After ‘Sold a Story,’ what comes next?

A ‘grab and go’ for education teams and journalists who want to jump on 2022’s hottest education topic, featuring tips from reporters who’ve shown us the best ways to cover the story. 

By Alexander Russo

Inadequate reading instruction is arguably the biggest K-12 education story of 2022-23, affecting millions of kids each year.

A handful of recent stories including APM Reports’ Sold a Story podcast and the Courier Journal’s Between the Lines have set the standard for high-quality in-depth coverage.

But there’s lots more work to be done — not all of it requiring gobs of time, space, or reporting.

As part of The Grade’s ongoing series about covering reading instruction, here are some reporting and writing tips that might help beat reporters write about the situation in their coverage areas.

Among the insights you’ll get from The Oregonian’s Betsy Hammond, EdNC’s Rupen Fofaria, the Louisville Courier-Journal’s Mandy McLaren, APM Reports’ Emily Hanford, and EdWeek’s Sarah Schwartz:

Go deep.

Follow the money.

Avoid the jargon.

Skip the “reading wars” focus.

Don’t forget to tell a story.

And, perhaps most of all, center the kids, parents, and teachers who are most directly affected.

“The more we can put a human face to the problem,” says McLaren, “I believe the more impact we can have as journalists.”

“The more we can put a human face to the problem,” says McLaren, “I believe the more impact we can have as journalists.”

#Go deep, not wide

“I am all about stories that go deep into a state’s or even just a metro area’s educational landscape rather than fly at the 50,000-foot level about national happenings,” says The Oregonian’s Betsy Hammond, whose writing about school reading programs goes back to the 1990s.

To go deep, it’s essential to describe actual teachers using a reading program to teach actual children to read, she says.

“Pick one district and visit every school, going back to the same classroom over multiple weeks,” agrees EdNC’s Rupen Fofaria, who’s written several pieces on reading. “I really believe in developing relationships and intensely studying one place to yield a fuller story. ”

Describe students struggling or succeeding to read. Describe what teachers do to help struggling readers and how parents feel about their children’s experiences.

#Find in-school sources & focus on what’s actually happening

Publishers, experts, and researchers all have their place in your stories. But talking to classroom teachers — or, even better, watching them in action — is a critical element, according to EdWeek’s Sarah Schwartz.

“It’s important to really get into the nitty-gritty of the instructional choices,” she says.

For Schwartz, the first step is figuring out what’s actually happening in classrooms, which may vary by school or even within a single building.

Many districts don’t have a single reading program. Even if they do, teachers vary widely in how they implement it. Sometimes, there are differences and conflicts even within a school.

“It’s important to watch what kids and teachers are actually doing and ask teachers why they’re making the choices they’re making,” says Schwartz.

“It’s important to watch what kids and teachers are actually doing and ask teachers why they’re making the choices they’re making,” says Schwartz.

#Find an alternative to the “reading wars” focus

How well or poorly a program is being implemented is the bottom line for reporting a reading story, agrees McLaren.

“If, at the end of the day, Science of Reading isn’t being implemented with fidelity, where does that leave kids?”

Superficial or ineffective changes to reading instruction shouldn’t go unnoticed in the clamor to “fix” literacy instruction.

McLaren also recommends that reporters not “waste too much time” on the reading wars narrative.

“Sure, you need to touch on it – but it doesn’t need to be the thrust of your story,” notes McLaren. “It’s been done. A lot. Going back decades. And where has that gotten us?”

As an alternative, McLaren recommends reporters focus their reporting and writing on the people affected by poor reading instruction and tell their stories.
“The more we can put a human face to the problem, I believe the more impact we can have as journalists.”

“Sure, you need to touch on it – but it doesn’t need to be the thrust of your story,” notes McLaren.

#Find the story

“Take time to read about the research,” says Hanford, who’s put together a handy reading list for some places to start. “It’s a complicated topic.”

But your goal isn’t to become a reading researcher — just the opposite, says Hanford.

“Dig in so you can write about it simply,” warns Hanford. “Leave out the weeds. And tell a STORY.”

Finding and focusing on a specific storyline is essential, agrees Fofaria, even if it means breaking your story out into multiple parts.

“If we’re clear that each story is focused on just one thing and contextualize that there are other aspects,” he says, “then a reporter’s body of work over the course of the year can contribute productively to the broader conversation.”

Whatever you do, don’t lose track of the story you’re telling in each piece.

“Emily has been so successful in moving this conversation because she’s telling stories.” says Fofaria.

“Emily has been so successful in moving this conversation because she’s telling stories.” says Fofaria. 

