In this 45-minute presentation, I walk through five beliefs about the science of reading. The intent is to spark curiosity and encourage conversation.
Watch this presentation in tandem with my free eBook What School Leaders Need to Know About the Science of Reading. Use these resources as a starting point for holding much-needed discussions in your school around effective literacy instruction. If you would like support with facilitating this type of conversation, don't hesitate to get in touch with me here.
Take care,
Matt
P.S. Join me for the next professional learning event: a conversation with Dr. Kelly Cartwright, author of Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension: A Guide for Educators.
Full Transcript
What School Leaders Need to Know About the Science of Reading
Transcript of a presentation based on the free ebook resource available to download.
About Me
Hi, I’m Matt Renwick. I’m sharing this presentation: What School Leaders Need to Know About the Science of Reading, based on the free ebook resource available to download.
A little bit about myself. I’m a father of two teens and a husband to Jodi, who is also a teacher. My son is currently in college — whenever I visit, I try to find something fun for us to do together. My daughter is a junior in high school. I’m also a very part-time bookseller at an independent bookstore in my hometown. This is our dog, Millie. She works Sundays with me and is excellent at her job. And one of the things I most enjoy is visiting national parks. My most recent trip was to the Rocky Mountains for a mountain biking trip — though I’ll admit I’m not a big fan of heights, so I drove the rest of the party up to the trailhead and cheered them on from there.
Starting With a Book
I want to begin by referencing a book — not reading it aloud, but using it as a frame. It’s called Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld. You may have seen it. It uses an optical illusion — is it a duck or a rabbit? One person sees a duck; another sees a rabbit.
I’ve found this book especially useful for lowering the emotional temperature when we start talking about the science of reading. After reading it aloud, I typically invite a group to pause and reflect on these three questions:
When we debate reading instruction, are we arguing about what’s best for kids — or about who’s right?
Where in your work do you notice people looking at the same data and seeing completely different things?
What would it take for you to genuinely consider a perspective on reading instruction that you’ve resisted?
If you’re watching this with a group, I’d encourage you to pause here and have a conversation.
How This Resource Got Started
The impetus for this presentation came from a colleague who was supporting a new administrator. This new administrator was already getting inundated with requests for evidence-based workbooks and heavily phonics-focused resources. She reached out and asked me to share my take on the science of reading with this administrator.
Here’s what I shared in an email:
First, reading instruction is complex. It’s not a simple equation you can plug resources into and expect to produce readers.
Second, science requires inquiry, not dogma. If a field is a true science, it will continue to conduct research, look at what’s working and what’s not, and reevaluate its philosophies in light of new evidence.
Third, multiple sciences of reading matter. We can’t just look at cognitive science. We also have to look at the science of engagement, the science of motivation, the science of efficacy, and the science of goal setting. These all matter.
Fourth, authentic texts should support skill development. A lot of resources strip away rich, relevant text in service of isolated skill practice — and we know that doesn’t work.
Fifth, programs do not equal responsive instruction. I’ve heard this called “solutionitis” — the idea that buying a program will automatically raise reading scores. We know that’s not the case.
I sent that email and waited a few weeks without hearing back. I eventually reached out to my colleague and learned the administrator had left the position. My first assumption was that the complexity of the topic had scared them off — but actually, they’d landed a dream job. Still, the experience got me thinking about all the new administrators coming into these roles without much background in this area. That’s what I want to address through both this presentation and the ebook.
My Beliefs — A Disclaimer
What follows is based on my current beliefs, grounded not just in my own experience but also in research and in conversations with colleagues who know more than I do in certain areas. These beliefs are evolving. I hold them with humility.
Belief 1: Teaching Reading Is Not Simple
There’s been a lot of conversation lately about the “simple view of reading.” I’d argue that teaching reading is anything but simple. It takes a long time to become highly skilled at teaching readers.
I recently came across a New York Times article titled “Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore — Even in English Class.” I found it striking because when I taught fifth and sixth graders 25 years ago, we were reading multiple novels a year as a class. Then we moved away from that — toward anthology series, excerpts, comprehension questions, skill packets. I’m not saying whole-class novel study is a best practice across the board. But it’s worth asking: we introduced all these programs, and the result is that kids aren’t reading books anymore. How do we find the balance — where resources support instruction without becoming the curriculum? As Peter Afflerbach likes to say: How do we teach readers, not just reading?
The Simple View of Reading — from Gough and Tunmer — reads like an equation: decoding + language comprehension = reading. There’s research that supports this. The problem is that it’s incomplete. It doesn’t account for all the other ways kids become readers.
One of the biggest promoters of this simplified narrative has been Emily Hanford’s Sold a Story podcast. I counted the transcripts of the first eight episodes: phonics is mentioned 48 times, comprehension 10 times, and engagement 0 times. You can see how media shapes the public’s understanding of reading instruction — and how that narrative flows into legislation. Wisconsin’s Act 20, for example, is heavily phonics-focused. Some of the assessments it prioritizes, like oral reading fluency, can be useful indicators — but they don’t even measure comprehension.
