The Big Debate: Balanced Literacy vs the Science of Reading

 Introduction

You may have missed the news in North Carolina, but Senate Bill 387, also known as the Excellent Public Schools Act of 2021, was recently passed on April 9, 2021. There has been a great deal of debate and misunderstanding from various groups around the state regarding the passage of this bill. For the past two years, the North Carolina State Board of Education has taken up the issue of early literacy and teacher preparation programs in regards to literacy. The Prek-12 Literacy Instruction and Teacher Preparation Task Force, composed of educators and stakeholders around the state, examined current teacher preparation programs and the state of literacy in North Carolina, and the task force made recommendations to the NC State Board of Education based on their findings. You can read about the specifics in my previous blog posts What’s Happening in North Carolina Literacy and What is Read to Achieve. The current bill aims to align literacy instructional practices in the state with the Science of Reading.

Historically, North Carolina has aligned itself with Balanced Literacy practices, so what is the Science of Reading and how is it different from or similar to Balanced Literacy? There is much misunderstanding around the term Science of Reading. Some believe that it is a program, a phonics-only approach to learning, or a political philosophy. Dr. Loisa Moats defines the term as follows:

“The body of work referred to as the ‘science of reading’ is not an ideology, a philosophy, a political agenda, a one-size-fits-all approach, a program of instruction, nor a specific component of instruction. It is the emerging consensus from many related disciplines, based on literally thousands of studies, supported by hundreds of millions of research dollars, conducted across the world in many languages. These studies have revealed a great deal about how we learn to read, what goes wrong when students don’t learn, and what kind of instruction is most likely to work the best for the most students (Stuart & Fugnitto 2019).”

The body of research conducted in this field is based on quantitative methodologies where study variables are isolated to determine impact and utilize control groups and intervention groups as well as norm referenced and criterion referenced assessments to determine the level of impact of the isolated variables both before and after the treatment. Instruction based in the Science of Reading involves explicit, systematic instruction in oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension based on diagnostic assessments, and the instructional methodology based on this research is often referred to as Structured Literacy, a term coined by the International Dyslexia Association (Cowen 2016).

According to Fountas and Pinnell, Balanced Literacy is a “philosophical orientation that assumes that reading and writing achievement are developed through instruction and support in multiple environments using various approaches that differ by level of teacher support and child control (1996).” Classroom instruction is centered around read alouds, shared reading, reading strategy mini-lessons, independent reading, small group guided reading with leveled readers, and assessment based on running records. Much of the research in this field has been conducted using qualitative research methods which are based on observations of students’ behaviors while reading and patterns identified from these observations.

The philosophical underpinning of balanced literacy is based on the work of Ken and Yetta Goodman and Marie Clay. While there are many others who have contributed to the body work known formerly as Whole Language and now Balanced Literacy, these are the two most well known names for most educators. Ken Goodman, considered to be the father of Whole Language, believed that learning to read was an innate, natural process just as learning to speak was a natural process. He believed that by breaking language into tiny abstract pieces (words, syllables, and sounds) that we hindered students’ ability to make meaning and thereby slowed the ability of students to learn to read (Goodman 2005). By speaking and writing about their own personal experiences, students would learn to make meaning from these experiences, and the role of the teacher is to facilitate this process (Goodman 2005). Goodman observed the behaviors of students while working with schools in Detroit, and he theorized, based on his observations, that students utilized syntactic, semantic, and graphophonic cues to test for meaning while reading (Goodman 1967). He further theorized that efficient readers utilized these cues to make meaning and did not attend to phonetic or spelling patterns. In order to learn new words, students relied on context, not the phonetic code, and therefore, phonics should only be taught incidentally (Sawchuck 2020). 

