0:05

Hi, it's Emily again, host

0:07

of Sold a Story. If you're just finding

0:10

this podcast, please stop, go

0:12

back, and start with episode one.

0:15

If you're looking for more now

0:17

that you've finished Sold a Story, you're in

0:19

the right place. I made four

0:21

documentaries about reading before

0:24

Sold a Story. This is the fourth of

0:26

the four.

0:27

Making these documentaries

0:29

is what led us to make Sold a Story.

0:32

We will have a bonus episode of that

0:34

podcast

0:35

coming soon. In the meantime,

0:37

this is What the Words Say.

0:40

It was first released on August 6, 2020.

0:44

From American Public Media, this is an APM

0:46

Reports documentary. I'm Emily Hanford. Two

0:49

Two years ago, I visited a juvenile detention

0:51

facility in Houston called the Burnett-Bailand

0:54

Rehabilitation Center. It's

0:56

a large brown building surrounded by metal

0:58

fencing. Welcome

0:59

to BBRC. I'm led

1:01

through two large locked doors. We

1:04

are a secured facility. We

1:06

have both pre-adjudicated

1:08

kids here, meaning before they go to court

1:10

and post-adjudicated kids. Once

1:12

they've gone to court, they come here to serve

1:14

out their time and to get treatment. I'm

1:16

getting a tour from Jennifer Hunley, the assistant

1:19

administrator. It's all boys here,

1:21

as young as 10. They walk the halls

1:23

in blue jumpsuits, their hands clasped behind

1:25

their backs. We pass the units where

1:27

they sleep on thin plastic mattresses, and

1:30

the isolation room where they're sent when their behavior

1:32

is out of control. And

1:35

then we get to a windowless cinder block room

1:37

with heavy locked doors on each side. There's

1:39

a table and two green chairs. This

1:42

is where the boys get to visit with their families once

1:44

a week. It's also where some of them

1:46

are learning to read. So you can do one

1:48

word, one sentence at a time and

1:51

then create the story and I can help you.

1:53

A tutor is sitting across the table from one

1:56

of the kids locked up here at BBRC. I'm

1:58

not allowed to ask why he's here.

2:00

or use his real name. I'll call him DeShawn.

2:02

He's 17. All that noise you

2:04

hear in the background is a kid banging on something

2:06

in the hallway. Each lesson

2:08

begins with some instruction, things like how

2:10

two letters can blend together to make one sound.

2:13

Then the student does some writing and some reading.

2:16

Making and keeping friends can be

2:18

hard, can be hard work. We

2:21

can do many things to help keep our

2:24

friendship strong. We can cheer

2:26

our friends

2:26

on. DeShawn says he's learning a lot of things in

2:28

these lessons that he never knew. Okay,

2:30

like, P.H. It's

2:32

a, I never knew that, like, they

2:35

said, like an F. You know, when you put a P.H.

2:37

together, that's like physics, you

2:39

know what I'm saying? Like that.

2:41

Deshaun is getting this tutoring as part

2:43

of a study being conducted by researchers at

2:45

the University of Houston. The researchers

2:47

are investigating the relationship between reading

2:50

problems and involvement in the juvenile justice

2:52

system. These are kids who are reading at

2:54

or below the third grade level. This is Leslie

2:56

Hart, one of the researchers working on the study. There

2:59

are an awful lot of kids who are coming in

3:01

who simply can't read at all.

3:03

A lot of them have learning disabilities that were never

3:06

identified, says Latasha Crenshaw. She

3:08

worked for the juvenile probation department, advocating

3:11

on behalf of kids in the justice system who need

3:13

special education services. She

3:15

told me when she talked to their parents, they would

3:17

say things like this. I knew that my

3:20

son had a problem in first

3:22

grade when I was coming up to the

3:24

school every day, telling you something

3:27

was wrong and no one listened. So, you

3:29

know, and for many parents, we get tears,

3:32

like I was right.

3:33

I knew, and

3:36

my child is finally getting the help. And then we

3:38

get the tears of the, but

3:40

they're in the justice system, when

3:43

all this possibly could have

3:45

been avoided. She says when she'd review

3:47

student records, she'd often see a pattern

3:49

that starts in elementary school. When

3:51

kids are having a hard time learning, they

3:54

act up.

3:54

Henry Gonzalez, who was Assistant

3:57

Executive Director of the Juvenile Probation

3:59

Department when I. visited, says behavior

4:01

problems and reading problems go together

4:03

all the time. I don't know how to read and

4:06

I don't want everyone to know about that, but

4:08

I know how to make you laugh, therefore I'm going to be the class

4:10

clown. I don't know how to do these things,

4:12

but I can fight, therefore I'm going to beat you

4:14

up.

4:15

Not all struggling readers act out, of course.

4:17

Some withdraw, stay quiet, hope no one will

4:19

notice. The research on the links

4:22

between reading problems and social and emotional

4:24

problems is sobering.

4:26

Reading readers are more likely to say

4:28

they are sad, angry, lonely,

4:30

and depressed. They're also less likely

4:32

to graduate from high school and more likely

4:34

to end up in the criminal justice system. After

4:40

Deshawn's reading lesson, I got a chance to interview

4:42

him. So what do

4:44

you remember about reading when you were first learning

4:46

how to read?

4:47

That it was hard. That's

4:50

really it. Tell

4:52

me more about that. What was hard? What

4:54

did it feel like? Like when I was just reading,

4:56

I just didn't know none of the words. Like

4:59

the only reason I knew how to read a little bit is because

5:01

I hear people talk, you know? Like

5:04

I knew I could, I see the words, I can, you know what I'm saying?

5:07

So you like memorized the words? Memorized

5:10

the words.

5:11

This is what a lot of struggling readers have

5:13

told me. They memorize words, store

5:16

them like pictures in their mind. But

5:18

there are tens of thousands of words in the

5:20

English language. You can't memorize

5:22

them all. Research shows you need

5:24

to understand the relationships between letters

5:26

and sounds. That's why Deshawn

5:28

is working on things like understanding that pH

5:31

makes a fff sound. Deshawn

5:33

says he wants to be a better reader.

5:35

Can't be no flunky. I don't want

5:37

to be a bum, you know. Trying

5:40

to take care of myself. I don't want to be out there

5:42

on the streets.

5:43

Deshawn wants to go back to high school when he

5:45

gets out to get his diploma. But the sad

5:47

truth is most kids in the juvenile justice

5:50

system never graduate from high school. from high school. One

5:52

study found that 49% of juveniles

5:55

who'd been in detention were in an adult prison

5:57

by the time they were 25.

