READING
In 2017, Emily Hanford began investigating how children are taught to read. In a series of ongoing reports, collected here, she helped teachers, parents and policymakers recognize widespread flaws in instruction and helped spark a movement to bring the science of reading to schools. She and reporter Christopher Peak have a new podcast about how reading instruction went so wrong.
THE PODCAST
There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation — even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read. In this new podcast, host Emily Hanford investigates the influential authors who promote this idea and the company that sells their work. It's an exposé of how educators came to believe in something that isn't true and are now reckoning with the consequences — children harmed, money wasted, an education system upended.
DOCUMENTARIES
STORIES
The National Assessment of Educational Progress is one of the few federal education initiatives that the Trump Administration has vowed to preserve. But the administration has slashed the staff responsible for keeping the series of tests up to date. And the board overseeing the assessment has eliminated more than a dozen scheduled tests over the next seven years, citing “cost efficiencies.”
The Trump administration tried to kill the largest reading experiment ever funded by the U.S. Department of Education's research arm — just months before the yearslong study was complete. The administration agreed to finish the research only after it was sued.
For decades, the federal government has surveyed high school students — and repeatedly followed up with them as adults. The goal was to gather data on their educational choices and careers so researchers could draw connections between them. Trump put an end to that effort as part of his quest to dissolve the Department of Education.
The school reform program, first developed in the 1980s, has been declining in popularity for the past two decades — even though a mountain of research shows it gets great results, especially when it comes to elementary reading skills. Schools that have dropped the program cite logistical challenges, cost, administrative turnover and a perceived lack of flexibility.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns ruled that the lawsuit against educational publisher Heinemann and three of its top authors was invalidated by a legal doctrine that bars claims of "educational malpractice."
Even though EdReports is only a decade old, it has quickly become a powerful force in the educational publishing industry. Many schools rely on its reviews when they decide which reading programs to buy. But the nonprofit organization has given high marks to programs that use strategies debunked by cognitive science. And it hasn't endorsed other programs despite studies showing they work.
The third graders in Steubenville, Ohio, are among the best little readers in the nation. For nearly 20 years, 93% or more of them have scored proficient on state reading tests. In fact, the elementary schools in this economically depressed area are producing better readers than some of the wealthiest places in the country.
A class-action lawsuit filed in Massachusetts claims that the educational publishing company Heinemann falsely advertised its products as "research-backed" and "data-based."
At least 25 states have passed laws about how schools teach reading since APM Reports' Sold a Story podcast was released in 2022. But proponents of the disproven ideas about reading exposed in the podcast haven’t given up.
The educational publisher raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue during the 2010s selling reading programs based on a disproven theory. The company now faces financial fallout, as schools ditch its products.
As schools around the country are dropping Reading Recovery, the nonprofit that advocates for the tutoring program tapped into its cash reserves to push back against journalists and legislators.
Other schools are backing away from a disproven theory about how kids learn to read, but programs started by Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell train literacy coaches to believe in it.
"Flipping a coin would actually be better" for identifying struggling readers, one researcher said of the test created by influential curriculum developers Fountas and Pinnell.
More states are now requiring districts to adopt curriculum that adheres to the science of reading. Look up the policy in your state.
The controversial educational publishing company has sold instructional materials and professional resources in almost every state, earning at least $1.6 billion over a decade. Explore a map of school districts.
Here's a reading list put together by Emily Hanford.
Initial gains from first-grade intervention didn't last and kids performed worse in third and fourth grade.
The education professors double down on a flawed approach that encourages pictures and context to read words. Heinemann — their publisher — faces harsh criticism.
In a major shift, the controversial figure in the fight over how to teach reading now says that beginning readers should focus on sounding out words, according to a document obtained by APM Reports.
The governor won't contest a court ruling that found students have a constitutional right to learn to read and agrees to more funding for Detroit schools.
A federal court recently ruled that underfunded schools in Detroit violated students' right to a basic education. Advocates hope the case is the beginning of a trend.
A first of its kind review finds Lucy Calkins' materials don't align with the science of reading.
Several powerful people and organizations have weighed in on the national conversation prompted by APM Reports' podcast episodes.
Correspondent Emily Hanford talks about the latest NAEP results and what they say about the state of reading instruction in the U.S.
Hanford talks about her reporting on what's wrong with how schools teach reading.
After our recent examination of why American kids aren't being taught to read well, we received a ton of questions, mostly from parents. So we went to the experts to get answers.
NYT OP-EDS BY EMILY HANFORD
The state's reliance on cognitive science explains why.
Teacher preparation programs continue to ignore the sound science behind how people become readers.
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