The Science of Reading...Where I'm At

 The Science of Reading is popping up all over teacher social media, and in professional development alike. It sounds like the newest buzz word, but I've realized that we are going back to the way I was taught to read a long time ago! Somehow, and sometime along the way schools stopped teaching phonics. I have to admit that this was news to me, because I was very lucky to land in a school my second year of teaching that used an Orton-Gillingham based phonics program. I was ahead of my time. Ha! I taught kindergarten for 4 years at that school, then 4th and 5th grade for 4 years, and I just didn't realize that other schools weren't teaching kids how to read using phonics. Honestly, I said "Who isn't teaching phonics and morphology?? How are their kids learning to read?" 

WELL, they weren't. 

When Arkansas began the R.I.S.E. initiative to teach their teachers about the science of reading my principal at the time said, "Guys, we will do the training, but we are going to keep on doing what we are doing." I thought it was because it was just another change, but actually our district was already meeting the requirements and implementing science of reading strategies all along. 

Then, I moved. To a large district that from my understanding didn't have a separate phonics program until the state mandated it. It is still very new in my district. The state rolled it out about 4 years ago. We had about 1.5 years and then the pandemic hit, and as anyone in education knows it's been hard to try and implement anything consistently with all of the crazy changes we've had for 2.5 years. When I moved I had to take the Praxis AGAIN to get my 5th grade math and science certifications, but then the state also required you to take the Science of Reading Praxis, which I passed easily. However, I still didn't feel like I knew all the ins and outs of what the science of reading was. I let things coast during the pandemic, and this year my school is now making an effort to implement more science of reading strategies. We were able to visit another school in our district that has made great strides in using specific strategies, and I learned a lot. So I felt like I needed a place to process everything I am learning, and I have a personal professional goal to learn as much as I can and really dig deep into what all is involved in the science of reading. 

So, that's my plan. I am going to lay out all of the information I've learned and hopefully it will help me process what I'm learning. While my former school was teaching phonics, I've learned there are a lot of other strategies that I could be using that I didn't back when I taught kindergarten many years ago. I'm also learning things that I wish I knew that I could have used in my 4th and 5th grade classes. I hope my learning helps you too, if you are newer (or not!) to the science of reading.