But how gradual is too gradual?

In a powerful new book, researcher Tim Shanahan argues that America’s classroom literacy practices move far too slowly. In , he contends that protecting students from difficult texts puts them on a treadmill with no exit.

Shanahan is a former director of reading at Chicago Public Schools, served on the National Reading Panel and writes the blog. In his new book, he walks through a number of problems with the leveled reading approach:

Kids can鈥檛 learn much from texts they can already read well

Shanahan dedicates his first chapter to a long history of how kids have been taught to read in the United States. From family Bibles in the 1700s to the McGuffey鈥檚 Readers used in one-room schoolhouses in the 1800s to the 鈥渕odern鈥� grade-level configurations beginning in the early  1900s, the texts given to students learning to read have gotten progressively easier. Beginning in the 1950s, the dominant idea became that of 鈥渓eveled readers,鈥� which attempted to match children with texts appropriate for their instructional level. Made infamous in recent years by Emily Hanford鈥檚 Sold a Story , the most popular version was the Fountas and Pinnell program, which sorted kids (and books) into an A-to-Z continuum.

Shanahan鈥檚 concerns start with how students are placed into these levels. Teachers listen to kids read aloud and count how many words they read correctly. Afterward, they ask questions to make sure the students understood what they read. These first steps make sense, but the issue comes with the false precision and subsequent placement decisions. Depending on the assessment and program being used, students may be placed in levels where they can already read 90% to 95% of the words in the assigned texts and understand 75% of the content.

Shanahan insists that being overly focused on readability in this way at the beginning of a lesson undermines learning. He writes, 鈥淎ssigning students to challenging texts and making them successful 鈥� that is, making sure they can read and understand the text by the end of the lesson 鈥� is the key to raising reading achievement.鈥�  

‘Just right’ reading levels are instructionally meaningless

Most teachers will be familiar with the idea of using 鈥溾�� to slowly introduce new concepts that are in the student鈥檚 鈥�.鈥� These frameworks strongly imply that learning can take place only when the material is neither too hard nor too easy.

But these break down once you start getting into practicalities. For example, when someone says a book is 鈥渏ust right鈥� for a student, what does that mean exactly? Students鈥� ability to understand a passage will be tied to their background knowledge in the subject, their interest in it and how the passage is written in terms of vocabulary, sentence length or word repetition.

This presents a measurement problem when it comes to the classroom. For example, researcher Matt Burns found that the widely used Benchmark Assessment System was in identifying struggling readers. Shanahan notes that many commercial assessments have very large measurement errors, meaning a fourth grader may be assigned to reading levels ranging from grades 2 to 6. That鈥檚 too wide a range to be instructionally useful.

Instead, teachers should work with grade-level texts

Shanahan argues that leveled-reading advocates are missing the forest for the trees. By being so consumed with trying to determine what level a child is at, they assume selecting an easier text is the only appropriate way to help that student learn. But there are other, better options. To help students stay on grade-level material, teachers can pre-teach some key terms, slice the text into manageable chunks or use re-reading to make sure kids eventually understand. In short, the difficulty of a text is relevant to the amount of help students might need, but they shouldn’t avoid the challenge.

Moreover, having children work hard to read a text reinforces good literacy skills. Shanahan notes that 鈥渏ust right鈥� texts eliminate the responsibility readers have to make important decisions and adjustments as they go along. When good readers confront challenging text, they slow down, re-read, make inferences, break words down into their component parts or look up words they don鈥檛 recognize. Grade-level texts require kids to practice these skills; leveled-reading materials do not.

Leveled books are well-meaning but wrong-headed

Leveled-reading advocates are very concerned about student motivation. They fear that children who face too difficult of a task will tune out or even start to question their own abilities.

But Shanahan points to a body of research suggesting that motivation can be driven by a number of factors, including the novelty of a text, how relevant it feels to a student and, yes, its level of rigor and challenge. Kids can even feel a sense of accomplishment after they鈥檝e mastered a challenging text. Shanahan suggests that, rather than starting a lesson with material that students can already read, it would be better to begin with a more difficult passage and then work until students can read it fluently. The goal should be achievement and progress, not the mere act of reading.