6:04

From APM reports, this is what the words

6:06

say. For the past several years,

6:08

I've been reporting on what scientists have figured

6:11

out about how skilled reading works, and

6:13

the fact that a lot of teachers aren't being taught

6:15

the scientific research in their preparation

6:17

programs or on the job. I've

6:20

found that some of what teachers learn is actually

6:22

at odds with the scientific research. Why

6:25

is this happening? In large part,

6:27

it's because reading instruction is political

6:30

and has been for a long time. The

6:32

basic debate comes down to a centuries-old

6:35

chicken or the egg argument about what it takes

6:37

for kids to be able to understand what they read.

6:40

One side said, start with letters and sounds.

6:43

If kids know how to decode words, reading

6:45

comprehension will follow. The

6:47

other side said, no. If you focus too

6:49

much on the letters and sounds, kids won't pay attention

6:52

to the meaning of what they're reading. Focus

6:54

on comprehension. This

6:56

debate misunderstands what cognitive

6:58

scientists have figured out about how reading

7:01

comprehension works. This hour

7:03

I'm going to tell you about what they've learned.

7:04

Their research not only sheds

7:06

light on what children need to learn to become

7:08

good readers, it helps explain why some

7:11

children are more at risk of becoming poor readers

7:13

than others. I'm also going to show

7:15

you that when kids do struggle, some of

7:17

them are more likely to get help. White

7:20

kids from families with money can often get

7:22

what they need. Those kids locked

7:24

up in Houston, almost all of them

7:26

are Black or Hispanic, and many of them were

7:28

once the struggling readers in their local public

7:31

schools who didn't get help. There

7:33

are a lot of students like that in schools all

7:35

over the country, including Nashville, Tennessee.

7:38

That's where we're going next to meet a woman named Visha

7:40

Hawkins. She was shocked to discover

7:43

just how far behind so many of the children

7:45

in her city actually

7:46

are.

7:51

Bisha Hawkins was a school system insider.

7:54

I was the system. Like, I

7:56

was a company girl. She was the liaison

7:59

between the director of the... Nashville

8:00

Public Schools and the elected school

8:02

board. She went to all the board meetings,

8:04

listened to every presentation about academic

8:06

performance for years. The

8:08

test scores were never very good.

8:10

But it was always couched in something,

8:13

right? Like it was always some kind of spin.

8:16

Test scores aren't good, but they're growing. Test

8:18

scores aren't good, but we're doing something about it.

8:21

And I never, I mean, quite honestly, like

8:23

I never just went to the website

8:25

and looked at the data myself, never.

8:29

until I left the district. That's when

8:31

it hit her. It was the fall of 2017. She'd

8:34

started writing about education. New

8:36

test scores had just been released, and she went online

8:39

to take a look. And I sat at my

8:41

desk

8:41

at home, and I mean, I was just crying.

8:44

Like, I could not believe we were doing

8:46

this to our children, and I couldn't

8:49

believe that I had missed it. The

8:51

test scores showed 86% of students from

8:54

low-income families were below grade level

8:56

in reading. Black and Hispanic students, 82%

8:59

of them were behind. We live

9:01

in a city, a great city, right? A beautiful

9:04

city, a growing city. Cranes

9:06

and construction crews were everywhere. We've

9:08

got cranes galore, and underneath

9:10

the cranes are

9:13

kids who cannot read. Unbelievable

9:15

to me. So I

9:17

decided to go on a little, I don't

9:21

know, research

9:23

tour. She started asking

9:25

people out for coffee. And so I had about 50

9:28

coffees with people, with

9:30

educators, administrators. And

9:33

she asked them, why are so many kids struggling

9:35

with reading? And every single person

9:37

I talked to, every single person I

9:39

talked to, except one, blamed

9:42

the parents for the reading crisis

9:46

in our city. They all said, parents

9:48

don't read enough to their children. Only

9:51

one person pointed to the schools. Everyone

9:53

else said, it's the

9:54

families, It's the home environment. It's poverty.

9:57

But that didn't sit right with Visha Hawkins. She

9:59

grew up. no one read to her, and

10:01

she learned to read. And then I thought, maybe

10:03

I'm asking the wrong people what

10:06

educator really is going to say, it's our

10:08

fault. You

10:10

know, we don't have the right curriculum. We don't,

10:12

you know, we didn't really learn how to teach reading in

10:15

college. Like, who's going to say that?

10:20

So she started talking to parents, and she

10:22

met Sonya Thomas. Sonya

10:24

is a founding member of a group called Nashville

10:26

PROPEL. PROPEL stands for Parents

10:29

Requiring Our Public Education System

10:31

to Lead. It was started by parents

10:33

whose local schools are on what is known as the

10:36

priority schools list. Priority

10:38

schools sounded good to Sonya Thomas until

10:40

she found out those are the schools with the lowest

10:43

test scores in the entire state,

10:45

the bottom 5 percent. Sonya

10:48

says many parents don't realize how

10:50

far behind their kids are. They don't

10:52

know that their children are

10:55

not reading at grade level and their children

10:57

truly don't know how to read. They

10:59

don't know until it costs them. This

11:01

is what happened with her youngest son, CJ.

11:04

The story starts in first grade.

11:07

I knew something was going on with him, but I could

11:09

not figure it out. He just didn't

11:11

seem to be getting it when it came to reading. The

11:14

school said he was behind, but nothing to worry

11:16

about. They were giving him extra help. There

11:18

was

11:18

never a conversation of He's

11:21

struggling with reading. It's, he needs

11:23

some intervention, so we're

11:25

gonna take him out of class, you know, read

11:27

with him a little more. I'm like, okay, great, good,

11:29

you know. She asked what she should be doing

11:32

at home, and the answer was, read to him. She

11:34

did, says she always had. But

11:36

things didn't seem to be getting better. Second

11:38

grade, third grade, fourth grade, Sonya

11:41

was really worried, but the school said

11:43

he was making progress. He did okay,

11:46

but I just knew that he wasn't

11:49

doing as well as my other

11:51

kids. So I started

11:52

asking myself, does he have

11:55

a learning disability? She asked for CJ

11:57

to be tested, but the school said no need. He

11:59

was fine.

12:00

She didn't know what to do. Tutoring,

12:02

private school, those weren't things she could

12:04

afford. She was desperate, and

12:06

she knew something about how CJ felt. She

12:09

had a hard time learning to read, and she says

12:11

no one helped her.

12:15

I don't remember being

12:18

taught to read. She just remembers

12:20

being expected to know how to do it.

12:22

As she got older, she says her problem wasn't that

12:24

she couldn't read the words. It's that she

12:26

didn't know what a lot of the words meant. Because if

12:29

I would read a sentence or read a passage, I'm

12:31

like, okay, what did that mean? She says she

12:33

was rarely assigned to read anything in school

12:35

except stuff in textbooks. No books,

12:37

no novels, no

12:40

any of that. Like, I did

12:42

not read books until

12:45

I actually got in high school in my English class

12:47

and we read Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit 451,

12:50

the 1950s dystopian novel by

12:53

Ray Bradbury. I hated that book because

12:55

that book was hard.