An Active View of Reading — introduced by Duke and Cartwright — is what I promote instead. It still values word recognition and language comprehension, but adds important components: bridging processes (print concepts, fluency, vocabulary knowledge), and active self-regulation (motivation, engagement, executive functioning, strategy use). These aren’t extras — they’re prerequisites for students to become highly effective, engaged readers. Notably, this is a reader model, not a reading model. It recognizes that reading is also shaped by the texts we choose, the tasks we design, and sociocultural context — including diverse authorship, representation, and the absence of bias.
A practical implication: expand your assessments. As a principal and teacher, I learned that what we measure is what matters. Right-to-read legislation may mandate oral reading fluency screening, and that’s fine — but we can also look at attendance and behavior as root causes, consider whether language barriers rather than reading skill are the real challenge for some students, and include teacher observations and student voice. Think about what it means to take a fuller picture of a reader.
Belief 2: The Science Is Anything But Settled
I once posted this on Twitter:
“I don’t know who needs to hear this. Teaching a literacy curriculum program like a script, lesson by lesson, to all kids without considering their current interests, abilities, and needs is not scientific, drains the joy out of learning, and leads to inequities.”
It got significant engagement — many positive responses, but also real pushback. Someone at the higher ed level responded that teachers actually love the script because it gives them structure. I understand that perspective. But the insistence that the science is settled — and that it’s simply a matter of implementing the right program — is not only factually wrong; it’s intellectually closed.
Notice even the language: the science of reading. That definite article is essentialist, exclusive — like “the Olympic Games” or “The Ohio State University.” If you’re for the science of reading, you believe X. If you don’t, you’re outside the movement. People have been pushed to the margins of these communities simply for raising questions. That doesn’t feel very scientific.
Any professional field that considers itself a science goes through paradigm shifts — a concept introduced by Thomas Kuhn. Normal science gives way to anomalies, then to a model crisis, then to revolution, then to a new paradigm. Copernicus gave us one example. I believe reading instruction is stuck in the model crisis — cycling through the same debates without genuine revolution. We can’t change the whole profession, but we can make progress locally.
One approach I’ve found effective: use professional journal articles to facilitate conversation — not to prove a point, but to create space for educators to engage with ideas. Rachel Gabriel’s article “The Sciences of Reading Instruction” is a good one. It’s balanced, uses helpful metaphors, and raises productive questions.
Pair it with shared agreements (I use: stay engaged, experience discomfort, speak your truth, expect and accept non-closure) and a dialogue protocol — like the 4As — to make sure all voices get space, not just the loudest ones.
Belief 3: Good Intentions Can Lead to Inequitable Outcomes
Wisconsin’s Act 20 — our right-to-read law — was written in July 2023. Like many state laws of its kind, its language has been heavily influenced by certain think tanks, commercial providers, and media figures. It requires science-based early reading instruction, mandates universal screening and intervention systems, restricts certain curriculum approaches (no three-cueing in core reading curriculum starting in 2024–25), and requires professional development around structured literacy for K–3 teachers, principals, and reading specialists.
There are also third-grade promotion policies. In some states — Ohio, Florida, Mississippi — students who are not deemed proficient can be retained. Up to a third of an entire third-grade cohort in some cases. The long-term effects of that are deeply concerning.
I share this because I do believe most people involved in this legislation want kids to perform better. But good intentions can produce inequitable outcomes when:
Single scores become students’ identities
A student who scored at the 24th percentile versus the 25th percentile on an ORF assessment receives a personal reading plan and a letter home — without anyone asking whether they had a rough night, or whether they still see themselves as a strong reader
We do things to students rather than with them, stripping away agency and voice
What I’ve observed as this movement plays out in schools: more scripted curricula, limits on responsive instruction, isolated skill practice, decontextualized text, and assessments that measure only what’s easy to measure. The downstream effects include the removal of voice and choice, classroom and school libraries collecting dust, independent reading squeezed out, teacher professionalism diminished, and authentic tasks like project-based learning deprioritized.
One counter-move: empower students to curate and organize their classroom or school library. This can be an ongoing project — lay the books out, let students decide the organization, identify gaps, and bring in culturally relevant titles. Use book order points and let kids choose. You’ll see more engagement, more reading, and you’ll free up some of your own time in the process.
Belief 4: One Science Is Dependent on Another
I was recently working with a team discussing teacher beliefs and their role in effective reading instruction. I posed this question: Imagine your principal removed all the core ELA resources from every classroom. Could your teachers still teach their students?
After a pause, the group said — yeah, we could.
So what would that look like?
And that’s when the real conversation started.
I raise this because critics of the science of reading movement have pointed out that proponents often can’t articulate a coherent theory. “Sequential and explicit direct instruction” is a process, not a theory. What’s the actual theory of action for teaching readers? That question matters.
