I mostly stay out of the Reading Wars. Not because I don’t have opinions on reading instruction. I emphatically do. I avoid the controversy because—as a lifelong music teacher—expressing that opinion inevitably leads to a pack of Science of Reading enthusiasts pointing out that I am not a reading teacher, and therefore what do I know?
This is deeply ironic, as those same SOR fans also spend lots of time criticizing experienced reading specialists. Also–I have taught in the neighborhood of 4000-5000 kids, over 30+ years, to read music, relying on a wide array of pedagogical techniques. But that form of reading instruction evidently carries no water with the SOR bullies.
I was intrigued today by a story in NY Times Magazine about Benjamin Bolger:
Benjamin B. Bolger has been to Harvard and Stanford and Yale. He has been to Columbia and Dartmouth and Oxford, and Cambridge, Brandeis and Brown. Overall, Bolger has 14 advanced degrees, plus an associate’s and a bachelor’s.
Bolger, who is now 48, got off to a rough start, with a disastrous car accident when he was two years old that seemed to trigger the breakup of his parents’ marriage.
Bolger’s mother spent much of her money in the ensuing custody battle, and her stress was worsened by her son’s severe dyslexia. In third grade, when Bolger still couldn’t read, his teachers said he wouldn’t graduate from high school. Recognizing that her boy was bright, just different, his mother resolved to home-school him — though “home” is perhaps not the right word: The two spent endless hours driving, to science museums, to the elite Cranbrook Academy of Art outside Detroit for drawing lessons, even to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington. At night she read to him: epic works of literature like “War and Peace” but also choose-your-own-adventure books and “Star Wars” novelizations.
It would be easy to project the next part of the story—he somehow “learned to read” and then caught up to his classmates. But that’s not what happened.
At 11, he began taking classes at Muskegon Community College. Still reading below a third-grade level, Bolger needed his mother to read his assigned texts out loud; he dictated papers back to her. At 16, he enrolled at the University of Michigan, moving with her into an off-campus apartment. He recorded his lectures so he could listen to them at home; his mother still read to him. Majoring in sociology, he graduated with a 4.0. He was 19.
There were some failures (as we traditionally define failure). Bolger dropped out of law school at Yale due to the heavy reading load. But then, of course, he got back up on the academic horse, and pursued other degrees—including a PhD from Harvard, successfully completed. He also married and has two rather beautiful children, for whom he’s designed an experience-intensive home-schooling program.
What’s interesting to me is that the NYTimes Magazine article doesn’t dwell on Bolger’s inability to read well (whatever that means). Only on the fact that he has more degrees than only one other person in the nation (who’s also from Michigan, for whatever that’s worth).
Given the laser focus, in 2024, on determining which reading program yields the best test scores, I am surprised that a long-form article in a major publication does not explore the question of how one gets a master’s in the Politics of Education from Columbia, for example, without being an expert at deciphering complex texts, close reading.
But the “does he read or doesn’t he?” question—the one where we now expect to see evidence or data—never gets raised again. The article does say he has multiple master’s degrees in writing, obtained after his dissertation was completed.
Things that ARE apparent in this article:
- Third grade is WAY too early to label ANY child a non-reader (or punish them by retaining them). It’s too early for labels, period.
- When it comes to effective learning (the kind that sticks, and can be applied), experiences trump worksheets.
- Continuously reading to your children, even when they are supposedly “reading to learn” at age eight, is absolutely the right thing to do.
- Visual interpretation of text symbols is not more efficient or of higher value than hearing that text read aloud.
- Many, many children are “bright but different.”
This is where we morph into wondering why every child in America doesn’t get the hothouse treatment Bolger did, with his own personal learning coach/secretary/guidance counselor/mom. Worth noting: Bolger’s mother, at the time of the accident, was a schoolteacher.
I would be the first to say that such an individualized education is far beyond what any public school could be expected to provide for a bright-but-different child. Given the ongoing strenuous campaign to strip resources from public education, we’re not likely to see public schools turn their limited energies and resources to meeting individual needs in whatever ways parents demand.
Nor is this a pitch for home-schooling. Most kids are educated in public schools, and if the hundreds of pictures on my social media feeds are any indication, kids in 2024 are graduating, going to college, working at summer jobs or finishing the fourth grade a little taller and smarter. Bolger, in other words, just got lucky.
This is a pitch for not writing students off, at any point in their academic career.
You may be wondering what Benjamin Bolger does for a living. He’s a full-time private college-admissions consultant, charging clients $100K for four years’ of services, which I was surprised to learn is kind of cheap in Admissions Consultant World.
I find Bolger’s story rather amazing, an exploration of what it means to be intelligent, and well-educated. Many historical figures bypassed traditional education models and found their way to greatness and influence via their natural smarts and leadership. Bolger embraced the traditional path to success— degrees from prestigious colleges—but got there without the benefit of the K-12 college rat race. Or the ability to read at “grade level.”
