Sold a Story : responses

Here are two responses to the podcast Sold a Story : How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong.

From a letter signed by fifty-eight teachers, writers, and administrators. “A call for rejecting the newest reading wars”:

We’re dismayed that at this moment in our history, when all of us should be banding together to support literacy education, the podcast Sold a Story fans divisiveness, creating a false sense that there is a war going on between those who believe in phonics and those who do not.

From a reply to that letter signed by more than 650 current and former teachers, “For the students we wish we’d taught better”:

A central point of the Sold a Story podcast is that the research “wars” around foundational reading skills were already won and lost decades ago — and that few educators have ever heard of this research, because an entire industry of education publishers, coaches and curriculum writers have either ignored or actively resisted it, needlessly encumbering the efforts of thousands of teachers like us, our students, and their families along the way.

If you’re a regular reader of Orange Crate Art, you already know what I think about Sold a Story and reading instruction.