• Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact

Nancy Bailey's Education Website

Revive, Rally and Recover Public Schools

  • Activism
    • Anti-Charter Schools
    • Anti-Common Core State Standards
    • Anti-Corporatization of Schools
    • Anti-High-Stakes Testing
    • State Action Groups
    • School Buildings
  • School Curriculum
    • General Education
    • Educators
    • Parents
    • Reading
    • Writing
    • Math
    • Science
    • Social Studies
    • The Arts
    • Technology
    • Behavior
    • Diversity
    • English Language Learners
    • Special Education
      • Autism
      • Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities
      • Learning Disabilities
      • Developmental Disabilities
      • Gifted
      • Other
    • Early Childhood Education
    • Elementary School
    • Middle School
    • High School
    • Student Careers
  • Other Countries
    • England
    • Finland
    • Australia
    • New Zealand
    • Canada

Reports Show How Phonics Crowds Out Quality Reading Like Picture Books

May 29, 2024 By Nancy Bailey 16 Comments

In 2023, Science of Reading (SoR) supporters were offended by The Science of Reading and the Rejection of Picture Books. At that time, I included reports and observations showing an overfocus on phonics instead of reading for enjoyment in SoR classrooms. If you’re a teacher who combines phonics with reading picture books for enjoyment and […]

Filed Under: Featured, Uncategorized Tagged With: free reading, phonics, Picture Books, Read alouds, science of reading

How PICTURE Books Help TEACH Comprehension and Phonics!

September 27, 2023 By Nancy Bailey 26 Comments

When he looks at the pictures, he’ll get so excited he’ll want to draw one of his own. He’ll ask for paper and crayons.  ~Laura Joffe Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond. If You Give A Mouse a Cookie Regarding how teachers teach reading, it’s alarming that pictures get a bad rap. One of the best […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Picture Books, Read alouds, reading to teach, Sheep in a Jeep

The Science of Reading and The Rejection of Picture Books

March 26, 2023 By Nancy Bailey 42 Comments

The Science of Reading rejects the importance of picture books to children learning to read. In 2021, I wrote this, and many parents assumed that schools still use picture books and that children get exposure to them at home. The general idea was that picture books were taken for granted. But while there are quibbles […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: free reading, independent reading for young children, Picture Books, Read alouds, science of reading, science of reading and picture books

The Science of Reading Ignores The Importance of Picture Books to Early Learning

June 6, 2021 By Nancy Bailey 57 Comments

Increasingly, parents and teachers are embracing the controversial Science of Reading (SoR), pushing for State policies that reinforce more phonics instruction. It’s troubling to see they only discuss commercial decoding programs, of which there are many. They rarely mention the importance of picture books and giving children the chance to read freely. Is phonics important? […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: audiobooks, Bibliotherapy, Causal Information and picture books, Comic books, Decoding Booklets, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, kindergarten readiness, libraries, libraries and reading, magazines, Picture Books, picture books and mathematics, Reach out and Read, science of reading, Wordless Picture Books

Kindergarten Reading Push: Still Problematic During the Pandemic

August 3, 2020 By Nancy Bailey 10 Comments

Parents and educators, convinced that kindergartners must learn to read, might purchase unproven commercial online reading programs during the pandemic. The best solution for kindergartners currently is for school librarians and teachers to get interesting picture books and reading material into the hands of young children. Standardized testing made pushing children to read in kindergarten […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: assessment, books, kindergarten, pandemic, Picture Books, reading

How NCLB is Still Destroying Reading for Children 

February 12, 2019 By Nancy Bailey 19 Comments

NCLB was a bi-partisan bill signed into law in 2002 during the Bush administration’s push for school reform. We now recognize how punitive the bill was, its troubling use of one-size-fits-all standardized testing to demonize and close public schools, the punitive AYP and “highly qualified” teacher credentialing changes, the unrealistic predictions that all children would […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Common Core State Standards (CCSS), Defending the Early Years, developmental disabilities, Early Childhood, Kindergarten is the New First Grade, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), phonics, Picture Books, Reading in Kindergarten, Setting Children Up to Hate Reading, standardized testing, Teaching reading, The Alliance for Childhood, Valerie Strauss The Answer Sheet

Preschool Common Core Dialogic Reading: Can’t Mother Goose Fly Alone?

December 28, 2015 By Nancy Bailey 12 Comments

Yes. Mother Goose can fly alone! She doesn’t need any help from dialogic reading, which is like close reading for preschool. This formulaic reading exercise was created by Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst an experimental psychologist who is director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. Here is more about Dr. Whitehurst. […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Common Core, Dialogic Reading, Joy of Reading, Mother Goose, Picture Books, preschool, reading

The POWER of Picture Books v. High-Stakes Testing & Common Core

November 16, 2015 By Nancy Bailey 10 Comments

In 2010, I read an article in The New York Times that both saddened and infuriated me. In “Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children” by Julie Bosman we learned about a bookstore in Brookline, MA, a beautiful community surrounded by Harvard, MIT, Tufts, etc., where parents were rejecting picture books. They skipped buying […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Close Reading, Common Core, high-stakes testing, Learning to Read, Picture Books, Wordless Picture Books

front cover

An education glossary with an attitude.

Buy Now

front cover

Do we really want an America where we no longer own our public schools?

Buy Now

front cover

This book says “no” to the reforms that fail, and challenges Americans to address the real student needs that will fix public schools and make America strong.

Buy Now

Follow me!

Enter your email address to subscribe to my blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Connect With Me!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Archives

Tag Cloud

Arne Duncan Autism Betsy DeVos Bill Gates charter schools Children class size Common Core Common Core covid-19 dyslexia early childhood education Education Secretary Betsy DeVos high-stakes testing kindergarten learning disabilities Online Learning parents Personalized Learning phonics preschool private schools privatization public education public schools reading recess retention School Choice school libraries School Privatization school reform science of reading Social Emotional Learning special education students Students with Disabilities Teacher Preparation teachers Teach for America teaching Technology testing the arts vouchers

Copyright © 2025 Nancy E. Bailey · Website powered by Standing Pine Media.