More kids deserve grade-level texts

Shanahan argues that assigning students to instructional-level text 鈥� as opposed to text tied to their actual grade level 鈥� is essentially a backdoor way of holding  students back without doing the paperwork or alerting their parents. When I spoke with him, he made clear this wasn鈥檛 any type of judgment on the text itself. Books are neither good nor bad. The problem comes when fifth graders are stuck reading third grade texts.  

This can also make it impossible for kids to catch up once they fall behind. As Shanahan writes, it will be hard for those students to ever read more challenging books, 鈥渨ithout exposure to the more advanced content, vocabulary, grammar, and the discourse and structure that more advantaged kids are experiencing.鈥� Giving struggling readers shorter, simpler texts in effect deprives them of the very practice they need to improve.

 Shanahan is not na茂ve in assuming these instructional changes will be easy to implement. In fact, he spends a good amount of time offering advice for teachers about how to incorporate more grade-level texts in their classrooms. Nor is he sanguine about policymakers solving these problems. He notes that the Common Core attempted to do in policy what he鈥檚 encouraging in the book 鈥� make sure more students have access to grade-level texts. Those efforts ultimately backfired as teachers became even to resort to easier instruction-level texts. To me, that suggests the root of the issue may be cultural norms in schools and schools of education. To combat that, more educators would need to embrace the challenge of providing grade-level texts to all kids.

Ultimately, Shanahan emphasizes that leveled-reading advocates have confused the goal and focused too much on reading as an isolated skill. But literacy is not a subject matter on its own, like math, science or history. It is a tool for learning about the world. It鈥檚 a good one, for sure, but the goal should be to teach kids to read so they can read to learn new things. That requires introducing more challenge than kids today are getting.

Success For All, developed in the late 1980s by two Johns Hopkins University professors, relies heavily on phonics and group learning, with students reading whole story books instead of textbooks. 

It has shown outsized gains in some cities and was recently featured in episodes of the 鈥淪old a Story鈥� podcast about surprisingly high reading scores in the small, Appalachian city of Steubenville, Ohio.

Used in about 500 schools nationwide, Success for All鈥檚 foundation is offering $100,000 鈥渟cholarships鈥� to help cover training, learning materials and teaching coaches to 50 district, charter or private schools that are adopting it in each of the next three years. 

Most of the $15 million needed for the scholarships comes from a single donation from a family聽foundation that wishes to be anonymous. Success For All officials said the donor gave the program $200,000 a few years ago. After being taken on a tour of schools in Virginia that use the approach, the family offered $13.5 million 鈥� their largest donation to date 鈥� to help launch the program in schools with large numbers of low-income students.聽

Julie Wible, CEO of the Success For All Foundation, said the donor wanted to improve literacy for low-income students 鈥� and Success For All offered more than just a curriculum, but also a change in teaching styles as well as social-emotional help.

鈥淭his concept of supporting an entire school gave them clarity about how to guarantee improvement in schools,鈥� Wible said. 鈥淎 high quality reading model is critical but it will not be enough to significantly change an entire school.鈥�

Most of the grants for this fall have already been awarded, but Success For All is still accepting applications for a few that remain.

Success For All estimates that schools will spend about $150,000 in the first year of adding the program, then lesser amounts the next few years. Wible said the program wanted to help schools, but still wanted them to have 鈥渟kin in the game鈥� so they would be committed to the shift.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which added Success For All at 18 of its schools in the 2023-24 school year, was awarded scholarships to bring the program to four more schools this fall.聽

Robert Tagorda, chief academic officer for the archdiocese, said the archdiocese chose Success For All because they believe it will help low-income students, including many who are learning English as their second language.

The program is already showing gains, so the archdiocese will apply for additional scholarships to add more schools for the 2026-27 school year. 

Success for All received significant federal funding in the 1990s amid President Bill Clinton鈥檚 push to support students at Title I schools but was essentially shut out of President George W. Bush鈥檚 Reading First initiative, to the U.S. Department of Education鈥檚 inspector general. The program rebounded during the Obama administration when it received an i3 grant designed to scale up evidence-based initiatives.

