Sold a Story - 6: The Reckoning

Episode Date: November 17, 2022

Lucy Calkins says she has learned from the science of reading. She's revised her materials. Fountas and Pinnell have not revised theirs. Their publisher, Heinemann, is still selling some ...products to teach reading that contain debunked practices. Parents, teachers and lawmakers want answers. In our final episode, we try to get some answers.Map: How states approach reading instructionOrganize: Sold a Story discussion guide Read: Transcript of this episodeSupport: Donate to APMMore: soldastory.org

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, it's Emily. Before this episode starts, I want to thank you for listening to Soul to Story. The series is coming to an end, and I need to remind you that we are public media. We rely on donations from you to continue doing this kind of rigorous, long-form journalism. Please give generously right now at
Starting point is 00:00:21 SoulToStory.org-slash-donate. We've also got a link in the show notes. Now onto the episode. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread
Starting point is 00:00:39 at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. We are inhaling and long exhaling. Peloton is for all of us. Wherever we are, whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier or paid to description starting at 12.99 per month.
Starting point is 00:00:59 Previously, on Sold a Story. I just assumed that the children I sent to school would come back to me litter it, because that's what school does, right? I recorded exactly what children were saying and doing, and this gave me new insights for building the new series. Let's do our triple check and see. Does it make sense? That habit of not looking at the words just continued on.
Starting point is 00:01:23 He didn't know what the words were. We cannot count on science and must accept its findings tentatively. It became a very lucrative business. I pledge allegiance to the blood of the United States of America. Over the past few years, I've been watching a lot of school board meetings online. Approval of the minutes minutes April 8, 2019. This is a meeting in Medford, Massachusetts. The school committee approves budget items and attends to some other business,
Starting point is 00:01:54 and then a mother gets up to speak. There is something very wrong here. No one noticed that my son could not read, write, or spell. The mom's name is Maureen Ronane. We are told to wait and see. He'll catch up on his own. Trust us. And my favorite.
Starting point is 00:02:13 Have you tried reading to him? All over the country. Hope just hit 701. We'll call this meeting to order. Parents are showing up at school board meetings. I'm the parent of a struggling reader. She's throughout most significantly with reading and writing. On Zoom, in person, I have a great granddaughter who's 12 years old.
Starting point is 00:02:33 They're fed up. But she's reading at a second grade level. What happened with that? She caught it! Read! Because we're not teaching her! Parents and grandparents all over the country are figuring out that their children can't read
Starting point is 00:02:50 because they're not being taught how to read. We had no idea that the leveled readers who was bringing home promoted guessing based on pictures, context, and sentence patterns, which gave the appearance of reading, but really wasn't reading. Parents want change. Science has clearly shown us what all kids need to learn to read.
Starting point is 00:03:13 Please stop ignoring the science of the peril of our children. Thank you. This is the sixth and final episode of Soul to Story, a podcast from American Public Media. I'm Emily Hanford. I've been thinking about what I've been seeing at school board meetings on social media, in my email, as an awakening. People have actually said that, that they're waking up. Not to the fact that lots of kids can't read very well, they knew that. What they didn't know is that many kids aren't being taught how to read. They also didn't know that influential people have been selling an idea about reading
Starting point is 00:04:00 and how children learn to do it that isn't right. And now they want answers. From Lucy Cawkins and Irene Founties and Gaysu Penel and their publisher, Heinemann. In this episode, we're going to try to get some answers. Every month, Lucy Cawkins holds office hours over Zoom. Welcome, everyone. We're joined today with Lucy Cawkins holds office hours over Zoom. Welcome, everyone.
Starting point is 00:04:25 We're joined today with Lucy Cawkins, as usual. These office hours are for teachers to ask her questions. Hi, Lucy. Hi. This is Lucy Cawkins' office hours on November 21st, 2019. A few months before this, we had released an article I wrote. It was about the queuing strategies and how they're part of the Cawkins curriculum. This article was getting a lot of attention on social media and blogs
Starting point is 00:04:50 and in the news. And at the office hours, a teacher asks Lucy Cochans about that. My question is around all of these articles I'm reading right now that are claiming research states that the units of study and reading are not research based. I disagree with them, but I need language to support the philosophy we believe in. So a couple different things here. First of all, you're not alone. People who are teaching in the primary grades are feeling even more pressured by the science of reading.