12:58

I didn't have the vocabulary. I

13:00

didn't have the understanding. It talked

13:03

around a whole bunch of things, and I just

13:05

did not understand. I could never

13:07

make the connection. And so I struggled. It

13:09

wasn't just that word stumped her when she was reading.

13:12

Words sometimes stumped her when people were talking,

13:14

too. She noticed it at work in

13:17

the healthcare industry. I mean, I work in a corporate

13:19

world, and I could tell sometimes when

13:22

they would have conversations, I didn't know

13:25

what they were talking about, and I would find myself

13:27

Googling words. It was embarrassing.

13:29

She did not want this to happen to her son. But

13:32

the schools kept telling her not to worry. His

13:34

grades were good. He was a well-behaved kid.

13:37

And then, seventh grade.

13:38

CJ had moved to a new school. It was September.

13:41

CJ's advisor called Sonya in for a meeting.

13:44

And the

13:46

advisor says that he's on task.

13:49

He has turned in all his assignments.

13:52

I'm like, yeah, I know. She

13:54

said, but when we tested him, He

13:57

reads on a second grade reading

13:59

level.

14:01

I lost it. It

14:03

felt like I cried for 15 minutes. I

14:07

sobbed. Eventually

14:09

she wiped the tears from her face, put her glasses

14:11

back on, and looked up. The

14:13

advisor told her the school would help CJ.

14:16

Sonya wanted to believe it, but

14:18

she'd been putting her faith in the school system for

14:21

years and this is where it had gotten

14:23

her,

14:23

a son in seventh grade at a second

14:25

grade reading level. from that

14:27

day on, I said, nobody

14:30

else will walk away feeling like that. No

14:33

child, no momma, no daddy. Like,

14:36

it's my life's work to make sure nobody

14:39

else feels like that. That

14:41

was when she helped start the parent group, Propel.

14:43

I love what they do. This is Visha

14:45

Hawkins again, the former school system insider.

14:48

When she met the parents of Propel, she realized

14:50

she was finally talking to the people she needed

14:52

to hear.

14:53

All those educator she'd had coffee

14:55

with, they blamed poverty for the

14:57

city's reading crisis and made it sound so unsolvable.

15:01

But after listening to parents like Sonya Thomas,

15:04

it all seemed much more urgent and clear.

15:07

We should be able to expect that

15:10

a kid goes

15:12

to school and learn

15:14

to read,

15:16

if nothing else.

15:22

In my years of reporting on reading, I haven't

15:24

met a teacher or a school administrator who

15:26

didn't want their students to be good readers.

15:29

But I've met a lot of educators who didn't know

15:32

what cognitive scientists have figured out about

15:34

how reading comprehension works. For

15:37

decades, those scientists have been studying what

15:39

is going on in our minds as we look at words

15:42

and make sense of text. And they've learned

15:44

some fascinating things. So

15:46

my name is Wes Hoover. I'm

15:49

a cognitive psychologist by training. I

15:51

am now retired after having worked in

15:53

the field for almost 40 years.

15:55

When Wes Hoover was in college in

15:57

the late 1960s, he got really interested in

15:59

the they did in language development just

16:02

how it worked how is

16:04

it possible that you are able

16:06

to learn a language just by being exposed

16:08

to it language just became

16:10

a fascination

16:11

and his interests and how people learn

16:13

to speak a language evolved into another

16:15

question when he was in graduate school how

16:17

does a person learn to read a language

16:20

in the nineteen seventies that was a controversial

16:23

question among academics there

16:25

were two big competing ideas

16:27

one of the ideas was there when

16:30

kids are reading a what they're trying

16:32

to do is complete comprehension

16:35

and the way they do it is to try

16:37

and get a flow going

16:39

about what meaning is being

16:42

communicated and reading and when

16:44

they come up on a word they don't recognize

16:47

to try and guess at what it is based

16:49

on the context of

16:51

of what they've read so far

16:54

the

16:54

idea was that as long as kids are focused

16:56

on the meaning of what they're reading they'll figure

16:58

out how to read the words this

17:00

view assume that learning how to read is similar

17:03

to learning how to talk that it happens

17:05

naturally through immersion the

17:07

other model is that know

17:09

reading a while it is focused

17:12

on comprehension getting the word off the

17:14

page actually is based

17:16

on analyzing the pieces of

17:18

the word doing what's called alphabetic

17:20

coding relating the letters to

17:23

the phonology of the language

17:25

the

17:25

teaching approach associated with this belief

17:27

was phonics teaching kids how

17:30

the sounds and words are represented by letters

17:32

the assumption was that kids need to be taught

17:34

how to read that it doesn't happen naturally

17:37

but

17:37

no one really knew how reading works

17:39

how do we even do it

17:42

when west hoover went to graduate school and nineteen

17:44

seventies he studied under a professor

17:47

who was trying to figure it out this

17:49

professor philip goff was trying to understand

17:51

that not just how we read but what's

17:53

going on when someone is having trouble reading

17:55

villas really trying to describe

17:58

reading disability what is it defines

18:01

whether someone can or can't read and what

18:03

are the categories of people that can't

18:05

read.

18:06

What Phil Goff knew was this. When

18:08

kids start school, the vast majority

18:11

of them are already quite good at speaking

18:13

their native language. The average

18:15

six-year-old, he wrote, has a mastery

18:17

of English that would be the envy of any college

18:19

graduate learning English as a second language.

18:22

But young children do not know how to read

18:25

most of the words they know how to say.

18:26

What happens when they come to school

18:28

is their language comprehension is fairly

18:30

high, and what they have to do is learn

18:33

word recognition. And so if they're

18:35

taught word recognition, then

18:37

they can read to the level at which

18:39

they can comprehend language.

18:41

The idea was that reading comprehension

18:43

has two parts. One is

18:46

your ability to understand meaning when

18:48

someone is talking or when text is read out

18:50

loud to you. That's language

18:52

comprehension. The other is your

18:54

ability to read printed words quickly

18:56

and accurately. That's word recognition.

18:59

If you can do both of those things, Phil Goff thought,

19:02

you can comprehend what you read. But

19:04

if you can only do one, or neither,

19:07

you can't. In 1986, he

19:10

and a colleague published a paper where they laid

19:12

out this model of reading comprehension. They

19:14

called it the simple view of reading.

19:16

The simple view does not say that reading

19:18

is simple.

19:19

It says that reading comprehension can be divided

19:22

into two parts.

19:23

Here's Wes Hoover again. If you

19:26

know someone's language comprehension

19:28

ability and their word recognition

19:30

ability, you will know how

19:32

well they read. You can predict perfectly their

19:34

reading comprehension. That's the hypothesis.

19:36

The hypothesis was first tested

19:38

and verified in a study that Wes Hoover

19:40

published with Phil Goff in 1990. The

19:43

basics of the model have been confirmed in

19:45

more than 150 studies since.