More recently, the program has received attention through coverage of reading gains in Steubenville, Ohio, which started using Success For All in 2000. Once known for a well-publicized rape case involving its high school football team, the Steubenville school district drew better notice in 2016 when Stanford University researchers showed the district had at schools where nearly every student is considered economically disadvantaged.聽

The district has also been an outlier for its lower-than-expected absenteeism rates for its socioeconomic issues. At the same time, strong test results in elementary school have faded by high school.

The 鈥淪old a Story鈥� podcast, widely credited with shifting national debate about reading instruction toward the science of reading, aired three episodes about Steubenville this spring. Episodes covered the district鈥檚 use of Success For All over the last 25 years and the challenges it faced in winning approval from Ohio and other states as a science of reading approach because there was no textbook that could be reviewed.

Wible said the program now has approval from most states.

Lynnett Gorman, Principal of Steubenville鈥檚 Pugliese West Elementary, a 2021 National Blue Ribbon School, credits Success For All for the district鈥檚 strong results.

鈥淚t really has helped our students be successful,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 hope schools who are interested apply for the grant scholarships. What a great opportunity.鈥�

But what about the longer-term story in Steubenville? Although early academic success is incredibly important, it’s only part of what students need to achieve better outcomes down the road. As Chad Aldeman pointed out in a recent analysis of Steubenville鈥檚 strategy, 鈥淒espite its near-perfect early reading scores, strong middle and high school achievement and a 96% graduation rate, the district鈥檚 post-high school results are only slightly above statewide averages in terms of college-going and completion rates and the percentage of graduates who find 鈥榞ainful employment.鈥� 鈥�

Academic preparation is a critical nut that has not fully been cracked, which is why success stories like Steubenville are noteworthy. But academics are only one part of what students need to find success. 

First, it鈥檚 critical to help students figure out what they want to do next and see relevance in what they鈥檙e learning. This means schools must support career awareness and exploration well before high school and help students begin to imagine their future selves early 鈥� with the understanding that their vision is likely to change many times on their way to finding a fulfilling career. Students should have the chance to engage in meaningful experiences in , with age-appropriate ways to start to explore what they like, what they鈥檙e good at and which potential careers might suit them. Educators and counselors also need to help students build connections between what they鈥檙e learning in school and real-world careers so that they see in their education. 

Career exposure and exploration are important, but they are not sufficient. Students also need wraparound support to enable them to successfully move on to education and training opportunities after high school.

Last year, 15 national organizations came together to help identify the conditions that districts can create to provide effective supports for students鈥� success in their chosen postsecondary pathways. The they laid out can serve as a roadmap for helping more students find long-term success.

One area of particular need is advising. In nearly all high schools across the U.S., counselors are overloaded, making it challenging for every student to receive the personal guidance needed to navigate the next steps beyond high school. As a result, it鈥檚 important for districts to think more creatively about expanding the 鈥渨ho鈥� when it comes to advising. This can include leveraging 鈥渘ear-peers鈥� who can serve as trusted sources of guidance. A number of communities 鈥� ranging from rural Appalachia in Kentucky to New York City 鈥� are to dramatically expand the number of caring young adults who can connect with students and help them find their paths to success. They can provide advice on not only which classes to take, but which work-based learning experiences to pursue, which colleges to consider, how to secure financial aid and much more. 

Because the need for navigational support doesn鈥檛 end with high school graduation, there has been a recent trend among K-12 and to invest in persistence coaches to guide recent graduates through their first year of college. Taking on a degree of responsibility for their students鈥� success even after they have moved on is a critical step for these schools toward ensuring that those outcomes improve. 

Finally, districts and states need to measure longer-term student outcomes, transparently report them and use them to drive decisionmaking and improvements. With a greater focus on like college enrollment and persistence, degree attainment, employment rates and wages, districts can gain a better understanding of where students are and are not succeeding and how to help more of them to get on the right path. Ohio deserves credit for the powerful it has made available; without them we would only have half the story in Steubenville. Unfortunately, in far too many states, K-12 leaders operate in the dark when it comes to how their students after graduation.

