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Writer's pictureBrian Vieira

What do Coke and Pepsi have to do with teaching literacy?


Teaching literacy is not a taste test. We must do what the science says is best.

Some people think Pepsi is better than Coke; others think Coke is better than Pepsi. There's no way to settle the argument because it's just a matter of subjective taste. When it comes to literacy, however, we cannot say things such as, "I think 'balanced literacy' is better than structured literacy" because there is an objective standard for measuring the efficacy of both approaches. That objective standard is the evidence accumulated by decades of cognitive scientific reading research, which has consistently and incontrovertibly shown that structured literacy's systematic approach to phonics is far superior to 'balanced literacy's' unsystematic, incidental approach to teaching decoding.  Literacy is not a taste test. We must do what the science says is best.

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