There should be a lesson for the SOR devotees in there somewhere.
Teacher in a strange land 
Fascinating learning journey. My thoughts:
My credential class on reading instruction consisted of reading twenty books with twenty different philosophies on how to teach reading. Period. Maybe that was part of what motivated me to write my first book the summer after my first year in the classroom, “A Primer for Teachers,” because I was so mad that I’d been taught nothing useful.
When I was allowed to create my own language arts intervention elective centered on service learning activities, my second language learners grew by leaps and bounds in skills, engagement and confidence. (It didn’t hurt that a local reporter interviewed the class and his article called them heroes.)
When I returned to the classroom after six years as a literacy coach, I taught a two-hour reading intervention with an absolutely deadly curriculum. Every student was able to articulate when they turned off to school; the most frequent answer was third grade when they were retained while their friends moved on to fourth grade. Their “electives” were a semester of additional reading instruction, followed by a semester of math instruction. It was heartbreaking to know that my thirty-five years as an educator with the tools for real engagement had no value in my district. (Although they did unknowingly quote me as a literacy expert in one of their monthly administrator newsletters.) Btw, I cheated during my three-year stint as an intervention reading teacher. Every Friday was reserved for service-learning activities. And this week I started a children’s bookmarking workshop at my retirement community and got to revisit the enthusiasm I witnessed while I was in the classroom.
LikeLike
What’s interesting to me is that not being able to read at “grade level” (a phrase that demands scare quotes) was no impediment for Bolger. He was able to move ahead– rapidly– with the assistance of a reader, by listening and dictating his thoughts.
You’re just one of thousands of teachers who adapted reading instruction to the kids in front of you. I really don’t understand our national love affair– especially since NCLB– with standardization. It’s fine that we want to have a fully literate country, in the broadest sense of the word. But it makes no sense to set arbitrary benchmarks and tell kids at age 8 that they’ll never graduate from HS. As for not being honored or respected by the institutions that see our work up close– join the club, my friend.
Thanks for your comment.
LikeLike
As a retired special ed teacher, Bolger’s story really resonates with me. He was so lucky to have the mother he did, bringing both a mother’s love and determination and a professional teaching background to the table. Dyslexia was only one of the disabilities I addressed over the years, but all of my students had potential beyond what they believed. Kudos to all those parents and teachers who see beyond the test scores.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Most of the children I taught had abilities beyond what they believed, too. There are actually band directors who refuse special ed students (maybe they can’t get away with that in 2024). But I often found that kids with learning disabilities had a kind of level playing field in band class. They could learn by listening and observing others, and it was both fun and a safe space where one could make noise, feel emotional about certain music, and be part of a regular-kids team.
LikeLike
What this man did obviously is a credit to him (and those who helped him) and it’s despite the current system, which no matter what is emphasized seems to fail a certain segment of students (as high as 20%-30% in the early grades anyway). The truth is we haven’t found the best way to teach reading to all — and for my 2 cents, I say let’s not demonize the SOR folks, who I think get painted with a broad brush that they want it all their way or the highway. It’s more like a seat at the table. I say this as a parent who had a kid in early elementary learn under the Caulkins-system only to struggle, with the school system telling her and us to practice more and just learn enough sight words and that she’d be just fine. Neuropsychological testing paid by us at that point showed a learning deficiency with how she decoded letters (it later was diagnosed as dyslexia). But even with a 504 plan the school wouldn’t offer more support because she met the minimal expectations for reading (which is like 10% proficiency or better, btw). From the local dyslexia community, we know this is no outlier and what currently happens to many like my daughter.
Well, she’s now heading into 9th grade but only began to improve and blossom after taking her to private schools who would work an outside tutor and offer her the support of a learning specialist who would also work with teachers on honoring her 504 plan. That’s not to say she doesn’t still struggle — she does (and needs more time to take tests, can’t write like her peers, etc), but at least with the support scaffolding we can help her develop the necessary skills to make her way to her goals (hopefully) and not let what currently is a challenge, hold her back.
All reading experts we’ve consulted with say was HAD they screened her for dyslexia early on and used a curriculum/approach that’s been shown to help when you intervene early enough instead of what she got, we might not have had to pay the thousands of dollars just to help get her where she is now. That’s something many in Michigan, BTW, are pushing the legislature for, as other states have done. As someone who’s living it, I wish it could have happened yesterday.
I support public education (and graduated from it), BUT it can and should be better, especially on reading.
LikeLike
Thanks for your comment. You’re not the only parent who’s been frustrated by a school’s inability to accurately diagnose a very specific reading difficulty, early on, and address it. The thousands of dollars you paid? Wouldn’t it be nice if every school was able to locate, hire and pay for those one-on-one diagnostic services and tutoring? Including small class sizes for primary grades, where the bulk of ‘learning to read’ happens? (Small class sizes being one of the few ways that research has consistently shown to benefit students in learning to read.) If only schools had more resources! Right?
