Taking stock of the science of reading: A conversation with Amanda Goodwin

Past debates about reading instruction have been heated, but there’s a lot of consensus among researchers today, especially around the idea that the science of reading is a broad body of research.

Phi Delta Kappan: Currently, you and your Vanderbilt colleague Robert Jiménez serve as co-editors of Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ), which is one of most highly respected academic journals in K-12 education, featuring articles on reading and reading instruction, writing, oral language, and other aspects of children’s literacy development. Ordinarily, the editors of RRQ have their hands full publishing four issues a year, but you decided to publish a pair of extra issues, in 2020 and 2021, focusing specifically on the science of reading.

The science of reading has become a very hot topic in recent years, not only among researchers but also among journalists, school reformers, and policy makers, some of whom have argued that it is a specific, evidence-based way to teach children to read, that it’s the only effective way to do so, and that educators need to get with the program and stop using approaches that aren’t backed by solid research. As you’ve written, this argument is “reminiscent” of past “reading wars” (such as the struggle between phonics- and whole language-based approaches to instruction), which have often divided elementary education into opposing camps. Is that why you decided to devote a couple of special issues of RRQ to this topic? Were you hoping to show that there’s no need for another reading war?