Teacher question: I saw that Mark Seidenberg was complaining that there is now too much phonics instruction. What do you think of that? Shanahan replies: I have great respect for Dr. Seidenberg’s work but have long been critical of his tendency to ignore research on reading instruction. In his wonderful book, he argues for the teaching of phonics with barely a nod to any of the studies of phonics teaching. Being an experimental psychologist, he was convinced of the value of phonics based on computer simulation studies. I, being a teacher, am more persuaded of the value of phonics bec...