The Report Card (American Enterprise Institute): Interview with Tim Shanahan

10 July, 2024

The Report Card (American Enterprise Institute): Interview with Tim Shanahan

Nat Malkus | Timothy Shanahan

https://www.aei.org/podcast/phonics-comprehension-and-disciplinary-literacy-with-timothy-shanahan/

The Report Card: American Enterprise Institute

Over the past couple years, the education world has seen a renewed push for phonics instruction, often called “the science of reading.” But how science-based is the science of reading movement? Will the current push for phonics last? And what do kids need so that the reading gains they experience from phonics don’t fade away by the time they reach eighth grade?

On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus discusses these questions, and more, with Timothy Shanahan. Nat and Tim discuss the differences between balanced literacy and phonics, how much of an improvement balanced literacy is over phonics, previous efforts to promote phonics and why they went by the wayside, whether the current science of reading movement will be durable, textbook reviews, the extent to which practices promoted by science of reading advocates are science-based, the gap between reading instruction research and reading instruction practice, why many students who can decode well nonetheless have poor reading comprehension, grade-level texts and the importance of giving students texts that aren’t too easy, the relationship between love of reading and reading ability, what skills students acquire as they become better readers, disciplinary literacy, the future of reading instruction, the extent to which reading achievement could improve with better instructional practices, and more.