Learning to read the world as well as the words

“Cut the politics. Phonics is the best way to teach reading.”

That may sound like conservative education activist Phyllis Schlafly speaking up for frustrated parents at the height of the phonics debates in the mid-1990s. Actually, it’s the headline of a Washington Post editorial board piece from March 2023. Debate has roiled for decades over whether to teach reading by sounding out letters on the one hand or by piecing together “whole language” context clues on the other. The long-accumulating evidence finally convinced the Post’s editorial board to state decisively that the science is clear. Phonics is foundational to children’s success in reading—and education generally.

The Post illustrated its editorial with phonetically captioned pictures like the ones children use to sound out their first words. One of those captions read “m-a-n,” a common word in children’s early readers. But the choice is ironic in a piece aimed at settling a contentious issue, since the meaning of “man” is at issue in a new educational dispute. If teaching students phonetically to decode “m-a-n” is now a matter of common sense, teaching them conceptually to decode the word “man” based on biological reality has become a matter of considerable controversy.

Schools are recovering the reliability of phonics even as they abandon reliable language distinctions based on biological sex. Parents were right to persist on behalf of children’s God-given capacity to discern a world of intelligible meaning in the written word. How much more should parents persevere for the sake of children’s confidence that language reflects created reality.

In the debate over reading, theorists advancing alternatives to phonics promised children would be happier readers through their student-centered methods. The approach instead left many students confused, guessing at words rather than reading them. That’s not surprising, since the philosophy underlying the approach deemphasized systematic instruction. Kenneth Goodman, regarded as the founder of “whole language” reading theory, wrote a 1967 article describing reading as “a psycholinguistic guessing game.” Goodman chided the persistence of “naive common sense” and “outmoded beliefs” about teaching reading through systematic phonics instruction.

A recent podcast series reported how “Zoom school” during the pandemic multiplied parents’ concerns that their children were not learning to read. The data corroborate their misgivings. Two-thirds of fourth graders struggle with reading; more than a third cannot read at an even basic level. After years of students floundering through the guessing game, parents’ insights have been vindicated and resistance to phonics is now becoming outmoded. A gradual revival of phonics instruction has been underway over the past decade. About 30 states have enacted phonics policy to date.

The lesson is that those in positions of authority need to confront theory with realism about human nature. Policymakers and educational leaders need to address evidence about how concepts actually work in practice. They have a responsibility to reckon with how theory affects people’s lives, especially the lives of children—and to do so sooner rather than later.

Parents’ common sense and unfashionable beliefs once again face expert acrimony, this time over transgender policy in schools and sports. The Washington Post and other media outlets may applaud state adoption of science-based reading policy, but not science-based sports policy. One year ago, in the spring of 2022, the Post’s editorial board decried the effort in a number of states to protect women’s and girls’ sports, while welcoming biological male Lia Thomas’ ascendance in NCAA women’s swimming competition.

Parents are right to insist that sports and other school policies recognize reality about their children’s biological sex. Children need the adults in their lives—especially parents and teachers—to be reliable guides as they learn to navigate the givenness of reality, rather than leaving them to guessing games that lead to confusion. That’s true whether in the case of reading the written word or reading the reality of the world.