistently integrated with skill acquisition.
One misconception is the idea that children must learn to decode early, so they’re flooded with phonics sounds and rules, and then switch to reading to learn by third grade, where they might fail a test.
Children comprehend text also while learning to read, auditorily and visually, and reading comprehension is as critical as phonemic awareness and decoding from the start.
Also, children continue to become better readers after third grade. Even adults can improve their reading skills.
Decodable books reinforce phonics skills, and determining the level of a book to help children build confidence can help too, although both decodable and leveled books can be boring.
It’s a better bet to determine the readability of a quality trade book, that the child will find interesting, where they can read and conquer.
The real joy for children is to let them choose books or reading content they want. A good librarian or teacher can help them do this. Provide opportunities for children to read both at home and in school.
This doesn’t mean that they always read alone, or they’re not taught skills to improve reading. But schools should include time to read and have great school libraries where children can browse books and reading material.
As Pfost and Heyne (2021) note, the Matthew Effect bears this out. Pay attention, especially to the last sentence which I highlight.
First, individual differences in reading skills may follow a cumulative developmental trend. Children who start school with better reading skills tend to improve their reading skills faster than their schoolmates who do not have these skills. Therefore, individual differences in reading skills between children increase as students grow older. Second, the mechanism behind this developmental trend is reciprocal causation or a positive feedback loop. That is, students who show better vocabulary and reading skills experience more enjoyment from reading and develop better competence beliefs, leading to higher levels of reading motivation and more reading. Finally, the activity of reading itself contributes to the development of students’ vocabulary and reading skills.
Children who miss out on learning how to read books and how enjoyable that process can be, who are restricted in the kinds of book they’re permitted to read, or who have little access to reading material, probably won’t comprehend the meaning of those books or care about reading books later. Why should they?
References
Gonzalez, X. (2024, June 24) The Schools That Are No Longer Teaching Kids to Read Books. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/06/nyc-schools-stopped-teaching-books/678675/
Pfost, M., & Heyne, N. (2023). Fostering children’s reading comprehension: the importance of fiction reading. Zeitschrift Für Bildungsforschung (Internet), 13(1), 127–137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s35834-022-00376-0
My daughter was pregnant in the immediate covid aftermath, and I had worried phone consultations with her daily (it’s just her nature). One afternoon, she called me in tears.
“What is the matter today?” I asked.
“But mumma, what if she doesn’t love to read like I do?”
My grandbaby isn’t quite 3 and her books bring her joy. We don’t do phonics. We tell stories. Childhood pleasures shouldn’t be stolen by corporations, nor their teachers denigrated for knowing their craft. I want to know what NYC’s compliance monitors get paid to stick in their noses where they are not needed.
(As an aside, it’s likely Xochitl Gonzalez is a woman; the first name means “little flower”and is usually for females.)
Thanks for the correction on the name, Christine. I try to use “they” all the time to avoid offending, but I slipped here. The meaning of her name is interesting. The report was very much appreciated, although troubling.
Thank you also for sharing the information about your granddaughter. I think she’ll be an early reader.
Nancy, That you mentioned New Zealand’s guest blogger Ian Powell reminded me of one of the best books I ever read on the human process of teaching and learning–Teacher by the New Zealander Sylvia Ashton-Warner. “TEACHER was first published in 1963 to excited acclaim. Its author, Sylvia Ashton-Warner, who lived in New Zealand and spent many years teaching Maori children, found that Maoris taught according to British methods were not learning to read. They were passionate, moody children, bred in an ancient legend-haunted tradition; how could she build them a bridge to European culture that would enable them to take hold of the great joy of reading? Ashton-Warner devised a method whereby written words became prized possessions for her students. Today, her findings are strikingly relevant to the teaching of socially disadvantaged and non-English-speaking students. TEACHER is part diary, part inspired description of Ashton-Warner’s teaching method in action. Her fiercely loved children come alive individually, as do the unique setting and the character of this extraordinary woman.” (from Amazon) As Marshall McCluhan asserted–“the medium is the message.” If children are only exposed to dry rules and inane practice and taught to label that “reading,” they will be forever locked out of the joy of discovery that reading books that the imaginings of gifted authors offer to the world about other times, places, and creatures. This diminishment will affect not only the children and their families, but the civil society that those of us who care about our children and our future are hoping to build. Of course children need to read for meaning! If not, what is the point.
