This podcast went a completely different direction than I had intended. That’s the beauty of writing (and I do write out my podcasts) – sometimes you write to see what it is you have to say. I was re-reading Eric Paulson’s and Ann Freeman’s book, ‘Insight From the Eyes: The Science of Effective Reading Instruction'. Great book. I heartily recommend it. Questions: How is it that one interprets the same thing differently across time? How is it that one can read a book, have an experience, or observe phenomena and draw completely different conclusions when the only thing different is the time in which it was read, experienced, or observed? Is time a variable in comprehension or understanding? Is it a variable in constructing meaning? Reading A book that seemed so insightful at one point, with the passage of time, can become meaningless. Likewise, books that I once thought meaningless can sometimes become filled with insight, interesting, and important ideas with the passage of time. Same book. Same person. Same brain. Different time. When reading a Holy Book, the same verse or passage often means different things to me at different points in my life. The Holy Book stayed the same. The person (me) is the same. What has changed? How could it now have a different meaning? How could it now seem so insightful? An Andy Observation here: To see a Holy Book as a literal, unchanging document stuck in historical time is like pulling the wings off an eagle. It’s stuck in time. It cannot ride the air currents. It can soar high and see. Holy books may include but are not limited to the Bible, Quran, Gita, and Torah. These are sacred texts. Sacred is that which moves you to a higher place. Experiences, holy books, religion, music, prayer, medication – These all have the potential to provide a vehicle where one might encounter transcendence – where one might be better able to nurture self, others, and the environment. Seeing a Holy Book as a dynamic, living entity growing and changing as you grow and change enables it to come alive and speak to you in this time and place. It speaks to you today and tomorrow. It speaks to the part of you that is above time and space. The eagle soars high. I’m talking about reading instruction here. I’m also talking about Holy Books, sacred texts, literature, theories, and paradigms. Let me define my terms here – and in doing so, I do not seek to promote a single religion or religious view, or to denigrate others. Each person’s perspective is sacred to them and their journey. An aside – (and this popped out of my head as I was writing) -- I recently did a podcast in which I sought to create a comparison between one thing I had experienced as a kid growing up in the Lutheran church and the top-down reading mandates being imposed by the state of Minnesota. It was a clumsily written comparison – but more importantly, it denigrated a particular religious view and experience. I was wrong to do this. I apologize. I was not living my values here. The point I was trying to make was a good one: That the top-down mandates disempower and devalue teachers’ knowledge and experience. They are an experience in the erasure of the individual in favor of the assimilation of the collective … There are reasons, but reasons are not excuses. There’s no excuse for putting something out there that might offend the religious or spiritual perspective of others. Again, I screwed up and I am sorry. Luckily, a podcast listener was good enough to call me out on it. The message penetrated and I knew that I was wrong. Note – that I do listen to and read the comments made by listeners, readers, and viewers of my material. I take it very seriously when people say things and make valid points. I listen and allow myself to change when presented with new information or valid arguments. A valid argument, however, is different from calling me names, making pejorative statements, or simply stating that I’m wrong. SoR zealots give the impression that there are timeless, proven, universal answers for reading instruction. The Read Act in Minnesota is based on the naïve assumption that there is a single approach, method, and set of strategies that work best for all readers for all times. They have identified a list of letter sounds and patterns and reading subskills that must be taught in a prescribed order and in a predetermined way. They have also identified professional development programs that they consider truthful and inerrant. Representative Heather Edelson, the sponsor of the Read Act and those who wrote the Read Act, believe that they have the truth about reading and reading instruction. They truly believe that they have found what others of us just could now see, and that they are right and I and a whole bunch of other literacy experts are wrong. They pass laws and standards that mandate their perspective. And we are forced to comply. Going through the Read Act, line by line, you can see that is based on false assumptions, and I-think-isms, not on good reading science. Those who wrote it certainly were not literacy experts. They certainly did not have more collective knowledge than the International Literacy Association or the National Council of Teachers of English. And there will be a time when they are confronted with the wrongness of their views. I predict it will be in about 5 years when research-based data shows that the $100 million spent on this, money that could have been spent on health care or economic opportunities, will have been wasted and that students are worse off than they were in 2023. And by then, a lot of good teachers will have been forced out of the classroom. What will happen then? How will Representative Heather Edelson account for the difference in what she once thought was right and good, and what 5 years and $100 millions dollars shows is to be wrong and bad? Will she and other SoR zealots be able to change? Change I have changed. The book I wrote about reading instruction in 2008, is slightly different from the one I wrote in 2016. The book I wrote in 2021 about reading instruction is slightly different from the one I wrote in 2016. And the book I’m working on now is slightly different again from the one previously written. In the interim between books, I continued to read and review research, attend conferences, interact with other scholars and researchers, interact with teachers, interact with people online, and most importantly, tutor struggling readers. Tutoring struggling readers is perhaps the most powerful form of professional