Starting point is 00:05:27 One of the things I would say is no one person gets to own the word science. No one gets to own the term the science of reading. Was the title of a statement that Lucy Cawkins had posted on her website earlier in the day. The statement begins, I've been asked to write a response to the phonic centric people who are calling themselves the science of reading. In the statement, Lucy Cawkins refers to a new hype about phonics. She says this hype is coming from people who are concerned about children with dyslexia.
Starting point is 00:06:05 She says dyslexia is being used as a Trojan horse to bring back an emphasis on phonics at the expense of everything else. And in her statement, she defends the queuing strategies. Cognitive scientist Mark Seidenberg wrote a scathing response to Cawken statement. He said that she had, quote, yet to absorb basic findings that contradict tenets of her approach. About a month later, a group of reading researchers released a review of her curriculum. They said that it was unlikely to lead to literacy success for all of America's public school children. There was other bad news for caucans. The Arkansas Department of Education
Starting point is 00:06:53 had recently said that if a program uses the queuing theory, it would be disqualified from the state's list of approved programs, and the Colorado Department of Education rejected her reading units of study. And then, almost exactly a year after Lucy Cawkins made that first statement about the science of reading, she made another statement. This one was different. In the new statement, Lucy Cawkins says that she and her colleagues have been pouring over the work of reading researchers, that they have challenged themselves to understand
Starting point is 00:07:32 more deeply the advances in reading science, and they have determined that aspects of their approach need rebalancing. In this statement, she recommends that all beginning readers have access to decodable books, books that contain words with spelling patterns they've been taught, and she moves away from her support for the queuing strategies. She says, looking at a picture to figure out a word is inefficient and might not allow written words to get into a child's long-term memory. Nothing that we do is ever perfect. You know, it's only the best that we know.
Starting point is 00:08:14 This is Lucy Cawkins in March of 2021. It's her Zoom office hours. And in this office hours, she announces that Heinemann will be releasing a new addition of her units of study for teaching reading. She says she and her team have been rewriting the curriculum to reflect what they have learned about the science of reading. We fixed up a few of the places where the science of reading has been, you know, pointing out we were like messed up. She says there are things she regrets, things she should have done differently.
Starting point is 00:08:47 I wanted to ask her about all this. I had written to her in 2019 to try to get an interview. She didn't respond. But when I emailed her last year, she got back to me right away. I'm pressing, pressing record. We did an interview in May of 2021. Lucy, are you there?
Starting point is 00:09:04 I was in my home office. She was at her house. Can she hear us? Lucy, we had some technical issues at first. Oh, can you hear me? Yeah. Then we got started. So we're meeting today because there are some things
Starting point is 00:09:16 that you are rethinking about how to teach reading. Can you tell me what led to that? Like was there a particular moment or experience that you can, can you tell me what led to that? Like was there a particular moment or experience that you can, can you walk me through that? Well, I think the important thing to know is that we are always rethinking. So it's not a new idea that we're rethinking and the other thing, there's always new research coming
Starting point is 00:09:38 or just research that's new to us. She brings up research about how readers map the written form of a word into their memory. There's a technical term for that process that I spared you when I was describing it in episode two. It's called orthographic mapping. So I think it's really been learning from you and other science of reading researchers. The importance of orthographic mapping and being convinced as we worked with teachers and in classrooms, you know, being convinced that that was something that we could
Starting point is 00:10:11 benefit from changing on that account. Is this an idea of orthographic mapping something that is new to you? Like when when did you begin to understand that what that is? Well, there's understand and there's understand and there's understand and there's understand and there's understand. I find that you learn and you relearn and you relearn and you relearn. But it's certainly become more important in our writing, in our teaching, in our thinking.
Starting point is 00:10:41 And I am grateful to the Science of reading research for making it so prominent because, yeah, I think you called attention to it and we think that you were right about that. I wanted to understand what she used to believe about how kids learned to read. Back in the late 90s, when she was working on her book about how to teach reading. What was your understanding at that point, do you think, of how kids learn to read? Like, how does that happen? Yeah, I really can't go back and recall what I, what mine was.
Starting point is 00:11:17 Yeah, I mean, I could go back and look at the book again and maybe I could dig it back up, you know, dig up what I was thinking then, but I can't really recall it. What I'm trying to figure out is, why didn't she know about the research that she now knows about? Why didn't she know about it sooner?
