Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/diligent-small-girl-drawing-on-paper-in-light-living-room-at-home-3755511/
Phonics-based reading instruction is back in U.S. public schools, and Catholic experts want parochial schools to review their own standards.
By Joan Frawley Desmond, EWTN News, September 12, 2022
Joan Frawley Desmond Joan Frawley Desmond, is the Register’s senior editor. She is an award-winning journalist widely published in Catholic, ecumenical and secular media. A graduate of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies of Marriage and Family, she lives with her family in California.
WASHINGTON — Back in the 1980s, when Mary Pat Donoghue completed her bachelor’s degree in elementary education, “Units of Study for Teaching Reading” was a popular new program that celebrated children as natural learners and downplayed the need for strong phonics instruction in K-2 classrooms.
Today, Units of Study is reportedly used in about one-quarter of U.S. elementary schools. But its primary author, Lucy Calkins, an influential Columbia University Teachers College professor, has been accused of failing millions of students who needed evidence-based techniques for building literacy, prompting her to add more phonics to her program. …