Whole language proponents argue that children should be presented with engaging, authentic text, and teaching should emerge from the text being utilized. As children begin to examine features of print after becoming familiar with a text, they will begin to draw generalizations about language on their own and begin to internalize the rules of the language (Willis 1995). Goodman believed that reading was a psycholinguistic process in which the reader uses knowledge of language to make meaning from the text, and reading instruction should be focused on helping each child to become more efficient in this process (Goodman 1973). Goodman’s theory on the processes used to identify student errors became known as miscue analysis. Goodman observed the behaviors of readers from beginning to proficient levels over several years beginning in 1963 and finally publishing his findings in 1967. Based on his observations, Goodman believed that one could tell which visual, syntactic, or semantic system a reader was relying on when encountering unknown words. Based on an analysis of the cueing system the student was using most effectively, the teacher should then design instruction for the student on how to utilize this system more efficiently to self-monitor miscues, and “in the process such miscues will begin to disappear as the reader makes better predictions (p8)” (Goodman 1973). Any miscues that maintain the overall meaning of the sentence are not counted as errors and are considered strengths, while miscues that interrupt the overall meaning are considered weaknesses. Students monitor the effective use of these systems by asking themselves if what they read makes sense and sounds like language (Goodman 1973). Further, Goodman theorized that when a reader encounters difficulty, he should, “...first ask himself what would make sense, what would fit the grammatical structure, and only after that what would match the graphic cues…(p10).” He believed that only inefficient readers were overly concerned with word by word accuracy (Goodman 1973). 

This top down belief in the development of reading skills was also shared by the New Zealand researcher, Marie Clay. She published the initial findings of her qualitative research study in her doctoral dissertation, “Emergent Reading Behavior” based on an analysis of the reading behaviors utilized by 100 students in their first year of school (Clay 1967). This research became the foundations of her instructional philosophy and her reading program, Reading Recovery. She also developed the concept of running records to assess the reading behaviors of children as a simpler form of Goodman’s Miscue Analysis (Soler 2017). There are many popular programs utilized today that are based on these philosophies, such as: American Reading Company’s Literacy Labs, Fountas & Pinnell’s Guided Reading and their Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study System, Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI), Jan Richardson’s Guided Reading, and Lucy Caulkin’s Units of Study to name a few.

What are key differences between Balanced Literacy and Structured Literacy?

Research about how children learn to read has been around for over a hundred years or more. As new theories arise, these theories tend to spark new research to address unanswered questions in the literature. When Goodman and Clay were conducting their research in the sixties, many of their theories had not been tested, and their work subsequently spurred a great deal of research to test their theories (Sawchuck 2020). Their theories have now, subsequently, been disproven. Advances in technology have also provided a window into the inner workings of the brain and How the Brain Learns to Read. The table below outlines key differences between common Balanced Literacy practices and common Structured Literacy practices.

	Common Balanced Literacy Practices	Common Structured Literacy Practices
Types of Text	Leveled Readers	Decodable Readers
Approach to Phonics	Incidental Phonics or Analytic Phonics	Synthetic Phonics
Assessments	3 Cueing (MSV) & Running Records	Criterion Referenced and Norm Referenced Universal Screeners and Diagnostic Assessments
Instructional Approaches	Readers Workshop Word Walls Word Ladders Discovery Learning Rote Memorization	Teacher-Led Instruction Sound Walls Word Chains Explicit Instruction Orthographic Mapping

Types of Texts

Balanced Literacy relies on the use of leveled readers during small group instruction while Structured Literacy relies on the use of decodable text. Leveled readers are typically organized on a continuum of difficulty based on word length, sentence length, the occurrence of high frequency words versus unique words, syntactic complexity, text repetition, and other factors (Fountas and Pinnell 2011). Texts are not controlled for phonetic patterns and utilize predictable sentence patterns and illustrations that encourage guessing based on context (The Reading League 2017). Decodable texts are controlled for phonetic patterns and are written around specific phonics skills to provide multiple opportunities to practice reading words with a specific phonetic pattern. They are written based on a phonics program's scope and sequence, and students will not encounter phonetic patterns that they have not already been explicitly taught (The Reading League 2017). You can read a more in depth analysis of the difference between the two types of texts at Decodable Texts vs. Leveled Texts.

