Conference Agenda

This session examines international efforts to narrow reading instruction by focusing on component parts (e.g., phonics, phonemic awareness) at the expense of helping children develop multi-dimensional reading processes that recognize and operationalize multiple forms of information and processes. As an international team of literacy researchers, we focus on a particular reading of reading research promoted as research-based by a small group of academics, and bolstered, popularized and disseminated by conservative thinktanks, commercial publishers, media pundits and politicians. Specifically, we ask: How have narrow views of reading been disseminated globally and how are these discourses being taken up in four countries?

As scholars working in Australia, England, Canada, and the United States, we problematize key aspects of Science of Reading reforms, particularly the focus on programs and curricula over children, under-recognized financial motivations, and the failure to value the expertise, professional judgement, and capabilities of teachers, literacy specialists, and reading scholars. We track discourses across time through analyses of major policy and media reports.

Global flows of information are ubiquitous in modern global society (e.g., Luke, 2005; Marginson & Sawir, 2005; Singh and Doherty, 2004). Appadurai (1996) explored how circulating information, ideas, and resources impact and are impacted by local and global histories, languages, politics, and actors. He identified multiple landscapes/scapes as the “building blocks” of “imagined worlds. . . constituted by the historically situated imaginations of persons and groups spread around the globe” (p. 33). Stornaiuolo and colleagues (2017) proposed a transliteracies framework to track how literacies are “threaded across the material world in dynamic and unpredictable ways” (p. 75). Their tools included emergence, uptake, resonance, and scale, which were used to examine the international circulation of science of reading discourses.

Through our analysis of four historical documents (Department for Education and Skills, England, 2006; Department of Education, Science, and Training, AU, 2005; National Reading Panel Report, USA, 2000; Ontario Ministry of Education, 2003) and four contemporary documents (Department of Education, England, 2023; Grattan Institute, AU, 2024; Hanford, USA, 2023; Ontario Human Rights Commission, CA, 2022), we track discourses related to directive/scripted lessons, and the conflation of phonic skills with reading, and an almost exclusive focus on phonics, phonemic awareness. Historical texts included seminal texts and reports published during the early to mid-2000’s that significantly informed reading instruction in each country. The second set of texts are more recent and were selected to represent current thinking influencing policy and practice widely in each country. All texts were selected by the respective scholar for each country based on the following criteria:

• widely available and promoted as an educational resource,

• commissioned by, supported by, referenced extensively, or disseminated by people with political or lobbyist interests, and

• contributed to legislative actions at state, provincial, and/or national levels.

Based on our reading of these documents, we assembled a list of terms that we collectively noted as relevant to current conversations about the Science of Reading. These terms/references included:

• Fidelity
• Multi-sensory
• Decodable Texts
• The use of pictures
• Cues/Cuing systems
• Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS)

Search/Find functions were used to locate these terms to examine how these terms were used in historical and contemporary texts and track changes in frequency and use. Finally, a scholar from each country analyzed each text to attend to how science of reading constructs were represented in each contemporary document. Papers in this session share the theorization and methodology described above. We close by discussing the significance of this international circulation and invite our discussant to speak before inviting questions.

This paper explores the United States within the global flow of Science of Reading discourses. Specifically, we ask: In what ways has the United States of American participated in the global flow of Science of Reading discourses? Public debates around reading instruction have deep historical roots. In 1955, the publication of “Why Johnny Can’t Read,” Flesch brought these controversies to the American public. Like current accounts, Flesch critiqued reading experts, describing the Dick and Jane readers as “horrible, stupid, emasculated, pointless, tasteless” (Lauritzen, 2007, p. 315) and proposed phonics as the solution for ensuring that all children become readers. Using the methodological approaches described in the session introduction, Author analyzed the National Reading Panel Report (2000) which written in response to a 1997 request from the USA Congress to convene a national panel to review research-based knowledge related to reading. To capture more recent discussions, she analyzed Sold a Story (Hanford, 2022) – an independent investigative journalism podcast produced and disseminated by American Public Media and funded by several private foundations. The National Reading Panel Report (2000) presented a meta-synthetic analysis focused on the five pillars of reading making tempered claims about the efficacy of phonics-based approaches for early reading instruction. The report maintained that phonics instruction should be systematic, but that a wide range of systems for organizing phonics instruction were valid and useful. The report rarely used language associated with the Science of Reading. The words fidelity is only used once in regard to classroom instruction, and the word multi-sensory in never used in relation to teaching reading. Decodable texts are discussed 17 times, but generally as a direction for future research; the authors lament that “The stories in such books often involve pigs doing jigs and cats in hats” (p. 2-137). To explore more recent USA reading discourses, Author focuses on the Sold a Story podcasts (Hanford, 2022). We chose this document based on the substantial impact it has had on the teaching of reading worldwide. Assumedly due to its non-professional audience, the podcast series never mentions fidelity or multi-tiered levels of support. There are five references to decodable texts with most of her attention being devoted to the “problematic” use of pictures as a means to identify words (n=27) and her critique of three-cueing system (n=88 references). She blames cueing systems for children’s reading failure and advocates that politicians “outlaw three cueing” (see Bonus Episode 2).

