The Sorry Saga of American Reading Instruction: A Brief but Pernicious History

The Sorry Saga of American Reading Instruction: A Brief but Pernicious History

The ability to read is the most empowering of human capacities. It is the wellspring of knowledge, the foundation of democracy, and the gateway to everything from commerce to culture. Yet for decades America's schools have failed abysmally at imparting this most vital of skills.

Our republic was founded in a spirit of Enlightenment, with literacy key to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. But the present era is one of Endarkenment, as retrograde reading policies and practices condemn each new generation to functional illiteracy. This is a national scandal of the highest order, though sadly it occasions more indifference than outrage.

The roots of our current malaise trace back to the early 19th century, when the common school movement sought to provide universal public education. The motives were egalitarian, but the methods were dogmatic, favoring rote memorization over critical thinking. Students endlessly copied letters and syllables from slates in dull recitation drills meant to instill "proper" habits. This authoritarian approach serendipitously boosted literacy rates, but at the cost of stifling creativity and engagement.

By the late 1800s, progressive educators saw the need for more enlightened techniques focused on meaning, not just mechanics. The naturalistic philosophies of Rousseau and Pestalozzi gained sway, as did the insights of Friedrich Froebel, whose kindergartens replaced dreary recitations with lively activities incorporating blocks, songs, and story time. For a fleeting period, American education seem poised to embrace true scholarship.

Alas, the pendulum swung back with a vengeance toward rigid, reductive methods in the early 20th century. The quest for "efficiency" in factories and corporations infected the classroom. Students were processed like widgets, with standardized testing to sort the prime stock from the defective units. Thorndike, a pioneer of "scientific" education, went so far as to equate reading with deciphering Morse code. Meaning was an afterthought, if a thought at all.

At Columbia University's Teachers College, professors rallied around a "progressive" doctrine, but it was progress in name only. They simply transferred control from teachers to students, letting children read whatever they fancied. Standards vanished as faddish ideologies supplanted substantive instruction. The cult of self-esteem blossomed as the teaching of skills withered. Meanwhile, the education schools' embrace of avant-garde theories made the classroom a laboratory for social engineering.

Here is a timeline of major reading assessments and testing policies at the state and federal level:

1800s-1900s

- Spelling bees, recitations used to assess reading skills

1926

- First standardized achievement test, Stanford Achievement Test, developed

1950s 

- States begin developing own standardized assessments

1965

- National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) launched to assess students nationally

1969

- Minimum Competency Testing laws passed in many states 

1980s 

- Increase in state-level standardized testing after A Nation at Risk report 

1994

- Improving America’s Schools Act requires states to adopt standards and assessments

2001 

- No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) passed, requiring annual testing in grades 3-8

2009

- Common Core State Standards initiative launched

2009

- Race to the Top provides incentives for Common Core assessments

2014

- Smarter Balanced and PARCC Common Core tests first administered

2015

- Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) passed, keeping NCLB testing requirements

Today

- Annual state testing required in grades 3-8, plus federal NAEP assessments

This timeline shows the progression from early locally-developed tests to increased standardized testing at the state level and federally-driven policies like NCLB that mandated annual assessments to hold schools accountable for performance.

The pendulum swung again in the 1950s as the threat of Communism stirred fears that lax academics had put America at risk. The schools returned to time-tested materials like McGuffey Readers and redoubled efforts to reinforce reading fundamentals. For the next two decades, phonics and fluency drilled enjoyed a revival as literacy rates surged. But the "traditional" consensus was not to last.

The 1960s brought a new round of radical thinking in education. Influenced by the anti-authoritarian ethos of the times, advocates of "child-centered" instruction again sought to liberate students from the shackles of directed teaching. Graves's Writing: Teachers & Children at Work (1983) dismissed conventions of grammar, usage, and spelling as oppressive impositions stifling creative expression. Goodman's What's Whole in Whole Language? (1986) rejected phonics in favor of guessing words from context, asserting that "readers construct meaning" in an organic process akin to speech acquisition.

