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The Science (of Reading) Says…
And How to Respond
By Thomas DeVere Wolsey
Research says…
· That consuming foods with aspartame will cause a whole host of maladies
· That vaccines cause autism
· That an atom is accurately represented by a small nucleus with orbiting electrons much like the solar system (seriously, check this out).
At one time or another, the public was led to believe that the first two claims were true. Studies are inconclusive and ongoing about aspartame, and the study about autism was critically flawed. The good old Bohr atom served physicists well for a few years, until it was supplanted as new evidence became available and the thinking evolved.
But, But, the Science of Reading says…
Here is the thing and stick with me here…”Science” doesn’t say anything. Shhh, do not tell anyone. Science is a concept, a subject of inquiry, a noun — lower case — and, it cannot talk. Scientists, on the other hand, do have plenty to say, and they should. The field of literacy learning has been informed for an exceptionally long time by educational researchers and theorists, cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, and linguists, plus teachers in their classrooms doing the hard work to put it all together.
