How children are taught to read in America

This information really exploded about 2 years ago but I just heard about it 2 days ago and wanted to continue to spread awareness to other parents.

30% or more school systems across the country were (and still might be) teaching children to read using a 3 cueing system/ “balanced literacy” approach for the past 25-30 years. This approach taught kids to use “strategies” to figure out a new word using context clues instead of sounding out the word. They essentially encourage kids to GUESS what the word is instead of breaking it down and sounding it out. Unfortunately that strategy is actually used by poor readers when they have trouble sounding out words in the first place. Kids don’t need to be taught that strategy, they will figure it out anyway if they are struggling.

So schools were literally teaching kids to be poor readers and ignoring the foundations of SOUNDING OUT WORDS (phonics). They were taught that phonics is too boring and phonics distracts a kid from reading because they are too busy sounding out words and not comprehending them. They thought it was better for a kid to get the gist of the story instead of getting every single word right. For example, if a kid came across the word horse and said house, that’s wrong, but if they said pony instead of horse, that would be acceptable.

So they barely taught any phonics, kids went far too long without even knowing that letters make sounds and sounds put together make words. They were memorizing words based on the shape. Some kids learned to sound out words on their own despite this training thank god. But far too many kids were failed and told they had a learning disability.

There’s so much more to get into. 10 states have already banned this reading technique in the past 2 years. My local school system was using this for 30 years and finally passed laws to ban it in 2022

Listen to the podcast Sold a Story. Her reporting is what sparked these legislative changes 2 years ago.

Reposting without the link to the podcast since mods think this is self promotion