Minding the Gap

For decades, reading comprehension instruction focused primarily on having students practice skills and strategies—like “making inferences”—in isolation from any particular content, contrary to what the research indicates will work. That’s still happening in many schools, but an increasing number are shifting to an approach that puts building content knowledge in the foreground and brings in comprehension strategies as appropriate to the content. That represents progress.

Just in time for the nation’s 250th birthday, the Texas State Board of Education has approved new social studies standards that are designed to foster patriotism—and are already exacerbating partisan division.

One popular explanation for declining test scores has been, basically, “because Covid.” But that analysis has been undercut by recent data underlining the fact that the decline has been going on since at least 2015, well before the pandemic hit.

There are days when I feel we’re making real progress in aligning teaching with cognitive science—particularly, moving away from ineffective skills-focused reading comprehension instruction and towards an approach that centers knowledge-building. One day earlier this week, for example, I did two remote presentations on literacy instruction and cognitive science that reached hundreds of teachers.

A recent analysis of millions of student test scores has declared that Washington, D.C., is “leading the nation.” Using a methodology that allows comparisons between scores from different state tests, a prestigious team of researchers ranked the nation’s capital first in both reading and math—that is, in terms of “growth,” which reflects improvement over time. But if you go by test-score “proficiency,” or absolute numbers of students meeting a specific benchmark, D.C. doesn’t look so hot.

Educators need guidance in deciding which research to trust, and two new resources can help--up to a point. What’s the main reason we don’t see more evidence-based instruction in schools? According to education researcher David Griffith, as quoted in The 74, it’s the “chaotic information environment that the typical teacher is subject to.” “An older teacher tells you one thing,” Griffith said. “Your curriculum tells you something else.

Some parents and teachers complain these curricula suffer from the very flaws they were meant to address. What's going on? I’ve written previously about the apparent trend away from assigning whole books in K-12 classrooms—a trend that has sparked concern.

A new study surveyed a representative sample of American K-3 teachers about the “science of reading,” finding some good news and some not-so-good. It was done by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank, in conjunction with the RAND Corporation. Here are the highlights: The focus on the “science of reading” over the last several years has had an impact on the K-3 teacher workforce—to some extent.

It’s late October in a New York City classroom where students have been learning about American history since the beginning of the school year. A slight boy sits on a wooden stool facing a whiteboard, his legs swinging, as his teacher reads aloud the questions on the board in rapid-fire fashion. “All right, let’s see if you know about the Constitution.

Photo by Vlad Deep on Unsplash There are still plenty of boosters of education technology—including, recently, Melania Trump—but it’s impossible to ignore the tsunami of backlash against it. Among the most prominent critics is a teacher-turned-cognitive-scientist named Jared Cooney Horvath. Unlike many scientists, Horvath doesn’t shy away from making bold claims. His recent testimony before a Senate committee, which has gotten two and a half million views on C-SPAN, is arresting.