As we embrace the 'science of reading,' we can't leave out older students

Every year, we share our 10 most read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year's top 10 focused on equity, educational technology innovation, immersive learning, and the science of reading. This year's sixth most read story focuses on the science of reading for older students.

This story was originally published by chalk beat, a nonprofit news organization that covers public education in communities across the United States. Sign up for our free New York newsletter to stay up to date with New York City public schools.

The day before my first day of teaching high school in 2018, I decorated my Brooklyn public school classroom with quotes from famous people reflecting on the importance of reading. Hanging on cream cardstock were the words of Malcolm X, Toni Morrison, CS Lewis, Barack Obama, Maya Angelou and dozens of other writers and thinkers. I hoped to inspire my students to fall in love with reading. I didn't think to expect all my students to be able to do exactly what I asked them to love. I didn't know that part of my job as a sixth grade Humanities teacher would be to teach students how to read in the first place.

There was a round table in the back of my classroom that a group of five sixth graders lined up directly at on the first day. The second day, I asked one, then another, to read aloud to me. My request was met with silence, conjecture, a fist slammed on the table, and a student storming out of the room. When those sixth graders finally sat down for a reading assessment, their ability to decode printed text was at a first- or second-grade level.

As a newly minted high school English teacher, I was surprised by the number of students who entered my classroom unable to decode text. As I got to know them, I saw that their Herculean efforts to mask their reading disabilities revealed intelligence, determination, and traumatic relationships with school.

Since my first year of teaching, I have spent a lot of time understanding why that happened. With the toxic combination of inaccurate reading assessments and a whole-word approach that encouraged guessing instead of decoding, the Matthew effect (the rich get richer, the poor get poorer) has been in full swing in the middle schools across the country. Children who lived in text-rich environments and/or with families who could afford supplemental private tutoring managed to “get it.” And those who don't? Many never acquired the literacy skills that are tied to power and privilege in this country.

From my first day as a high school teacher, the “science of reading” (linking reading mastery with explicit phonics instruction in addition to comprehension work) became a catchphrase for Facebook groups, professional development and study plans. Lucy Calkins revised her popular but widely criticized “Units of Study” curriculum to include lessons focused on phonics. “Sold a Story,” a podcast series investigating reading instruction, became one of the best podcasts of the year. I also trained in Wilson Reading Systems, a multisensory and Orton-Gillingham approach to teaching basic phonics instruction that many of my middle school students never received.

In my experience, conversations about the science of reading occur primarily with elementary and early childhood educators. These conversations are preventing further injustices and disenfranchisement in literacy. But how are we addressing the ways the system has failed our high school students when they first learned to read? How can I, a high school ELA teacher, support students in my class who were excluded from receiving the literacy instruction they needed?

I worry that high school students and secondary education as a whole will be left out of the conversation about how children learn to read. It's wonderful that we are (finally!) getting to the root of the problem, but what about the young people for whom Level I instruction comes too late? What about students who, from now on, will need intensive intervention in order to reach grade level?

My former sixth graders are now in high school, preparing for college and careers, but the best preparation they can get is one that helps them, once and for all, become fluent readers. I worry that amid the enthusiasm over revisions to the primary curriculum, we will leave children who have been wronged even further behind. I fear we will do to them what this country has done to people fighting for literacy since its inception: disenfranchise, hide, and erase.

During that first year of teaching in high school, when I was surprised by students in my class who had difficulty pronouncing single-syllable words, who guessed based on the first two letters instead of pronouncing them, and who, upon hearing them, While reading as a couple, their eyes showing looks of panic, I found hope in literacy intervention programs aimed at teenagers who lacked key skills.

I want more for these students. I want all secondary educators to be trained not only to teach children to read; I want them to be trained to teach their students to read, in case one, two, or ten sit at the back of their class and don't know how to do it.

I believe in the power of restorative literacy. Every day I work with teens and tweens who have fallen through the gaping cracks in our educational system. What I have witnessed over my five years working in very different types of schools is that learning, achievement, and opportunity gaps widen or close dramatically in high school. The passion for social justice within our educational systems is insufficient; you need to do the real work – the literacy work – that makes change possible.

chalk beat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Related:
How to improve literacy through the science of reading
4 keys to teaching the science of reading in a virtual environment
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