To argue that schools are over-teaching phonics is to risk being seen as a naysayer—someone who believes the tide will inevitably and rightfully turn back to more “balanced” practices that ...

One of the most influential names in the “science of reading” movement has issued a surprising warning: After years of neglecting to systematically teach students foundational reading skills, he says, ...

Phonics is a cornerstone skill, both in the context of the Science of Reading as well as across curricula. If students do not have the basic ability to read words on a page, any other instruction a ...

Evidence-based reading research, or what many refer to as the Science of Reading, has been a much-discussed topic within the literacy landscape for the past few years. While it may seem like the “next ...

A third-grader works through a phonics lesson in Washington, Ill. Editor at Large As a teacher in Oakland, Calif., Kareem Weaver helped struggling fourth- and fifth-grade kids learn to read by using a ...

The “reading wars” have been around for longer than you might think. In the 1800s, Horace Mann, the “father of public education” who was the first state education secretary in the country (in ...

Government data has shown that in 2022-23, 30% of five-year-olds in England were not meeting the expected standard for literacy at the end of their reception year at school. Literacy was the area of ...

The target for the proportion of children passing the phonics screening check – a test of how well children aged five and six in England can “decode” words – has been raised to 90%. This increase, ...