One answer is an instructional model that allows teachers to be responsive. I’ve used Regie Routman’s Optimal Learning Model from Literacy Essentials in two schools as a principal. What I like about it is the arrows going both directions — we move between whole-class demonstration, shared practice, guided reading, and independent reading based on real-time, informal assessment. If kids aren’t ready, we go back. This takes significant professional development to build capacity, but it also inoculates schools against scripted program dependency.
The larger point is this: teaching readers well requires holding multiple sciences in tension simultaneously. Cognitive science — comprehension, decoding, fluency. Affective science — motivation, engagement, identity. Metacognitive science — goal setting, self-efficacy, agency. These don’t operate in isolation. When you weave them together — for example, using a classroom library project that builds both reading identity and cognitive engagement — you see real growth.
How to build this knowledge in your staff: As a principal, I had to build my own curriculum. I subscribed to several journals — I didn’t read every article, but I’d browse the table of contents, pull one article, read it with margin notes, and then summarize it in my Friday staff newsletter, linking to the original. I became an information distiller. That made it possible to walk into a classroom and have a research-grounded conversation with a teacher who held strong views — not as an expert telling them what’s right, but as a colleague asking questions. What did you think about that article on Orton-Gillingham? It becomes a much more objective, productive exchange.
Belief 5: You Can’t Buy the Science of Reading
This became real to me as a principal when a reading recovery interventionist was trying to get a first-grade student to come to his sessions. Reading Recovery is a highly evidence-based intervention — but she couldn’t get him to come. We suspected executive functioning challenges and a history of reading struggle that made being singled out feel threatening.
So she brought in a Venus flytrap. She told the student: if you come to my room, you get to feed it one fly.
Eventually, I walked in, and there was a pile of dead flies next to the plant. This student had started bringing his own food supply. The teacher had to explain that they couldn’t overfeed it. What started as external motivation — a Venus flytrap — gradually shifted toward internal, identity-forming reinforcement. She had the student, after reaching a benchmark, choose a few books he actually wanted to read. That was the celebration.
You can’t legislate this. You can’t buy it. It’s built over time through teachers developing deep knowledge — not just of reading, but of kids, of pedagogy, of motivation and engagement, of executive function, of the ways all these strands weave together into a reader’s identity. It takes sustained investment in self-study and collective growth.
This shakes out in school-level data as well. As a principal, I used to look at statewide scores and identify schools similar to mine demographically — Title I schools — that were doing better. Then I’d cold-call their principals and reading specialists and ask: what are you doing?
Four themes emerged:
High expectations for every student. Inclusion was the default. Intervention was carefully integrated with Tier 1, not siloed.
Sustained investment in teachers. Not cutting PD days. Not just buying a program and saying good luck. Actually coaching and developing teachers over time.
Different programs, shared beliefs. Every school used something different — some used Units of Study, some used anthologies, one had developed their own materials. What they shared was a deep commitment to common beliefs and practices. One principal described respectfully but clearly inviting a teacher who wouldn’t get on board to find a better fit elsewhere.
No superheroes. No one teacher stood out as exceptional. What they had was a willingness to have hard conversations and an evolving, collective commitment to what they knew to be effective.
One practical strategy: develop shared beliefs as a staff. I used Regie Routman’s Read, Write, Lead, which includes over 20 belief statements. Each year I’d put them in a Google form — agree or disagree. The first year, we had two shared beliefs. We celebrated. The next year, we focused our professional development on the areas of disagreement. The year after that, we had five. And we kept growing.
As a principal, I could then walk into classrooms and reference those shared commitments — affirming what I saw that was aligned, and asking honest questions when something was missing. The expectations were clear. The conversations were respectful.
You can also do this as a whole-group activity: post belief statements on chart paper, give staff colored dots, and ask them to place their dots on a spectrum from agree to disagree. Then have them talk about why. This builds not just shared beliefs but perspective-taking — recognizing that most people sit somewhere in the middle, and that the goal is to move together toward greater alignment over time.
Closing
I want to close with a student I remember from third grade — a kid who by second grade saw reading as something you do in school, not something you love. A capable reader, but not a joyful one.
In third grade, his teacher read aloud Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. He related to Peter Hatcher — oldest of three boys, with a younger sibling who was like Fudge. He read and re-read that book until the pages were falling out of his copy. He loved it so much that he wrote some not-so-great fan fiction trying to emulate Judy Blume.
If you look closely at the bottom left of the fan fiction — you can see my name there.
That’s how I became a reader. Not through a script. I’m sure I learned some skills in kindergarten and first grade. But what unlocked reading for me — what helped me see myself as a reader and to love it — was one read-aloud by one teacher who knew her students and knew what would turn them on to reading.
Closing question: How do you choose to see your readers? Take a moment to think about how you’re seeing them now — and how you might choose to see them a little differently tomorrow.
Thank you for watching What School Leaders Need to Know About the Science of Reading. Please reach out if you have any questions. And thank you for your work, your leadership, and your readership.