19:47

It's the big idea of

19:49

reading. That is reading

19:52

is complex. Word recognition

19:54

is complex. Language comprehension

19:56

is complex. But the big idea

19:59

of reading is that that if you can master those

20:01

two skills, those two complex skills,

20:04

then you can master reading comprehension.

20:06

When a person can't understand

20:08

what they read, according to the Simple View, they

20:10

have either a word recognition problem or

20:12

a language comprehension problem, or both.

20:15

Lots of struggling readers have both. That

20:18

was obvious when I was at the juvenile detention facility

20:20

in Houston.

20:22

One of the kids I met there was a 15-year-old I'll

20:24

call Mateo. I sat in on his

20:26

second reading lesson. Here he is trying

20:28

to sound out the word

20:29

toast. Mateo

20:38

is one of the kids who can barely read it all.

20:46

The

20:49

word is gloat. Sounding

20:52

it out is a first step. But does Mateo know

20:54

what the word gloat means? His tutor

20:56

asks him, Like, gloat?

20:57

Give me

21:00

something else. Like,

21:02

something shiny? Mateo doesn't

21:04

know what gloat means. His tutor tries

21:07

to define it, struggles a bit, then turns

21:09

to Jennifer Hunley, the assistant administrator,

21:11

who's in the corner keeping an eye on us. Like,

21:13

to

21:14

brag, like if someone just got their case

21:16

refused to have me and they're going, ooh,

21:18

I get to go home and no one else does. Yeah.

21:22

You know, kind of like that. Right. In

21:24

an ugly way. The

21:27

word gloat comes up again when Mateo is

21:29

trying to read a story called Taking

21:31

a Ride.

21:42

I'm not sure Mateo remembers the

21:44

meaning of that word. I'm not sure he

21:46

has any idea what he's reading. Listening

21:48

to him struggle through the text, I'm

21:50

having a hard time keeping track of what the story's

21:52

about. At the age of 15, Mateo

21:55

is a beginning reader.

21:57

This mental energy is still focused

21:59

on figuring out

22:00

how to sound out the words. There

22:04

are a few moments when he successfully pronounces

22:06

something and realizes it's a word he knows.

22:11

But many of the words, like gloat and

22:13

sneer and trait,

22:15

it was clear from earlier in the lesson that Mateo

22:18

didn't know the meaning of those words.

22:20

You could have read this story out loud to him and

22:22

he wouldn't have understood it all. Mateo

22:24

has a reading comprehension problem because

22:26

he has a hard time with both word recognition

22:29

and language comprehension. He's not

22:31

going to be a good reader until he gets better at both.

22:34

But if Mateo had learned how

22:36

to successfully sound out words earlier in

22:38

his life, he'd likely know the meaning

22:41

of a lot more words now.

22:43

Because there's a very powerful

22:45

thing in reading called Matthew

22:47

Effects. This is Wes Hoover again. It's

22:49

this idea that the rich get richer and the poor

22:51

get poorer.

22:52

It's a biblical reference. Here's how it

22:54

works. Let's say you enter

22:56

school and you get off to a good start when

22:59

it comes to the word recognition part of the

23:01

simple view of reading.

23:02

Then what happens is

23:04

that you tend to read more, you

23:06

tend to read more difficult texts,

23:09

you tend to engage in conversations

23:12

about those texts, and all

23:14

of those things then reciprocally

23:17

build your language comprehension

23:20

and your word recognition. Once you

23:22

start to be able to read and you read

23:25

more, the reading you

23:27

do further develops the

23:29

language comprehension and word recognition

23:31

skills

23:32

you have. That's the rich get richer. But

23:34

the opposite can happen. You don't get off

23:36

to a good start with word recognition, either

23:38

because it's something that's really hard for you. For

23:41

example, you have dyslexia, which is characterized

23:43

by difficulty with discerning the sounds and words.

23:47

Or, you don't get off to a good start with word recognition

23:49

because no one teaches it to you, or

23:51

both. It's hard for you and

23:54

you're not taught how to do

23:54

it. kids who can't

23:57

read very well will

23:59

start not

24:00

reading very much at all, they'll

24:02

try and read less complex

24:05

texts, they'll get frustrated

24:08

and stop reading altogether, and

24:11

that will have the effect of not moving

24:14

either their word recognition or

24:16

language comprehension skills

24:17

forward.

24:20

When kids don't get the instruction they need,

24:23

they can easily grow into adulthood without

24:25

knowing basic things about how written

24:27

language works, like Mateo and

24:29

Dachon. I don't know what happened to

24:31

them.

24:32

The study they're part of is still going on. Struggling

24:34

readers in the juvenile detention system in Houston

24:37

continue to get tutoring. But not

24:39

at the facility I visited in 2018.

24:41

shut down last year as part of

24:43

an effort to lock up fewer kids.

24:55

You're listening to What the Words Say from

24:57

APM Reports. I'm Emily Hanford.

25:01

Studies show that almost all children can become

25:03

readers. They have the cognitive capacity

25:05

to do it.

25:07

But a lot of them aren't becoming readers.

25:10

The National Assessment of Educational Progress

25:12

shows that roughly half of Black and Hispanic

25:14

children and nearly a quarter of white

25:16

kids do not have basic reading

25:18

comprehension skills by fourth grade.

25:21

A lot of those children's parents have been told,

25:23

don't worry, your child will catch up. But

25:26

most of them won't catch up. Coming

25:28

up, we'll hear about why so many kids like

25:30

Mateo and Deshaun are not getting the

25:32

instruction they need. I go into poor

25:35

schools, nobody has dyslexia in a poor

25:37

school, in the face of

25:39

a population where eight

25:42

and a half out of 10 are

25:44

struggling with reading, who has a

25:47

reading disability? The answer

25:49

is we have no idea.

25:51

Support for APM Reports comes from the Spencer

25:54

Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and the Hollyhock

25:56

Foundation. More in a minute, this is

25:58

APM American Public...

26:00

media.

26:02

Hey, it's Emily. I've been covering

26:04

the way reading is taught in the United States

26:07

for the past five years. There's

26:09

a lot of money and power wrapped up in reading

26:11

programs. And as an investigative

26:13

journalist, I have a very different kind of power.

26:16

I have a commitment to the public to uncover

26:18

injustice, bring it to light, and

26:21

hold the powerful accountable. sold

26:24

a story and other journalism like this

26:26

with a donation today at soldastory.org-donate

26:31

or click the link in our show notes. In 1996,

26:35

one law changed welfare in the

26:37

US by adding work requirements

26:40

and letting for-profit companies run

26:42

welfare offices. What happened

26:44

next is complicated. Government

26:46

is one of your customers, businesses are

26:49

another. What about the welfare recipient?

26:51

Are they? I think of the mores the product

26:53

of our company. They're our inventory.

26:56

This season of The Uncertain Hour, we uncover

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how for-profit companies cash in on

27:00

public benefits. Listen to The Uncertain

27:02

Hour wherever you get your podcasts.

