Emperor’s New Clothes: The myth of the magic reading curriculum

For years, teachers have been waiting for commercial reading curricula and textbooks used in college reading methods courses to fulfill the fairy tales they’ve been promised.  For instance, we may be dreaming of meeting Prince Charming and living in his magnificent castle. Even in our nightmares, nobody wants to walk down the street without clothes. I contend that most commercial reading curricula and textbooks are much like the emperor’s clothes. School officials and politicians believe that the editors of the mandated core reading curriculum and textbooks can sew magical clothing, guaranteed to fix reading education. Much like the little boy in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” I am writing this article to inform you that these reading materials may lack substance, leaving teachers and their students feeling exposed. 

Billions of dollars are spent every year on educational resources, yet it can be challenging for teachers to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate educational products. A company may have a large marketing budget, and its product might appear to solve every problem. But will it?  In their book The Essentials of Special Education Research (2024), Markelz and Riden recommend that teachers conduct a general Google or Google Scholar search to validate the quality of the information and participate in the curriculum adoption committee. It is unlikely that teachers will be included in such a committee. Knowing what to advocate for is essential. However, it is challenging, if not impossible, to know whom to advocate for. Most bureaucrats do not listen to teachers’ voices (the most critical stakeholders, along with their struggling readers).

The Broken Chain of Teacher Preparation

As of 2016, reading experts from the National Council on Teacher Quality have reviewed 859 textbooks required in thousands of reading courses nationwide. Forty-nine percent of these books were found to be inadequate because they did not cover the five essential components of effective reading instruction (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension). NCTQ found that only seven texts were exemplary. Quality reading textbooks also impact the knowledge of instructors teaching new teachers. Researchers from Texas A&M, SUNY Birmingham, and UT Austin have shown that teacher educators do not possess a good understanding of basic language constructs. This may be one reason for poor teacher understanding, since teacher educators cannot give knowledge that they don’t possess.

 Dr.  Louisa Moats (2007) warned that even if the five essential reading components appear in the table of contents, it does not mean that the textbook is scientifically based. She posits that to gauge how well the book addresses SBRR, we need to look for evidence that the editors grasp why each component is essential. In addition to asserting that they cover the five essential components of effective reading instruction, only two sources, Teaching Reading Sourcebook and Professional Reading Teachers, devote a chapter to struggling readers. The word ‘devote’ does not accurately describe the very brief, cursory attention given to the topic.  

What IDEA Says – and What Schools Get Wrong

The most vulnerable struggling readers are those who are supposedly protected by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. IDEA was enacted in 1975. Its intent was noble. The provisions of this legislation were developed with the needs of students in mind. It ensured that children whose needs did not fit within the one-size-fits-all standard had access to the same educational opportunities as their peers. It was reauthorized in 2004 and amended through Public Law 114-95, Every Student Succeeds Act, in December 2015.

The foundation for IDEA is the provision of a Free and Appropriate Public Education, commonly referred to as FAPE. This provision was not removed in the 2004 reauthorization or with the 2015 ESSA. ESSA updated the regulations to ensure that IEPs align with the academic standards set by each state. Recently, educators have overlooked a crucial statement from the law.  

Alignment to Guide Not Replace

This alignment must guide, but not replace, the individualized decision-making process required in the IEP.  IEP means a written statement for each child with a disability that is developed, reviewed, and revised in a meeting in accordance with 300.320 and must include –

1. A statement of the child’s present levels of academic achievement and functional performance, including how the child’s disability affects the child’s involvement and progress in the general education curriculum. 
2. A statement of measurable annual academic goals, designed to meet the child’s needs that result from the child’s disability to enable the child to be involved in and make progress in the general education curriculum (not grade level curriculum) [emphasis added]. Students don’t need to meet grade-level standards within the IEP year, but instructional goals should ensure that students close the gap between their academic achievement and their grade-level peers.
3. A statement of the special education and related services and supplemental aids and services based on peer reviewed research to the extent practicable to be provided to the child or on behalf of the child, and a statement of the program modifications or supports for school personnel that will be provided to enable the child to advance appropriately toward attaining annual goals.

Student’s Reading Levels Below Academic Performance

In a case where a child’s present levels of academic performance are significantly below the child’s grade level, the IEP team should estimate the growth toward state standards the child is expected to achieve in the year covered by the IEP. The annual goals do not necessarily need to result in the child reaching grade standards within the year. The goals should be sufficiently ambitious to help close the gap! The IEP must also include specialized instruction tailored to meet the child’s unique needs. 

For example, if a 6^th grader is reading four grade levels below his current grade, the IEP team should determine that the child should receive instruction to improve his reading fluency. (Refer to the handbook, “Imagine the Struggling Reader is Your Child – Reconsidering Dyslexia”.) 

Over the last several years, I have witnessed instruction delivered to students with IEPs that is clearly not specialized and does not meet the requirements outlined in #s 1–3 above.