Flesch, R., & Sloan, S. (1955). Why Johnny can't read: And what you can do about it. William Morrow Paperbacks. Hanford, E. (September 10, 2015). A vision for a new kind of public school in America, APMReports. Accessed on 1/24/2026 at https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2015/09/10/a-vision-for-a-new-kind-of-public-school-in-america National Reading Panel Report, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, DHHS. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups (00-4754). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, USA.

This paper presents the Canadian analysis from the larger study on the restrictive circulating discourses on global literacy. It explores the participation of Canadian educational systems in the global movement of Science of Reading discourses. We ask: In what ways has Canada participated in the global flow of Science of Reading discourses? The theoretical framework, methodology, and methods are as explained in the description of the larger study. Our analysis of science of reading discourses in Canada focuses on two documents, the first published in 2003, Early Reading Strategy: The Report of the Expert Panel on Early Reading in Ontario and the second, Right to Read: Public Inquiry into Human Rights Issues Affecting Students with Reading Disabilities, in 2022. Both reports are from the province of Ontario, as jurisdictionally, education is managed provincially rather than nationally. Ontario has the highest provincial population in Canada, thereby influencing the most children. Notably, the Right to Read report influenced the growth of Science of Reading throughout the country. The analytic procedures described in the overview were used to analyze Canadian documents. Each Canadian text was analyzed to attend to how Science of Reading constructs are represented and taken up in a Canadian context and how the reports contributed to the movement of Science of Reading throughout provinces and internationally. The findings reveal the impact of journalist, Emily Hanford’s (2022) Sold a Story on Canada classrooms. The narrow views of Hanford’s reporting are evident in Ontario’s Right to Read report as means to support children with reading difficulties. The Right to Read report is in reaction to the principle that learning to read is a fundamental human right, not a privilege, with which we do not disagree. The issue is that neither Sold a Story nor Right to Read considers the individuality and diversity of learners. The Right to Read report brings forth unsubstantiated claims that all students experience difficulties reading because instruction is based on a balanced approach (Cummins, 2022). While the language in the 2003 Early Reading Strategy clearly leans toward whole language, the Right to Read (2022) embraces the science of reading by recommending “all references to cueing, cueing systems” (p. 222) be removed from the teaching of reading. It also requires “direct instruction of foundational reading skill, including phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding” (p. 222) demonstrating structured reading instruction. Again, a dramatic shift in the so-called Reading Wars (Pearson, 2004).

Cummins, J. (2022). Ontario Human Rights Commission right to read report: Sincere, passionate, flawed. Journal of Teaching and Learning, 16(1), 85-92. Hanford, E. (September 10, 2015). A vision for a new kind of public school in America, APMReports. Accessed on 1/24/2026 at https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2015/09/10/a-vision-for-a-new-kind-of-public-school-in-america Ontario Human Rights Commission (2022). Right to read: Public inquiry into human rights issues affecting students with reading disabilities. Government of Ontario. https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/book/export/html/3087 Ontario Ministry of Education. (2003). Early Reading Strategy: The Report of the Expert Panel on Early Reading in Ontario. Queen's Printer for Ontario. Pearson, P. D. (2004). The reading wars. Educational Policy, 18(1), 216-252. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904803260041