27:05

Welcome

27:05

back. I'm Emily Hanford. And this

27:08

is What the Words Say from APM Reports.

27:10

Good morning. Thank

27:12

you for being our guinea pigs today in

27:15

our simulation.

27:16

We're in an elementary school classroom in Harrisburg,

27:18

Pennsylvania. There are about 20 teachers

27:21

seated at tables. A consultant

27:23

named Michael Hunter is taking them through an exercise

27:25

to demonstrate some of the things scientists

27:28

have figured out about how reading works.

27:30

I need four brave volunteers.

27:33

A few hands go up. Michael sends them into

27:35

the hallway. Before I tell you what happens

27:37

next, I want to go back to the two big ideas

27:40

about how people read that academics

27:42

were arguing about back in the 1970s.

27:47

One idea was that readers use the meaning

27:49

of what they're reading to predict what the words

27:51

will be. Learning to read is

27:53

not about sounding words out, it's about

27:55

using context to guess what the words

27:58

are. According to this theory,

28:00

readers don't necessarily have to read

28:02

every word accurately to comprehend what they're

28:04

reading. The other theory was

28:06

that learning to read is a process of looking carefully

28:09

at words, sounding them out, and matching

28:11

those pronunciations with words you know in

28:13

spoken language. If you can't

28:15

accurately identify the words, your comprehension

28:18

will suffer. That's the idea

28:20

that decades of scientific research has confirmed,

28:23

and that's what Michael Hunter wants to demonstrate

28:25

with the teachers in Harrisburg.

28:26

So let's bring in our first

28:29

reader. A first grade teacher named

28:31

Katie comes in from the hall. Michael

28:33

projects a passage onto a screen at the front of the

28:35

room and asks her to read it out loud. A

28:37

tragnex is a simple jeed

28:41

used for finding plivons. Most

28:44

will fit in your Brisbane. 30% of

28:47

the words in this passage are nonsense words. Katie

28:49

does her best to sound them out, but she has no

28:51

idea what they mean. When she's done,

28:54

Michael asks her some questions.

28:56

First question is, what tool is the topic

28:58

of the passage? Tragnexs. Okay. Why

29:01

is the face of a clock mentioned?

29:03

I have absolutely

29:06

no clue. Okay. Katie

29:08

just demonstrated what reading comprehension

29:10

is like when you're faced with a bunch of words

29:12

you don't know.

29:13

The next volunteer comes in from the hall

29:15

to read the same passage, but this time fewer

29:18

of the words are nonsense, just 20%. This

29:21

is Jalissa. Tragnix is

29:23

a simple tool used for fighting plivons.

29:26

Most will fit in your palm. The face is similar

29:29

to the... There are two kinds of nonsense words in

29:31

this passage to demonstrate an important

29:33

point about decoding. Some

29:35

of the words are hard for Jelissa to sound

29:37

out. Plivons, for example, P-L-I-Y-V-N-S.

29:43

She hesitates and stumbles on that one because

29:45

English words aren't spelled that way. She's

29:48

not sure how to decode it and she doesn't know

29:50

what it means. A word like Tragnex,

29:53

that's pretty easy for her to decode. But

29:55

decoding doesn't help much because Jelissa doesn't

29:57

know what the word means. the point.

30:00

is you can sound like a decent reader

30:02

if you have good decoding skills,

30:04

but it doesn't necessarily mean you understand

30:06

what you're reading. How was Jelissa's

30:08

comprehension when she didn't know 20% of the words? Tragic.

30:12

It was better than mine. So

30:15

when do the benefits of context kick in? At

30:18

what point can you figure out what the words say

30:20

from the meaning of what you're reading? The

30:22

next reader comes in from the

30:24

the hall. Read aloud to us. Do your best reading.

30:27

Now just 10% of the words are nonsense.

30:29

A track next is a simple tool used

30:32

for finding directions. This reader

30:34

figures out what the passage is about.

30:36

How do you feel about your comprehension? Did you

30:38

totally understand the passage? I did not

30:40

until I got about halfway and then realized what I was talking

30:43

about. And then I started to comprehend it. She

30:46

knew enough of the words to get a gist of what

30:48

was going on and then it clicked. It's

30:50

about a compass.

30:52

But she already knows what a compass

30:55

is and how it works. She was able to

30:57

fill in the gaps left by the handful of words

30:59

she didn't know by relying on her background

31:01

knowledge.

31:02

This happens all the time in reading.

31:05

Even when you can easily read all the words,

31:08

your comprehension can be aided or impeded,

31:11

depending on what you already know about the topic.

31:12

Easy example is if

31:15

I don't know if you know cricket. This is reading researcher

31:17

Wes Hoover again, and I don't know anything about

31:20

cricket, except that it's a bat and ball game,

31:22

not played much in the United States.

31:23

If you read a sports

31:26

column about cricket, you most

31:28

likely would have great difficulty understanding

31:30

it as opposed to a column written about baseball.

31:32

This assumes I know something about baseball,

31:35

and I do. Probably more than a typical

31:37

kid growing up in New Zealand, for example, where

31:40

there's a lot of cricket but not much baseball. So

31:42

kids in New Zealand can quickly

31:44

understand accounts of cricket matches,

31:47

but they have great difficulty understanding

31:49

accounts of baseball matches. And

31:51

the problem is they don't have the background knowledge to

31:54

interpret what's going

31:55

on. Your ability to comprehend what

31:57

you read is linked to your knowledge. This

31:59

is one.

32:00

reason there's an association between a child's

32:02

reading comprehension and their family's income.

32:05

More income often means more opportunity

32:07

for experiences that build knowledge of

32:09

the world.

32:10

The teacher who figured out tragnex

32:12

meant compass already knew something about

32:15

compasses.

32:16

If you don't know anything about compasses, one way to

32:18

learn about them is through reading. But

32:20

your chances of learning something about

32:22

compasses through reading will be impeded

32:25

if you can't read the words.

32:27

That's why teaching kids how to read words

32:29

is so important.

32:30

I have a master's degree in reading and I didn't

32:33

learn this. Lisa Flute is a reading

32:35

specialist in Harrisburg who participated

32:37

in the demonstration we just heard. It's

32:39

part of a year-long professional development series

32:41

on what scientists have discovered about how

32:44

reading works and how to apply that to teaching.

32:47

Lisa Flute says she didn't learn about the science

32:49

of reading in her preparation to be a teacher. She

32:51

learned that idea from the 1970s. goal

32:54

is meaning, meaning, meaning. What she didn't

32:56

understand is how kids get to meaning.

32:59

She didn't spend much time teaching kids how to

33:01

decode words because she didn't think it was necessary.

33:04

They had other ways to get the meaning. She

33:06

now realizes what a mistake that was.

33:09

Some of her students needed much more help.

33:12

And there are kids that I'm picturing my mind right now

33:14

that I want to say I'm sorry to.

