The United States faces a literacy crisis. Last month, the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that one in three 12th graders scored “below basic” in reading. After thirteen years, more than 2,000 school days, and nearly $200,000 invested in the average student’s K–12 schooling, more than a million high school seniors are illiterate.
The nation’s failure to ensure that a generation of children master the foundational skill of reading has many causes. But a significant reason has been that too many schools, teacher colleges, and teachers ignored one of the most widely accepted findings in education research.
In 2000, the Congressionally-mandated National Reading Panel released a report analyzing the findings of roughly 100,000 studies on how children learn to read. The panel identified five pillars of reading—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension—and provided a foundation for what has become known as the “science of reading.”
