McLaren: Why reporting on literacy is so hard — and tips for making it easier

Fresh off her breakout new cover story series for the Boston Globe, one of the top education journalists in the nation shares practical ideas about how to recognize high-quality instruction, find parents, and — most important — gain access to classrooms.

By Mandy McLaren

Let’s face it: Literacy is a tough topic to cover. It’s wonky. It’s confusing. It’s political. It’s emotional. It requires more time than you likely have and more nuance than your editor can likely stomach.

I’ve had the privilege, first at the Louisville Courier Journal (“Between the Lines”) and now at The Boston Globe (“Lost in a world of words”), to spend months digging into literacy and the debate over how to best teach reading.

Most recently, my colleague Naomi Martin and I published our first story in what will be an ongoing literacy series. It investigates the failure of Massachusetts, the birthplace of public education, to ensure its schools meet their most basic function: teaching kids to read.

Bringing this reporting to fruition took many months and resources, things not everyone is lucky enough to have. But any reporter can bring certain tactics to the topic to produce readable and informed stories — ways of getting access to classrooms, finding parents, becoming informed about what good literacy instruction looks like, and which research is the most valid.

Any reporter can bring certain tactics to the topic to produce readable and informed stories.

Here’s what I’ve learned along the way, including some advice I wish I’d known when I first got started.

Recognize what high-quality reading instruction looks like

Getting up to speed with all the literacy lingo can be a daunting task. Luckily, our colleagues have made it easier for us, like this reading list from APM Reports’ Emily Hanford or this video from EdWeek.

But you don’t need jargon when it comes to grasping literacy instruction both in a big-picture sense and in how it should look in the classroom.

One of the most helpful ways I think about this is the “Guide on the Side” versus “Sage on the Stage” analogy. You can consider old-school teaching, with a teacher at the front of the classroom imparting knowledge, as the Sage on the Stage. This is most often associated with structured literacy, which emphasizes explicit instruction, not just in phonics but in things like vocabulary, too. That’s not to say students have no freedom to practice or explore, but this teaching style starts with the basic premise that a teacher has knowledge to share with everyone in the class.

Many teachers who’ve entered the classroom within the past two decades or so, though, have been pushed toward the Guide on the Side role – and for important reasons. In the ideal scenario, students would bear most of the mental load, with the teacher there to assist as necessary. This style of teaching has been associated with developing critical thinking skills and developing learners for the 21st century. The approach has, for many teachers, been the ethos of balanced literacy.

The problem is that, for beginning readers especially, research shows explicit instruction to be crucial. That’s not to say a teacher should be lecturing 7-year-olds. But there should be clear and direct teacher-led instruction before children are expected to work with a partner or on their own. (Ultimately, masterful teachers know how to be both a sage and a guide!)

There should be clear and direct teacher-led instruction before children are expected to work with a partner or on their own.

The limits of choice

This brings me to the question of choice. In balanced literacy classrooms, teachers typically allow students some measure of choice in the books they read. This means a classroom of 24 2nd graders might be reading 24 different books. Balanced literacy advocates point to research showing children, when given a choice in their learning, will be more engaged.

In theory, this sounds great. And it can feel great, too, seeing children with diverse, interesting books in their hands. But with 24 different texts among her students, a teacher cannot teach a common list of authentic vocabulary words — that is, words that actually appear in what her students are reading. She may also struggle to foster rich conversations between kids about what they’re reading, an important precursor for the writing process. And for some students, this method of instruction also might mean they’re rarely (if ever) given the chance to read books at their grade level. These are among the reasons why structured literacy advocates argue class time would be better spent reading a shared, rigorous text.

With 24 different texts among her students, a teacher cannot teach a common list of authentic vocabulary words.

Don’t take research at face value

It’s pretty much guaranteed that every time you think you’ve got your hands around all the reading research out there, someone will point you in another direction. The key is being able to recognize the limitations of research studies. As a journalist, this may not be in your wheelhouse; it wasn’t in mine. (We can’t all be Matt Barnum, after all!) So that’s why it pays to have academic sources you can go to when you’re confused. They will be able to spot weaknesses and cut through jargon.

For example, publisher Heinemann points to what it calls a “gold study” of research in support of its wildly popular Units of Study reading curriculum. The study is, indeed, from a reputable research organization. But when I asked my sources their thoughts, one academic replied that the study was bronze-level — at best. A gold-level study would use a randomized control trial. This one does not. And rather than selecting the schools to analyze upfront, it does so after the fact, which can introduce bias into the process.

