Sold a Story Steers Us Away from Pendulum Swings in Episode 10
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses the final episode of the 'Sold a Story' podcast, which warns against overcorrecting from balanced literacy to rigid phonics-only instruction.
Key Takeaways
- Avoid pendulum swings - The move from balanced literacy to science of reading shouldn't mean abandoning everything that isn't phonics
- Nuance matters - Good reading instruction includes phonics, comprehension, vocabulary, and background knowledge
- Sold a Story was a landmark - The podcast fundamentally shifted the national conversation about reading instruction
Transcript
Sold a Story by Emily Hanford has a new episode, episode 10, out this week.
And what I really appreciate about this episode is the call for avoiding pendulum swings and especially avoiding the kind of faddishness and cultishness and hero worship that we saw for balanced literacy.
And I think there are some signs that the science of reading is developing some of those same bad impulses.
And we really need to be on guard against that in order to avoid pendulum swings in reading instruction or in anything else in education.
Like I think this whole idea that everything needs to be polarized.
Everybody needs to jump on a bandwagon and make enemies out of other people.
and, you know, root for their heroes and celebrate their, you know, their heroes above all else.
Like, I really feel like those kinds of impulses keep us from getting at truth and wisdom and keep us from learning from research, right?
Especially when we commit to a side before the evidence is in.
I think that's where this gets really dangerous is where we say, I'm deciding as an, you know, a personal and kind of moral issue who's right on this question.
And then a lot of research comes in and we realize, oh, I'm actually on the wrong side of this.
This is not a good thing for us to keep doing as a profession.
So I hope that people will listen to Sold a Story episode 10, one of the several follow-up episodes now that Emily Hanford has released to her smash hit Sold a Story podcast.
I'm also thinking like, I would really love, I don't think she's gonna do this and I don't think I could do, you know, 1% as well as she's done with Sold a Story, but I would love to do a podcast going into some of the student accountability issues that I've talked about here on TikTok and hear from lots of people across the profession on issues like grading and attendance and discipline and behavior and just all the different things where we're seeing problems with accountability and problems with just the systems that are put in place and the big pendulum swings that happened very quickly and without a lot of evidence.
And then people kind of bandwagoned and polarized around those issues before the evidence was in, or in some cases in defiance of the evidence that already was in.
So anyway, listen to that podcast and let me know what you think.
If you would like to see a podcast on some of the things that I talk about here on TikTok.