Approach to Phonics

Advocates of Balanced Literacy utilize either an analytic phonics or an incidental phonics approach, whereas, Structured Literacy utilizes a synthetic phonics approach. Analytic phonics encourages the use of larger units to analyze words such as: word families and first sounds (ex. -at family, so if I know cat, then I know bat, fat, etc), word analogies (ex. If I see the word sack, is there another word I know that has that spelling to help me read this word), onset and rime chunking, and common consonant clusters at the beginning and end of words (Five from Five 2021). Incidental phonics is another approach that is commonly used in Balanced Literacy classrooms. In this type of instruction, students are taught phonetic patterns as they encounter them in a leveled text, and students are taught to use the pictures and other context clues to guess at words (Five from Five 2021). This is also known as the three cueing or multi cueing system that was developed by Clay and Goodman. In synthetic phonics students are systematically taught all phoneme- grapheme (sound-spelling) correspondences starting from the simplest and working towards the most complex patterns. As students are taught to recognize individual phonemes, or sounds, in the language and connect them to graphemes, or their letter representation, they are taught to blend the sounds for reading and segment the sounds for spelling (Five from Five 2021).

Assessments

The assessment most commonly associated with balanced literacy is running records. These were developed by Marie Clay as a simplified version of the Miscue Analysis developed by Ken Goodman as a way to observe the reading behaviors displayed by children when they read (Soler 2017). In a running record a student reads a leveled text while the teacher follows along and makes notes about the errors that students make and the cueing systems (meaning, syntax, visual) the student is relying on when they make an error (Clay 1993). The results are used to determine the level of text and the reading strategies a student needs to work on in order to develop further as a reader. In structured literacy universal screeners and diagnostic assessments are utilized to measure accuracy and automaticity of reading skills in the areas of phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Universal screeners are timed, typically one to three minutes, and give an overview of indicators aligned with future reading success. Diagnostic assessments dive into specific developmental sequences of skills in each of the five identified areas in order to identify skill gaps that are hindering growth in overall reading proficiency. You can read a more in depth view of Structured Literacy assessments in Literacy Assessments within an MTSS Framework.

Instructional Approaches

When looking at the two types of instruction, what could one expect to see instructionally in each classroom? Balanced Literacy classrooms are built around the principle of Discovery Learning, also known as Inquiry-Based Instruction, where students are asked to use their own background knowledge and understanding of the world to discover new truths for themselves through seeking solutions to problems and drawing their own conclusions (Pappas 2014). This can be seen through the use of Readers Workshop. Instruction is based on the interests of the students with 10-15 minute mini lessons focused on reading strategies to help students problem solve when they encounter a word or concept they are not sure about. Students then work independently with a text of their own choosing with time provided for students to share out (Children’s Literacy Initiative 2016). 

There is no scope and sequence for phonics or reading instruction as instruction is driven by the interests of the students as they encounter new concepts in texts of their own choosing. In phonics instruction this can be seen through the use of word sorts in which students are presented with a list of words and asked to sort the words by patterns that the students identify within the words (i.e. word families, analogous spelling, similar sounds) and to draw conclusions about the meaning of these patterns. Within the classroom environment teacher’s typically maintain Word Walls organized alphabetically by content as a model for high frequency words and as a reference for students when writing, and words are frequently highlighted by their shape (Farrall 2017, Catherine 2021). Teachers also utilize word ladders during phonics instruction to draw students’ attention to spelling patterns within words. A word ladder consists of a list of 5-10 words. The students begin by spelling a dictated word, and then progressively change one letter in the word to make a new word (ex. soul-sour-tour). However, the changes are not controlled for sounds, so more than one sound in the word may change even though only one letter changes (Weakland 2017). Another common practice is the use of flashcards to memorize sight words, or high frequency words, to encourage memorization of the whole word as one unit. Students are taught that these words are learned simply by memorizing them in order to know them instantly by sight and are based on the theory that learning to read is a visual process (Templeton 2018).