This sounds so interesting! Thank you, Sheila. The author’s name sounds familiar, but I don’t think I’ve read the book. Very much appreciated.
https://www.amazon.com/Teacher-Sylvia-Ashton-Warner/dp/0671617680/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ARTUYS0GSM7F&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.vwUM1r8YxPnE9Gs33o-_aiT_iPZwJeaAreQ8YlFUCUdjbuYxsoXAi7HMU5CYqsAOzc7CKKfvWCoFhq_oTRvwfW_xz9a5QKPtf-iZFPlRyjfqRnOEY06BN2WNWsfLmzxvhcWUdp7YdEHq99lDkUUVV3rvRmIKoGhMRyhLStuZPjlnKv_VVsvTf4dsj2c2mxr3ZiL7rwmlxVLH-jcT0-FKew.H99PloNOhWXa_oYIcyPu-uowyztDeTXahvM2F4U71cs&dib_tag=se&keywords=Sylvia+Ashton-Warner+teacher&qid=1719243774&sprefix=sylvia+ashton-warner+teacher%2Caps%2C85&sr=8-1
Sylvia Ashton Warner is credited with developing The Language Experience Approach for reading. Old school ESL/EFL teachers like me were taught this method many years ago. It works well in classroom where there are limited materials available, and it can be a very effective instructional tool. It starts by emphasizing comprehension and introducing skills later. If we do not teach students to enjoy reading, as with canned Science of Reading Programs, we will produce a lot fewer life long readers.
Fascinating. Thanks, Karen. It’s how I learned, getting phonics in third grade, along with having to learn the Mon. vocab spelling words to be tested on Fri. and exercises to go along with those words. It all came together for me.
I just had to take a state mandated course on the Science of Reading, and there wasn’t anything about NOT using books. The decoding skills that they talked about could be used on any text. I know that this article is about the reading PROGRAMS, and I do worry about things like iReady and IXL, but at least at the middle school level, we’re still using a lot of books. I learned to read using phonics and many of the strategies mentioned in the course I took, and they’ve served me decently.
The post concerns what’s happening in NYC and other places mandating programs. I worry about any mandated program when it comes to learning to read, and I’ve had reports of teachers who don’t even teach reading being made to take those courses, which makes me wonder. Is there independent research to show that the course you took works?
I understand the importance of phonics, especially for children with learning disabilities, but it isn’t really difficult to understand how to teach it and I’m not sure why so many commercialized boxed programs are getting huge $$$ in schools that are also being defunded and where teachers are being pushed out and a teacher shortage looms.
But thanks for your comment.
This is a great post Nancy. Thanks. I”m sending it along.
Thank you, Audrey.
One of the side-bar issues is that the commercial producers of pre-K-6 materials have moved away from the developmental progression of me and my family, to my community, to my wider world. Primary materials are now often highly oriented toward non-human characters and topics in addition to the precisely scripted phonics procedures.
That’s an interesting point. Scripted phonics also lends itself to online instruction. Like fancier dittos. Thanks, Cheryl!
I am all for saving public schools. I went to public schools for 12 years and taught for them 21 years. In fact I was teaching elementary bilingual classses when the local schools where I taught threw out systematic instruction in handwriting and spelling in favor of Whole Language. I now tutor 40 kids per week, none of whom have recieved effective instruction in handwriting or spelling. Restoring those two subjects with well designed textbooks and good teacher training would provide students with the foundational sklls necessary for good comprehension and true literary enjoyment.
Thanks for commenting, Donald. However, I have several problems with what you write. Whole language would not throw out handwriting and spelling. I might not be boxed programs, but it wouldn’t be absent. And good teachers who have education degrees in reading used to certainly learn about phonics. I know. I was one.
“New Zealand ended its successful reading program including Reading Recovery which has been criticized by SoR advocates, for children experiencing reading difficulties.”
This assertion is manifestly untrue. New Zealand did not end a “successful” program—rather, the New Zealand government discontinued Reading Recovery because it failed to improve literacy outcomes, particularly among struggling students. This decision was based on empirical evidence, not ideological motivations.
The Empirical Failure of Reading Recovery
New Zealand was one of the first and most ardent adopters of Reading Recovery, largely because its creator, Marie Clay, was a New Zealander. If the program were successful, New Zealand should have been its strongest proof of efficacy. Instead, decades of research and government evaluations found that Reading Recovery did not close literacy gaps and failed to deliver long-term gains.
A 2019 report by the New Zealand Ministry of Education found that Reading Recovery had limited effectiveness, particularly for Māori and Pasifika students, and recommended exploring alternative early literacy interventions. (Source: NZ Ministry of Education)
Additionally, the Education Review Office (ERO) issued findings cautioning against relying on Reading Recovery as a primary intervention, as it was not yielding the desired improvements for struggling readers. The New Zealand Herald published a report titled Warning Against Relying on Reading Recovery for Struggling Readers, citing official evaluations showing that the program had not been successful. (Source: NZ Herald)
Scholarly Evidence of Reading Recovery’s Failure
The failure of Reading Recovery is also well-documented in the peer-reviewed literature. One of the most comprehensive analyses comes from Reading Recovery and the Failure of the New Zealand National Literacy Strategy, published in the LDA Bulletin, Volume 45 No. 3, November 2013, by a team of respected literacy researchers:
William E. Tunmer – Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology, with extensive research on literacy acquisition.
