There have been scores and scores and scores of studies proving the effectiveness of explicit phonics instruction in schools, and knowledge about the brain has further buttressed the necessity of teaching phonics to children. It is a lifetime skill and necessary to become a proficient reader.
Even one of what was called 'whole language" promoters, one Lucy Calkins, a professor at Columbia, had to backtrack on it. Reading is a skill that must be taught explicitly, not something that just "happens." The pendulum has long since swung back to phonics; it appears Calkins is a bit late to the party.
More than a few parents are glad the pendulum did swing back. The author, though, isn't really that knowledgeable about the backstory of the reading debate, which has gone on since the 1950s and 1960s, when the late Kenneth S. Goodman came up with his "whole language" bullshit.
Speaking of Goodman, I don't think I noted his death back in 2000. He was sincere, but he was way off-base regarding reading. Being a secondary teacher which he was before he taught at the university level, he thought little kids could be taught the same way as high school students. It doesn't work.
Goodman was 92 when he died. A snip:
“He was a scholar who thought the world worked a certain way, came up with a theory that was hugely influential that drove a heck of a lot of science because folks had to do studies testing whether he was right or wrong,” said Timothy Shanahan, a professor emeritus of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “And as often happens in science, a theory that drives a lot of work doesn’t turn out to be correct.”
"Balanced literacy" is nothing more than a reworking of Goodman's ideas, and of course those ideas were bound to fail.
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