FYI, new episodes of “Sold a Story” have dropped.

[Anonymous]

I haven’t listened to them myself yet, but will soon.

[Anonymous]

Is this supposed to be meaningful to someone?

[Anonymous]

It’s a wonderful episode! Highlights a high poverty school in a rust belt town that has been teaching reading the same (excellent) way for over twenty years and every single kid reads at grade level when they get to middle school. If a kid struggles with reading at each and every grade they get more time with a reading teacher. And if that doesn’t work…even more. They structure the school day so they can do that and always have so now one thinks it is strange.

As a dyslexia therapist it blows my mind - some of those kids must be full-on dyslexic and what they are doing works for them, too. Imagine parents not needing to hire tutors for 3 plus sessions a week! Imagine all kids reading at grade level in 5th grade! It’s very hopeful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this supposed to be meaningful to someone?

It’s meaningful to anyone who’s paying attention to how our kids are being taught (or not taught!) how to read in schools today.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-a-podcast-toppled-the-reading-instruction-canon/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this supposed to be meaningful to someone?

It’s meaningful to anyone who’s paying attention to how our kids are being taught (or not taught!) how to read in schools today.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-a-podcast-toppled-the-reading-instruction-canon/

It’s just that OP posted that like anyone who know what she was talking about

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a wonderful episode! Highlights a high poverty school in a rust belt town that has been teaching reading the same (excellent) way for over twenty years and every single kid reads at grade level when they get to middle school. If a kid struggles with reading at each and every grade they get more time with a reading teacher. And if that doesn’t work…even more. They structure the school day so they can do that and always have so now one thinks it is strange.

As a dyslexia therapist it blows my mind - some of those kids must be full-on dyslexic and what they are doing works for them, too. Imagine parents not needing to hire tutors for 3 plus sessions a week! Imagine all kids reading at grade level in 5th grade! It’s very hopeful.

Interesting that they cured dyslexia! What is the ESL population of the school?

[Anonymous]

Isn’t Steubenville, OH where that poor girl was gang raped by the football team or something like that?

It is interesting because Success for All is criticized for being overly prescriptive and getting kids ready for an authoritarian. Meaning kids learn to follow all directions and not think for themselves. Makes me wonder about the link between fascism, authoritarianism and assault.

Baltimore city used to use success for all. They didn’t see a rise in test scores.

It is sad that the only measure of success this podcast is using is reading scores, not the making of good citizens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this supposed to be meaningful to someone?

It’s meaningful to anyone who’s paying attention to how our kids are being taught (or not taught!) how to read in schools today.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-a-podcast-toppled-the-reading-instruction-canon/

It’s just that OP posted that like anyone who know what she was talking about

The podcast is mentioned on DCUM school threads all the time.

[Anonymous]

Here a summary of the critique in Wikipedia:

“The Success for All program was critiqued in Jonathan Kozol's book The Shame of the Nation as excessively dogmatic, utilitarian, and authoritarian. The Success for All program was also criticized in Kenneth Saltman's book The Edison Schools for undermining teacher autonomy, misrepresenting history and culture, and promoting a politicized conservative curriculum agenda under the guise of disinterested objectivity.“

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn’t Steubenville, OH where that poor girl was gang raped by the football team or something like that?

It is interesting because Success for All is criticized for being overly prescriptive and getting kids ready for an authoritarian. Meaning kids learn to follow all directions and not think for themselves. Makes me wonder about the link between fascism, authoritarianism and assault.

Baltimore city used to use success for all. They didn’t see a rise in test scores.

It is sad that the only measure of success this podcast is using is reading scores, not the making of good citizens.

The rape case, while awful, was 13 years ago. It seems like a really big stretch to 1) blame it on the school’s reading program, and 2) claim that the Steubenville’s schools are not “making good citizens” because of one crime from a previous decade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here a summary of the critique in Wikipedia:

“The Success for All program was critiqued in Jonathan Kozol's book The Shame of the Nation as excessively dogmatic, utilitarian, and authoritarian. The Success for All program was also criticized in Kenneth Saltman's book The Edison Schools for undermining teacher autonomy, misrepresenting history and culture, and promoting a politicized conservative curriculum agenda under the guise of disinterested objectivity.“

Seems to be working in a very disadvantaged area. https://www.apmreports.org/story/2025/02/20/steubenville-ohio-reading-success-for-all

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this supposed to be meaningful to someone?

It’s meaningful to anyone who’s paying attention to how our kids are being taught (or not taught!) how to read in schools today.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-a-podcast-toppled-the-reading-instruction-canon/

It’s just that OP posted that like anyone who know what she was talking about

Of course people know what she’s talking about. Also there’s this cool thing called Google. Try it sometime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn’t Steubenville, OH where that poor girl was gang raped by the football team or something like that?

It is interesting because Success for All is criticized for being overly prescriptive and getting kids ready for an authoritarian. Meaning kids learn to follow all directions and not think for themselves. Makes me wonder about the link between fascism, authoritarianism and assault.

Baltimore city used to use success for all. They didn’t see a rise in test scores.

It is sad that the only measure of success this podcast is using is reading scores, not the making of good citizens.

Good citizens can read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn’t Steubenville, OH where that poor girl was gang raped by the football team or something like that?

It is interesting because Success for All is criticized for being overly prescriptive and getting kids ready for an authoritarian. Meaning kids learn to follow all directions and not think for themselves. Makes me wonder about the link between fascism, authoritarianism and assault.

Baltimore city used to use success for all. They didn’t see a rise in test scores.

It is sad that the only measure of success this podcast is using is reading scores, not the making of good citizens.

Wow. Maybe the program helped with reading and not other activities. Maybe it's a stretch to insinuate a reading program had an effect on things completely unrelated to reading

[Anonymous]

Some people on dcum are super, super into the “reading wars.”

It’s not really a war, it’s just research on reading instruction and curriculum and politics around how schools choose programs.

I think there is a fair argument that promising research on phonics instruction got downplayed because it fell out of fashion in elite academic circles. But that was never true across the country, and it’s not as simplistic as some posters make it sound on here.

Like yes, follow the research and be skeptical of politics. That’s mostly what people have done and that’s why trends have swung back to phonics. But it’s not like there were monsters and angels at work here. Education research is kind of hard and mushy.

Having been in high poverty schools using SFA and other reading curricula, I like SFA but like anything else, it’s all about implementation. And it really can be a bummer for teachers. You can learn to adjust to that and I think it can be really good, but as I said it’s about implementation.

People who are militaristic and full of moral outrage about curricula, like the OP, are almost always from outside of schools in my experience.