Balanced Literacy Was Adopted Based on Vibes, Not Evidence

Balanced literacy was based largely on vibes, and those vibes were wrong.

And I'm so grateful that we have evidence-based programs now, we have the science of reading, we have lots of programs that are a lot more structured, a lot more explicit, that actually teach phonics and teach the background knowledge that students need in order to succeed as readers.

But I was thinking about the vibes that led to the adoption of balanced literacy programs, which we used when I was a principal in Seattle.

That was all the rage in those days.

We adopted those programs based largely on enthusiasm rather than evidence.

And I think we need to be careful not to make this kind of mistake again.

But the latest episodes of Sold a Story, Emily Hanford's podcast on reading, have filled in some backstory that I wasn't aware of.

There was federal money in the Reading First grant program that only was supposed to go to evidence-based programs.

And a lot of the people who were pushing these programs and doing the trainings were kind of inappropriately pushing their own programs.

There were a lot of conflicts of interest.

And ultimately, reading first stopped, well, shut down, and then districts stopped emphasizing programs, and balanced literacy came in as a non-program.

Balanced literacy came in as a philosophy, a vibe, really, and an approach that allowed teachers to kind of do their own thing when it came to literacy.

And let me be clear, teachers loved this.

When I was in Seattle, teachers loved balanced literacy and loved the autonomy that it gave them.

The only problem with all this is that it doesn't really work that well.

There are lots and lots of kids who will slip through the cracks under balanced literacy.

And it is not a surprise now that the tide has turned against balanced literacy.

Heinemann, the biggest publisher that sold a story, talks about is, you know, reeling financially, their sales are way down, and science of reading programs are way up.

Now, of course, we still have to worry about the problem of stuff being labeled science of reading, just as stuff was labeled evidence-based in the past.

I think we're always going to have a problem and need to be critical consumers about this because there's always a temptation to label materials with whatever the latest thing is.

But we've got to stop making decisions based on vibes.

And I think vibes should even make us suspicious.

They should make us concerned that we're deciding on the wrong basis.

And if you were ever part of the cult of Lucy, and I kind of was a little bit, we had Lucy come to Seattle.

I went and attended Lucy Calkins trainings at Columbia.

Looking back on that, I think we've got to do better.

We've got to be on the lookout for that type of hero worship, that type of cult of personality.

And I wouldn't even say a lot of that was her doing.

Like, we did that.

That was on us as a profession for creating that situation and creating a situation where she didn't even set out to create a reading curriculum.

It started as a writing curriculum.

So we've got to be careful.

Let me know what you think.