Starting point is 00:11:33 So much of this research isn't new. And this idea that readers use context, multiple sources of information to solve words, identify words as their reading, that was really taken on by researchers back in the 70s and 80s. As an interesting question, like, is that what we do? And they showed quite definitively that that wasn't the case.
Starting point is 00:11:53 I mean, were you sort of aware of that research and how clear that was already by the 90s? Again, you're asking me to go back and figure out what was in my mind at one point or another. But I would say that you have to remember that that research was not, I don't think that there were classrooms that were doing classroom-based methods that were exciting and poignant and beautiful and and you know getting kids on fire as readers and writers that were using that that chain of thinking. You know it was part of an entire gistole that was different than ours. So and I'm not trying to say if I'm right or not, but I think that was my impression.
Starting point is 00:12:47 I think this impression is one reason that instruction aligned with scientific evidence has had a tough time gaining traction in schools. The impression is that it's boring, but learning how to read isn't boring for little kids. Remember Kamari? Smile! Smile!
Starting point is 00:13:12 And Zoe? It's like the best thing ever! Good reading instruction isn't boring for children. Maybe adults find parts of it boring, but there shouldn't be about what adults want. It should be about what kids need. And there's no reason that reading instruction aligned with scientific evidence can't be exciting and beautiful. I think Lucy Cawkins sees it that way now too. Because instruction aligned with the science of reading is what she says she's now selling. She's hoping that school districts will stick with her and buy her revised curriculum.
Starting point is 00:13:52 Districts that were already using her materials can get it for a discount. But not everyone's buying. For example, Palo Alto, California. The district decided last year to look for a new reading curriculum to replace caucans. I asked Todd Collins, the school board member there, if he consider her revised addition. He said, no. There's a trust issue there. You'd have to decide you could trust her again. That's hard. You could trust her again. That's hard. Over the past few years,
Starting point is 00:14:28 as Lucy Cawkins was making statements about the science of reading and rewriting her curriculum, Irene Fountis and Gay Sue Penel were keeping pretty quiet. Until last year, November 2021, when they broke their silence in a series of recorded Q&As posted to their website.
Starting point is 00:14:47 Why have you chosen not to participate in the latest debate about how to teach children how to read? Gay and I have lived through polarization before and we simply don't see it as being productive. This is Irene Fountis. We do feel now it's the right time to clarify some mischaracterizations of our work in supportive teachers, some of whom are under attack.
Starting point is 00:15:12 In this series of Q&As, Fountis and Penel reiterate their commitment to Marie Clay. Marie Clay has said, this is Gaysu Penel. The child has not learned, then we have not yet discovered the way to teach him. But they double down on the approach they've been promoting for decades, and reiterate their commitment to Clay's queuing theory. Multiple sources of information are combined in a complex and orchestrated way. If a reader says pony for horse because of information from the pictures, that tells the teacher that the reader is using meaning information from the pictures.
Starting point is 00:15:51 His response is partially correct, but the teacher needs to guide him to stop and work for accuracy. Founta says that asking a child to just sound out a word is simplistic, and analogous to telling the child not to think. What advice do you have for teachers who feel caught in the crossfire while this literacy debate intensifies? We would encourage you to remain steadfast to your vision and values. This is Peneligan. And keep doing what works for your children, the children you teach, and rely on observable reading and writing behaviors to guide your moment-to-moment teaching.
Starting point is 00:16:35 They really illustrate they still don't get it. This is Mark Seidenberg, the cognitive scientist at the University of Wisconsin. I called him to get his reaction to Foundess and Penel's series. They clarified for me that they just haven't really benefited much from the ongoing discussion about what are the best ways to teach kids to read so that the most kids succeed. I think they're just trying to hold blind and, you know, hoping that they'll several blow over. Which brings us to their publisher, Heinemann.
Starting point is 00:17:13 One of their star authors, Lucy Cockins, has moved away from the queuing theory. Their other star authors, Fountess and Penel, have not. Where does Heinemann stand in all this? Hi, Vicki. Hi, Emily. Very nice to meet you. I talked to Vicki Boyd.
Starting point is 00:17:32 She was the executive vice president and general manager of Heinemann when we didn't interview last April. She'd been with the company since the early 2000s. I pointed out to Vicki that Fountess and Penel are sticking with the queuing theory, and Lucy Cawkins is not. Both of those things can't be right. Where does Heinemann stand on that? Yeah, thank you for that question.
