Hooked on phonics? Not at Mass. higher ed institutions.
Almost two centuries ago, famed Massachusetts education reformer Horace Mann inveighed against the practice of teaching children to read by sounding out the letters in words — the sometimes tedious method of instruction that’s now known as phonics. His attack on the “bloodless, ghostly apparitions” of the letters of the alphabet — “children look and feel so deathlike … when compelled to face them” — created a template of sorts. Progressive educators have continued to bristle against the often-rote nature of phonics instruction and sought out alternatives in an effort to make literacy education more fun — to “introduce children to a knowledge of reading through an avenue of pleasure,” as Mann put it.
Yet phonics persists, and for good reason: Ghostly or not, it works. Studies have shown that children learn to read better when teachers use phonics, and the method has enjoyed a strong resurgence in recent years. But there are holdouts. A recent report showed that relatively few Massachusetts higher education institutions — where the next generation of the state’s teachers are trained — have embraced those scientifically supported instruction methods, in favor of more dubious methods.
The findings underscore the reality that even in a state with generally strong academic results, the Legislature needs to do more to ensure that students are taught to read — and teachers are taught to teach — in scientifically supported ways.
Only three Massachusetts-based colleges earned top marks from the National Council on Teacher Quality for training teachers to use a science-based approach that includes phonics. Instead, most local programs teach common but less effective methods like three-cueing, which uses different cues like visuals, word meaning, and sentence context; and balanced literacy curricula,
The state’s image as an academic success story notwithstanding, test results show the Commonwealth still falls short.
another popular model that combines various approaches. Balanced literacy, though, has no single definition; at best, it can be loosely described as teaching reading in a way that meets the student’s individual needs. Both balanced literacy and three-cueing are considered low-quality curricula because there’s no good research to back them up.
And there can hardly be a more important task for schools to get right than teaching reading: Children who are not reading proficiently in third grade are four times more likely to drop out of, or fail to graduate, high school than their peers who are; if the student is Black or Hispanic, they are six times more likely to not graduate high school.
The state’s image as an academic success story notwithstanding, test results show the Commonwealth still falls short. Consider the most recent statewide reading test scores: 44 percent of all third-graders met or exceeded expectations on the 2022 MCAS reading assessment, whereas only 26 percent of third-graders from low-income backgrounds, 28 percent of Black students, and 23 percent of Hispanic students scored at those levels. In Boston, 30 percent of all third-graders met or exceeded expectations on the MCAS reading exam.
Given those outcomes, Kerry Donahue, chief strategy officer at the Boston Schools Fund, wasn’t shocked to learn that our local colleges and institutions have room for improvement when teaching prospective educators how to teach reading. “Higher ed institutions that prepare teachers have a lot of autonomy,” she said. Indeed, academic freedom is an essential tenet in higher ed, Donahue said. But there is room for state leadership to take a stronger hand to correct what is clearly a warning sign for declining literacy outcomes.
Donahue said the three-cueing strategy “is basically about teaching kids guessing, and you can never become a proficient reader if you are guessing.” Phonics theory, on the other hand, teaches children to first learn letters and letter combinations that make up the English language’s 42 sounds, and it’s supported by decades of research.
There’s currently pending legislation to promote “high-quality comprehensive literacy instruction” in all Massachusetts classrooms. The two filed bills would hold school districts accountable for using science-proven methods, including phonics, to teach students to read. They also address teacher preparation, calling for a panel review to draft recommendations “to maximize dissemination of evidence-based early literacy best practice among the educator workforce, which shall include but not be limited to pre-service training for teachers” and professional development for teachers who are already in classrooms. The legislative proposals complement an effort already underway from state education authorities to strengthen literacy instruction, including grants to accelerate literacy learning and a mandate for each district to assess students’ reading ability and progress in literacy skills twice a year.
That’s a step in the right direction. Roughly 30 states have taken a lead legislating or enacting new policies, including changes to teacher training, to align early reading instruction to cognitive science research. Mississippi was among the first states to do so and it’s widely recognized now for the impressive gains the state has made to improve reading scores. It’s been called the “Mississippi Miracle.”
“Massachusetts has rested on its laurels as the number one on national educational assessments, but still, fewer than 50 percent of students read on grade level,” Donahue said. That is a data point that is hard to gloss over. Anyone who’s seen a frustrated child struggle with letters can understand why reformers from Mann’s time onward have wanted better ways to teach reading. But the research is clear that as hard as it may be sometimes, phonics works — and needs to be central to reading education in Massachusetts.