Nell K. Duke weighs in on the “reading wars” in the New Yorker

For the past two decades, Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study curriculum has been widely used in New York City classrooms—and those across the country—to teach reading to early learners. Calkins is the founding director of Columbia University's Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. However critics cite inattention to phonics as the reason why Calkins’ approach has not proven to been as effective as it was once thought to be. Support for its implementation is waning, reports New Yorker writer Jessica Winter.

Winter cites historian Diane Ravitch, who writes in her book Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform that the reading wars in America date back at least to the 19th century. Arguments for or against various reading curricula are not new. Although the predictable cycles of the reading wars are ongoing in schools and in the public sphere, Nell K. Duke, executive director of the Center for Early Literacy Success at Stand for Children and SOE professor of education, says at least in academia, there are no “reading wars.” 

“The vast majority of researchers recognize the importance of explicitly teaching phonics, phonemic awareness, and spelling in the early grades, as well as the various moves we make to develop reading comprehension and genre knowledge,” said Duke.

Research, writes Winter, has demonstrated the positive and negative impacts of occupational therapy, speech-and-language specialists, the number of books in the classroom, adequate time for recess, and even ambient noise—from busy streets or rattling A.C. units—on children’s literacy development.

“Research tells us that all of these different structural factors matter,” Duke said. Some of the efforts to assess children and teachers, she suggests, should be redirected to assessing their learning spaces and the larger, systemic forces at play.