#Give readers lots of examples

No matter how much you avoid education jargon, you’re going to be presenting readers with brain-stretching ideas and practices that may be unfamiliar to them. So, for example, it’s essential to describe what teaching phonemic awareness or systematic instruction look like.

“These kinds of questions are best answered by showing what this looks like, giving a concrete example, and then saying, ok, that’s what teaching phonemic awareness is,” says Schwartz.

Without vivid, concrete examples, “a lot of this content can sound very academic, wonky, or opaque.”

#Follow the money

It’s a cliché but for a good reason: Follow the money to see what a district or school is really up to.

That’s what McLaren did in her recent series. She suggests that reporters request “invoices from a district for literacy purchases (curriculum, materials, teacher guides, trainings)” in order to get a handle on what’s really going on.

Who’s making money doing teacher training and selling materials to schools? Does school and district spending go to programs and materials that have been approved as effective?

Already, her reporting has led to changes in what the state is spending its money on.

#Ask the experts whether the district’s practices are effective

No one’s expecting an education reporter to be a reading instruction expert. So after you’ve visited classrooms or talked to in-school practitioners, talk to some experts about what you’ve seen or heard described.

“Is there evidence that suggests this approach would be effective/not effective?” EdWeek’s Schwartz asks. “Has this approach, specifically, been tested?”

And — my favorite question — “If research suggests this isn’t the most effective approach, what would be better?”

Above, clockwise from top left: EdWeek’s Schwartz, EdNC’s Fofaria, The Oregonian’s Hammond, APM Reports’ Hanford, and the Courier Journal’s McLaren.

#Borrow from the best

There’s no need to try and reinvent the wheel when you’ve got Hanford, Schwartz, and McLaren’s work sitting right in front of you.

(For pure readability aimed at a general audience, check out Belinda Luscombe’s TIME magazine feature about efforts to revamp “vibes-based” reading instruction.)

Find out how these journalists describe a difficult concept, or the phrase they use to capture a complicated dynamic.

Don’t plagiarize any specific wording, but absorb their concepts, ideas, and methods of reporting.

#Read the model stories

The obvious models are Hanford’s recent Sold A Story podcast series and McLaren’s Between the Lines series. But there are lots of other model stories to consider.

EdWeek’s Schwartz recommends Adeshina Emmanuel’s 2018 Chalkbeat Chicago story How it feels to be Javion: 16 and struggling to read in Chicago Public Schools. “It shows what the effects are for kids when the system breaks down, and how reading challenges are both compounded by and can compound other ways that schools fail to meet kids’ needs,” says Schwartz.

“It’s exhaustive in explaining all of the ways that Javion’s schools were supposed to catch and support him and didn’t, but it also homes in on the specific instructional choices that might have led to some of Javion’s reading difficulties.” And it gives the student and his family “the space to tell their own stories in their own words.”

Schwartz’s own coverage is worth modeling your work on as well. McLaren recommends Why Putting the ‘Science of Reading’ Into Practice Is So Challenging, in which Schwartz “does a masterful job getting deep into the weeds of this issue, without making a reader feel like they’re in the weeds.”

Rupen Fofaria’s 2019 A Wall of Sound is a deep dive on what’s happening in North Carolina but “put into a national context,” says APM’s Hanford. She praises the EdNC reporter’s work for weaving together personal stories of parents and teachers with good info about policy and research, and recommends the accompanying video.

Fofaria’s under-the-radar pick is The Science of Reading: An Equity Issue, by educator Nicole Williams in UnboundEd.

“Transformational experiences make for the best stories,” says Fofaria, “and this educators’ experience and insights stick with me.”

“Transformational experiences make for the best stories,” says Fofaria, “and this educators’ experience and insights stick with me.”

#Check your biases and personal experiences at the front door

We journalists tend to think of reading in a golden haze of fond childhood memories. Many of us learned to read easily or got the help we needed.

As a result, we can be oblivious to the inadequate instruction and frustrations many kids experience.

It’s a school’s fundamental responsibility to teach their kids to read, whether or not it comes easily (or whether their caregivers are involved).

Whatever you do, remember that the way you or your children learned to read may not be the way it happens for other learners.

PREVIOUS READING COVERAGE FROM THE GRADE

This is the latest in our ongoing series on coverage of reading instruction, including a first-person reflection from a former education reporter and a deep dive into inadequate coverage of reading research.

Some recent pieces we’ve published:
How the media missed the 2000 National Reading Panel report (Will Callan)
How I missed the phonics story (Patti Ghezzi)
Why reading went under the radar for so long – and what one reporter is aiming to do about it (an interview with Hanford)