So, how are these instructional approaches different in a Structured Literacy classroom? Structured Literacy classrooms are built around the principles of explicit, multisensory, systematic, cumulative, and diagnostic instruction (Cowen 2016). Instruction is teacher-led and guided by diagnostic assessments that identify student skill gaps in each of the five areas of reading: phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. In phonics instruction a systematic scope and sequence is followed, and phoneme-grapheme patterns are introduced in a systematic, sequential way from least to most complex skills along a continuum of development with each skill being explicitly taught by the teacher and then practiced by the student to the level of automaticity. Within the classroom environment, sound-spelling cards are displayed on a Sound Wall that show the sound, its cue word, and the graphemes used to represent this sound in print focused on the articulation of each phoneme (Bottari 2020). Teachers utilize word chains rather than word ladders to build fluency with blending and phonemic awareness. A word chain consists of 5-10 words given in succession. Each word changes by only one sound and one letter by adding, deleting, or changing one sound and one letter within each word (ex. hat, cat, cap, clap, clop). The students then write the dictated word, identify where the change occurred, and what changed (Hall 2006). High frequency words are taught through the process of orthographic mapping in which students are taught to hear and isolate the individual sounds in each word and to connect those sounds to their phonetic representation rather than through whole word memorization (Ehri 2015; Kilpatrick 2015; Sedita 2020). Irregularly spelled words are taught through this same process with attention called to the irregularly spelled part of the word.

How can we find common ground?

I think we can agree that all educators want their students to be successful, and no one wins when one side is pitted against the other. Many present Balanced Literacy and Structured Literacy as diametrically opposed, but there is some common ground that can be identified between the two instructional approaches. Both agree on the role of language and vocabulary development as being critical to student comprehension and understanding of text and is commonly achieved through the use of structured read alouds of texts above the students’ independent reading levels. Through this process students are exposed to a variety of vocabulary, content knowledge, language structures, prosody, and opportunities to think deeply and critically about a text that they would not otherwise have access to independently (IDA Oregon 2019; Sadlier 2018; Marchessault & Larwin 2014). Both sides also agree on the importance of vocabulary building through direct instructional strategies such as root word study, concept mapping, and creating opportunities for students to explore and use new words in an authentic way (Balanced Literacy Diet 2021; IDA 2018). While the sides may differ on how to achieve this goal, both sides agree on the importance of small group instruction to target student learning needs based on assessment data as well.

Moving Forward

The body of research within the Science of Reading is constantly growing and should be driving how we teach in the classroom. Unfortunately, few educator preparation programs adequately prepare teachers to teach using this research, and the few programs that do are typically focused on special education teachers (Bryan, Hougen, & Nelson 2018; Drake & Walsh 2020). Teachers want to be viewed as experts and professionals in our field, but if the programs tasked with adequately preparing us are not teaching the current research, then how can we be viewed as experts? Many of us are doing the best we can with the limited tools that have been given to us. However, just like our students, we must be life-long learners willing to seek out the research ourselves if needed, and we must be open to changes brought about in instructional practices through the research. While I am cautiously optimistic about the changes in North Carolina through the legislative mandate to train all PK-5 educators in instructional practices aligned to the Science of Reading, ultimately, nothing will change for our students if we aren’t open to the research and to see how our practices need to shift. While the bill provides for PK-5 teachers and administrators to be trained, how will the research learned be pushed out to the Central Office personnel that make curriculum and instructional decisions and to local and state Boards of Education and legislators that create policies? What about our middle and high school teachers since the research is applicable to them as well? What types of coaching supports will be provided to teachers, administrators, and districts to help answer questions and ensure navigation of the changes that need to occur in curriculum and instructional practices? As a teacher, I don’t have countless hours in my day, and I need to be able to do the most good for the most students in the time that is given to me each day. Our students also have the right to learn to read proficiently, or they will never be able to participate fully in society. This is why the Science of Reading is so important. The research clearly identifies how we can do the most good for the most students, and only by following this research can we give students the right to read.

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