33:25

I've talked to a lot of teachers who express

33:27

regret about what they didn't know. For

33:30

many of them, the simple view of reading is

33:32

a big aha moment. They didn't

33:34

fully appreciate the importance of word recognition,

33:37

and they didn't quite get how the language comprehension

33:40

part works either. Language

33:42

comprehension is critical. Research

33:44

shows that once children have mastered the basics

33:47

of decoding, their ability to understand

33:49

what they read is largely determined

33:51

by their oral language skills, their knowledge,

33:54

and their vocabulary.

33:55

A large body of research

33:57

shows that children from low-income families

33:59

come in into

34:00

school knowing the meaning of far fewer

34:02

words on average than higher income

34:04

kids. This can put them at a disadvantage

34:07

at the outset because making sense of what you're

34:09

reading is about matching what you see in print

34:11

with what you already know in spoken language. This

34:14

also means that if the language you speak at home

34:17

is different from the language you use in school,

34:19

learning to read is likely to take more time

34:22

and maybe more challenging. This

34:24

is true for English language learners, kids

34:26

who speak Spanish or Korean or Arabic at

34:28

home. It can also be

34:30

true for children who are native English speakers.

34:33

Julie Washington studies language and reading

34:35

development in African American children. She's

34:37

specifically interested in the role of African

34:40

American English.

34:42

African American English is a dialect of English.

34:45

Every language has dialects. They're variations

34:47

of a parent language, different ways of pronouncing

34:49

words, and different vocabulary and grammar, too.

34:52

So an example of

34:53

African American English is

34:56

one day me and my mom was

34:59

at home. That is completely acceptable

35:01

in African American English. There was a moment

35:03

when Julie Washington realized that children

35:05

who come into school speaking African American

35:08

English might have a harder time learning

35:10

how to read. This was way back in the beginning

35:12

of my career. Worked with a four

35:14

year old and we were reading Are

35:17

You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman.

35:19

Today, we're going to read a story about a

35:21

little bird looking for his mother. And

35:24

so the baby bird jumps out of the nest,

35:26

goes to different animals,

35:29

objects, and says, Are you my mother? Are

35:31

you my mother? He said

35:34

to the hen.

35:35

No, said the hen. And

35:38

so it's this, Are you my mother? I am

35:40

not a, that goes through the story. So

35:43

when this little girl, African American

35:45

dialect speaker, goes to retell

35:47

the story to me. She says, is

35:50

you my mama? I ain't none of your

35:52

mama.

35:53

I laughed. It was hilarious and it was

35:55

fun. But then I went back to

35:57

my office and I thought about what she

35:59

had to

36:00

do in order to listen

36:02

to this story that was told in

36:05

a language form that she doesn't actually

36:07

use. She recoded it into

36:09

her own dialect and then she

36:12

told me the story. That takes a lot

36:14

of working memory.

36:15

It takes a pretty good vocabulary.

36:18

That little girl had to do a lot of work because

36:21

there was a difference between the language she

36:23

knew and the language of the book. The kid who

36:25

comes to school whose language system mirrors

36:28

the book, doesn't have that work to do. The

36:31

kid who looks at the book, it's

36:33

exactly

36:33

the same system he uses, can go

36:35

straight for decoding and not have

36:37

to do all those other steps in between.

36:40

Julie Washington says schools need to understand

36:43

that children who are heavy dialect users may

36:45

need more time and more help to

36:47

be successful with reading. She says

36:50

almost all low-income African American

36:52

children use African American English

36:54

at home.

36:55

Middle-income kids are more

36:58

likely to either not use it at all or

37:00

to be able to code switch. Because they've

37:03

had more access

37:04

outside of the community, they

37:06

go to schools where there are more kids who

37:08

are using mainstream English, they are more

37:10

likely to be able to code switch in and out.

37:18

Think

37:18

of family income as a kind of buffer

37:20

when it comes to the risk of being a struggling

37:23

reader. The more resources your

37:25

family has, the more opportunities you're

37:27

likely to have for early life experiences

37:29

that tilt things in your favor when it comes

37:31

to learning how to read.

37:33

But it's not just how affluent your

37:35

family is, it's how affluent your school

37:37

is, too. High poverty schools

37:40

are less effective, on average, when it comes

37:42

to promoting reading achievement. And

37:44

according to the U.S. Department of Education, nearly

37:47

half of all black students in this country go

37:49

to high poverty schools, nearly half

37:51

of all Hispanic kids too.

37:53

White kids? 88% of

37:56

them go to schools where most students are

37:58

from low-income families.

38:01

And here's the thing. If you're a struggling

38:03

reader and you go to a school where most

38:05

of the students are from low-income families,

38:08

your problems with reading may go unnoticed.

38:11

Because a lot of the other kids are probably having

38:13

a hard time learning to read, too.

38:15

Here's Julie Washington again. I go into

38:17

poor schools. Nobody has dyslexia in

38:19

a poor school. in the face

38:22

of a population where 8.5

38:25

out of 10

38:27

are struggling with reading,

38:28

who has a reading disability?

38:31

The answer is we have no idea.

38:33

She says part of the problem is the way federal

38:35

law defines learning disabilities.

38:38

The law says a child cannot

38:40

qualify for a learning disability if

38:43

that child's learning problems are primarily

38:45

the result of economic disadvantage.

38:48

So what that policy is saying, we've

38:50

decided as a country that if

38:52

you are having

38:53

trouble reading and you're poor, you're

38:56

having trouble with reading because you're poor, because

38:58

our policy does not allow you to be both

39:01

learning disabled and poor.

39:03

The goal was to prevent low-income kids of color

39:06

from being over-identified for special education,

39:09

but the policy has had unintended consequences.

39:12

We

39:12

hear from teachers that they

39:14

have been told not to refer any

39:16

more children of color, that they're already at their

39:19

threshold.

39:20

This is Paul Morgan, a professor at

39:22

Penn State.

39:23

His research shows that if you look at children

39:25

having the hardest time with reading, kids

39:28

who score in the bottom 10%, you

39:31

find that white children are much more

39:33

likely to be receiving special education

39:35

services than children of color.

39:37

He says there are likely a number of

39:39

things going on. Part of it is expectations.

39:42

The white child struggling must have a disability,

39:45

whereas the black child struggling is just

39:47

struggling, like so many other kids in her

39:49

school.

39:50

And then there's the fact that getting special

39:52

education services for a child with a reading

39:55

disability can be difficult, no matter

39:57

what kind of school the child goes to.

39:59

Too often. I think parents have

40:01

to fight. And when the school

40:03

says no, there's

40:06

not much of a recourse for the parent to

40:08

engage in short of legal action, which

40:10

is very costly.

40:11

It's a system that favors people

40:13

with money.

40:14

Some parents spend thousands of dollars

40:17

trying to get their kids into special ed.