Starting point is 00:17:54 You know, our authors disagree. And we think that's good. We think debate is a good thing. But there's lots of evidence against the queuing theory. And there's been lots of evidence since the 90s. And now it's 2022. And you just said that there's a difference of opinion among your authors.
Starting point is 00:18:20 But I think this is bigger than a difference of opinion. Found to some panel are holding fast to something that has been shown decades ago to not be a good idea. Yeah, I'm not sure that I agree that they're holding fast to something that has been disproven. These authors are leaders in the field. We rely on their many years of research and interpretation of that research into real classrooms. Research backs many approaches and teachers need a range of options. I tell her that we have interviewed reading scientists and parents and teachers need a range of options. I tell her that we have interviewed reading scientists and parents and teachers
Starting point is 00:19:14 who say that the queuing strategies are actually harming some kids. What's your response to people who say that high-ne min products that still have those strategies in them are harming children. Yeah, you know, that's, that, as you might imagine, is it's disturbing. And it gives us pause. It inspires a lot of reflection. It has us, you know, interrogating our own ideas and the work that we're doing in the world. We never stop learning, we never stop listening to the critics, and we never stop considering
Starting point is 00:19:53 any research that can help teachers help students move forward. You've really helped to elevate conversation around something that's called the science of reading. And you know, I'm grateful for that. It's put us a bit in a troubling place because some of the talk about what our authors do and about what Heinemann is about has not run true to me and to a lot of the folks who know Heinemann. About three months after our interview, Vicki Boyd left Heinemann.
Starting point is 00:20:37 The company has a new president. I haven't talked to him. After I took over this summer, he said in a blog post that the company would be focusing on clarifying and formalizing its curriculum development practices. And last month, just before the first episode of this podcast, he said that Heinemann would be working with Fountis and Penel to increase the emphasis on foundational skills and decoding in their materials. foundational skills and decoding in their materials. I emailed a spokesperson and asked what would be changing about the curriculum review process at Heinemann.
Starting point is 00:21:12 And I asked if Fountis and Penel would be dropping the queuing strategies. I didn't get a response. I've told you before that based on the reporting I've done, I don't think Lucy Cawkins knew there was anything wrong with the queuing theory. I think she made that clear in our interview, but I think she should have known. All the evidence was there, and she didn't know.
Starting point is 00:21:38 And found us in Penel, I think they still believe in queuing. I think they made that clear in those Q&As I played for you. And I think they believe in queuing because they have a particular idea about reading and how it works. An idea that I watched in action four years ago at a Reading Recovery Conference. It kind of blew my mind. And I want to tell you about it. After a break. What you watch depends on what kind of major in. Sometimes you're craving comedies like friends or South Park and sometimes you're more
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Starting point is 00:22:36 Visit max.com Testing 1, 2, 3 I think the idea for this podcast started here. Testing 123. I think the idea for this podcast started here. We are at the National Reading Recovery and Classroom Literacy Conference held in Columbus, Ohio every year. This is Patricia Scherer. She was a reading recovery teacher and a professor at Ohio State. I met her in 2018 at this Reading Recovery Conference.
Starting point is 00:23:07 I'd recently made an audio documentary about kids with dyslexia. And it was parents of kids with dyslexia who told me about Marie Clay's Reading Recovery Program. Many of their kids had been in Reading Recovery. And the parents I was talking to didn't think the program worked. In fact, some parents told me they thought reading recovery made things worse for their kids. So I'm here in Columbus in 2018 to learn more about the reading
Starting point is 00:23:36 recovery program. I'm in the conference exhibit hall with Patricia Shere. And you see, we want our children to be flooded with text. We send text. She's showing me the kinds of books that reading recovery teachers use in their lessons. This was my first introduction to those little leveled books. This insect can jump. This insect can climb. Now, they can read this because you've introduced the pattern to them,
Starting point is 00:24:06 and they can use the picture to try and figure it out. This was the only thing at the conference I was allowed to record. But I did go to a bunch of the conference sessions, and I took notes. Most of the sessions I went to focused on trying to figure out what cues kids were neglecting when they were reading. Presenters played videos of children trying to read, and I kept waiting for someone to say they're neglecting the letters.
Starting point is 00:24:34 They're not sounding out the words. But that didn't happen. In one of the sessions a presenter said, research shows young readers do not sound out words letter by letter. And I thought that was strange because I had been reading a lot of research that said the opposite. It said that sounding out written words is a critical part of the process of becoming a good reader. The strangest part of the conference for me was the Sunday morning keynote. I got a recording of it later.