It would have, of course, been easy to let this publisher have its say without rigorously fact-checking the claim. But literacy reporting requires us to be better than that. That’s where expert sources have proved to be invaluable.

Expert sources have proved to be invaluable.

Patience and persistence can get you into classrooms

Getting into classrooms was growing increasingly difficult for education journalists even before the pandemic, and now, well, it sometimes feels damn near impossible. That’s a problem for any reporting on schools, but especially if you’re trying to document the nuances of instruction.

As tough as it is, it’s on us to do everything we can to see students and teachers firsthand. Don’t be afraid to ask your district’s spokesperson for an off-the-record conversation about your reporting and what you hope to get out of a classroom visit. Some districts might be in the middle of a literacy switch and end up welcoming you with open arms.

Others may be reluctant. It pays to be understanding about this. After all, would you love to have a reporter show up one day and scrutinize how you’re doing your job?

When Naomi and I were reporting, one district was particularly reticent. Rather than giving up, we asked to speak with district officials off the record. It was a valuable exercise, as it allowed us to explain what we hoped to see and why, and it gave the officials space to share their concerns. We ended up being able to observe several classrooms.

You also could offer to talk off record to a principal and a teacher from a prospective school. Be honest and direct about what you want to see and the questions you want to ask.

One thing I like to convey: If I don’t get to see the hard work your teachers are doing, then the only thing that I have to go by is your test score data. Would that tell the full story of what’s happening in your district?

We asked to speak with district officials off the record.

Finding families at community events

The key to strong literacy coverage is demonstrating the impact of poor instruction. But unlike a mom who can count the number of school days her son has missed due to excessive suspensions, a mom with a son being harmed by poor reading instruction may not even know there’s a problem.

Perhaps she’s been told her son is a late bloomer and that he will catch up, or maybe she’s heard her son’s attention or behavior are to blame. This can make it really hard to find families representative of your reporting.

My advice: Keep trying. Over and over and over again. Make flyers with your contact information that you can pass out when trying to find families in person. Community events are a great place to start; I’ve met several families during my literacy reporting at back-to-school backpack giveaways, for example. Call sources who work with families (i.e. nonprofits) and could ask around for you. Identify parent Facebook groups and reach out. Create a Google survey that can be shared widely. Get it translated into other languages if you can. Above all, don’t give up!

Make flyers with your contact information that you can pass out when trying to find families in person.

Handle the emotions

Finally, if you’ve spent any time on literacy Twitter, you’re probably well aware of how heated conversations about reading instruction can become. It can be nerve wracking as a journalist to enter that fray, which you inevitably do when you publish a story about literacy. There will be people who attack your reporting, who claim you don’t know what you’re talking about, that you’re “just a journalist.”

Plan ahead for this. Write yourself (and your editor) a memo of what you know and how you know it. When you start second guessing yourself, refer back to the memo. And remember, you know in your gut why you’re doing this!

Mandy McLaren is a reporter for The Great Divide at the Boston Globe, an investigative team focused on educational inequities. She formerly reported for the Louisville Courier Journal. Before becoming a reporter, McLaren was a public school teacher and administrator in New Orleans. You can follow her at @mandy_mclaren. 

Fall 2023 Literacy Coverage Series:

A new effort to promote high-quality literacy coverage (Emily Hanford)
A low grade for literacy coverage (Susan B. Neuman)
Don’t call it ‘the reading wars’ (Molly Ness)
Inadequate literacy coverage in New York City (Lee Gaul)
Bringing energy and creativity to literacy coverage (Alan J. Borsuk)

Previous pieces about literacy coverage from The Grade:

How I missed the phonics story (Patti Ghezzi)
Why the NRP report didn’t fix reading instruction 20 years ago (Will Callan)
Why reading went under the radar for so long – and what Emily Hanford is aiming to do about it 
Cracking the code on reading instruction stories (Holly Korbey)
After ‘Sold a Story,’ what comes next?
Beyond ‘Sold a Story’  (Natalie Wexler)
How do we get Black kids’ literacy to matter? Have more journalists cover it. (Colette Coleman)
How to report on whether district reading programs are any good (Colleen Connolly)