James W. Chapman – Professor of Educational Psychology, specializing in reading development and learning difficulties.
Keith T. Greaney – A literacy researcher focused on reading interventions.
Jane E. Prochnow – A researcher with expertise in educational assessment.
Alison W. Arrow – A leading scholar in literacy education.
Their study found that Reading Recovery not only failed to close literacy achievement gaps in New Zealand but may have actually contributed to the persistence of poor reading outcomes. The paper states:
“If the RR program had been successful in attaining its goal of substantially reducing the number of children who develop ongoing reading difficulties (i.e., providing the ‘insurance’ against low literacy levels), then the relatively large gap in reading performance consistently observed between good and poor readers since the 1991 International Educational Achievement (IEA) study should have steadily decreased after RR was introduced throughout the country in the late 1980s. This has not been the case.”
Furthermore, the study highlights that despite more than 25 years of implementation, there is “virtually no rigorous empirical evidence to indicate that successful completions in RR result in sustained literacy achievement gains.” Instead, children who undergo Reading Recovery tend to fall further behind their peers in later years, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Why New Zealand’s Rejection of Reading Recovery Matters
The rejection of Reading Recovery by New Zealand—the country that created it—is one of the clearest indicators that the program has failed. Marie Clay, the architect of Reading Recovery, was from New Zealand, and the country was one of its strongest proponents for decades. If Reading Recovery were truly effective, New Zealand should have been its greatest success story. Instead, the country eliminated the program because the evidence overwhelmingly showed that it did not work.
New Zealand’s decision is part of a broader trend. Studies from multiple countries, including the United States, Australia, and Canada, have demonstrated that any short-term gains from Reading Recovery fade over time and that the program fails to provide meaningful support for the students who need it most.
Studies also exist to show its effectiveness. And after the recent NAEP scores it seems imperative to check the online programs that have been in classrooms for years. Where’s the evaluation of those programs?
I didn’t teach with Reading Recovery, but I taught in a resource class where children got individual and small group instruction. I think children with reading difficulties can still benefit with the RR set up which is like resource classes in some ways.
I’ve known parents who saw their children make great gains and others who didn’t like RR, Here’s some research opposite of yours. I’m wondering what reading programs the researchers in your studies are highlighting, and if they are financially benefiting from those programs. Phonics lends itself to online instruction.
I think children need a variety of skills and some need more phonics than others.
https://www.cresp.udel.edu/research-project/efficacy-follow-study-long-term-effects-reading-recovery-i3-scale/
A Forensic Rebuttal of May et al. (2022): How Their Own Study Proves Reading Recovery is Ineffective
Abstract
May et al. (2022) set out to examine the long-term effects of Reading Recovery (RR) using a regression discontinuity (RD) design with over 38,525 students. Their findings are damning: students who received RR performed significantly worse in third and fourth grade compared to students who did not. Instead of drawing the most obvious conclusion—that RR does not work—the authors attempt to explain away their findings with speculative alternative explanations. A close reading of their methodology and results, however, reveals that their own data refute their justifications and instead provide compelling evidence that RR fails to provide lasting literacy benefits. This critique will use May et al.’s own findings and methodology against them, demonstrating that their study is not only flawed in execution but that their data support the opposite of their conclusion: RR is ineffective.
1. Attrition: A Statistical Crisis That Undermines Causal Claims
The Study Loses Over 75% of the Sample
May et al. report extreme sample attrition over time:
Of the original 38,525 students, only 9,906 had third-grade test scores (25.7% retention).
By fourth grade, only 6,371 remained (16.5% retention) (p. 10).
This level of attrition is catastrophic. The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC, 2020) sets an acceptable attrition threshold at 20% to maintain validity. Losing over 75% of the sample raises immediate concerns about selection bias and the credibility of long-term findings.
May et al. concede this limitation:
“Losing over 75% of the original sample during long-term follow-up is quite high” (p. 26).
Yet, they then dismiss its impact, claiming:
“Despite the limitations of this study, the results should be taken seriously as feasibly valid causal estimates” (p. 26).
This is methodologically indefensible. Extreme attrition inherently threatens causal validity (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002). May et al. fail to justify how their remaining sample remains representative.
Differential Attrition: Evidence That RR’s Harms May Be Understated
While May et al. argue that attrition was “not significantly differential” (p. 11), their own Table 2 shows that treatment and control groups had different rates of missing data—particularly in the second wave for fourth grade, where treatment students had 7.76 points higher baseline scores than those lost from the sample, compared to only 4.66 points in the control group.