Steubenville can teach the country a great deal about helping students find academic success against the odds. Which districts will emerge as the star pioneers in long-term student outcomes? 

But what about kids living in poverty? Don鈥檛 schools need more money, and more staff, to be able to get good results?

Well, yes and no. Poverty is certainly correlated to reading scores, and the best evidence suggests money helps boost a range of student outcomes.

But that doesn’t mean the best school district in the country is the most well-resourced or the one with the fanciest buildings or most prestigious alumni. In fact, based on how much students learn 鈥� which, in my opinion, is how schools should be evaluated 鈥� there鈥檚 perhaps no better district in the country than Steubenville, Ohio.

Last fall, I worked with 社区黑料鈥檚 Art & Technology Director Eamonn Fitzmaurice to find districts where students had high reading scores despite serving large concentrations of low-income students. We highlighted Steubenville, a high-poverty district in Ohio鈥檚 Rust Belt, as a true outlier. (In a follow-up piece, we showed that Steubenville was also exceptional at teaching kids math.)

But I wanted to revisit the case of Steubenville after it was spotlighted recently on Emily Hanford鈥檚 award-winning 鈥溾�� podcast. Are its results just a one-time fluke? And if not 鈥� if the results are real 鈥� what can other districts learn from Steubenville鈥檚 success?

First, it鈥檚 quickly apparent that Steubenville is not a flash in the pan. A 2012 story noted that its success traces back to the early 2000s.

It鈥檚 also incredibly consistent over time. I used the tool from the Education Data Center to look at its recent results. The graph below compares Steubenville鈥檚 third-grade reading proficiency rates (in blue) to the statewide average (in gray). As the graph shows, Steubenville consistently gets 95% to 99% of its third graders over the proficiency bar. In 2018, it had a bad year, and “only” 93% of third graders scored proficient. But the district did not suffer much of a drop-off in the wake of the pandemic, hitting 97% in spring 2022.

Steubenville鈥檚 results are also remarkably strong across student groups. Last year, for example, 100% of its Black students, 99% of its low-income students and 92% of its students with disabilities scored proficient in third grade reading.

How does Steubenville get such remarkable results? What can other districts learn from its success?

It鈥檚 not that the district has extra money or more staff. Steubenville $10,718 per student last year, which was about $1,500 less than the average Ohio district and well below many other districts in America. It also had slightly more students per teacher than other comparable districts.

Some things Steubenville does have are not easily replicable. As Robert Pondiscio pointed out in a recent column, the district can boast incredible continuity: It has been following the same reading program, called , for the last 25 years. Teacher turnover is low, and the same superintendent has been in place for a decade.

But Hanford a few things that Steubenville did differently that other schools can learn from. Steubenville, for example, offers subsidized preschool beginning at age 3. And in those early years, teachers regularly remind students to speak in complete sentences as language practice for later, when those kids will start learning to read and write.

The district also deploys staff differently than most do. Every elementary teacher, even the phys ed instructor, leads a reading class. And during that reading block 鈥� which all students have at the same time 鈥� children are grouped with peers performing at the same level, regardless of age.

Steubenville kids are also practicing constantly, either as part of the whole class or in small groups, where kids work on their fluency skills by reading aloud to each other. That stands in contrast to schools that prefer to give kids silent reading or 鈥溾�� time, which can be great for kids who already read well but or even harmful for children who aren鈥檛 ready for long blocks of independent free reading.

Now, it鈥檚 worth noting that Steubenville鈥檚 robust education results have not guaranteed kids a path to economic security. Despite its near-perfect early reading scores, strong middle and high school achievement and a 96% graduation rate, the district鈥檚 post-high school are only slightly above statewide averages in terms of college-going and completion rates and the percentage of graduates who find 鈥済ainful employment.鈥�

But those early adulthood outcomes are at least partly tied to the economic climate in a given community, and it鈥檚 hard to find fault with anything that the school district itself directly controls. Most districts would envy Steubenville鈥檚 impressive results. 