Starting point is 00:25:09 So here we are in 2018 and reading recovery has been going strong for 34 years. The keynote speaker is Mary Fried. She was a reading recovery teacher trainer who was taught how to do reading recovery by Marie Clay herself in Ohio in the 1980s. In the keynote, Mary Friede does a little reading lesson. Today, you're going to be a beginning reader. There's a projector set up so the audience can see the pages of the book.
Starting point is 00:25:38 They're going to try to read. The book is about a puppy. The audience can see his picture. But the words are unfamiliar to them because the book is not written in English. This is his name, Platt. She points to the puppy's name, Platt. She then goes through the entire book, previewing the story, pointing to some of the words, and saying what they mean. This is before the audience tries to read the book themselves, just like in a reading recovery lesson. So now it's your turn and you get to read the whole book. She turns
Starting point is 00:26:12 back to the first page and the audience starts reading. This is where things get weird. You can't hear the audience very well, but they're speaking English. Even though they This is where things get weird. You can't hear the audience very well, but they're speaking English, even though they're trying to read a book that is written in another language. Very good! You almost got it. That word looks like hop. Mary Fried stops the audience because she says they made an error.
Starting point is 00:26:44 There's a picture of Plet the Puppy and one of his friends, an alligator named Tom. They're on a trampoline and there's this sentence. Tom Oplett Haber, or Tom Boleen. The audience read that sentence as Tom and Plet hopped on the trampoline. But Mary Fried tells them that wasn't right. Let's try that again. Tom? The audience says,
Starting point is 00:27:11 Tom and Plett jumped on the trampoline. You did it! But actually, they didn't. It turns out the book is written in Danish, and the sentence doesn't say Tom and Plett jumped on the trampoline. It says, Tom, Oplett, Habba, or Tom-Boline. Even if you translate the sentence, it doesn't say Tom and Plett jumped on the trampoline. I asked my brother-in-law, who speaks Danish. He's the guy you heard
Starting point is 00:27:45 reading the sentence. And he told me it says, Tom and Plett are jumping on the trampoline. It's a small difference. The audience still got the meaning of the story, but they were not reading. Was it fun to read? Mary Fried tells them they were reading. And you were very first lesson in reading in Danish. You made accelerated progress. So that's very good. At this moment, I realized something. I realized that the people in this room have bought into a definition of reading that isn't really reading. They've bought the idea that reading is making meaning from a story using whatever strategies you can think of. You can look at the pictures, you can look at parts of the words, you can think about what
Starting point is 00:28:38 would make sense. They've bought into the queuing idea. The idea that a child can read a book without being able to read the words. And here's why I think they bought that idea. They want kids to be able to make meaning from a story. Everybody wants that. That's the goal to understand what you read. The question is, how does a little kid get there? And the answer is they have to learn how to read the words.
Starting point is 00:29:14 They have to get good at that. But learning how to read words is hard for a lot of kids. They need explicit instruction, repetition, and practice before they can curl up in a cozy nook and read a book on their own. And I think people with good intentions wanted to get kids curled up with books in cozy nooks as fast as they could. They wanted to get kids to the good part. And they ended up teaching them shortcuts that don't get a lot of kids to where they need to go. And now, even in many schools where kids
Starting point is 00:29:52 are getting some phonics instruction, they are also being taught the queuing system. Kids are being taught two different ways to read. And one of those ways isn't really reading. I'm sorry. This is Christine Cronin. It is very painful. It isn't embarrassing. Christine Cronin. It is very painful. It is embarrassing. Christine Cronin was the teacher in Boston who wanted her classroom to look like what she saw in books by Fountess and Penel and Lucy Cawkins.
Starting point is 00:30:34 And what she just said about being sorry and embarrassed and all of this being really painful, it's what I've been hearing from a lot of teachers. It's hard to recognize that you believed in something. of this being really painful, it's what I've been hearing from a lot of teachers. It's hard to recognize that you believed in something so much that now the research is like blowing out of the water. It makes you feel gullible. It makes you feel sort of played in a way. No one wants to be told that what they're doing is wrong or that you've harmed kids. Like that's a really, it's terrible to feel.