You said: “All reading experts we’ve consulted with say was HAD they screened her for dyslexia early on and used a curriculum/approach that’s been shown to help when you intervene early enough instead of what she got, we might not have had to pay the thousands of dollars just to help get her where she is now. That’s something many in Michigan, BTW, are pushing the legislature for, as other states have done.”
What other states have done is adopt, statewide, a so-called “Science of Reading” program, thinking they have hit on the cheap, one-stop silver bullet that will help all struggling readers. For the large majority of kids who learned to read using other methods, or a mix of methods, this means their good experiences in learning to read are now overridden by a systematic, phonics-intensive program. Lucy Calkins is not the enemy here–nor is Marie Clay or other reading theorists. Kids learn to read in different ways, with different needs.
And providing each child with a personally tailored program (the ideal) takes people, materials and training, things that our poorly funded public schools would love to have– but don’t. If every child were to get individual dyslexia screening, something else (art and music? playground supervision? library books?) would be cut. And if you think the legislature is going to fund dyslexia screening for every kindergartner in Michigan…
One more thing. You noted that 20-30% of children fail to read. Have you considered the fact that some nations (Finland, for ex) don’t start formal reading instruction until students are 7– our second grade? By fourth grade, their students have caught up with, and superseded, ours in international tests. Their reported numbers of kids with dyslexia are way smaller than ours, which are rising. Why do they wait until kids are in second grade? Because research tells them that’s when a majority of kids are developmentally ready for the abstract work of decoding.
LikeLike
What I hope for is a solution where schools can take the best from these approaches, and perhaps what one suburban SE MI public district decided to try recently can be a way forward. Below is a presentation from a seminar last year where officials basically acknowledged how a Lucy Calkins approach can fall short with some students and outlined how they would bring in elements from SOR in a dual approach.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DWUlc3UQRpDbrz0ssvm-UIj3VXtZj9zhxsuQgsOSoDc/edit?usp=sharing
I’m curious what you think as it seems to contain a lot of what you are rightly advocating for. Can there be a meeting in the middle, although such things are certainly not easy in education? At least it seems they are making a good faith effort at what to do next by trying to address the students who struggle. And while dyslexia is not named, some of the newer interventions are what experts say can help. In retrospect, I wish my daughter had that.
LikeLike
You’re vastly overestimating the goals and (naturally) aligned commercial materials of the Science of Reading movement, I think. If you were a veteran educator, you would recognize the return of the Reading Wars, which have cyclically emerged every dozen years or so. In my 30+ yr career, I have seen Look-Say, Phonics-intensive, Whole Language, Balanced Literacy and the early ‘scientific’/National Reading Panel methods go in and out of favor. I have seen dyslexia defined a dozen different ways.
As I stated, in the opening of the blog, I generally avoid Reading Wars-type dialogues in social media. I have great empathy for parents whose children struggle to read, and are always looking for that One Best Way to teach reading. But it doesn’t exist. There are many ways to teach reading. And pushing it down into kindergarten and pre-school doesn’t help. Parents, however, are now fearful that their non-reading 6-yr olds are permanently impacted by not getting systematic phonics. Because we’ve taught them that. And it’s harmful.
There’s a great new research piece on dyslexia in the 21st century:
“Conceptions of dyslexia as a clinical condition that applies to a subgroup of struggling
readers, and which requires extensive psychometric testing by expert clinicians to identify,
are outdated and fail to reflect developing understandings about the true nature of reading disability. Rather than offering simplistic unitary explanations, contemporary understandings, as noted above, recognise reading disability/dyslexia as multifactorial with risk factors acting probabilistically, rather than deterministically, along different developmental pathways (Catts & Petscher, 2022; Wagner et al., 2023). Such understandings, incorporating all levels of analysis from genes to environment, no longer permit the simple dyslexic/ non-dyslexic binary that has often been associated with the IDA definition.
So, what is the problem with this definition? Simply that, while each element in isolation is accurate, this account singularly fails to identify, or protect the needs of, all struggling readers. The definition can be used to create a false binary whereby a small proportion of more advantaged individuals acquire the dyslexic label and access all the benefits that accrue. While its use of qualifying terms such as ‘typically result’, ‘often unexpected’, and ‘may include’ is consonant with the multifactorial nature and manifestation of reading disability, the inherent uncertainty and subjectivity involved offer a significant advantage to those who have the wherewithal and means to gain access to a diagnostic assessment.”
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11881-024-00311-0.pdf
LikeLike
A friend of mine returned to school one fall to find the new principal had decided she would no longer be a music teacher, but instead a reading teacher. I came across her in the line at dismissal time and she had steam coming out of her nostrils as she recounted what had transpired. “It’s an elementary school,” she hissed, “of course I teach reading! We all teach reading.”
Happy ending: she filed a grievance, won, and was promptly reinstated in her field.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Been there.
LikeLike