However, the discussion about the role of in reviewing curriculum for districts included a key misperception: that EdReports reviews only for standards alignment in literacy, overlooking aspects such as the science of reading and text quality. As CEO of EdReports, an independent nonprofit, I want to highlight that EdReports has always evaluated literacy materials .

This is not to say our approach has been perfect 鈥� far from it. We know that our best report has yet to be written. Over the past decade, we have continually sought feedback and made many improvements to our process, particularly in literacy. But the breadth of EdReports鈥� reviews and the expertise behind them have remained constant. Since Day One, educators have developed our procedures and sat on our board, and more than 1,000 have contributed their extensive knowledge and experience to conduct our reviews.

One of the things I鈥檓 most proud of is the work we鈥檝e done to democratize the process for adopting instructional materials. Before EdReports launched in 2015, districts relied on what publishers said about their own products or on word of mouth. Today, teams of experienced educators review curriculum for multiple aspects of quality, including how well materials are grounded in research; alignment to college and career-ready standards; and supports for all students, including multilingual learners. Administrators and adoption committees from nearly 1,800 school districts have used our free and independent reviews to help them better understand and select curricula to serve their students and teachers.

When it comes to questions around the value of independent curriculum reviews, EdReports is committed to being responsive to the needs of the field, and I welcome any conversation about quality and getting better instructional materials for educators. Over the past several years, EdReports has made improvements based on feedback from many such conversations, including:

• ,鈥� the specific items educator reviewers use to evaluate the quality of instructional materials. Recent changes include significant enhancements in English Language Arts, where we have introduced explicit guidance to ensure materials are absent of three-cueing, a disavowed reading strategy that encourages children to guess words. In short, a curriculum reviewed using our latest criteria cannot achieve a 鈥済reen鈥� rating if it uses this technique.
  
• 础诲诲颈苍驳听 to reports so educators can easily see which review criteria were used and quickly identify if a report reflects the most up-to-date research. We also added聽, including detailed information on specific improvements we鈥檝e made in聽,听 补苍诲听. We keep every published report freely available because some materials and editions reviewed years ago are still in use.聽

Our work will continue to evolve to meet the needs of educators and findings from the science of learning. We will also remain committed to several key principles:

• Focus on elements of quality in materials: High-quality instructional materials are extremely important, but they are not a silver bullet. How materials are selected and implemented have a direct impact on whether they will actually be used to benefit students. And there are myriad factors beyond the design of a curriculum 鈥� such as consistency of use and supportive school environments 鈥� that impact both implementation and impact.聽This makes it extremely of any single program from one district to the next, because so many factors influence teaching and learning. That鈥檚 why EdReports reviews聽聽rather than the various ways they might be used.聽
  
• Provide a place to start: Our reports are a starting point, not a prescription. Our reviews are designed to be聽. We believe the most effective selection processes require thoughtful, thorough, collaborative work that include educators. For example, in聽, districts used EdReports to prepare for in-depth discussions with publishers. In聽, leaders combined EdReports insights with teacher surveys to develop customized selection criteria. In聽, EdReports reviews were a key resource, but other factors were also an important part of the selection process.
  
• Be a trusted resource and advocate: As the federal government appears to be stepping back from education research, states and school districts need information to guide the selection of high-quality instructional materials. EdReports will continue to support states and school systems by advocating for the importance of high-quality curriculum, providing educator-led insights, sharing research that highlights effective policies and showcasing promising practices that create the conditions for strong selection, implementation and support of instructional materials.

Spurred by education researchers, journalists and policymakers, states and districts are making progress toward greater use of high-quality curriculum and instructional materials. Now it鈥檚 up to all of us 鈥� educators, advocates and organizations like EdReports 鈥� to keep the momentum going and ensure that all students have access to the resources they need to learn and grow.