The whole-language movement took Dewey's disdain for rote learning to an extreme, rejecting any isolated skill instruction. Its workshop model emphasized immersion in a linguistically rich environment over explicit teaching of decoding. Meaning was paramount; miscues were trivialities to be celebrated for their inventiveness. By granting pupils agency over what and how they read, teachers ostensibly kindled passion for literacy.

In reality, the new dispensation was a disaster for reading ability, especially for minorities and the disadvantaged. Bereft of academic guidance and cultural capital, these students floundered. The education establishment's infatuation with fads over facts consigned poor children to a lesser education. A generation was betrayed.

That betrayal continued with the National Reading Panel convened in 2000. Though its report offered some useful findings, it muddled the verdict on phonics. Seeking to appease the warring reading camps, it endorsed a vague "balanced literacy" compromise when the research demanded an unequivocal return to decoding emphasis. Political cowardice carried the day; scientific truth was sacrificed.

The price has been paid in persistently abysmal reading scores and illiteracy rates. Nearly two-thirds of American fourth graders still read below grade level. Yet the repetitive reading rituals favored by whole-language devotees remain ascendant in elementary classrooms. Watching underprivileged children endlessly re-read the same basic book for months on end without explicit decoding instruction is akin to educational malpractice.

This disgrace has been compounded by the testing and accountability reforms of the past two decades. No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have treated reading like any other skill amenable to training for higher test scores. This cynical agenda has led to mind-numbing test preparation "drill and kill" sessions even as content mastery evaporates. Struggling pupils get tested and tested into submission without ever acquiring the bedrock knowledge needed for academic success.

Federal mandates have also spawned a mammoth testing-industrial complex with textbook publishers and assessment firms raking in billions from subpar products. The abominable Pearson basil and maze reading passages on Common Core exams are Exhibit A in how not to inspire a love of reading. Yet such shoddy materials remain omnipresent due to the unholy alliance of technocratic bureaucrats and rapacious corporations profiting from the enforced mediocrity our educational system accepts as standard.

After two centuries of misguided reforms, reversals, gimmicks, and false promises, we are little closer to the noble ideal of an enlightened citizenry empowered by the wonder of reading. Today's schools are hostage to stagnant pedagogies that treat learners as passive receptacles rather than active inquirers. Texts brimming with meaning are replaced with sterile exercises focused on narrow skills. The articulated word on which verbal fluency relies is forsaken for pantomimed gestures called "whole body listening". Education has morphed into tedious therapy aimed at raising students' self-esteem rather than their intellectual horizons.

The inability to read is a curse condemning generations to lives of diminished opportunity and autonomy. It is the Ball and Chain bequeathed by an ossified educational establishment that prides itself on good intentions yet refuses to impart foundational skills with rigor. Unless the featured components of decoding and knowledge acquisition once again become the central pillars of literacy instruction, we will persist in saddling children with the curse of illiteracy that denies them the birthright of cultural participation and achievement. An informed republic remains dependent on citizens empowered by the ultimate freedom tool: reading. Our nation's future demands that we finally teach this universal skill properly. The time for excuses has passed; evidence-based practice must prevail if our schools are to fulfill their mandate. Only systemic change led by those with clarity of vision rather than fealty to failed dogmas will return our citizens to the path of literacy and possibility. The true progressivism our moment requires is a return to what works. Our posterity deserves no less.

