Balanced Literacy downplays structured phonics, where kids learn by memorizing letters' sounds. Is that why some are ...

Re: “Far too many California children can’t read” (Page A7, June 17). Denise Amos says that California districts encourage students to memorize words, and believes they should instead be using phonics ...

But I think it's also because reading instruction became lazy and political. "Progressives" at teachers' colleges pushed a reading technique called "Balanced Literacy." Instead of memorizing sounds ...

First-grader Mary Greer shows her work during a phonics-based reading lesson at Hunt Valley Elementary School in Springfield, Virginia. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) The “reading wars” that ...

To the editor: In 1970, I was a student teacher and then a second-grade teacher in New York. I later became a learning and reading specialist and taught the teachers. Throughout my training, I learned ...

An influential researcher in the science of reading movement is warns schools may be "overteaching" the skill.

Tasked with spelling out the word "drop," the first grader at Logan Elementary School had instead written "drip" onto his laminated sheet with a dry-erase marker. But quickly realizing that spelling ...