The approach, known as 鈥渂alanced鈥� literacy, has been dominant in U.S. classrooms for decades, but has come under fire recently amid and exposing its shortcomings. Criticism crescendoed this fall after the release of the influential podcast, which linked America鈥檚 鈥溾�� to schools鈥� use of literacy materials that teach children to guess words they don鈥檛 know based first on pictures and sentence structure 鈥� a method called 鈥渢hree cueing.鈥�

But actually ridding classrooms of these approaches may prove challenging. Since Oct. 20 when the podcast launched, districts have continued to make large purchases of materials that include the problematic three-cueing tactics.

Over that time span, at least 225 districts have spent over $1.5 million on new books, trainings and curriculums linked to three cueing, according to 社区黑料鈥檚 review of their purchase orders accessed through the data service . Two districts 鈥� Palatine, Illinois and Conroe, Texas 鈥� each spent over $170,000 on the materials and four others spent more than $50,000.

Previous analyses have highlighted sales going to the reading materials鈥� primary publisher, finding some large school systems had spent over the last decade. But this report is the first known to zero in on individual districts鈥� purchasing of the key authors in question, spending decisions made during a national re-examination of literacy instruction.

Along with books and worksheets, at least nine districts indicated that they had paid for new professional development in the flawed literacy approaches and schools made at least 85 purchases of an assessment system for early readers .

The numbers likely understate the total because school districts in many cases have not yet submitted their more recent purchase orders to the GovSpend database, a process which can take several months, GovSpend staff said. From Oct. 21 to Nov. 31, the database shows over $1.2 million in total spending on the curricular materials, and from Dec. 1 through Feb. 27, the date 社区黑料 pulled the figures, under $350,000.

Matthew Mugo Fields, president of New Hampshire-based Heinemann, the publisher at the center of Sold a Story, said none of his company鈥檚 literacy programs are designed to prioritize guessing.

鈥淕uessing at words in lieu of decoding is not the instructional intent of those programs,鈥� he said.

In some cases, district officials stood by the literacy materials, saying their teachers swear by them. Others defended their purchases as one tool among many at educators鈥� disposal for teaching kids how to read, acknowledging that they were insufficient on their own.

Krissy Hufnagel, curriculum director for schools in Mason, Ohio, the state where balanced literacy first took root, said her district had to bolster their supply of books after losing some of the titles they sent home with families during the pandemic. She has followed along for years the debate over how best to teach literacy, she said, and 鈥渁bsolutely鈥� agrees with her district鈥檚 $69,500 purchase in October of guided reading materials for first graders from the Fountas and Pinnell Classroom, one of the key curriculums whose efficacy has been cast into doubt.

鈥淚t鈥檚 just one piece of the puzzle,鈥� Hufnagel said. 鈥淲e purchased decodables, we purchased read-alouds and we purchased guided, leveled books.鈥�

Decodable books encourage young readers to develop their skills in phonics by using words they can sound out and by excluding pictures that would give away challenging words. Schools are increasingly prioritizing phonics-based instruction thanks to a documenting its central role in how young children can become strong readers.

Heinemann says it is working to incorporate its stand-alone phonics materials into its other existing programs. In the Oct. 21 to Feb. 27 timeframe, 13 districts鈥� purchase orders mentioned phonics and totaled roughly $4,300.

Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois Chicago studying early literacy, described the mix-and-match approach as a 鈥渂andage.鈥� The most common curriculums that incorporate cueing 鈥� the Reading Recovery program, Lucy Calkins鈥檚 鈥淯nits of Study鈥� and Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell鈥檚 鈥淟eveled Literacy Intervention鈥� 鈥� have a limited research base, he said.

鈥淵ou’re actually teaching kids to read like poor readers rather than like good readers,鈥� he said. Students may still make progress using those techniques, but their gains are 鈥渙verwhelmingly鈥� better when learning via a more structured, phonics-driven approach.

Vicky Wieben is a parent who said she鈥檚 seen the harms of three cueing first hand. When her son struggled to read in the early grades, their school in an affluent suburban district outside Des Moines, Iowa, sent home books from the Reading Recovery program along with laminated instructions for the parents. The sheet told her to prompt her son to look at the picture when he didn鈥檛 know a word, then use the surrounding words for context and, if none of that worked, see if he could sound it out using the letters, she said.