Here is an expanded list of major reading textbooks, programs, and approaches published in the United States over the past 200 years:

- The American Spelling Book by Noah Webster (1783) - Emphasized phonics and rote memorization

- McGuffey Readers by William Holmes McGuffey (1836-1920) - Eclectic readers that combined phonics, whole word recognition, and meaning

- Horace Mann Readers (1857-80) - Whole word recognition approach 

- Appleton Readers by William Torrey Harris (1897-1898) - Combined phonics and literature

- Elson Basic Readers by William Harris Elson and Lura E. Runkel (1930s-60s) - Controlled vocabulary, phonics-based

- Dick and Jane by William S. Gray and Zerna Sharp (1930s-70s) - Predictable, controlled vocabulary using sight words

- Scott Foresman Reading Series (1940s-80s) - Basal reader with controlled vocabulary

- Fun with Dick and Jane by William S. Gray (1940s-50s) - Sight word recognition

- Open Court Reading by Siegfried Engelmann (1960s-present) - Direct instruction with phonics emphasis

- Distar Reading by Siegfried Engelmann (1969-present) - Direct instruction phonics program

- Economy Company Reading Series (1970s-80s) 

- Holt Basic Reading by Jack Schaefer (1970s-80s)

- Reading Mastery by Siegfried Engelmann (1970s-present) - Direct instruction phonics

- Programmed Reading by Cynthia Buchanan (1970s-80s) - Technology-assisted phonics lessons

- Success for All by Robert Slavin (1987-present) - Cooperative learning with phonics

- Reading Recovery by Marie Clay (1980s-present) - One-on-one tutoring for struggling readers

- Literature-based reading (1980s-90s) - Use of trade books instead of basal texts

- Whole language approach (1980s-90s) - Focus on meaning over phonics

- Houghton Mifflin Reading Series (1980s-present) 

- Journeys Common Core by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2012-present)

- Wonders Reading Series by McGraw-Hill (2014-present)

- Core Knowledge Language Arts by E.D. Hirsch Jr. (2014-present) 

- American Reading Company (early 2000s-present) 

- Into Reading by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2020-present)

- Benchmark Advance/Benchmark Universe by Zaner-Bloser (2010s-present)

- Wilson Reading System - Multisensory structured language program

- Barton Reading & Spelling System - Multisensory structured language 

- Orton-Gillingham approach - Multisensory phonics instruction

- Spalding Method - Explicit phonics instruction

- Saxon Phonics - Incremental explicit phonics program

- S.P.I.R.E. - Multisensory structured literacy program

- Explode the Code - Systematic phonics workbooks

- SIPPS - Systematic instruction in phonological awareness, phonics, and sight words

- Fundations - Multisensory early literacy program by Wilson Language Training

- Sonday System - Multisensory structured language program

This covers many of the major commercial and structured literacy programs for reading instruction over the past two centuries in the United States. The cycle between phonics approaches and whole language/literature-based methods is evident.

Here is a comprehensive list of major reading intervention programs, separated into tiers:

Tier 1 Core Programs:

- Journeys (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

- Wonders (McGraw-Hill) 

- Open Court Reading (McGraw-Hill)

- Reading Mastery (McGraw-Hill)

- Fundations (Wilson)

- Core Knowledge Language Arts (Amplify)

- Success for All (SFA)

Tier 2 Small Group Interventions:

- Leveled Literacy Intervention (Fountas & Pinnell) 

- Reading Recovery (Marie Clay)

- Comprehension Club (Stephanie Harvey)

- Guided Reading (Fountas & Pinnell)

- LLI (Fountas & Pinnell)

- Early Interventions in Reading (EIR)

- Success for All (SFA)

- Sonday System

- SIPPS (Center for the Collaborative Classroom)

- Rewards (Anita Archer)

- Read Naturally

Tier 3 Intensive Interventions: 

- READ 180 (Scholastic)

- System 44 (Scholastic)

- Barton Reading & Spelling System

- Orton-Gillingham Approach

- Wilson Reading System 

- SPIRE (SPIRE) 

- Failure Free Reading (Heinemann)

- Visualizing and Verbalizing (Lindamood-Bell)

- Corrective Reading (McGraw-Hill)

- Sonday System 1 (Sonday)

- Edmark Reading Program (Edmark) 

This covers the major research-based reading programs at each tier level used in schools today. The tiers represent the level of reading supports provided to students, from core instruction to intensive intervention.