This suggests that the lowest-performing RR students disproportionately exited the sample, making the long-term negative effects appear smaller than they actually are.
Occam’s Razor Interpretation: Attrition Hides Even Worse Outcomes
If RR worked, students who received it should not have been disproportionately lost from the sample. Instead, the most logical explanation is that RR left some students struggling so much that they either switched schools, were retained, or required special education services—making them disappear from the dataset. The most straightforward interpretation is that the actual negative effect of RR is even worse than the reported -0.31 SD.
2. Regression Discontinuity (RD) Violations: A Broken Design
May et al. claim their RD approach provides “rigorous evidence of causal effects” (p. ii). However, their own methodology violates key RD assumptions, fatally weakening their conclusions.
Teacher Discretion Corrupts RD Cutoff
RD requires strict assignment based solely on a cutoff score (Lee & Lemieux, 2010). However, May et al. acknowledge that teachers exercised discretion in RR selection:
“Teachers were instructed to rank order students, but also take into account students’ responses, raw scores, and evidence of problem-solving activity” (p. 7).
This means assignment was not random—teachers used subjective criteria beyond test scores. This invalidates the RD assumption that students just above and below the cutoff are comparable (Cattaneo, Idrobo, & Titiunik, 2020). If struggling students were excluded from RR due to “readiness,” then the study is not measuring RR’s effect—it’s measuring an unknown selection process.
Control Group May Have Received Better Instruction
Another critical RD assumption is that students above the cutoff received “business as usual” instruction. However, May et al. provide no data on what instruction control students actually received:
“We did not track instructional experiences of control group students in grades 2-4” (p. 26).
This is an enormous oversight. If control students received systematic phonics instruction while RR students received discredited multi-cueing strategies, then the study is not comparing “intervention vs. no intervention”—it’s comparing a failing approach to a better one.
Occam’s Razor Interpretation: The Control Group Outperformed RR Because It Received Better Instruction
May et al. try to argue that control students “caught up and surpassed” RR students (p. 27). The simpler, more supported explanation is that RR students were handicapped by ineffective multi-cueing strategies, while the control group learned phonics.
3. Long-Term Data Clearly Show RR’s Failure
Despite their attempts to explain away the results, May et al.’s own findings unambiguously show that RR students performed significantly worse in third and fourth grade:
Grade
Effect Size (CACE)
Effect Size (TOT)
3rd Grade
-0.15 to -0.22 SD
-0.18 to -0.31 SD
4th Grade
-0.15 to -0.22 SD
-0.18 to -0.31 SD
(p. 18, Table 4 and p. 23, Table 5)
These are statistically significant, negative effects.
May et al. fail to provide a credible alternative explanation for why RR students performed worse despite receiving more intervention in grades 2-4 than control students (p. 25).
Occam’s Razor Interpretation: RR Taught Ineffective Strategies
If an intervention truly worked, its effects would persist. Instead, RR students fell behind. The simplest explanation is that RR’s reliance on multi-cueing instead of phonics led to long-term reading deficits.
4. Conclusion: The Study Inadvertently Proves RR’s Failure
Despite its flawed design, May et al. (2022) deliver some of the strongest evidence to date that Reading Recovery does not work. Their findings reveal:
Severe attrition, likely hiding even worse RR outcomes.
RD violations that undermine causal claims.
Significantly worse third- and fourth-grade performance for RR students.
Final Thought: The Study Attacks Itself
May et al. intended to examine RR’s long-term impact. Instead, their data make a stronger case for ending RR than any of its critics ever could.
I have no idea what your research expertise is, or who you are, and I have not yet put in the time to extensively study the pros and cons of Reading Recovery. However, I do know that it has been one of the favorite programs to be attacked since Reading First. It is a program that focuses on individual children not large groups. I’ve never trusted the attackers who were implicated the Reading First scandal. That’s when I first read about their push to end RR. I also know teachers who are well-informed about how to teach reading who have worked with RR. And like I said, I’ve known parents whose children they felt made gains with the program.
As a teacher who taught reading, teachers need to understand how to teach reading (minus programs) and there are many skills involved with that. That’s why I also don’t appreciate programs like Teach for America (only 5 weeks training). Few programs are perfect, but I do know that the reading wars are bias and in favor of online phonics and data collection.
Why only pick on RR? Did you have a child who participated in the program?
Why not study Amplify or iReady which also make promises and use their own research for validation? Why the same old programs, interestingly not the ones that massively teach children online. Where are the evaluations there?
My guess is you don’t like teachers either.
That said, I’ll try to do a comparison study of RR soon. Very best to you in these trying times.