40:20

But a child who is having a hard time learning

40:22

to read doesn't necessarily have a learning

40:24

disability. Paul Morgan points

40:26

to the experience of his own two kids.

40:28

Our oldest is

40:30

a voracious reader and took to

40:33

it readily. He

40:35

seemed to benefit from what

40:37

our local school did in terms

40:40

of teaching and reading.

40:40

This wasn't the case with his younger son.

40:43

He really was starting

40:45

to experience difficulties

40:48

fairly early by kindergarten

40:51

first grade.

40:51

The school's advice to Paul and his wife? Read

40:54

story books to him, surround him with

40:56

books. books. But they'd been reading to him

40:58

since he was a baby. They had tons

41:01

of books in their home. Language

41:03

comprehension wasn't the issue. Paul's

41:06

son needed to be taught how to read words,

41:08

so he and his wife started doing that.

41:10

We were in a position to reorganize our work

41:12

schedules,

41:14

and we, just every

41:16

morning before we went to his classroom,

41:19

set aside 10-15 minutes of regular

41:22

practice and then

41:24

he was okay. Things made sense

41:26

to him. He was decoding

41:29

and starting to read quickly and fluently

41:32

and that that was what he needed.

41:33

They caught the problem and were able

41:35

to fix it pretty easily. That's

41:37

not going to be the case with every child. Some

41:39

kids will need lots of instruction but

41:41

intervening early is critical.

41:44

If you can't read well in

41:46

the early grades, your Your peers

41:48

notice, your teacher notices, you

41:50

notice, and it really starts to have

41:54

negative consequences on your social-emotional

41:56

development and your behavior.

41:58

most children who are struggling.

42:00

with reading at the end of first grade don't

42:02

catch up. Because

42:04

the kids who got off to a good start in reading

42:06

are catapulting ahead.

42:09

Those good readers are soon able to read

42:11

everything they know how to say. And

42:13

now, because they can read lots of words,

42:16

they're gaining knowledge and teaching themselves

42:18

the meaning of new words through reading.

42:21

That's the rich get richer. When kids

42:23

struggle, they tend to read less and miss

42:25

out on tons of little opportunities to learn

42:27

through reading. All those

42:30

missed opportunities add up. One

42:32

study estimated that a fifth grader who was

42:34

a good reader, at the 90th percentile

42:37

compared to her peers, encounters

42:39

almost two million words

42:41

in text every year just in stuff

42:43

she reads outside of school. The

42:46

average child who reads at the 10th percentile

42:48

encounters just 8,000 words

42:51

outside of school.

42:51

Think about that. And

42:54

then think about a kid who gets to seventh

42:56

grade reading on a second grade level.

42:59

That's what Sonya Thomas was told about her son.

43:02

What happened with CJ?

43:05

Hello. Hello. So, I'm

43:07

Emily. I'm CJ.

43:10

I never got a chance to meet CJ in person.

43:13

The coronavirus abruptly canceled travel

43:15

while I was reporting this story. So

43:17

I met him on Zoom with his mom. I

43:20

asked him what he remembers about being taught to read.

43:22

much he says except that it was hard.

43:25

What was hard? What was

43:27

it about it that was hard? Do you know? Saying

43:30

the words out loud and reading out loud. Reading

43:33

out loud. Could you sound

43:35

them out and say the words and

43:38

then you didn't know what they meant or did you have a hard

43:40

time just sounding them out? Both.

43:44

Both. Do you

43:46

remember anyone teaching you how

43:48

to sound out words? No. No,

43:52

but maybe they did and you don't remember. Yeah.

43:55

Sonya had warned me that CJ isn't much of

43:58

a talker, so I wasn't surprised by his

44:00

one-word answers. He's being 13,

44:02

don't want to do it. I gotcha.

44:05

My big question about CJ's reading is this.

44:08

Does

44:08

he have a disability that the school system

44:11

missed or is the problem that CJ

44:13

was never taught how to read or both?

44:16

His mom wants to know the answers to those

44:18

questions too.

44:24

So,

44:24

Sonya requested all of CJ's school

44:26

records and APM reports hired

44:28

a professor named Zach Barnes to review

44:30

those records.

44:31

I'm assistant professor of special education

44:33

at Austin P. State University in Clarksville,

44:35

Tennessee. Before that, Zach was a special

44:37

education teacher in the Nashville schools, so

44:40

he's familiar with the forms and assessments in

44:42

CJ's file.

44:43

Sonya and I met with Zach virtually,

44:45

and he went through what he found in CJ's records,

44:48

starting in kindergarten.

44:49

From the data that we're seeing, CJ

44:51

was starting off behind. The records

44:54

are sort of frustrating, though. They don't say what

44:56

he was behind in, just that he was below

44:58

benchmark. When CJ

45:00

started first grade, he took a reading test

45:03

that placed him at the 24th percentile

45:05

nationally. That means more than

45:07

three quarters of first graders in the country

45:10

were doing better than he was. There's

45:12

a form in the file that says CJ had no

45:14

problem understanding and using vocabulary,

45:17

but that he spoke slowly. Samia

45:19

noticed this too. I do

45:20

remember me having some concerns

45:23

about his speech and

45:27

him being really shy, like not

45:29

talking a lot.

45:30

There's no indication

45:32

CJ was evaluated for a speech issue

45:34

or a reading problem, but there is

45:37

a handwritten note Sonia wrote when CJ

45:39

was in first grade, asking the school

45:41

to test him for a learning disability. At

45:44

the end of first grade, CJ took

45:46

the same assessment he took at the beginning of the year,

45:49

the one that showed he read at the 24th percentile.

45:52

This time, he scored at the 12th percentile.

45:55

That means nearly 90% of kids his age

45:57

were doing better than he was.

46:00

Sonya tears up when Zach points this

46:02

out.

46:03

Sorry, but this tears me at all

46:05

the pieces.

46:07

We spend nearly two hours going

46:09

over CJ's entire school file,

46:12

grade by grade. There are nearly 200

46:15

pages of records, and Zach notices

46:17

a pattern. Some years, CJ

46:19

got pulled out of the classroom for extra help with

46:21

reading. His test scores went up.

46:23

Then the help stopped.

46:25

I asked Zach later if this is unusual. he

46:27

said no, and not just in Nashville, in

46:29

lots of schools. He likened it

46:31

to a lifeguard saving someone and

46:33

then allowing them to drown a few minutes later.

46:37

Things might have been different for CJ if he'd

46:39

been in special education. He would

46:41

have had an individualized education program

46:43

and rights to services protected by federal

46:46

law.

46:46

But to get into special ed, you

46:48

need to be identified with a disability.

46:51

Zach says to determine if CJ has a disability,

46:53

he'd need a full evaluation from a school

46:56

psychologist.

46:57

CJ never got one of those.

46:59

Zach says he should have.

