By Jennifer Kiilerich
Only a third of American students read proficiently, according to the 2024 National Assessment of Education Progress. Scores continue to lag behind those from 2019 and 2022, and there has been little overall improvement since the NAEP began tracking reading in 1992.
Educators and policymakers have responded by implementing “science of reading” approaches, which most experts now agree are effective. But exactly what is meant by the term and what constitutes meaningful gains remain elusive.
Vanderbilt Peabody College professor Amanda Goodwin has found that teachers—and our trust in them—could be a key ingredient in reaping the benefits of science-backed reading instruction. Ahead, she discusses how we can define the science of reading through a broader lens, why teacher autonomy is vital, and where we go from here.
Seeking a common definition
Goodwin, professor of language, literacy and culture at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development, previously served as editor of Reading Research Quarterly, the preeminent journal in the field. Along with ongoing literacy research, she is a prominent mind on the topic and one of the architects of Word Detectives, a game-based assessment tool for written language skills with proven success. Much of her work now involves translating reading data into practice and consulting for major curriculum publishers on evidence-based reading lessons.
Goodwin became curious about the science of reading when, as a Peabody researcher, an editor and a parent, she noticed that everybody was talking about the buzzy topic, but nobody was talking about it in the same way.
In 2020 and 2021, she and her Reading Research Quarterly co-editor Robert Jiménez, Peabody professor of education, emeritus, published two special journal issues that set out to unpack what the science of reading really means, seeking a collective understanding from researchers. She reviewed more than 80 submitted articles that ran the gamut in their interpretations. “I think reading and analyzing these submissions is what really informed my perspective on the science of reading,” said Goodwin.
So, what is the science of reading?
Public perception of the topic differs from the way scientists see it, and legislators and educators have interpreted and applied reading research in myriad ways. “The science of reading is not just one thing,” said Goodwin. “You can’t take a magic bullet view.”
A landmark federal study conducted 25 years ago—the 2000 National Reading Panel Report—launched the concept into the public sphere, kicking off years of (sometimes heated) discourse around scientifically informed reading lessons. It identified five pillars of reading—phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and reading comprehension—and recommended explicit, or systematic, instruction in these areas.
“Those determinations were not incorrect,” said Goodwin. “You want to teach phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency. But we found that those buckets had become so big that we had lost the nuance of how to teach those things.”
In the quarter century since that study, related federal legislation has come and gone. At least 40 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws related to the science of reading, and most recently, 11 states banned a technique known as “three-cueing.” That method teaches students to extract words based on context, images and syntax—rather than letter-reading. In creating legislation, public discourse has often distilled the approach into a narrowly defined technique that focuses on systematic phonics instruction and criticizes previous methods like balanced literacy and whole language. (To understand phonics, just think back to those “sound-it-out” reading lessons of childhood—it’s essentially the breaking down of words into sounds.)
But in contrast to its rigid reputation, Goodwin found that researchers view science-driven reading through a wider lens. They consider all the latest studies that inform reading education, from foundational concepts like phonics and comprehension to integrating things like context, background knowledge and writing into reading lessons.
“We absolutely want kids to be using phonics, using the print, and to be able to word read,” said Goodwin. “But there’s more to it. We want them to be meaning-makers. For example, one study looked at the difference between just phonics instruction—and phonics instruction with context instruction embedded within it. They found that context really helped students understand our language. It’s not an either/or situation. We can do these things in concert.”
Researchers and policymakers do agree on one thing: evidence-driven reading works. Faced with sluggish improvements in schools, now they are trying to sort out how to make it work in practice.
Centering teachers
“Researchers drew an important distinction between the science of reading research and the science of reading instruction research,” Goodwin said. Reading research tells us how kids learn to read. The research of reading instruction guides us on how to convey those skills to learners in real classrooms.
For example, how do teachers deal with varying class sizes, learning differences or differing language backgrounds that could impact the way kids relate to reading materials?
Those questions all point to teacher judgement. “We were able to look at research studies that showed the role of professional judgement and showed how important teachers were in this work,” said Goodwin.
A 2023 study showed that among states that had adopted science of reading laws, those that included support, training and funding for teachers enjoyed larger gains than those that didn’t.
But the scripted nature of science-of-reading curriculums doesn’t always leave room for teacher discernment. The National Education Association reported that teachers feel increasingly that their job is being deprofessionalized as more heavy-handed laws limit their teaching autonomy.
“I think the key is to really embrace the professionalization of teachers and the judgement that comes into play to adapt the teaching script to a particular set of readers—in a way that is informed by data,” said Goodwin. In other words, reading curriculum is not one-size-fits-all; Goodwin believes that teachers who work daily with their students are well equipped to pull from their professional know-how to teach each unique child. And they can do so in tandem with a science-based reading curriculum.
Teachers’ jobs today are multifaceted. In addition to understanding their students, they need to grasp the latest research and curriculums, know how to assess kids’ skills and then put all the pieces together in a way that acknowledges students’ differences. “We have to work at the intersection between the script, assessment data and the teachers’ professionalization,” said Goodwin.
We know science-based reading works. Now what?
Goodwin shared three key elements for policymakers and educators to consider as they work to close the reading gap. “These things are really emphasized by the science of reading research,” she said, “yet aren’t things that stay at the script level.” Her suggestions include:
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Allocate plenty of time for literacy instruction.
“Metro Nashville Public Schools has allowed for a lot of time in the literacy block,” said Goodwin. “That’s what I would like: to see students reading, writing and reasoning every single day.”
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Support teachers.
“When they deliver their reading curricula in MNPS, they have been increasingly providing supports for teachers to unpack those materials. It allows teachers to capitalize on their professional development, which research shows us is really important,” Goodwin explained.
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Focus on rigor with differentiation.
“Thinking about grade level rigor, and matching that rigor with scaffolding, supports, etc., is key. For example, with struggling readers or multilingual learners, maybe they are struggling to read the texts—but they can certainly think critically about those texts. Getting everybody in the game and providing multiple access points is really empowering.”
Goodwin emphasized that there is a vast array of factors that go into good reading instruction. In compiling the special journal issues, she found that in addition to phonics, science also highlights the importance of social learning. It stresses the need to incorporate morphology, which explores root words more deeply. It points out the value of teacher quality and of teachers being empowered to use their own judgement.
The data remind us that reading instruction is intertwined with writing instruction, and that comprehension requires the teaching of language, said Goodwin. “And you can teach all these things, but at the end of the day, reading comprehension is quite closely tied with background knowledge. So how are we building background knowledge?” In pouring over the research, “there were a lot of really wonderful nuances,” she said.
“I think that if we knew how to do this with a script, we would have done it,” Goodwin concluded. “We would have put kids on a computer and a robot would read the script. But learners and teachers and context are not a single script. Teaching is complex, and reading is complex. We know so much about teaching reading, but we also know so much about teaching. So that must come into play when we think about the science of reading.”