鈥淎nything that took any kind of sounding out 鈥� he would just be silent,鈥� Wieben said. His teacher joked that the child鈥檚 imagined stories were better than the books themselves. But the mother knew that was a red flag. 鈥淗e would make up what he was seeing in the picture and hope that that was good enough,鈥� she said.

Her son, now a seventh grader, still has 鈥渉oles and gaps鈥� even in elementary school content, she said, and tested at a third-grade level in sixth grade.

Millions of other youngsters have had similar struggles. In 2022, national exams showed two-thirds of U.S. fourth graders were below proficient in reading, the age by which educators hope young people will have finished learning to read and begun reading to learn. Scores dipped after the pandemic, but even before COVID, only 35% of learners notched at or above proficient.

In an effort to turn things around, more than half of states have promoting the 鈥�science of reading,鈥� an approach that, compared to balanced literacy, places a greater emphasis on sounding out words.

Sara Hunton, curriculum coordinator for Portales schools in New Mexico, said her district had to purchase 鈥渟upplemental materials鈥� after the state鈥檚 2019 law because the Leveled Literacy Intervention program they use isn鈥檛 on the state鈥檚 approved list.

Researchers like Shanahan emphasize that the debates are 鈥渘ot black and white,鈥� and that studies show young learners need not just phonics instruction, but also lessons in vocabulary and access to challenging reading material, among other things.

In 2022, Lucy Calkins, a professor at Columbia University鈥檚 Teachers College once revered for her literacy program, updated her curriculum to give students more direct instruction in phonics. Fields, Heinemann鈥檚 president, said the Fountas and Pinnell Classroom is going through a similar update process and will be including more decodable books in its next iteration. Fields did not specify any elements of either program that the authors are removing and distanced their instruction from the three-cueing method.

鈥淲e don’t use, nor have we ever used, the term 鈥榯hree cueing,鈥� to refer to what it is that we do,鈥� he said.

Michelle Faust, a literacy coach working in Lexington, South Carolina, was skeptical of the new Units of Study. Over a decade ago, she was trained in the Calkins approach, but soon saw its weaknesses in the classroom. Yet, she was pleasantly surprised with the updates.

鈥淢y kindergarten teachers have been working with the new Units [of Study] this year 鈥� and they are science of reading people 鈥� and they are happy with the revisions,鈥� she said. 鈥淟ucy has taken the Sold a Story podcast to heart and revised accordingly.鈥�

Updated or not, Terri Marculitis, director of curriculum and instruction for Middleborough Public Schools in Massachusetts, said her district will never again purchase materials from Fountas and Pinnell Classroom. The school system bought materials until last school year, she said, and the results were 鈥減oor at best.鈥�

鈥淲e have students in high school who have significant gaps in foundational literacy,鈥� she said. She attributes those holes to the flawed curriculum 鈥�100%.鈥�

Fields did not respond directly when asked whether Heinemann鈥檚 sales had changed in the wake of Sold a Story, but said the company has had to have 鈥渃larifying conversations鈥� with several school district customers in recent months.

Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell declined 社区黑料鈥檚 request for an interview. Lucy Calkins sent a written statement.

鈥淥ur new publications are informed by the science of reading research, new research on comprehension and by ongoing classroom-based research,鈥� she said. The professor, whose LLC through which districts hire her team for training is reportedly worth , added that she holds monthly office hours to help educators implement her materials on the ground.

Emily Hanford, the American Public Media reporter who created the blockbuster Sold a Story series, said she鈥檚 not surprised schools are continuing to purchase the materials her podcast warned against. Yes, reading instruction needs to change, she said. Yes, schools need to do better. But 鈥渘o one changes a culture quickly,鈥� Hanford said.

鈥淭here are people who have been using these materials for a long time. 鈥� These ideas have been entrenched in American education for decades now, so things aren’t going to necessarily change quickly.鈥�

See the full list of district purchase orders marked Oct. 21 though Feb. 27: