We Blame Teachers for Low Reading Scores. Should We?

I watched the recent Congressional hearing, in which Dr. Holly Lane, director of the University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI) spoke about the science of reading and what she views are our country’s biggest literacy needs moving forward.   She said many things that were important to note which will no doubt make an impact on student learning nationwide.   Things like the importance of early literacy and the impact that instructional coaches have on teacher practice, for example.

But she also said some things that brushed aside some real core issues.  Issues that I believe are at the root of why our reading scores are not where we want them to be (and have consistently been the case for 50 years), yet no one wants to seem to really tackle.  It was an interesting discussion. But in the end, seemed to just perpetuate the back and forth we’ve already experienced for so long. With conversations like this at the government level, it’s no wonder we can’t seem to truly move forward.

Which left little wonder why we seem to be stuck in an ever-revolving door of changes that only recycle what’s already been done.

For example, one representative, a Mr. Clyde, said, in one single breath,  both that we have a “literacy crisis” and also “largely stagnant literacy scores.”  He’s absolutely correct that the scores he’s referring to, NAEP, have been quite stagnant since the inception of NAEP in 1971.  Stagnant means there’s a flat line, which is easy to see there is.  Yes, there are tiny moves in both positive and negative directions over time. But, as Mr. Clyde said, the charts truly show stagnancy.  A crisis would imply a sudden change shown with a sharp dip–which no NAEP chart has ever shown.  Another representative, Mr. Simpson, decried, “why do we continue to see reading scores go down?”  He seems to have missed the NAEP charts.  His words sound an awful lot like parroting of media headlines.  

It’s possible he’s referring to the latest 2024 report, which does show a slight decline.  A decline that occurred despite many states having already put new reading policies in place, some quite a while ago.  Which begged the question Mr. Harder asked.  He asked why, in states where science of reading initiatives have been in place since 2013, we aren’t seeing improved outcomes.  An excellent question.  He raises a point that the most recent NAEP scores have highlighted–that the discrepancy between achievement across different demographics is enormous.  

NAEP reports do in fact show that the most recent scores dipped the furthest since 1992.  The Reading Policy Institute, which is not connected to the US government, elaborates on this dip, saying that poverty levels “no doubt also contribute to the sharp declines in the performance of the bottom quartile of students on NAEP.”  But…if SOR legislation has been in place since 2013, as Mr. Harder points out, “why aren’t we seeing improvement?”  Ms. Watson Coleman echoed this question, asking, quite pointedly, “how come gains aren’t being seen in poorest districts?”

And there’s the rub.  This is the issue we need to tackle.  

Which got me excited to hear how the committee would begin to address this very real problem. (Spoiler alert:  they didn’t.)  

Every teacher knows that in a given class, there will be wide variance in skills and knowledge.  For example, every single year, kindergarteners enter school already reading, writing letters to match their pictures which correctly represent sounds, and have strong vocabularies that have been built through conversation, books, and experiences.  Most likely, these children also attended a decent preschool program.  In the same class, there are also students who have never held a book, haven’t been read to, have limited vocabularies, have never held a pencil, and do not recognize a single letter in their name.  Data shows that kids with such limited experiences often come from poverty.  Teachers are tasked with meeting the needs of both these students, plus everyone in between.

What kids come to us with matters a great deal. 

It’s what Representative Harris brought to light in the committee conversation.  He talked about the “million word gap,” which the NIH reported on in 2019.  The report discusses the language deficit some children have, caused by not being read to in their formative years.  Certainly this is seen in children who come from every level of socioeconomic status, but is far more prevalent in children who come from low income households.  

Dr. Lane explained that the Simple View of Reading says that “in order to read and comprehend text one must be able to read the words on the page and understand the spoken language that’s used in the text.”  In other words, it helps a whole lot when kids have a larger vocabulary.  A vocabulary, I must point out, that is largely developed before kids even enter the kindergarten classroom.  Something completely out of teachers’ control.  But Lane ignored this and went on to say “it’s not these kids, it’s this instruction.” 

Totally dismissing the fact that what kids come to us with plays a crucial role.

Obviously, vocabulary instruction is a key part of reading instruction. No doubt, what teachers do to help students learn words is incredibly important.  But Dr. Lane doesn’t believe teachers are doing enough.  She said, several times, that the crux of the reading achievement scores we see today are a result of poor teaching. In fact Lane named “the number one problem” as “lack of expertise of teachers and school leaders.”  She went on to say that the next biggest problem is lack of quality tools for teachers.  No mention whatsoever of the “million word gap” we know plays a major role. 