Teacher preparation programs and the textbooks they use do not follow the advice of the National Reading Panel (2005), which stressed that it is essential for teachers to recognize

Not Only Reading Curriculum -But Also Teacher Knowledge

Reading curricula currently used do not follow the advice of the National Reading Panel (2000), which stressed the importance for teachers to recognize that children will differ in their phonemic awareness and that some will require more instruction than others. The best approach is for teachers to assess students’ phonological awareness before beginning instruction. This panel of reading experts stated that additional research is needed to identify what teachers need to know and be able to do to teach phonological awareness effectively and to integrate this instruction with other elements of beginning reading instruction or instruction directed at older disabled readers. 

The National Reading Panel also researched phonics instruction, finding that although children vary significantly in the skills they bring to school, many phonics programs present a fixed sequence of lessons, typically scheduled from the beginning to the end of the school year. Recognizing that all phonics programs are not the same implies that teachers need to be educated on how to evaluate different programs effectively. This national panel of reading experts highlighted the fact that standardized reading curricula are better suited for some students than others. Yet teachers may be expected to use a particular reading curriculum with the entire class. These curricula cannot be considered high-quality instructional materials (HQIM).  

At a time when I was supposed to be building my knowledge of reading, I never received the below-described information in any of my undergraduate or graduate education programs:

Assessing Students’ Phonological Awareness:

Assessment of phonological awareness is an essential component of effective instruction. Based on assessment results, teachers know which phonological unit to start instruction with. We cannot rely on the scope and sequence of phonological awareness instruction presented in many commercial reading programs.   

Teachers can easily prepare their own tests of phonemic awareness to obtain information for instructional planning. In measures of phoneme segmentation fluency, test administrators pronounce one-syllable words and ask students to say each sound they hear in the word. Any one-syllable word is acceptable for the assessment of phonemic awareness. 

The following examples illustrate the varied responses of students. 

1. Students who repeat the word demonstrate no phonemic awareness.

sun          fat          dog          van          lip

2. Students who pronounce the first sound of words are aware of the initial phonemes.

sun           fat          dog          van         lip

3. Students segment words into onsets and rimes.  

      sun          fat            dog van         lip

This may be an indication that students are not aware of medial phonemes, or that they are segmenting quickly.  Teachers will be able to determine which of the two is applicable from students’ responses to instruction. 

4. Students demonstrate complete phoneme segmentation when they pronounce initial, medial, and final phonemes.

        S u n          f a t          d o g          v a n     l I p

Measures of phoneme segmentation do not address larger phonological units. An awareness of syllables in words or words in sentences is not discernible from tests of phoneme segmentation. However, it is not difficult to determine if instruction should begin with syllables or words as sound units. First, assess syllable awareness. “Say monkey. How many syllables do you hear in the word monkey?” If students are unsuccessful, check their understanding of words in sentences. “Say Jack and Jill. How many words do you hear in the phrase?” 

Assessing Phonics Skill:

Teachers can gain a snapshot of the phonic skills a student is missing by administering a quick spelling inventory. The following is an example of a basic screener.

mud nap set fog rib life

shack stone trunk goat scrape beat (beat the team)

champ third drain bridges crutch growing

walked born spoil smiling slipping shouting

higher

It is easy to assess a student’s grasp of the effect of an e at the end of a CVC word. The student is presented with one list of real and nonsense words to read and another to spell. Any set of words with or without the ending e will serve the purpose. These are two examples. 

track;  vix;  tize;  scare;  duke;  fraz;   

gog;  stripe;  pel;  champ;  zene;  shone

Explicit Phonics Instruction:

Explicit phonics instruction provides direct instruction and practice in reading and spelling words.

There are six components of an explicit phonics lesson (Honig et al., 2000²).

Some students would be bored by explicit phonics instruction. However, struggling readers, including students with dyslexia, will find learning to read very difficult without it. When evidence-based phonological awareness and phonics instruction are combined with multiple opportunities for students to link sound/symbol associations, most students can become readers. 

The Bureaucratic Black Hole of Reading Curriculum

The teachers I observed, who required their students (supposedly protected by the IEP) to read the same material, spell the exact words, and complete the same workbook pages as their grade-level peers, were convinced that the “powers that be” expected it. Surely, they knew their students were not ready for these materials, but they acted like sheep and blindly followed what they thought was expected. Teachers explained that all students had to be exposed to their grade level curriculum. The term exposed confused me. I could follow Tiger Woods as he played 18 holes of golf and would be exposed to his skills, but I could not play golf like him. 

A Plea to Fellow Educators

When I began my quest to clarify the definition of the general education reading curriculum, I did not have the information on websites or from state staff members. I wrote a letter to Mrs. Valerie Williams, the then-Director of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services at the U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20202-7100. While I shared the above information on IDEA and IEP requirements that are not being followed, I have no idea if she received the letter since the postman signed the return receipt. I did receive a reply from the Louisiana customer service representative, who recommended that I read the law. It is hard to believe she even read my letter to Mrs. Williams since I highlighted the law and the fact that it is not being followed.

Next, I emailed the same information to my state superintendent of education. The information was forwarded to the person who worked with special education compliance officers. I was told that the problem would be addressed at the next IEP compliance meeting. To my knowledge, this was never done.

So much for public servants; educators are on their own. I encourage you to speak with the special education teachers in your district to determine if they are given the same directives, based on a misinterpretation of the term’ general education curriculum’. You can then begin your search for clarity on IDEA requirements with the Monitoring and State Improvement Planning Division.  We need to speak in a collective voice.