New York City Hopes Phonics Will Save It From National Reading Crisis

Nation’s largest school district to upend reading curriculum, implement mandated lessons to reverse low literacy rates

By Ben Chapman of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"the city this fall will adopt mandatory, phonics-based reading curricula for its 800 elementary schools, in a move to instruction that favors decoding words using letters and a rigorous approach to phonics. Mr. Banks is set to announce the plan Tuesday." [New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks]

"The change marks a shift from a teaching approach known as balanced literacy, which encouraged the use of cues and word memorization rather than the sounding out of words based on their letters. The city has favored balanced literacy for the last 20 years. 

Mr. Banks said the balanced literacy method intended to quickly build students’ familiarity with words and foster a love of reading, but that it ultimately led the city to a dead end."

"Battles over instruction re-intensified in the 1990s, with Congress convening a National Reading Panel to study the issue. Its 2000 report found that systematic phonics instruction was an essential part of effective reading programs. 

That work provided the basis for the “science of reading,” a body of research that emphasizes the decoding of words using letters and phonics and was combined with whole-language teaching to create balanced literacy programs widely used in New York City and elsewhere. Now New York and other districts are switching direction again, to further embrace the science of reading—but with fewer elements of the whole-language approach."

"The Brooklyn Brownstone School, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, already use the lessons being rolled out by the city."

"Brooklyn Brownstone’s first-grade students have seen a 48% gain on reading benchmarks since the beginning of the school year, thanks to the use of uniform lessons based on the science of reading, said principal Alexander Brunner. “This is much more accessible, even for teachers who are brand new and may not have a literacy background,” he said."