Teachers cannot be expected to fully compensate for 4–5 years of prior inequity.  

This is a very unfair supposition to make.

There’s no doubt that there are many teachers who are “ill-prepared,” as Lane puts it.  She’s right.  As she points out we have many alternatively certified teachers, and teachers who are thrown into a position without proper training.  I’m sure there are college prep programs out there that miss the mark on how to teach reading.  This is certainly an area that needs to be examined.  But to make such a blanket statement–that it’s the norm that ill-prepared teachers are the root of the scores we see–is a bold assumption and quite derogatory.  Not only to teachers themselves, but also to universities across the nation who work so hard to follow the science.

Teacher training absolutely matters. 

At the end of the day, so much always comes back to teacher skill and knowledge.  Because teachers are primarily trained at colleges and universities, it seems logical that there ought to be more consistency in training.  One committee member did mention this, but it was quickly dropped.  Instead, Larry Saulsberry, speaking on behalf of Huntsville, Alabama city schools, said that we need LETRS training for all teachers.  Do we, though?  For some teachers, LETRS training might well fill gaps in their understanding of reading instruction.

For others, though, whose training was already strong,  it might only reinforce existing knowledge.  Several states have already quite successfully provided more streamlined, cost-effective foundational skills training, proving that LETRS isn’t the end-all, be-all. Considering LETRS training for teachers hasn’t proven to raise student achievement scores, should we keep spending money on it? 

Isn’t the whole goal to raise reading scores?

Lane then made the claim that the next biggest problem leading to low reading scores is a lack of quality programs.  Representative Dean supported Dr. Lane’s assertion that if only teachers had high quality programs in their hands, literacy scores would rise, saying that “children don’t fail to learn, we’re failing to teach them and provide adequate resources to teach them.”  

And yet, we only need to look to recent media reports (here, here, and here) to dispel the notion that a program is the silver bullet.  There is no perfect program.  Not one.  Every teacher in the world who’s been handed a boxed program would agree. Most states by now have forced the adoption of what they deemed to be “high quality curriculum.”  Although Lane asserts that this should fix things, she also talked about “curriculum bloat” in this same committee speech.  Some programs are full of too many things that don’t move the needle. Many don’t go deep enough, meaning teachers must supplement and modify in order to make it work.  It’s why “fidelity to a program” so often backfires.  

The entire conversation ended with a plea for more money to be spent on teacher training and program materials.  Despite all the talk about the impact of kids’ experiences (or lack of) at home before entering kindergarten, Representative DeLauro ended the conversation saying that we need increased funding for more research and that we should “reconvene the NRP” to “Help us help kids no matter where they are, no matter their background.”  

Yes, of course, instruction and teacher preparation matter deeply. 

What the teacher brings in terms of content, pedagogy, and assessment knowledge is crucial.  The more we learn about it, the better. The quality of programs/lessons used also matters a lot.   But these seem to be the only levers we keep pulling.  Levers that are easy to package up and purchase. 

With largely the same results, decade after decade. 

Isn’t it time to focus on something that’s been sorely overlooked?

Beacuse we also know that background experiences matter. 

The reality is, some children arrive with thousands of hours of conversation, books, and enriched experiences behind them. Others arrive already several years behind in oral language and vocabulary.  It’s no one’s fault, it just is the reality.  

Why aren’t we putting funding toward high-quality, universal preschool programs?  Why not put some billions toward parent support for children aged birth to three?  These representatives themselves called out the fact that mandates and SOR policies have been in place for years now but with no NAEP gains.  But their answer, as Holly Lane advised, is to continue to pour money into programs and teacher training. Not to address the issue of lack of student readiness for school in the first place.

It’s an uncomfortable truth.  But if we truly want to see NAEP scores improve, we have to stop pretending there is a single silver bullet.

Better training alone won’t fix it. Better programs alone won’t fix it.  They certainly haven’t yet, not now, not during NCLB, nor during Reading First.  Strong instruction is very necessary, but it’ll never be sufficient.

Until we address school readiness with the same urgency and intensity we bring to program and training mandates, we’ll likely continue to debate the same stagnant charts another 10 years from now.  

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Who is Coach from the Couch??  I’m Michelle Ruhe, a 25+ year veteran educator, currently a K-5 literacy coach.  I continue to learn alongside teachers in classrooms each and every day, and it’s my mission to support as many teachers as I can.  Because no one can do this work alone. I’m available to you, too, through virtual coaching calls!

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