This paper considers the emergence and uptake (Stornaiuolo et al. 2017) of science of reading discourses in England, and how this ‘imagined’ literacy landscape (Appadurai, 1996) has reverberated globally. Drawing on the methodological approaches described in the session introduction, the author analyzed the Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading (2006), written by Jim Rose and commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES). Also known as the Rose Report, the review best foreshadows the Science of Reading. Rose argued strongly that synthetic phonics be “taught discretely” (Rose, 2006, p.70) and be the sole method to teach early reading in schools. However, a politically expedient, selective analysis of reading research resulted in a flawed report. This is captured, for example, in the conflation of “the systematic approach” with “'synthetic’ phonics” (p. 4). This is in direct contrast to the National Reading Panel Report (2000), which argued for the use of “various types of systematic phonics approaches” (p. 2-132), not solely synthetic approaches. This is a significant shift in perspective across the four historical documents and the four countries. The Rose Report was harnessed as a tool for the Conservative party whose ideological position was underpinned by a return to traditional teaching and testing regimes, and a mistrust of researchers and teachers. Synthetic phonics became mandated through political measures like the statutory Phonics Screening Check, funding for phonics schemes, requirements in teacher standards, and Ofsted recommendations (Bradbury and Wyse, 2025). The second document analysed is The Reading Framework (DfE, 2023) which reveals the increasing entrenchment of synthetic phonics (Torgerson et al., 2019). Although both the Rose Report (2006) and The Reading Framework (2023) reference fidelity, decodable texts, the use of pictures for decoding, and the use of cueing systems one to seven times in each report, the major change was in attention to decodable texts. This increases from 4 relevant references in the Rose Report (2006) to 37 relevant references in The Reading Framework (2023). Contrasting decodable texts with texts in which children are “forced to guess from pictures” (p. 54), the report noted that “Decodable’ books and other texts make children feel successful from the very beginning.” (p. 54). However, a recent RCT reports on the statistically insignificant benefit of the most popular commercial phonics scheme, RWI (Molotsky et al., 2022). Despite strong research critiques, England’s phonics centred approach remains firmly embedded and globally influential.

Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. University of Minnesota Press. Bradbury, A., & Wyse, D. (2025). The dominance of synthetic phonics in reading policy in England. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 33. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.33.8942 [ucl.ac.uk] Department for Education and Skills. (2006). Independent review of the teaching of early reading: Final report. London: Department for Education and Skills. Department of Education. (2023). The reading framework: teaching the foundations of literacy. London: Department for Education. Molotsky, A., Dias, P., & Nakamura, P. (2022). Read Write Inc. Phonics and Fresh Start: Evaluation report. Education Endowment Foundation. https://d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net/ production/documents/projects/Read-Write-Inc-and-Fresh-Start-Final.pdf?v=1758788026 National Reading Panel Report, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, DHHS. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups (00-4754). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, USA. Stornaiuolo, A., Smith, A., & Phillips, N. C. (2017). Developing a transliteracies framework for a connected world. Journal of Literacy Research, 49(1), 68-91. Torgerson, C., Brooks, G., Gascoine, L., & Higgins, S. (2019). Phonics: Reading policy and the evidence of effectiveness from a systematic ‘tertiary’ review. Research Papers in Education, 34(2), 208–238. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2017.1420816

This paper presents one dimension of the larger study on the restrictive circulation of discourses on global literacy by focusing on the Australian context. Australian education has always engaged in policy borrowing from its imperial cousins, particularly the United States and England, and more recently has also been engaged in reciprocal practices of policy lending. In this paper, Author explores the participation of Australian educational systems in the global movement of science of reading discourses, to ask the same question addressed by the broader research project, but located within the Australia context: In what ways has, and is, Australia participated/ing in the global flow of Science of Reading discourses? The analysis focuses on the two-decade period between the publication of the final report of the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy (Rowe, 2005) and a more recent document - the 2024 Reading Guarantee (Hunter et al., 2024) published under the banner of a conservative independent think tank, the Grattan Institute. This recent document is currently informing – some may say constraining – current education policy in the teaching of reading across education contexts in Australia (Hunter et al., 2024). Drawing on the theoretical framework, methodology, and methods detailed in the symposium description of this proposal, Author began by analyzing the report of the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy (Australia) (2025), which was called for in the wake of the National Reading Panel Report (2000) from the United States and rearticulated many of the same messages, resulting in a loud call from the media, a small group of education psychologists and special education advocates for systematic phonics to be taught in classrooms and a policy refocus away from literacy as meaning making and critical aspects of literacy which had been a feature of State curriculum for many years. This analysis of science of reading discourses in Australia focuses on tracing the intertextual links from the 2005 Inquiry report across two decades to the Reading Guarantee (Hunter, 2024). The analysis demonstrates how the science of reading discourses layer producing an evidence base to support claims that have little evidence. The paper provides insight into the logics of science of reading, and considers how claims about decodable texts and systemic phonics are morphed into undeniable facts when dressed up in an equity cloak.

Hunter, J., Stobart, A., & Haywood, A. (2024). The Reading Guarantee: How to Give Every Child the Best Chance at Success. Grattan Institute. National Reading Panel Report, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, DHHS. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups (00-4754). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, USA. Rowe, K. (2025). Teaching Reading: Report and Recommendations. Department of Education, Science, and Training (Australia).