47:01

He's this kind of student that we really

47:03

need to dig deep on to

47:05

figure out how

47:07

can we help CJ? Zach

47:09

offers to help Sonya get CJ an evaluation.

47:13

Sonya is grateful, but angry.

47:15

Her son just finished eighth grade. She

47:18

asked for him to be tested for a learning disability

47:21

in first grade. She wonders

47:23

how many other kids needed help and

47:25

didn't get it. There's

47:27

this heavy feeling

47:29

that I have of so

47:34

many people that's not going to get it and worse

47:36

off than him. And I don't know what to do

47:39

except to keep telling parents to question everything

47:41

and everybody so they don't have to go all

47:44

of these years like I did to try to get

47:46

down to the bottom of it.

47:47

I contacted the Nashville Public Schools to

47:49

see if someone can answer questions about what happened

47:52

with CJ. a spokesperson declined

47:54

to comment.

48:00

There are kids like CJ all over

48:02

the country. Learning to read does

48:04

not come easily to them. Schools

48:06

tell their parents, read to him, he'll be okay.

48:09

But he's not. Some

48:11

kids get help. Their parents pay for

48:14

it, or they teach their child themselves. Or

48:16

the child gets into special education, where

48:18

he's more likely to get the kind of instruction he needs.

48:21

But if your child is not learning to read

48:23

in school, and you don't have the money or

48:25

time to deal with it yourself, what

48:28

do you do? The equity

48:30

implications of this are stunning. A

48:32

child from a low or even a moderate

48:34

income family who is having a hard time learning

48:36

to read may never get what he

48:39

needs to become a good reader.

48:45

There

48:45

are several ways to view what's going

48:47

on with reading in this country.

48:49

One is to see it as a special education problem.

48:51

We have lots of kids with learning disabilities

48:53

who aren't getting the help they need.

48:56

We do,

48:56

but that isn't the whole story. A third

48:59

of fourth graders in this country can't read

49:01

on a basic level. They can't all

49:03

need special education.

49:05

Remember Paul Morgan's son?

49:07

He got the help he needed and he was fine.

49:10

He's doing well academically, about to start

49:12

high school, the same age as CJ.

49:15

Another popular explanation

49:17

is poverty. Kids can't read because

49:19

they're hungry, they're stressed, they weren't read

49:21

to enough at home. Poverty

49:23

plays a role, no question. There's

49:25

lots of research on this. But children

49:28

from low-income families can learn to read

49:30

well, and when they do, it can change

49:33

their lives. Visha Hawkins

49:35

grew up poor, she learned to read, and

49:37

now she has a master's degree.

49:39

A third explanation is the tests

49:42

themselves. They're not measuring reading ability

49:44

accurately. The levels are set too high.

49:47

Reasonable people can disagree

49:49

on how proficiency levels are set on standardized

49:51

tests, and no test will be able to

49:53

measure everyone's reading ability accurately. For

49:56

example, if you're a kid who doesn't know anything about

49:58

cricket, and there's There's a passage about... cricket on

50:00

your fourth grade reading test, you may not

50:02

do so well. Maybe you would have done better

50:04

if the passage was about baseball.

50:06

But arguing about the tests

50:09

misses the big picture.

50:10

Many kids are struggling, and there are

50:12

parents like Sonya Thomas crying out for

50:15

help all over this country.

50:21

What I've learned from my years of reporting

50:23

on this topic is that a big part of the problem

50:25

is many kids aren't being taught how

50:28

to read. Old assumptions

50:30

about how reading works are pervasive in

50:32

schools. The idea that readers

50:34

don't need to sound out words, they can use

50:36

context instead. The idea that

50:39

kids who are behind will catch up. The

50:41

idea that learning to read is like learning to talk,

50:43

that it happens through exposure. It doesn't.

50:46

Cognitive scientists have known this for a long

50:49

time. Phil Goff, the guy who

50:51

came up with a simple view of reading, published

50:53

a paper in 1980 called Learning

50:55

to Read, an Unnatural Act. He

50:57

wrote this, the statistically

51:00

average child normally endowed and

51:02

normally taught

51:03

learns to read only with considerable difficulty.

51:06

He does not learn to read naturally.

51:09

The bottom line is that learning to read is not

51:12

easy for many kids. Reading difficulty

51:15

is natural. And a lot of kids

51:17

are not being taught what they need to know. Visha

51:21

Hawkins wants to see a movement of parents

51:23

demanding better reading instruction.

51:26

I mean, I just envision, like,

51:28

just thousands of parents

51:30

to send it upon central office or

51:32

the courthouse. You know, just force

51:35

people to look at the kids,

51:37

to look at the families that's not being

51:40

served. I mean, y'all are taking our

51:42

tax dollars, but

51:44

we're not getting a return on that investment.

51:47

Sonya Thomas wants to see a movement, too.

51:49

Why isn't everyone

51:51

in this country angry

51:55

like me? Why are they

51:57

not losing sleep? It's

52:00

unacceptable for children

52:03

to not have a chance right off the

52:05

bat. And

52:08

I'm not going to let anybody sleep. We

52:10

are not going to let anybody sleep until

52:13

we have changed and changed

52:16

for the better for all children.

52:19

Sonya is now executive director of PROPEL,

52:21

the parent group she helped found. It's her

52:23

full-time job.

52:25

And she's determined to make sure that all the CJs

52:28

and Mateos and Dachans out there get what

52:30

they need to learn how to read.

52:39

You've

52:39

been listening to What the Words Say from

52:42

APM Reports. It was produced by

52:44

me, Emily Hanford, and edited by

52:46

Catherine Winter. Research and production

52:48

help from Sabby Robinson and John Hernandez.

52:52

Our associate producer is Alex Baumhart.

52:55

editors are Dave Mann and Andy Cruz.

52:58

The final mix was by Chris Julin and Craig

53:00

Thorsen. Fact-checking by Betsy

53:02

Towner Levine. The APM

53:04

Reports team includes Sasha Eslanian

53:06

and Lauren Humpert. Our editor-in-chief

53:09

is Chris Worthington.

53:09

Special thanks to Stephen

53:12

Smith and Shelley Lankford.

53:16

If

53:16

you go to our website, APMreports.org,

53:18

you can find a version of this story with lots

53:21

of links to books and articles where you can read

53:23

more about the simple view of reading and other

53:25

research referred to in this program. You

53:28

can find all of the reporting we've done on reading

53:30

at a special collections page, APMreports.org

53:33

slash reading, and on our podcast,

53:35

Educate. Support for APM

53:38

Reports comes from the Spencer Foundation, Lumina

53:40

Foundation, and the Holly Hawk Foundation. This

53:43

is APM American Public Media.

53:51

This is Emily again. You've been listening to

53:54

What the Words Say from 2020. A bonus episode

53:56

of the Sold a Story

53:59

podcast is...

54:00

coming soon. You can go to our

54:02

website for more about Sold a Story.

54:04

It's soldastory.org.