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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ironically, NCLB resulted in reallocation of instruction time away from social studies and science, towards reading and math… but those latter scores are down too!![/quote]
If schools improve decoding instruction in K-2, they can shift instructional time to more social studies and science in grades 3+.  Many proponents of the "science of reading" think this approach is preferable.

Want better readers? Spend less time teaching kids to find the main idea, ‘Knowledge Gap’ author Natalie Wexler argues https://www.chalkbeat.org/2019/9/16/21108839/want-better-readers-spend-less-time-teaching-kids-to-find-the-main-idea-knowledge-gap-author-natalie

"She builds her case with cognitive science that suggests that once students have learned to sound out words — “decode” — the key to understanding a text is having solid background knowledge on the subject....

'We’ve been looking at that gap as a gap in skills. American elementary schools, and to some extent middle schools, have long approached reading comprehension as though it’s a matter of teaching generally applicable skills, like let’s practice finding the main idea and let’s practice making inferences. The theory is, it doesn’t really matter what content the kids are using to practice those skills; if they just get good at those skills they will be able to apply them eventually to any text that’s put in front of them, whether it’s on a standardized test or in high school.

That approach has been intensified in the last 20 years by the advent of high-stakes reading tests, because it looks like they’re measuring those skills. So teachers, policymakers, reformers have all assumed we should just double down on teaching those skills.

The problem is that, as cognitive scientists have known for decades, the most important factor in reading comprehension is not generally applicable skills like finding the main idea — it’s how much knowledge and vocabulary the reader has relating to the topic. So if we really want to boost reading comprehension, we should be doing the opposite of what we’re doing — especially in schools where test scores are low — which is cutting subjects like social studies and science that could actually increase students’ knowledge of the world and instead spending more time on these reading comprehension skills.'"[/quote]

Almost every teacher could have told you this.  We were prohibited from teaching decoding and forced instead to teacher reading comprehension strategies like finding the main idea.  I did it for years, and after trying really hard and totally buying in and taking a lot of classes and doing a lot of training and even my own classroom research (I have a PhD), became convinced that teaching reading comprehension strategies was ineffective (with the exception of helping kids answer reading comprehension questions on the SOL test, but without any real-world application).  But FCPS literally forced us to do it and pretend like it was the best thing ever.  It didn't work, it didn't make sense, and now I have no doubt they will suddenly act like it's teachers who have been doing such a bad job and they are going to save the day by introducing decoding instruction.  Once you get to be an old teacher, you get sick and tired of being forced to teach poorly by the district for 5-10 years at a time, only to be blamed for the poor instruction when they are finally confronted with its failure, and to be told the new great thing you need to learn is exactly the thing they called you a bad teacher for doing all those years ago.[/quote]

Had to check the date -- did I write this??

I could have written the exact same thing (but no PhD). I was literally told NOT to teach decoding for many years. They did NOT want to see students using their finger to point to each word and decode it. We were told NOT to tell students to sound it out or to present decoding instruction in the absence of meaningful text (which is NOT how you should teach decoding).

I taught decoding anyhow, always, but did it on the sly for many years. I never sent decoding homework home with my students so it wasn't obvious I was departing from the official curriculum.

I'm so glad we no longer have to hide our phonics instruction! The kids are learning to read much more quickly now![/quote]

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