In a recent conversation with Beverly Falk, the topic of education and literacy came up, as it so often does, when we have telephone conversations. Beverly told me about an article that she wrote with Gil Schmerler.  

I asked Beverly to  email the article to me and after reading it I realized. how very important  it is to share with others. . I’d like to follow up by writing, in another post, about grades K-2, what I think literacy instruction should look like in those grades and what I believe to be the priorities for children 5-7. For now, I hope you can read and share this wonderful article with teachers, parents, school administrators and all friends who are interested, or who should be interested,  in children being taught literacy the way they naturally learn.

                             In Defense of Teaching the Way Children Learn

by Beverly Falk, Ed.D., Professor and Director Emerita, Graduate Programs in Early Childhood Education, The City College of New York/The City University of New York
Gil Schmerler, Ed.D., former Director, Leadership for Educational Change, Bank Street College of Education

Abstract: This “back-talk” piece challenges current interpretations and practices of “the science of reading” and the ways in which mandated, scripted curricula, based on the misleading interpretations, are being used. It argues for a more comprehensive view of what it takes to become a reader than the phonics-supreme view currently dominating schools, citing scientific research. It also argues for pedagogies that allow teachers to use their professional knowledge to teach in the ways that children.


The “reading wars,” which dominated educational debate throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, seem to have ended… and with incredible speed. Across the country, schools seem to have accepted an interpretation of the “science of reading” as a phonics-centric method of instruction. Clearly, to ideological proponents and much of the public, the lack of sustained phonics instruction is seen to have been at fault for what Americans perceive as a dramatic loss in reading skills over recent decades.

It’s harder to say how our education establishment reached such a dramatic, definitive conclusion. The covid pandemic, a wave of corporate mergers (leading in this case to a few powerful textbook and curriculum companies), the domination of social media as a communications source, and, maybe, a generally more rightward drift in our national politics, may all have contributed. A 2022 popular podcast by a journalist who interviewed parents concerned about their children’s progress during the pandemic, , convinced millions that the “balanced literacy” increasingly practiced by teachers of reading was all wrong and failing our students.

But who, exactly, has been “sold a story”?

True, early in the reading reform movement, there were those who reacted against past rote skill/drill instruction in reading and did not focus enough on phonics and other sound/symbol skills. But advances in neuroscience demonstrated what effective reading teachers had always included in their instruction – that knowledge of phonics (sound/symbol connection) and phonemic awareness (sound/hearing connections) are critical to literacy development. These enhanced understandings from neuroscience also documented other critical components of how learners become readers that are currently receiving short shrift. These were noted as early as 1999 in a National Research Council report, researched and written by many of the world’s most renowned literacy experts who unequivocally stated that the “science of reading” should not be “either/or” (phonics vs. other skills) but “both/and” (phonics, phonemic awareness, AND comprehension, vocabulary, interest, structure of written language, spelling, and lots of opportunities to read).

And while the increase in recently-released test scores for students in New York City are leading people to believe the increased emphasis on phonics is responsible for the change, as educators who have spent our lives working in schools, we are concerned about the way the “science of reading” is being misinterpreted as an overwhelming focus on only one part of the literacy learning process – isolated drill of phonics and phonemic awareness – to the exclusion of the full range of holistic reading skills. We are equally concerned about the way that districts are mandating this phonics-dominated curricula and scripted lessons. Teachers are being required to have “fidelity to the curriculum” rather than fidelity to knowledge of their learners and how they learn.

The companies producing these curricula are effectively taking over the teaching in schools. Their textbooks and curricula are costing millions of dollars that could otherwise be spent on professional development and other resources. But the most profound damage of all this, in our opinion, is that these curriculum mandates and pre-fabricated scripts are robbing educators of their professional judgment. Scripted mandated curricula do not allow teachers to attend to the learners in front of them. They prevent teachers from doing the essence of teaching: using knowledge of human development to guide teaching and the development – or at least use – of curriculum. They do not honor what neuroscience points to: the importance of educators making connections with learners’ understandings and being responsive to learners’ interests and cultural/linguistic backgrounds in order to genuinely support their learning.

Many teachers are decrying the negative changes they have had to make to their teaching as a result of these curricula: how these mandates require them to spend inordinately long blocks of time on rote skill/drill, which results in the loss of active, meaningful learning opportunities that engage children’s interests; how the required texts (sometimes only parts of texts are provided) are not interesting or culturally/linguistically responsive. One teacher we interviewed expressed the concerns of many: “There is a clear change in my teaching and it is not for the better. I no longer can teach the way children learn. The joy of teaching is fading away – for me and for the children as well.”

New York City will have a new mayor and new schools chancellor in the coming school year, and many other municipalities are facing similar changes. This may be the right moment for thoughtful people responsible for schools around the country to take stock of the full range of research about how learners learn and how children move into and become expert at literacy; to honor educators’ knowledge and abilities to know and support their students; and to provide the comprehensive and rightly-deserved support, care and respect for the children, families, and communities served by our schools.