Navigating the Science of Reading: How to Hold a Professional Conversation About Teaching Readers
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In this article originally published for Choice Literacy, I share the conditions I have found most conducive to facilitating a conversation around the science of reading.
While they don’t guarantee a productive interaction, the conditions at least describe the environment needed to learning about others’ perspectives while ensuring alignment with our core values.
A popular and contentious topic in education is the science of reading. It’s hard to miss the stress-inducing debates about the best way to teach readers.
It is healthy to limit what we consume. Yet at least some of our close colleagues are engaged in this topic. They have aligned themselves with a philosophy that matches their current belief system. The context for their engagement may be a Facebook group or other online space. These groups often serve as echo chambers instead of opportunities for learning.
What do we do when a colleague comes to school with misinformation about reading instruction? It helps to have a common understanding of what “the science of reading” means. We also need strategies for supporting open and productive dialogue. The complex nature of our work resists simple answers.
In this article, I share a definition of the science of reading, why educators sometimes “read” it wrong, and three communication strategies when engaging in professional conversation on this topic.
Reading the Science of Reading
Here is one definition of the science of reading:
“’The science of reading’ is a phrase representing the accumulated knowledge about reading, reading development, and best practices for reading instruction obtained by the use of the scientific method” (Petscher et al, 2020).
Offering this definition to colleagues could lead a group to reach consensus that this is a shared belief about how to teach readers.
Too many professionals view a definition like this only through the lens of their individual belief systems. They rely on their own limited experience as an educator along with less credible resources to form a position on the science of reading. Petscher and colleagues refer to this as a “coherence theory of truth”, in which something is true to a person if it makes sense and matches their experiences.
As an example, a professor of education published a blog post that suggested teaching students decoding skills in an authentic context (i.e. rich texts) is an ineffective practice. “I’m not aware of any actual evidence to support this claim.”
In the comments, I shared a link to a summary of studies (Scanlon & Anderson, 2020) that demonstrated substantially improved reading outcomes for students who learned how to decode in context.
Instead of acknowledging the new information, she held tightly to her belief system. “The question is whether this is an efficient approach that should form the basis of early instruction and I don't believe that it is.” This was not the original question she posed. She needed to revise her initial statement of not being aware of evidence to support teaching decoding in context. Otherwise, she couldn't have sustained her narrative about how children learn to read.
Three Conditions for Listening and Learning
Comments on blogs or on social media is not the best place for engaging in these types of conversations.
If you are fortunate to have the space and time in your school for professional dialogue around this topic, I recommend the following three conditions for ensuring a safe and productive experience.
#1 – Communicate Clear Goals and Working Agreements
The goal of professional conversation is a deeper understanding of one’s practice. Working agreements are “agreed upon guidelines for how group members will conduct themselves to achieve meeting outcomes” (Source: Adaptive Schools).
Groups can develop working agreements as an initial shared writing task. Some examples of working agreements include “start and end on time”, “be present”, and “listen to learn”.
These agreements are only as useful as how well leaders help teachers commit to them. For example, our faculty had a conversation about implementing our literacy curriculum resource. One teacher, often quiet, shared her position on guided reading. Another teacher, an ardent SoR supporter, chimed in with her belief that guided reading wasn’t evidence-based. Later I learned that the quiet teacher felt disrespected by their colleague. This would have been an opportunity for me or another leader to pause the conversation, and remind the group that one of our goals was to listen to learn.
#2 – Use Protocols for Supporting Productive Conversations
Discussion protocols offer structure to support everyone’s capacity to listen and talk with an open mind.
Thinking Collaborative has many protocols for supporting productive conversations: https://www.thinkingcollaborative.com/as-resources
A favorite protocol of mind is “First Turn-Last Turn”. This process ensures all members of a group are withholding from exercising judgment on a colleague’s opinion.
Each person reads an assigned text and highlights 3-4 key items.
One person shares one of the items.
Every other person offers a comment on that time in turn without cross talk.
The first person who named the item then shares their thinking on it, getting the last turn.
#3 – Close Conversations by Gathering Key Takeaways
The Latin root of discussion is discutere, which means “the shake apart”.
A good conversation will shake out key insights. We want to organize these insights into a coherent whole for the group.
I will often serve as the key insight collector on a large sheet of paper. When people offer an insight, I will turn to the group and ask, “Does this align with what you heard today?” There is public accountability with this process. No one wants to be contradicted by the larger group, say if they were to offer an inaccurate or incomplete portrayal of how students learn to read.
These collective insights can become part of a faculty’s belief system. What a faculty believes about high-quality reading instruction is what happens in classrooms. This is how professional conversations can inoculate schools from the swinging pendulum of the reading wars.
References
Petscher, Y., Cabell, S.Q., Catts, H.W., Compton, D.L., Foorman, B.R., Hart, S.A., Lonigan, C.J., Phillips, B.M., Schatschneider, C., Steacy, L.M., Terry, N.P., & Wagner, R.K. (2020). How the Science of Reading Informs 21st-Century Education. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(S1), S267– S282. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.352
Scanlon, D.M., & Anderson, K.L. (2020). Using Context as an Assist in Word Solving: The Contributions of 25 Years of Research on the Interactive Strategies Approach. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(S1), S19– S34. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.335
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