Lliana Loewus:

The tide has turned on reading instruction. Nearly all states have passed “science of reading” laws, and most researchers and educators now agree students need to learn letters and sounds explicitly and systematically to become proficient readers. The Washington Post’s editorial board recently went so far as to proclaim that the reading wars have ended. “The victor is clear: Phonics is the best way to teach kids how to read.”

And yet a look inside K–3 classrooms reveals surprising variation in exactly how these letters and sounds are taught. Along with the many research-based methods in use, there’s another practice taking hold, and at great cost to students: over-teaching.

Mark Seidenberg, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who studies reading science, helped persuade the public of the need for science-based instruction—and now he’s among those sounding the alarm on over-instruction. Reading teachers need not aim to teach every single pattern students will encounter in text, he says; they simply need to teach enough that students can achieve “escape velocity,” or the ability to start cracking the code on their own.

“You do teach them about words, about print. You teach them enough simple phonics patterns so they can start sounding out some words. And then there’s supposed to be a light bulb that goes on,” Seidenberg says.

Researchers call this ability to implicitly pick up patterns and apply them the “self-teaching mechanism,” or “statistical learning”—and many say it’s underrecognized within the science-of-reading movement.

Diane Ravitch:

Given the fact that about half the states have now mandated that teachers teach “the science of reading,” it seems to be a good time to repost what I wrote on November 1, 2023.

Some things never change.

I wrote:

One of my grandsons sent me an article about the national rush to mandate “the science of reading,” and it caused me to explain briefly (without boring him) the background of the latest panacea.

I didn’t tell him the history of the “reading wars,” which I researched and wrote about in Left Back (2000). I didn’t tell him that reading instruction has swung back and forth between the phonetic method and the “whole word” method since the introduction of public schooling in the first quarter of the 19th century. Horace Mann opposed phonics. But the popular McGuffey readers of that century were phonetic and included examples of good literature.

In 1930, the Dick-and-Jane readers were introduced, and they swept the country. Unlike the McGuffey readers, they featured pictures of children (white and suburban), they used simple words that could be easily recognized, and they were bright and colorful. By the 1950s, Dick and Jane style readers were used in about 80% of American schools. They relied on the whole word method, also known as look-say.

Sarah Schwartz:

Recently, there’s been some conversation in the broader science of reading movement about the potential that schools are overteaching foundational skills. Reading researcher Mark Seidenberg, for example, has argued that while all students need to be taught phonics, students without reading disabilities might not need to learn every single phonics pattern they could encounter. Once they have the basics, they can pick things up through statistical learning.

I’m wondering if you think that there is a danger in recommending advanced decoding skills for everyone—might we be overteaching in some way?

Foundational skills, whether they’re early stage foundational skills in kindergarten and 1st grade or complex foundational skills in older grades, are essential. The research is incredibly clear, and they need to be built systematically. They need to be explicitly taught and explicitly practiced.

Fast Lane Literacy:

Children learn to unlock patterns

We emphasize teaching children to “crack the code” of written English by understanding how letters and sounds fit together to form words.

Sarah Schwartz:

One of the most influential names in the “science of reading” movement has issued a surprising warning: After years of neglecting to systematically teach students foundational reading skills, he says, some schools may now have moved too far in the other direction.

Phonics—how letters represent sounds—is critical to reading. But once students have mastered its rules, the bulk of their time should be spent working with authentic texts, experts say.

“There are indications, circumstantial indications, that what’s happening is a lot of overteaching,” said Mark Seidenberg, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, at the March 2 annual symposium of the AIM Institute for Learning and Research, a literacy professional development group.

…..

“It isn’t essential that they need to have three years of instruction about phonics in 128 sessions,” he offered by way of an example in an interview with Education Week. “There’s opportunity costs, and if you do it too much, it’s going to take away from other things that kids need to learn.”

Fast Lane Literacy helps children learn to read in as little as 23 days.

Sources: Early Literacy:

Guilford County, NC Schools Read to Achieve Grades 1 and 2 End-of-Year (EOY) Results

Wisconsin Early Literacy Screener Madison School District 1st & 2nd grade 2024-2025 results.

Property Taxes.

Snowfall 2025-2026: High Point // Madison.

Population, income and education levels: High Point // Madison

v3 updates:

1. Added Early Literacy Remediation Plan links and related Open Records Requests (!) via Forward Literacy.

2. Improved the layout of District, School and nearby K-12 system data.

3. Fixed a bug in the School District Comparison Summary. Tap the “I” at the bottom of the map to view the revised data presentation.

Explore 2024-2025 Wisconsin Early Literacy Screener Results (4k – 3rd grade) here.

Thank you to the Verona, WI Chamber of Commerce for inviting us to share the 2024-2025 4k-3rd grade literacy screener information during their monthly meeting. The conversations were illuminating, from moms who taught their children to read to business owners interested in learning more about our literacy crisis.

4K-3rd Grade Verona School District Early Literacy Screener Results.

Data Source: Wisconsin Act 20 2024-2025 Early Literacy Screener .

Understanding Our Literacy Crisis. Sold a Story podcast.

Verona, WI Elected Officials and School Board.

14 January 2026 Slides.

Learn More About Fast Lane Literacy.

Download the practice sheets here.