Starting point is 00:31:06 This is Sarah Ganon. She's a teacher you met in episode three. She trusted Fountison Penel and Lucy Cawkins. I trusted that they're experts. I trusted that this is the way you teach reading. She believed in the queuing and the leveled books. The first time she encountered criticism of that approach was in 2019, after one of my articles came out. Teacher friends were like, did you read the assembly handford? And I was like, I read it. And they were like, what is she talking about? She was outraged because a journalist was questioning the way she taught reading.
Starting point is 00:31:44 And then her daughter, Maeve. Maeve wasn't learning how to read. Sarah tried to teach her, but it wasn't working. So Sarah went looking for answers and discovered the research. I changed because I had to, there was no choice. I couldn't ignore it. I couldn't keep doing what I was doing with Maeve.
Starting point is 00:32:06 The same thing happened to Carrie Chi. She was one of the Lucy Cawkins fans you met in an earlier episode, the one who didn't like George Bush. One day, when Carrie's daughter was in elementary school, she came to her mother and she said, I have something to tell you. My child looked at me and she was really nervous and anxious, and she just says, I can't read. The school hadn't said there was a problem. Carrie hadn't noticed a problem either, but her daughter knew. She knew, they know. The kids know first, the parents know second, the teacher chimes in third, and then,
Starting point is 00:32:46 you know, the hunt is on for help. Some kids try to keep it a secret when they're struggling. They can look like they're reading for a while. But as the words get longer and the pictures go away, it all kind of falls apart. Carrie Chi was a seventh grade English teacher before she had her daughter. She says she always had struggling readers in her class, a lot of them. And the only thing she knew to do was to try to find them books about things they were interested in. And I just kept saying, well, keep trying.
Starting point is 00:33:25 And then when they couldn't, I just thought they didn't want to try. And what I'm haunted by is when it wasn't working, I blamed it on children. Carrie Chi isn't sure she would have learned anything about the science of reading if it weren't for her experience with her own child. Sarah again and two, if everything had been fine with her daughter,
Starting point is 00:33:50 she thinks she might still be dismissing all of this science of reading stuff. I don't know if I could be convinced and that's what worries me. You know, I have good friends who are very smart, incredibly talented educators who it's just like hold fast to old beliefs. And I think, I honestly, I think I would be one of them, you know. But I guess you have to say, like, it's okay to be wrong. A guy was wrong. Sarah quit her job.
Starting point is 00:34:19 She was a reading specialist in Winchester, Massachusetts, a wealthy suburb outside Boston. She quit because her district is still using Lucy Cawkins and Fountesson Penel, and she says she can't teach that way anymore. But there are school districts making changes. For example, Fort Worth, Texas is getting rid of the Fountesson Penel benchmark assessment system. The chief academic officer told us, we got our fleet of trucks and picked up the materials and took them out of there. In New York City, a Lucy Hawkins stronghold, the new school's chancellor said last year that he wants to change how children are taught to read.
Starting point is 00:35:01 He says the current approach is fundamentally wrong. And remember Charlie and his mom, Corinne, in Rhode Island? The school Charlie went to was using the Lucy Cawkins curriculum. But the school district recently decided to adopt a different reading program. There's a new law in Rhode Island that requires most districts to choose a program from a state approved list. The Caucus Reading Curriculum is not on that list. We found that since 2019, at least 26 states have passed laws that are intended to get schools to follow the research
Starting point is 00:35:38 or help teachers learn about the science of reading. And the very first school district in the United States to use Mari Klai's Reading Recovery Program has gotten rid of Reading. And the very first school district in the United States to use Mari Klai's Reading Recovery Program has gotten rid of it. The Executive Director of Teaching and Learning for the Columbus, Ohio Public Schools told me last spring that the district's decision to drop reading recovery is part of a larger effort
Starting point is 00:36:02 to bring the Science of Reading to the city's schools. I wanted to talk about this with someone from the organization that advocates for reading recovery in the United States. And I wanted to know whether they changed anything about how they teach kids to read since I was at their conference in 2018. They wouldn't give me an interview. Since we began releasing this podcast last month, my inbox and social media feeds have been flooded. I'm hearing from people who are saying, I know, I know, this queuing stuff. I've been trying to tell people about it for years. And I'm hearing from teachers who are saying, I didn't know, I feel terrible, I'm gonna do better. And I'm hearing from a lot of parents,
Starting point is 00:36:58 they're saying, wow, this is me, this is my kid, this is our story. I'm hearing from critics too. People who are saying I've gotten it wrong. I've misunderstood Marie Clay. I'm attacking teachers. I'm creating controversy. And I'm hearing from another group of people.