development. It’s not an abstract, intellectual exercise. Tutoring a kid, you have to put your research money where your practitioner's mouth is. You have to come up with answers to problems every day. You have a real-world kid in front of you. What you do and don’t do has real-world consequences for the life of this kid. The Christian Holy Book says you cannot put new wine in an old wineskin. That’s because gases develop as the wine ferments. A new wineskin is flexible and expands. An old wineskin has dried out and is less flexible. When the fermenting wine creates gas pressure, the old wineskin will not stretch. It eventually explodes destroying both the wine and the wineskin. You cannot have new experiences, gain new knowledge, and go back to your old way of thinking about things. Back to the offensive podcast, I made a mistake. When I misstep so egregiously, I tend to beat myself up. But why beat yourself up when others will do it for you? Here’s something I’ve learned: By forgiving others when they misstep I’m better able to forgive myself. I’ve become much more understanding in my older years (I’m only 66). I know others, like me, have bad moments. Emotions and past experiences sometimes get in the way. I know I’ll make mistakes in the future. We all will. By understanding the missteps of others, we tend to be a little more forgiving of our own. I hope people will continue to call me out when I misstep – because I will. But I will also listen and try to change. Back to the constructivist focus – and reading. Reading Reading is creating meaning with print, it is not decoding or deciphering. Deciphering is only one part of reading. Meaning does not reside solely on the page. Rather, it is a transaction between the text and the head. In a transaction, both parties give something. Meaning, what’s in the head transacts with what’s on the page to create meaning. When I was a kid growing up, I could never figure out the new wine-old wineskin analogy. It made no sense. But as I grew and experienced, as I read various holy books and texts, the gases fermented. I began to see things differently. I could never return to my 17-year old, small town view of the world. I could never return to the safety of thinking there was absolute truth. I had to leave my old wineskin behind. Reading Instruction Good reading instruction is not teaching a series of reading subskills in a predetermined order. Children do not learn to read by mastering all the things on a scope and sequence chart. You can’t “direct instruction” your way to good reading. Children are not standardized products. It’s naïve and nonscientific to think that you can mandate a standardized experience. I’m reading a book by Emilia Ferreiro and Ana Teberosky entitled, “Literacy Before Schooling. They did a series of ingenious experiments or studies with young pre-literate children (ages 2-5), looking at words, pictures, and sentences. They found that children possess conceptualizations about the nature of written language long before the intervention of systematic instruction. They naturally use pictures, words, sentences, and symbols to create meaning. It is a natural human phenomenon to put order to things. Separating decoding or deciphering from meaning, is a result of schooling. They’re taught to reject meaning in favor of decoding or deciphering. This is not a natural inclination. The consequences of reading instruction that forces children to forget meaning until after they have mastered deciphering is an impediment to the development of their full literacy potential – they have a more difficult time learning to read. They are made to ignore their own natural linguistic experiences in favor of deciphering exercises. This not only impedes their ability to learn to read but makes a joyful experience miserable. Good reading instruction is that which best enables each child to develop their full literacy potential and to fall in love with books. Theories A theory is a way to explain a set of facts. It is used to understand and interpret phenomena. A theory is like a dot-to-dot picture in which each data-dot is a bit of research. Different theories connect different data dots differently. Theories are neither right nor wrong; rather, they are robust or weak depending on how many data-dots are connected or ignored. The same phenomena (reading) can be observed by people with two different theoretical perspectives and interpreted much differently. Again, theories are neither right nor wrong, they are robust or weak. The problem with the SoR and the Read Act of Minnesota is that it’s based on a simple view of reading. The simple view of reading leaves a lot of data-dots unconnected. There are a lot of facts not accounted for. We do not read every letter. Our eyes do not move in straight lines from left to right. We can only perceive that which our eyes fixate on, and we fixate on only about 60% of the words. There is 10 times more information flowing from the cortex to the thalamus than from the thalamus to the cortex during the act of reading. The cortex direct the eyes during the act of reading. The bottom-up theory or the simple view of reading is a weak theory. There are too many unaccounted-for data-dots. We interpret phenomena – we construct reality – based on our theories about things. Our theories are built on the knowledge we have about how things work. As our theories expand, our interpretation of things changes. Theories are not inerrant, static entities. Theories are meant to grow and evolve as new information is discovered, as new data-dots are put on the page. And when old theories can no longer connect all the dots satisfactorily, they are discarded and new theories arise. The Read Act in Minnesota is based on false assumptions that have no basis in science. It is based on a very restrictive and weak theory. It is an old wineskin that does not expand with the gasses caused by knowledge-based fermentation. Paradigm A paradigm is a way of looking at things. In science, a paradigm is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitutes legitimate contributions to a field. Paradigms are a bit harder to change than theories. Paradigms include how we develop knowledge, and what constitutes legitimate sources of knowledge. Within the SoR paradigm, personal experiences and anecdotal evidence are seen as legitimate sources of knowledge that can be generalized to larger populations. The paradigm in which most literacy experts operate discounts these as legitimate sources of knowledge.