Starting point is 00:37:16 Children. Kids are listening to this podcast. I'm not sure I was really expecting that. Last week, I got this from the mother of a boy who's in fourth grade. She wrote, today when I dropped him off for basketball and we were mid-episode one, he said, turn it off and don't listen again until I get back in the car.
Starting point is 00:37:36 I love that kids are listening to this. This is about kids. It's about doing what's right for them. This has been too long. It's about doing what's right for them. This has been too long. It's not working. You know, don't dig in. It's not working. This is Carrie Chi again.
Starting point is 00:37:55 The teacher whose own daughter said, I can't read. You know, there's kids sinking everywhere and they're looking for help and it's, you know, it's on us. That's it for Soled a Story. Now it's time for the credits and I'm going gonna get some help from some kids you've met. Uh, okay. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:38:28 Zoe and Charlie. SoulDay Story is a podcast from American Public Media. It's reported and produced by Emily Hanford and Chris Duffer Peak. hand for the crust of our peak. The editor is Catherine Wincher, Adi Cruz, Andy, Andy Cruz, and Dave Mann are theato. Caputo. Fat checking by Betzi Towneer. Betzi Towneer Levine. Mixing and sound design are by Chris Julien. Julien. Julien. Julien.
Starting point is 00:39:29 And Emily Havik. Havik. With original music by Chris Julien. The scene music is by Jim Bargenberg. So this is... I'm gonna put a lot of extra letters in there. This is Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg. Of Wonder Week. The final master of this episode was by Derek Ramsey. Derek Ramirez. Ramirez. This podcast wouldn't have been possible without support from Chris Worthington.
Starting point is 00:40:07 Some great interns helped with this project. Caitlin Vo. Liu. And Farah Min. Amina. Yep. And Alangest. Sarah.
Starting point is 00:40:23 Sierra. Sierra. Sarah. Sarah. Excellent. Thank you to the people who listened to early versions of episodes and provided valuable feedback. Anna Canny, Molly Bloom, Maya Bextram, Camila Kerwin, and Margaret Goldberg. Jill Barche provided editing help, Mark Anfinson provided legal advice. We have lots of other people to thank.
Starting point is 00:40:46 Lauren. Lauren. Humper. And Christine Hutchins. This is a lot of me. I know. Holly Corby. Grace Stockton. Grace Sarah. Grace Gracey Gracie Derek Stevens Sarah Sparrow Sarah White Kong skin. That's as hard. Let's try this one Sarah White's Coded check Sarah White's Coded check Marvie
Starting point is 00:41:24 Hako Pina White's code of check. Marvie, ha-co-pina. Marvie. Marvie, ha-go-pian. Excellent. Yes. Marvie, ha-go-pian. Joseph, Wy-coff.
Starting point is 00:41:38 Yes. Joseph Wy-coff. Mellon. Mellon. Okay. Mellony. Mellony. Mellony. ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm This is the hardest one. David. David. You got David? Straight hair. I'm gonna help you with this one.
Starting point is 00:42:10 David Strathane. David Strathane. Clark Young. And Jeremy Android. Try that again. And Jeremy. Jeremy R.O that again. And Jeremy are old. Yeah, try it. Arnold.
Starting point is 00:42:31 We have a website where you can find transcripts of all the episodes. It's soldhistory.org. There's a recommended reading list there, as well as links to our previous articles and documentaries about reading. That's soldastory.org. Support this podcast comes from the Hollyhawk Foundation, the Oak Foundation, and Wendy and Stephen Gow. Wendy and Stephen Gow. Wendy and Stephen Gow.
Starting point is 00:43:03 Really good! That's it! That's it. That's it. That's it. In 2012, a new charity bursts onto the scene. It's called Believe in Magic, and it grants wishes to seriously ill children. It has the support of the biggest boy band in the world, One Direction.
Starting point is 00:43:24 It's run by an inspirational 16-year-old girl called Megan Barry, It has the support of the biggest boy band in the world, One Direction. It's run by an inspirational 16-year-old girl called Megan Barry, who herself is battling a brain tumour. I've been in and out of hospital and seen so many other very poor children. But when questions arise about her story, they reveal she could be facing another very different danger. What is this girl going through? It wasn't supposed to have light there. Listen to Believe in Magic, with me, Jamie Bartlett.

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